If any youngster
wants advice from one who doesn't mean to preach, there it is: Leave
cigarettes alone!"
Dr. Coffin, of the Whittier Reform School, says: "Of the 1,700 boys
who have been inmates of this institution, 1,670 were cigarette
smokers!"
_There_ is "satisfaction" for you; no, not for you, but only
satisfaction for the cigarette manufacturer and dealer, such
satisfaction as comes from ill-gotten gains, which after all cannot be
permanent.
Yes, "it satisfies"--the cigarette,--it satisfies--satisfies the
devil, and _he_ laughs, and _his_ is the only real long laugh that the
cigarette affords.
The cigarette-tree is known by its fruit. Cut it out.
_Read 1 Corinthians 9:24-27._
XXXI
THE BIG TASK
Say, fellows, some years ago France gave a man a large task. The man's
name was De Lesseps, and the task was to cut a ditch seventy-two feet
wide across Panama, to unite the two great oceans. Part of the cutting
was to be through hills two hundred and fifty feet high. It was a big
order, and although De Lesseps had the resources of a great republic
back of him, he failed to deliver. Aside from the gigantic feat of
digging and removing stone and earth, there were malaria and yellow
fever in the swamps, which killed thousands of labourers, and there
were theft and bribery in the financial management, which swallowed up
the money.
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