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Appendix B Typical Temperance Addresses By Ellen G. White
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grow in grace. He becomes gross and sensual; the animal passions
control the higher powers of the mind, and virtue is not cherished.
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Moderate drinking is the school in which men are receiving an
education for the drunkard’s career. So gradually does Satan lead
away from the strongholds of temperance, so insidiously do wine
and cider exert their influence upon the taste, that the highway to
drunkenness is entered upon all unsuspectingly. The taste for stimu-
lants is cultivated; the nervous system is disordered; Satan keeps the
mind in a fever of unrest; and the poor victim, imagining himself
perfectly secure, goes on and on, until every barrier is broken down,
every principle sacrificed. The strongest resolutions are undermined,
and eternal interests are too weak to keep the debased appetite under
the control of reason. Some are never really drunk, but are always
under the influence of mild intoxicants. They are feverish, unstable
in mind, not really delirious, but as truly unbalanced; for the nobler
powers of the mind are perverted.
Tobacco Also
—Those also who use tobacco are weakening their
physical and mental power. The use of tobacco has no foundation
in nature. Nature rebels against the narcotic, and when the tobacco
user first tries to force this unnatural habit upon the system, a hard
battle is fought. The stomach, and, indeed, the whole system, revolts
against the abominable practice, but the evildoer perseveres until
nature gives up the struggle, and the man becomes a slave of tobacco.
If salvation were offered to man on terms as hard to endure, God
would be looked upon as a hard master. Satan is a hard master, and
requires his subjects to undergo severe tests, and to make themselves
the slaves of passion and appetite; but God is consistent in all His
requirements. And asks of His children that only which will work
for their present and eternal happiness.
“Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou
serve.” This is the command of God, and yet how many, even of
those who profess to be the servants of God, are the devotees of
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tobacco, and make it their idol. When men should be out in the
pure air, with sweet breath, praising God for His benefits, they are
polluting the atmosphere with the fumes of pipe or cigar. They
must go through the ordeal of smoking, in order to stimulate the
poor relaxed nerves as a preparation for the duties of the day; for if