WHY I WENT ON THE STAGE.--THE VICE OF TOBACCO.
I got hundreds of calls to go on the stage before I did. Gradually I got the light.
This is the largest missionary field in the world. No one ever got a call or was ever allowed to go there with a Bible but Carry Nation.
That door never was opened to any one but me. The hatchet opened it.
God has given it to me. My managers have said: "This is a variety house at, Watsons and the Unique, of Brooklyn, or the Boston on the Bowery. You do not wish to go there." Yes, those need me more than the rest; never refuse a call even from the lowest. If Jesus ate with publicans and sinners I can talk to them. Francis Willard said the pulpit and stage must be taken for God.
Persons often say: "Why do you take the money of such?" I say "I can do more good with the money than they can." After the battle the victor takes the spoils and is entitled to them. I will take all I can get in a good way. Money is a blessing, if used as such. I go on the stage to do good, I take their money for the same reason. The curse of it is when it is desired above the good of humanity. I am fishing. I go where the fish are for they do not come to me. I thank God for this unspeakable gift. I take my Bible before every audience. I show them this hatchet, that destroys or smashes everything bad and builds up everything that is good. I tell them of their loving Deliverer who came to break every yoke and set the Captive free. When I look upon the hundreds of faces before me, I say: "Oh, these poor aching hearts! God give me a loving message." Words can not tell of the love I would like to bestow upon them. I often weep. "Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings." Then I say: "There is one that loves more than you. He can make all things right."
There are but a handful comparatively that try to obey the commands of Jesus: "A remnant shall be saved." Caleb and Joshua were only two in six hundred thousand but they alone of this great multitude lived to see and inherit the promised land. Christ said. "Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in that my home may be full."
Where are the highways and hedges: They are places where men and women are the most lost. How can they be compelled to come in? Love is the only compelling influence. If no one goes with love, how are these lost ones to know they are loved. Christ brought love down to us; He came down to do it. We must take His love to the low places--"Condescend to men of low estate." I praise my God for opening a door to me never opened to anyone else. I find the theatre stocked with boys of our country. They are not found in churches. I have not sought to get into the so-called "respectable set" but I have told my managers to get me into the worst class. They need me most. They are as brands snatched from the burning.
I am not only a reformer on the line of the licensed or unlicensed saloon, but on other evils. I believe that, on the whole, tobacco has done more harm than intoxicating drinks. The tobacco habit is followed by thirst for drink. The face of the smoker has lost the scintillations of intellect and soul it would have had if not marred by this vice. The odor of his person is vile, his blood is poisoned, his intellect is dulled.
A smoker is never a healthy man, either in body or mind, for nicotine is a poison. Prussic acid is the only poison that is worse. Nicotine poisons the blood, dulls the brain, and is the cause of disease. The lungs of the tobacco user are black from poison, his heart action is weak, and the worst thing to contemplate in the whole matter is that these tobacco users transmit nervous diseases, epilepsy, weakened constitutions, depraved appetites and deformities of all kinds to their offspring.
Deterioration of the race is upon us, and unless there is some reform, idiocy, imbecility and extinction will be the legacy of the future generations.
A man that uses tobacco cannot have the nice moral perceptions on any point that he should have. I find him to be dulled and sluggish. The Bible says: "If thine eye be single, thy whole body is full of light. If thine eye be evil, thy whole body is full of darkness." The use of tobacco is a vice, and to the extent of that one vice, it degrades a mail. It opens the gate for other vices, for it is the gratification for one form of lust.
It is a filthy habit, and I care not how often the smoker changes his clothes or washes his person, he is filthy. The stench from his breath indicates that his body repudiates such uncleanliness.
The tobacco user can never be the father of a healthy child. Therefore he is dangerous for a woman to have as a husband. If I were a young woman, I would say to the men who use tobacco and who would wish to converse with me: "Use the telephone; come no closer!" I would as soon kiss a spittoon as to kiss such a mouth. When a man begins to smoke he is taking his first lessons in drink. The two habits travel together.
A man never can attain his majority and use tobacco. He never can realize his full capabilities or his possibilities. He can always attain to a better standard without nicotine.
