Speeding
Speed
In John 3:8, he explains the nature of those born of the Spirit: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, (i.e., willeth or pleaseth,) and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit." So is every one; so is the individual. Mark! It does not say so is the spirit, nor so is his birth, nor the operations of the Spirit in his birth. But so is the person. How? Why, unseen and unknown in his movements to mortal eyes. For things unseen are eternal. They move at pleasure and with speed inconceivable.
Now to act is the end of all rational existence. To act at pleasure, is a necessary concomitant of a happy state of existence. God will make his people happy. Yea, says John, [1John 3:2,] "We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." Then, says David, "I shall be satisfied." Now when our bodies are quickened by that Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, (and all his saints will be, when he comes,) we shall in our movements resemble him - be as the wind. Christ after his resurrection appeared to, and vanished from his disciples, and they could neither see him in his approach or departure.
March 13, 1856 JWe, ARSH 187
Tobacco-Using.
Effects Of Tobacco On Health
In the course of twenty-five years, since entering on the practice of the medical profession, innumerable applications have been made to me for relief in cases of impaired health and broken constitutions, where the habitual use of tobacco evidently lay at the foundation of the whole difficulty. Some possessed discernment enough to see, and honesty enough to confess, the fact. Others had a vague idea that it might be tobacco, yet were unwilling to perceive, the truth or admit it, because of their devotion to this appetite. Others still were entirely blind to its deadly agency. In all such cases, medicines, without reform, are worse than useless. Nothing short of an abandonment of the unrighteous habit, which produced the disease can effect a cure. The great sovereign remedy in such cases is, ceasing to create the disease.
Tobacco destroys health in several ways. One way is, by its immediate attack, as already shown, on the nervous system. It gives an unnatural impetus to its circulation. It excites unwonted speed of action, which it has no power to sustain. In this respect it acts like any other stimulant. Stimulants of any kind are unnatural agents. They push on, but cannot support, the electric forces of the animal economy. They excite temporarily, but exhaust ultimately. They push nature beyond her wonted speed, and then leave her to react and fall back into ultimate exhaustion and debility.
Suppose a gentleman wished to travel a thousand miles by the aid of his horse. The natural gait of the animal is five miles per hour. With this gait he can travel forty miles per day, with proper care, without fatigue, and continue the whole journey. But suppose the rider, extremely zealous of rapid progress, plies whip and spur, and pushes on at the rate of seven or eight miles per hour. In what condition will the poor animal be before the journey is ended? By this kind of speed men are pushing themselves through life. Not content with letting nature take her own speed of five miles per hour, they goad her on at the rate of seven or eight, and force themselves into an early grave. They ply whip and spur, under the popular names of mustard and pepper, tea and coffee, alcohol and tobacco, till nature sinks exhausted on her way, before her journey is fully ended.
Besides its stimulating properties, tobacco possesses a powerful narcotic agency. Like opium, after its exciting properties are exhibited, there follows a stupefying quality. This preys powerfully, yet often for a long time imperceptibly, on the brain and nerves. It is often very difficult to get men to perceive this effect. While they keep themselves excited by its stimulus, they cannot easily recognize its stupefying, paralyzing power. But let them cease for a little space to use it, as before stated, and its paralyzing influence will manifest itself.
Tobacco also enters into the-circulation, and destroys, as before shown, the healthful properties of the blood. It enters into the secretions of all the glands. Hence are often found, in tobacco-chewers and smokers, diseases of the liver, kidneys, and other glandular organs. The secretions of the mucous membrane which lines the mouth, stomach and bowels, are often severely affected by it. So that, in this way, together with its prostrating influence on the nervous and muscular coats of the stomach, and its agency in producing torpidity of the liver, the very worst forms of dyspepsia have been created. Many a case of chronic indigestion has occurred, even in persons of active habits, where nothing could have produced it but a wicked devotion to this deadly appetite.
A case which came under my care on the steamboat passing up the Ohio river, illustrates this truth. A man was taken in the night with diarrhea and slight vomiting; and his lower limbs were affected with spasms. Under moderate treatment, his immediate symptoms of disease gave way; he became warm, a gentle moisture ensued, and seemed perfectly easy during the forenoon of the next day. But in the afternoon he began to sink, without any return of original symptoms, and died early in the evening.
