By what transformation is a plant, so deadly in its effects when first applied to the human system, afterward converted into a harmless article of diet or luxury? No substance which God has made for the common use of man, produces similar results; and if such be the fact in relation to the article in question, in this instance at least the order of nature is reversed, so that what in its nature is poisonous, becomes by habit nutritious and salutary. If this be correct reasoning--farewell to the success of temperance efforts! For _Rum_, after all, may be _convenient_ if not necessary, because its effects are not in every instance immediately fatal; and because some, by dint of habit, can sustain with slight _apparent_ injury, what to others unaccustomed to it would produce instantaneous death. The stale excuse, so often repeated by the lovers of tobacco, that they have been advised to use it by physicians, for the mitigation or removal of some bodily infirmity, may be urged with equal force and propriety by the tippler and the sot; for many, very many, have been advised by members of the Faculty, to drink the deadly draught, in some form or other, either to ease the pains of dyspepsia, to allay the horrors of _tedium vitae_, or to drown the anguish of a guilty conscience. And may not many of these patients say to those of the Faculty, who give advice for the use of either these stimulants: "Physician, heal thyself." Alas! when will the profession be without any who use ardent spirit or Tobacco. In concluding, permit me to address a word to professors of religion on this subject. In whatever concerns the cause of virtue and morality, you have a deep and an abiding interest. When Intemperance spreads abroad his murky "wings with dreadful shade contiguous," and fills the land with tears of blood--you look over this frightful _aceldama_ and mourn at the soul-chilling spectacle. When infidelity and licentiousness exhale their pestiferous breath, to poison the moral atmosphere and destroy the rising hope of our country, by undermining the virtue of our youth; the Christian's heart is pained, and every effort is put forth to stay the march of desolation. In short, whatever tends to increase the prevalence of vice, must be witnessed by real Christians with unfeigned regret. "Manners," says a celebrated writer, "have an influence on morals. They are the outposts of virtue." Whoever knew a rude man completely and uniformly moral? The use of tobacco, especially smoking, is offensive to those who do not practice it. The habit of offending the senses of our friends or even strangers, by smoking in their presence, produces a want of respect for their persons; and this disposes, however remotely, to unkind treatment towards them. Hence the Methodists interdicted the common use of tobacco with that of ardent spirit, in the infancy of their society; thereby evincing a just sense of the self-denial, decency, and universal civility required by the gospel.