Wesley Corpus

Secondly, If, in fact, nothing else will, if tea has already weakened your stomach, and impaired your digestion to such a degree, it has hurt you more than you are aware. It has prejudiced your health extremely. You have need to abhor it as deadly poison, and to renounce it from this very hour. So says a drinker of drams: “Nothing else will agree with me. Nothing else will raise my spirits. I can digest nothing without them.” Indeed! Is it so? Then touch no more, if you love your life. Thirdly, Suppose nothing else agrees with you at first; yet in a while many things will. When I first left off tea, I was half asleep all day long; my head ached from morning to night. I could not remember a question asked, even till I could return an answer; but in a week’s time all these inconveniences were gone, and have never returned since. Fourthly, I have not found one single exception yet; not one person in all England, with whom, after sufficient trial made, nothing else would agree. It is therefore well worth while for you to try again, if you have any true regard for your own health, or any compassion for those who are perishing all around you for want of the common necessaries of life. 16. If you are sincere in this plea, if you do not talk of your health, while the real objection is your inclination, make a fair trial thus: (1.) Take half a pint of milk every morning, with a little bread, not boiled, but warmed only: A man in tolerable health might double the quantity. (2.) If this is too heavy, add as much water, and boil it together, with a spoonful of oatmeal. (3.) If this agrees not, try half a pint, or a little more, of water-gruel, neither thick nor thin; not sweetened, for that may be apt to make him sick, but with a very little butter, salt, and bread. (4.) If this disagrees, try sage, green balm, mint, or penny-royal tea, infusing only so much of the herb as just to change the colour of the water. (5.) Try two or three of these mixed, in various proportions. (6.) Try ten or twelve other English herbs.