When they gathered round him to hear his news
he confessed that while away he had learnt to smoke, and he
now wished them to know that he had well considered the
matter, and was convinced that it was not wrong nor harmful to
smoke, and was determined not to give up his tobacco. They
had talked to him--father, mother, brothers, and sisters
--using every argument they could find or invent to move him,
until it was day and time for the woodman to go to his woods,
and the others to their several occupations. But their
"all-night sitting" had been wasted; the stubborn youth had
not been convinced nor shaken. When, after morning prayers,
they got up from their knees, the sunlight shining in upon
them, they had made a last appeal with tears in their eyes,
and he had refused to give the promise they asked. The poor
woman was greatly distressed. This young fellow, I thought,
favours his mother in features, but mentally he is perhaps
more like his father. Being a smoker myself I ventured to put
in a word for him. They were distressing themselves too much,
I told her; smoking in moderation was not only harmless,
especially to those who worked out of doors, but it was a
well-nigh universal habit, and many leading men in the
religious world, both churchmen and dissenters, were known to
be smokers.
Her answer, which came quickly enough, was that they did not
regard the practice of smoking as in itself bad, but they knew
that in some circumstances it was inexpedient; and in the case
of her son they were troubled at the thought of what smoking
would ultimately lead to.
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