Читать книгу "Born of the Spirit;" or, Gems from the Book of Life - Zenas Osborne - Страница 9

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A part of this article is from the pen of Dr. Talmage. He said that America had some as bad plagues as those of Egypt, and characterized narcotics as follows:

“In all ages the world has sought out some flower or herb or weed to stimulate, to alleviate, or to compose its griefs. A drink called nepenthe calmed the nerves of Greeks and Egyptians. Theben women knew how to compound it. Nepenthe passed away and next came hasheesh, manufactured from Indian hemp. Whole nations have been stimulated, narcotized, and made imbecile with the use of accursed hasheesh. Visions are conjured up gorgeous and magnificent beyond all description, but it finally drags down body, mind and soul. I knew one of the most brilliant men of this city (Philadelphia) taken captive by this drug. Friends tried in vain to save him. First body gave way, then his mind. He became a raving maniac, blaspheming God into a starless eternity.

OPIUM is the scourge of nations.”

In 1861 we used 109,000 pounds. In 1887 not far from 1,000,000 pounds. At the present—1888—we have, beyond doubt, more than 1,000,000 opium consumers. That is appalling! Don’t think that those are merely barbaric Asiatics.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, after conquering the world, was conquered by opium. There are thousands, more women than men, who are being bound body, mind and soul by this terrific drug. There is a great mystery about some families. You don’t know why they don’t get along. The opium habit is stealthy, deceitful, deathful. You can cure one hundred drunkards where you can cure one opium eater.

Have you just begun to use it for the assuagement of physical distress? I beg of you stop! The pleasures at the start will not pay for the horrors at the end.

MORPHIA is a blessing from God for the relief of pain, but it was never intended to be prolonged for years.

Statistics show that there are opium eaters in this country exceeding a million. With some hydrate of chloral is taking the place of opium.

BARON LIEBIG knows that one chemist in Germany makes half a ton of hydrate of chloral a week. There are multitudes taken down with this drug. Look out for hydrate of chloral! You never heard a sermon against opium, but it seems to me there ought to be ten thousand pulpits turned into a quickening flame, thundering Zion’s warning against this black narcotic.

You all know what botanists describe as NICOTIANA. You know it as the inspiring, elevating, emparadising, nerve-shattering, dyspepsia-breeding, health-destroying tobacco. I shall not be offensively personal on this subject, for you nearly all use it. You say that God made it, and it is good. Yes, it is good to kill moths, to kill ticks on sheep, to strangle all kinds of vermin, to fumigate pestiferous places. You say God created it for some particular use. Yes, so He did henbane, and nux vomica, and copperas, and belladona, and all those poisons.

You say men live to be old who use it. Yes, in the sense that the man lasted well who was pickled. Smokers are turned into smoked livers. You should advise your children to abstain from it, because the whole medical fraternity of the United States and Great Britain pronounced it the cause of wide-spread ill-health. Drs. Agnew, Hamilton, Woodward—the whole medical fraternity, Allopathic, Homeopathic, Hydropathic and Eclectic denounce it. The use of tobacco tends to drunkenness. It creates unnatural thirst. The way that leads down to a drunkard’s grave and a drunkard’s hell is strewn thick with tobacco leaves. That man is not thoroughly converted who has not only got his heart clean, but got his mouth clean also.

BEN. FRANKLIN said he never saw a well man in the exercise of common sense who would say that tobacco did him any good.

THOMAS JEFFERSON argued against the culture of tobacco.

HORACE GREELEY said: “It is a burning stench.”

DANIEL WEBSTER said: “Let those men who smoke go to the horse shed.”

One reason why there are so many victims to the tobacco habit is because so many ministers smoke and chew. They smoke until they have bronchitis, and then the dear people must send them to Europe. I can name three eminent clergymen who died of cancer in the mouth, an evil caused by their tobacco. There has been many a clergyman whose tombstone was covered up with eulogy, who ought to have had an inscription, “Killed by too much Cavendish.” Some smoke until the room is blue, their spirits are blue, the world is blue. The American clergymen who are indulging in the habit should repent. How can a man preach repentance when he indulges in such a habit. I have known Presbyteries and General Assemblies and General Synods where there was a room set apart for ministers to smoke in.

It is time we had an anti-tobacco reform in the Presbyterian, the Baptist, and the Congregational churches.”

Thank God there is one church, the FREE METHODIST, that has a pure ministry. They are not defiled by “narcotics.” None are received into the Free Methodist Church that use tobacco in any way, in the ministry or laity.