It was obvious he did not die of the severity of his immediate disease; that, by some previous influence, the tone of his vitality had been destroyed, so that under the slightest pressure he sank into the hands of death. On inquiry of his wife, it was found he had been an inverate chewer of tobacco from very early boy-hood. He would chew day and night; often getting up in dead of night to take a quid.
He had been in miserable health for the last four years; was only twenty-nine years old, and looked as though he was fifty; had severe complaints of liver, kidneys, and bowels, during that period, and often severe cramping of the limbs. Here the tobacco had not only destroyed the functions of the glands and mucous surfaces, but had so undermined his electric forces, as to produce severe spasmodic action of the muscles, and leave all his vital functions in such utter prostration, as to yield their hold by the slightest causes.
Not only is dyspepsia, with its train of thousand ailments, produced by its effects on this continuous mucous membrane which lines the mouth, stomach and bowels, but piles of the severest character are often suffered from this cause. Such is the sympathy of this membrane, one portion with another, that the paralyzing influence due from tobacco on the membrane of the mouth, is transmitted to its opposite extremity, and develops itself in the form of piles. Cases have not unfrequently come under my observation, where men have seemed as yet to enjoy health in all respects, except that of extreme suffering of this kind; and this from no other apparent cause than the use of tobacco. In such cases, all attempts at cure without removing the cause, would be like trying to prevent a man's hand from blistering while he was holding it in a flame of fire.
A case came under observation while in St Louis, Mo. A young man had, from very early life, been addicted to chewing and smoking. At best he had only a slender body. He had, for a long time, been utterly unable to attend to business, and was now confined to the house from the prostrating influence of chronic and severe diarrhea. He had been under care of a physician for a great length of time, with very faint signs of recovering. His physician had sanctioned the continuance of his tobacco, notwithstanding the patient's suspicions and inquiries as to its unfavorable influences.
After listening a while to common-sense argument on the deadly properties of his idol, and appeals as to he comparative value of life and the gratification of this fatal habit, he finally determined to quit this self-destruction, and throw himself upon Nature's resources for recovery. The mucous coat of the whole length of the digestive organs had lost its tone by the use of this narcotic drug. Nature had resisted this, till her power to resist was gone. The last account of him gave encouragement of rapid recovery.
Another case, strongly marked, came under observation while in Kentucky. A gentleman, by occupation a planter, had been to Louisville for medical advice, and was returning. He had spent several hundreds of dollars in trying to obtain relief from a broken constitution and much suffering. He labored under diseased liver and kidneys, under a dyspeptic stomach and constipated bowels, and his whole aspect denoted a prostrated nervous, and torpid glandular system. His physician at Louisville, when asked by the patient about the influence of tobacco, told him merely that he thought well of his using less of it, or leaving it altogether, if he chose. He would not advise him to quit it suddenly, but by degrees. Such is the obtuseness of many of the faculty on this matter.
After listening to my advice, he finally came to the conclusion to cease marring the vitality of his constitution, and give Nature the best chance possible to recover herself. Almost every day new cases appear of similar character, produced by the same general cause.
This poison disturbs the natural tone of all the solid parts of the body. Its essence is diffused throughout all the matter composing the system. It so disturbs the natural secretion and deposit of healthy matter, that where the flesh sustains an injury by cuts or bruises, it cannot as readily heal as in cases of healthy flesh. The more perfectly healthy the habits of the person who has sustained the injury of wounds, the more easily and rapidly will they heal. But where a morbid state of the fluids, and consequently of the flesh, by such a powerful agent exists, the healing of wounds is liable to be greatly retarded.
The same rule obtains also in the healing of bones. Bony matter is supplied from the blood; and if that blood is carrying a foreign substance, and one adapted to produce in every case a morbid state of that fluid, the secretion of bony matter necessary to the healing of fractured bones is retarded, and rendered unhealthy. Those who have accustomed themselves to being saturated with alcohol, have found sometimes great difficulty in obtaining a sound healing from a broken bone, for the reason that the alcohol, by diffusing itself through the circulation, has disturbed the health of the fluids, and consequently the healthy formation of solids. Being saturated with tobacco essence, is certainly no less destructive.
June 7, 1864 UrSe, ARSH 9