ANTI-TOBACCO. 33 



Condusioft. 



We thus see that the dangers to health and life, to 

 character and prosperity, to happiness and the purposes of 

 human existence, are such that no man can with safety 

 abandon himself to the weed in any of its fashionable 

 forms of use. The testimony of the scientist, the physi- 

 cian, the moralist, and the patriot, is nearly unanimous 

 against smoking and chewing. The tobacco pest has 

 acquired such enormous proportions in all civihzed 

 communities that it has awakened the anxiety of every 

 disinterested lover of his race. Societies are organized 

 in Great Britain and America to stem the growing evil. 

 The medical profession are alarmed at the inroads made 

 by this insidious narcotic upon the stamina of the rising 

 generation. Numerous publications are issued in behalf 

 of reform. And as every other gigantic evil which has 

 threatened the stability and peace of modern civilization 

 has -gone do^vn before the rising intelligence and moral sen- 

 timent of the age, we may rationally hope that this cancer 

 upon the health of the body politic and social will be 

 exterminated. Meantime it becomes the duty of every 

 one, conscious of the truth upon this subject, to bring 

 first his own conduct into harmony with his convictions ; 

 and in the next place to seek to establish the same 

 convictions, and promote the same conduct, in society 

 at large. It is the noble sentiment of Dr. Willard 

 Parker : " I do not place my individual self in opposition 

 to tobacco ; but science, in the form of physiology and 

 hygiene, is opposed to it — and science is the expression 

 of God's will in the government of his work in the 

 universe." 3 



