MORAL AND SPIRITUAL VIEW. 185 



have reformed those of your profession, if you will 

 apply to me, I will give fifty dollars to reform the 

 rest of mankind." 



The London Christian World, after commenting 

 on the Spurgeon case, thus closes : " To ourselves 

 this tobacco pest is a daily martyrdom, and we 

 could earnestly wish that every Christian teacher, 

 at all events, felt no desire to indulge in a habit 

 . . . which is unquestionably most fearfully de- 

 structive, both to the bodies and souls of tens of 

 thousands of our young men." 



Neal Dow, who was in England at the time of 

 the Spurgeon-Pentecost affair, relates that he was 

 soon after a guest in a family where the matter came 

 up. The father told him that by long and painful 

 labor he had obtained a promise from his son, who 

 was a great smoker, to abandon the habit, and 

 that he had kept his pledge till the great preach- 

 er's declaration, "I shall go home and smoke the 

 best cigar I have got to the glory of God." After 

 this he returned to his cigar, saying that Spur- 



sreon's example was £Ood enough for him. Even 

 o too 



a clergyman pleads, in excuse for his habit, that 

 " Mr. Spurgeon, the greatest preacher in the world, 

 smokes." 



Since then, if report speaks true, this "greatest 

 preacher " has abandoned his cigar, not, as we 

 wish he had done years ago, from religious prin- 

 ciple, but because he was driven to it by its injuri- 

 ous influence upon his health. A similar report 

 prevails as to some of our great American preachers. 



