The Story of our Health Message

At Sea Again

After a brief stay at home Joseph Bates was offered a berth as second mate on another ship bound for Europe. With brief intervals at home between voyages, he continued his seafaring life, most of the time as master of his own ship, until 1828, making a total of twenty-one years that he spent on the ocean. SHM 53.1

For some time he kept his resolution to be temperate and abstained entirely from the use of ardent spirits, but later he returned to the moderate use of liquor. He thought that if he drank not more than one glass a day, he would be secure from walking the drunkard’s path. Upon discovery that the desire for that one glass, which he took at the dinner hour, was stronger than his appetite for food, he became alarmed and decided that he had committed an egregious error when he lapsed from his rule of strict abstinence. In the autumn of 1821, therefore, he solemnly resolved never to drink another glass of ardent spirits as long as he should live. SHM 53.2

Soon after this he decided also to discontinue entirely the use of wine. “In this work of reform,” he said, “I found myself entirely alone, and exposed to the jeering remarks of those with whom I afterward became associated, especially when I declined drinking with them. Yet after all their comments, that it was not improper or dangerous to drink moderately, etc., they were constrained to admit that my course was perfectly safe!”—Ibid., 155. SHM 53.3

About two years later he took another advanced step in reform. Leaving a Peruvian port, Captain Bates was conversing with the master of another ship regarding the use of tobacco. A sudden resolution caused the other captain to take the tobacco from his mouth and cast it overboard, saying, “Here goes my tobacco, Bates!” “And here goes mine, too!” was the ready response. The tobacco that he then removed from his mouth was the last that ever stained his lips. Of his victory at that time, he said in later years: SHM 53.4

“I was now free from all distilled spirits, wine, and tobacco. Step by step I had gained this victory. ... How much more like a human being I felt when I had gained the mastery in these things and overcome them all. I was also making great efforts to conquer another crying sin, which I had learned of wicked sailors. That was the habit of using profane language.”—Ibid., 178. SHM 54.1