Te 58
(Temperance 58)
There Is No Defense—Intemperance of every kind is holding human beings as in a vise. Tobacco inebriates are multiplying. What shall we say of this evil? It is unclean; it is a narcotic; it stupefies the senses; it chains the will; it holds its victims in the slavery of habits difficult to overcome; it has Satan for its advocate. It destroys the clear perceptions of the mind that sin and corruption may not be distinguished from truth and holiness. This appetite for tobacco is self-destructive. It leads to a craving for something stronger,—fermented wines and liquors, all of which are intoxicating.—Letter 102a, 1897. (Te 58.1) MC VC
Chapter 2—Tobacco’s Polluting, Demoralizing Influence VC
We Meet It Everywhere—Wherever we go, we encounter the tobacco devotee, enfeebling both mind and body by his darling indulgence. Have men a right to deprive their Maker and the world of the service which is their due? ... (Te 58.2) MC VC
It is a disgusting habit, defiling to the user, and very annoying to others. We rarely pass through a crowd but men will puff their poisoned breath in our faces. It is unpleasant, if not dangerous, to remain in a railway car or in a room where the atmosphere is impregnated with the fumes of liquor and tobacco.—Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 33, 34. (Te 58.3) MC VC
It Curses and Kills—Women and children suffer from having to breathe the atmosphere that has been polluted by the pipe, the cigar, or the foul breath of the tobacco user. Those who live in this atmosphere will always be ailing.—Testimonies for the Church 5:440. (Te 58.4) MC VC
The infant lungs suffer, and become diseased by inhaling the atmosphere of a room poisoned by the tobacco user’s tainted breath. Many infants are poisoned beyond remedy by sleeping in beds with their tobacco-using fathers. By inhaling the poisonous tobacco effluvia, which is thrown from the lungs and pores of the skin, the system of the infant is filled with poison. While it acts upon some infants as a slow poison, and affects the brain, heart, liver, and lungs, and they waste away and fade gradually, upon others, it has a more direct influence, causing spasms, fits, paralysis, and sudden death. (Te 58.5) MC VC