A Solemn Appeal

AVOID ALL STIMULANTS AND IRRITANTS

“Inflammation being the chief cause of your difficulty, everything calculated to increase it, is unequivocally bad. Hence, abandon, wholly and at once, tea, coffee, tobacco, and all stimulating meats and drinks. Otherwise, your struggle will be much more doubtful, tedious, and desperate. Any other fire burning in the system will augment this. Tea, Coffee, and tobacco, the last two in particular, are powerful narcotics, and, like opium, though soothing at first, ultimately only re-inflame, and are of themselves sufficient to keep up both the disease and the desire, and the inflammation you would conquer. They even often induce them, by causing an irritated, craving state of the nervous system, which aggravates desire from the first, by inflaming the nervous system, and of course the base of the brain. It is a settled physiological fact, that whatever stimulates the body, thereby proportionally irritates the base of the brain, Amativeness in particular, and thus causes lust, as well as sinful propensity in general. By this means it is that all intoxicating drinks cause both lust and depravity. It is their stimulating property which does this, and whatever stimulates the body, thereby stimulates the whole base of the brain, in consequence of that most intimate relation existing between the two, and therefore excites this passion, and more, probably, than any other. Now, tea, coffee, and tobacco, all stimulate, and of course excite both sinful propensity in general, and lustful desire in particular. The quid and the cigar have made sensualists and onans by the legion. Nor is coffee free from a like charge, and teas is also injurious. SOAP 255.1

“This is not all theory. It is sustained by facts. An acquaintance of the author, whose passion, professor though he is, is yet so rampant that he can govern himself only with the utmost difficulty, says, that after he has restrained himself for months, and got desire under subjection, a few cups of strong coffee will set him literally crazy after the sex, so that slight temptation will induce indulgence, and then, the helm carried away, self-control is out of the question till this passion has run him through and out, and brought him up debilitated and all on fire by excess, and penniless, after having squandered the savings of months of industry, perhaps years. He also recommends cathartics, yet their effect can be only temporary. Ultimately, they must debilitate the system. He says nothing saves him but ‘TOTAL ABSTINENCE,’ both from indulgence and from all stimulants. SOAP 256.1

“Besides, why make ‘flesh of one’ passion, SOAP 256.2

‘and fowl of another’? Why not sweep the board? Break away from ALL bad habits. Conquer every lust, and be the man for in nothing consist the true dignity and glory of our nature more than in SELF-GOVERNMENT. Even ‘If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee.’ Much more may you abandon that filthy and confessedly injurious habit of tobacco-eating and burning; else it may yet shipwreck your hopes. Come, arise in the might of manhood, and conquer this, as a means of overcoming that. SOAP 257.1

“And ye daughters of loveliness! whom this feeling has injured, but who would return again to; purity, health, and happiness, sip no more of the beverage of China; no more of the drinks of Java; for both will only add fuel to those polluting fires you wish to quench, as well as perpetuate the disease you would subdue. Try to experiment, if you doubt this logic. Compare a month of abstinence with one of tea and coffee drinking. Already your system is all alive with feverish excitement, which these drinks enhance, and this deepens your gloom and your misery. If you would be yourself again, cut off this right-hand gratification, as a means of overcoming that. And if you ask what you shall drink at your meals, I say, nothing is best; yet cocoa, chocolate, or warm water seasoned, or bread coffee, rice coffee, pea coffee, corn coffee, etc., etc, will be good substitutes, as they do not inflame, and are palatable. SOAP 257.2

“For a similar reason, meats, mustards, condiments, peppers, spices, rich food, gravies, - every thing heating and irritating - will only add to existing inflammation, and increase both desire and disease. Do not keepers of horses, who wish to fire up this passion, in them, do it by feeding high? Farmers do the like by the female, in order to create the required desire. Do not men and women, by the licentious thousand, live luxuriously for the express purpose of kindling the disease? Go and do the opposite, ye who would produce opposite results! SOAP 258.1

“Some kinds of food, as already specified, excite amorous desires; while others, as rice, bread, fruit, vegetables, etc., do not; and may therefore be eaten, yet sparingly, because you are yet weak, and because overeating, even of the plainest food, is injurious. We have also seen that sensuality is apt to excite appetite and derange digestion. Coarse or Graham bread, with fruit, or rice, or sago, or tapioca, or potato starch pudding, etc., will tend to obviate inflammation, and allow the system to rally. In regard to regimen, Dr. Woodward remarks thus: SOAP 258.2

“‘The regimen must be strict, the diet should be simple and nutritious, and sufficient in quantity; it should be rather plain than light and abstemious no stimulating condiments should be used; the suppers should be particularly light, and late suppers should be wholly avoided. All stimulating drinks, even strong tea and coffee, should be discarded; cider and wine are very pernicious; tobacco, in all its forms not less so.’ SOAP 258.3

“As to suppers, I recommend none at all. A full stomach induces dreams, or the exercise, in sleep, of those organs most liable to spontaneous action, which in this case is Amativeness, which produces libidinous dreams, with accompanying night emissions, which weaken and disease equally with indulgence. No supper at all, also allows the dinner to become fully digested, which facilitates sound sleep - nature’s great restorative. Never fear starvation. We all eat twice too much. The gluttony of our nation is one great cause of its sensuality, which fasting will of course tend to obviate. Try to experiment. A friend thus afflicted has found great relief therefrom. Above all things SOAP 259.1