e human family--the grass for
the animal creation, the herb for human service. The cattle came and
took possession of their inheritance, the grass-blade; man came and
took possession of his inheritance, the herb. We have the herb for
food as in case of hunger, for narcotic as in case of insomnia, for
anodyne as in case of paroxysm, for stimulant as when the pulses flag
under the weight of disease. The caterer comes and takes the herb and
presents it in all styles of delicacy. The physician comes and takes
the herb and compounds it for physical recuperation. Millions of
people come and take the herb for ruinous physical and intellectual
delectation. The herb, which was divinely created, and for good
purposes, has often been degraded for bad results. There is a useful
and a baneful employment of the herbaceous kingdom.

There sprung up in Yucatan of this continent an herb that has
bewitched the world. In the fifteenth century it crossed the Atlantic
Ocean and captured Spain. Afterward it captured Portugal. Then the
French embassadors took it to Paris, and it captured the French
Empire. Then Walter Raleigh took it to London, and it captured Great
Britain. Nicotiana, ascribed to that genus by the botanists, but we
all know it is the exhilarating, elevating, emparadising,
nerve-shattering, dyspepsia-breeding, health-destroying tobacco. I
shall not in my remarks be offensively personal, because you all use
it, or nearly all! I know by experience how it soothes and roseates
the world, and kindles sociality, and I also know some of its baleful
results. I was its slave, and by the grace of God I have become its
conqueror. Tens of thousands of people have been asking the question
during the past two months, asking it with great pathos and great
earnestness: "Does the use of tobacco produce cancerous and other
troubles?" I shall not answer the question in regard to any particular
case, but shall deal with the subject in a more general way.

You say to me, "Did God not create tobacco?" Yes. You say to me, "Is
not God good?" Yes. Well, then, you say, "If God is good and he
created tobacco, He must have created it for some good purpose." Yes,
your logic is complete. But God created the common sense at the same
time, by which we are to know how to use a poison and how not to use
it. God created that just as He created henbane and nux vomica and
copperas and belladonna and all other poisons, whether directly
created by Himself or ext