Chapter 42—Tea and Coffee
Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 34-36
Tea, coffee, and tobacco, as well as alcoholic drinks, are different
degrees in the scale of artificial stimulants.
The effect of tea and coffee, as heretofore shown, tends in the same
direction as that of wine and cider, liquor and tobacco.
Tea is a stimulant, and to a certain extent produces intoxication.
It gradually impairs the energy of body and mind. Its first effect is
exhilarating, because it quickens the motions of the living machinery;
and the tea-drinker thinks that it is doing him great service. But this is
a mistake. When its influence is gone, the unnatural force abates, and
the result is languor and debility corresponding to the artificial vivacity
imparted. The second effect of tea-drinking is headache, wakefulness,
palpitation of the heart, indigestion, trembling, and many other evils.
Coffee is a hurtful indulgence. It temporarily excites the mind to
unwonted action, but the after-effect is exhaustion, prostration, paral-
ysis of the mental, moral, and physical powers. The mind becomes
enervated, and unless through determined effort the habit is overcome,
the activity of the brain is permanently lessened. All these nerve ir-
ritants are wearing away the life-forces, and the restlessness caused
by shattered nerves, the impatience, the mental feebleness, become a
warring element, antagonizing to spiritual progress. Then should not
those who advocate temperance and reform be awake to counteract the
evils of these injurious drinks? In some cases it is as difficult to break
up the tea-and-coffee habit as it is for the inebriate to discontinue the
use of liquor. The money expended for tea and coffee is worse than
wasted. They do the user only harm, and that continually. Those who
use tea, coffee, opium, and alcohol, may sometimes live to old age, but
this fact is no argument in favor of the use of these stimulants. What
these persons might have accomplished, but failed to do because of
their intemperate habits, the great day of God alone will reveal.
Those who resort to tea and coffee for stimulation to labor, will
feel the evil effects of this course in trembling nerves and lack of
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