Temperance | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 18, 1881

Temperance.

"SWITCHED OFF."

DR. CUYLER, of Brooklyn, is well known as one of the most earnest promoters of total abstinence in the United States. In the Temperance Advocate he tells us a story of his boyhood days, which lets us into the secret of the matter. He was brought up in the state of New York in the region of the Cayuga Lake, where the habit of drinking and treating was fearfully prevalent among the farming community. Boys were often tempted by the sight and smell of the cup, and learned to imitate the bad example set before them.

Says Dr. Cuyler: "I recollect an instance that occurred in the home of my excellent grandfather with whom I lived. The old gentleman was in the habit of offering liquor to his guests. One day after he had been treating some visitors to some very choice 'cherry bounce,' they left a residuum of the liquor in their glasses, or what topers call 'heel-taps.' I gratified my curiosity by draining the glasses, just to see how it tasted. My good and godly mother, who hated the sight of bottled devil, discovered my prank, and administered such a dose of 'the rod' as would have satisfied Solomon himself. I never forgot that flogging, or the attendant lecture on the mischief and danger of ever touching a drop of intoxicating drink. Soon after, a temperance society was started in our neighborhood and public addresses were delivered; I then signed the pledge of total abstinence, and have adhered to it until this day. The whole community was revolutionized by the temperance reform. My grandfather was one of the first to banish the accursed thing from his estate."

We recollect a toast offered in a gathering of railroad men, in which their mothers were complimented as persons who "never misplaced a switch." Doubtless Dr. Cuyler, from his experience, would endorse the sentiment, as it is evident that he was very effectually "switched off" from the "Black Valley Railroad" onto the Total Abstinence Line. A good many boys who are dallying with cigars and beer and cider and "heel taps," would be greatly profited by the treatment which helped make Dr. Cuyler a total abstinence man. Parents will please take notice. Prov. 13 : 24; 19 : 18; 22 : 15.—The Christian.