ugh attempts were made to circulate the lie, that
Jamie had grown weak and sickly since he gave up drinking, yet every
body who looked him in the face saw, that though he had neither a purple
nose nor whiskey blossoms on his chin, yet he was stronger and healthier
than ever; and that he could say, what every member of the Temperance
Society, whether temperate or intemperate formerly, can say with truth,
after abstaining for a single month from distilled spirits, that in
every sense of the word he is better for the change.

Foiled thus in all their attempts, the opponents of Jamie and of
temperance rallied strong for one last charge; and as it was against
Jamie's weak side--who has not a weak side--they already chuckled in
triumph. Jamie had thrown away his glass for ever, but his pipe stuck
firm between his teeth still. The time was, when he was strong and well
without tobacco, and when the taste of tobacco was disgusting and
sickening to him; but respectable people were smoking, and chewing, and
snuffing around him, and when he went to the wake, the funeral, or the
evening gathering, "Why," thought he, "should I be singular, and not
take a whiff like the rest?" He chose smoking, probably, because he
considered it to be the most _genteel_ way of being dirty and
disgusting; and, according to the general law of habits, being most
inveterate where the article used was at first most nauseous, he soon
became so confirmed a smoker that one-half of what he smoked would have
kept him decently clothed.

The lovers of strong drink, therefore, thought that they had Jamie on
the hip completely, when they told him that his only reason for giving
up whiskey was, that he could not afford to buy both it and tobacco; and
promised, though with no sincerity, that they would quit drinking if he
would quit smoking.

The reproach stuck like a burr to Jamie's conscience. He asked himself
again and again, Is my use of tobacco a stumbling-block in the way of
any? Does it do injury to the great cause which has all my heart? He
read, he thought, and read and thought again; and the more he read and
thought, the more was he convinced that the habitual use of tobacco in
any of its forms is useless; is wasteful of time and money; is dirty; is
offensive to others, and a breach of Christian charity; is a bad example
to the simple and young; is a temptation to drunkenness, and injurious
to health. He resolved to renounce it, and flung the old black pi