would consume if I keep on in the habit,
and I'll see what it will come to by compound interest." And he gives
this tremendous statistic: "Last July completed thirty-nine years
since, by the grace of God, I was emancipated from the filthy habit,
and the saving amounted to the enormous sum of $29,102.03 by compound
interest. We lived in the city, but the children, who had learned
something of the enjoyment of country life from their annual visits to
their grandparents, longed for a home among the green fields. I found
a very pleasant place in the country for sale. The cigar money came
into requisition, and I found it amounted to a sufficient sum to
purchase the place, and it is mine. Now, boys, you take your choice.
Smoking without a home, or a home without smoking." This is common
sense as well as religion.

I must say a word to my friends who smoke the best tobacco, and who
could stop at any time. What is your Christian influence in this
respect? What is your influence upon young men? Do you not think it
would be better for you to exercise a little self-denial! People
wondered why George Briggs, Governor of Massachusetts, wore a cravat
but no collar. "Oh," they said, "it is an absurd eccentricity." This
was the history of the cravat without any collar: For many years
before he had been talking with an inebriate, trying to persuade him
to give up the habit of drinking and he said to the inebriate, "Your
habit is entirely unnecessary." "Ah!" replied the inebriate, "we do a
great many things that are not necessary. It isn't necessary that you
should have that collar." "Well," said Mr. Briggs, "I'll never wear a
collar again if you will stop drinking." "Agreed," said the other.
They joined hands in a pledge that they kept for twenty years--kept
until death. That is magnificent. That is Gospel, practical Gospel,
worthy of George Briggs, worthy of you. Self-denial for others.
Subtraction from our advantage that there may be an addition to
somebody else's advantage.

But what I have said has been chiefly appropriate for men. Now my
subject widens and shall be appropriate for both sexes. In all ages of
the world there has been a search for some herb or flower that would
stimulate lethargy and compose grief. Among the ancient Greeks and
Egyptians they found something they called nepenthe, and the Theban
women knew how to compound it. If a person should chew a few of those
leaves his grief would be immediately whelmed with hi