The Story of our Health Message

Tea and Coffee Given Up

In 1828 Captain Bates, at the age of thirty-five, retired from the sea and settled in New Bedford. Again, after this, he took another forward step in health reform, and did it entirely on his own initiative because of experience and personal conviction. Up to this time his attention had not been called to the harmful effects of tea and coffee, and he had continued their use. While he was with his wife on a social visit, tea somewhat stronger than that to which they were accustomed was served to them. Finding himself unable to sleep until after midnight, he associated the effect with the cause. “I then became fully satisfied,” he declared, “and have never seen cause to change my belief since, that it was the tea I drank which so affected me. From thence I became convicted of its intoxicating qualities, and discarded the use of it. Soon after this, on the same principle, I discarded the use of coffee.”—Ibid., 241, 242. SHM 57.1

In 1839 Captain Bates heard the advent message, and after carefully weighing and accepting the evidence, he threw all his energies and resources into its proclamation. Some of his friends protested, because he seemed to take less interest in the temperance cause, and they urged that a belief in the second coming of Christ ought to make him more ardent in suppressing the growing evils of intemperance. SHM 57.2

“My reply was,” he relates, “that in embracing the doctrine of the second coming of the Saviour, I found enough to engage my whole time in getting ready for such an event, and aiding others to do the same, and that all who embraced this doctrine would and must necessarily be advocates of temperance, ... and those who opposed the doctrine of the second advent could not be very effective laborers in moral reform. And further, I could not see duty in leaving such a great work to labor singlehanded as we had done, when so much more could be accomplished in working at the fountainhead, making us every way right as we should be for the coming of the Lord.”—Ibid., 271. SHM 57.3