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with yourself, as long as you live, is it of consequence to you to make of yourself, a pleasant and agreeable companion, and not one who will be continually complaining, and upbraiding? Is health of any value to you? can you use your limbs, and the faculties of your mind, as you would like to do, without it? Can you have health, if your habit is to throw into that delicate part of your system, whereon the action of life depends, substances, which excite it to an unnatural exertion, or deprive it of all power of exertion? Does not every part of your system sympathize with the injustice, which you do to your digestive organs? Will not your brain, and consequently, your mind, suffer by this violence? Do you expect to attain middle age, and old age ? Will not the seeds you are now sowing come up in that space of time? Will they come up in the form of enfeebled muscles, chronic aches, self-reproaching thoughts; the loss of the capacity to enjoy the bounties and beauties of creation? Will they grow up to overshadow your moral sense, and shut out the delights of intellectual power? Was life given to you for the few years in which you can sing, drink, and enjoy yourself,' or, that you may enjoy life in every stage of it, as a rational being, and by rendering your homage to nature in obeying her laws, and your gratitude to Him, who ordained these laws, for your happiness? Do you not look forward yourself, to be at some time a parent? Have your own parents ever so conducted themselves towards you, that you have a right to punish and afflict them? Are you willing that your parents should see you, and know you, as you know yourself? If you should be a parent, are you willing that your children should be told with whom, and in what manner, you enjoy yourself?' Would you tell them how you spent your youthful days and nights, and recommend to them to take yourself as an example ?

251. Tobacco. It is not to be supposed that the Deity has made anything in vain. The proper uses of all things that exist are far from being known.

Additions are often made to our stock of knowledge in these respects. There may be proper uses for tobacco. There are some persons so employed in life, that they may, perhaps, use it with impunity. They are persons who labor hard, with the body, and who have little call for mental action. Such persons are sometimes engaged in solitary tedious duty. The continual craving for action in the material system, that is, for something to do, is, in some degree, supplied by this vegetable.

Such persons balance its evils, by physical action, which invigorates the action of the stomach. Of this description are soldiers and sailors. It is probable then in the lonely midnight watch, tobacco may be a soothing friend. Yet it may well be doubted, whether the sum of human happiness may not have been greatly diminished by the use of it. Even to soldiers and sailors, it has become necessary under that friend and foe of the human family, habit. For, every one knows, who has subjected himself to this habit, how painful and disgusting were the first steps towards it. It may be set down as an established and unquestionable law of nature, that tobacco is pernicious to every one, who is not habitually in strong bodily action. It is consequently pernicious to all who rely on the labor of the mind, and with whom bodily action is a secondary concern. Tobacco is considered by medical men as a poison. They demonstrate, that taken in powder it does two evils, first it finds its way to the brain, and disturbs its action, and sometimes palsies the nerves of that seat of reason. Second, it finds its way to the stomach, disorders the digestive power, and sends from that centre of action, through the system, the infirmities which it engenders there. Taken in smoke, it visits not only the brain and the stomach, but the lungs. We have seen what the lungs were made for; certainly not to receive and transmit tobacco smoke. The weakness of digestion, the enfeebled limbs, and overcast intellect, which sedentary men, and students, complain of, are obtained from the delights of the cigar; al

though it is said, that one who has smoked long enough to make his lungs as black as his shoe, cannot tell with his eyes shut, whether his cigar is lighted or not. The remaining mode of using tobacco is, probably, that from which there is the most of evil. It lies in this. It is found that those operations of nature on which the most is made to depend, are provided for by correspondent delicacy and adaptation, to the effect to be produced. The continuance of life, therefore, as the first object, is provided for by a process which begins with the first reception of food into the mouth. There are organs there, fitted to yield a liquid by the excitement of food, which is indispensable to digestion. Every one knows what is meant by having his mouth water. This use of tobacco calls forth, and misapplies this liquid. So does smoking. Both create an unnatural thirst. By the third mode of using tobacco, its evil consequences are more directly communicated to the stomach. Here is the seat of strength and power, if rationally used; here, also, is the seat, from abuse, of feebleness, trembling, faintness, palsy, apoplexy, and death. Those who put an end to themselves by rum and tobacco, are of some use in the world. They are like crosses set up in catholic countries by the way side, to show that a murder was committed on that spot. But those who put themselves to death by their own follies, show, not only that a murder has been committed, but who it was, how done, and by whom.

252. All consumers of tobacco know two things. 1. That they came to the use of it through painful struggles. 2. That they cannot break the chain of habit, without struggles still more painful. How does it happen, then, that tobacco is so commonly used? Its use, and that of opium, which is the same thing in a more hateful form, began with savages, Turks, and Asiatics, to fill that aching void, which belongs to all idle and uncultivated minds. It has found its way, unhappily, to those who need no relief from such cause; but who might if they

would, fill up every moment, innocently, and profitably. It has become so general, from ignorance and thoughtlessness. A still more efficient cause is, the propensity to imitation, and the natural anticipation of approaching stages in life. A boy wants to be a man. He likes to do those things which men do. Men use tobacco, therefore boys must use it; and boys soon find themselves entrapped in a habit, and act, as all other persons do who are so entrapped.

253. Is there any remedy for this evil? Perhaps, there is none but this, not to begin. And why should one begin? Suppose all who use it were asked, if you had never begun, would you, knowing what you do, have had a pleasanter life without it, than you have had with it? One cannot know what the general answer would be; but every one must know this, that, from some persons the answer would be: "Tobacco has been to me the most distressing "evil; I bitterly lament that I ever began this truly "afflictive practice; but it has become a part of my "existence; no operation of my will can disengage "me from it." Some might answer doubtingly, and others would not ascribe to this weed the evils which they have suffered from it. Why should a young person take upon himself a want voluntarily, which may lead to painful consequences, and the gratification of which is not only, not called for by nature, but which is most expressly condemned by this high authority? Some reasons have been given why it is so condemned. There are many others. Those already spoken of, and many others that might be, regard the direct injury to the consumer of tobacco. Others relate to those with whom the consumer associates. It may be considered as unquestionably true, that every person who uses tobacco, is, in some way, troublesome, or disgusting, to every person in whose presence he uses it. This is a breach of social law. No one has a right to follow a pleasure, which is a grievous displeasure to those who must witness it. If one has been so unfortunate, in early life, as to fall into the use of.

tobacco, as it is entirely a solitary pleasure, he should use it in solitude, and not where he will poison the atmosphere which others must breathe, or do those acts which violate the decencies of civilized life. An eminent statesman, who had returned from the court of France, was asked, whether gentlemen smoked in France; "Gentlemen," said he, "smoke nowhere."*

CHAPTER XXVIII.

DUTIES.

Actions which are wrong as to One's-self, and which may be so as to others.—Continued.

254. Gaming, divested of its delusions and fascinations, is a contract to this effect: A says to B, I have 1000 dollars. I owe nothing. I have no wife, no children, for whose benefit I ought to expend this money. I am under no moral obligation, which requires that I should expend the whole, or any part of it. I am under no necessity to keep this money to supply my own wants, present or future. I propose to you, to put another 1000 dollars against this sum, and draw lots which of us shall have both sums. B replies, I am willing to take this risk; but drawing lots is soon done. When it is over, the winner will feel a mingled emotion of pleasure and pain; the loser will feel clear disappointment and chagrin. We can prolong the interest, and increase the pleasure of expectation, by going, not for the whole; but by units and tens. Let us put winning or losing, not on lots, but on the chance distributio of cards which, when turned up, and compared, shall decide who loses, and who wins. This will engage us for some hours, and all night, and all the next day, if so much time be necessary, to accom

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