Temperance by John B. Gough

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 27, 1882

Temperance.

By John B. Gough

Drinking to Excess.

WHAT is excess? I suppose some people will sneer at the reply I give, but according to our definition of excess it is the simple inability of the man to stand it. If he stands it, he is not drunk; but if he don't, he is. You cannot judge of a man's drunkenness by the quantity he drinks, nor the quality he drinks; but by its effect on the brain and nervous system.

Why, there have been men disciplined in the army when the officer drank more than they did. The officers could stand it; they could not. Members of the church have been disciplined for drunkenness when the deacons and the minister himself drank more than they did. The deacons could stand it; they could not. So you punish a man because he can't stand it. I remember one man in the very church I attended, as long ago as 1857. He became converted. I knew his antecedents, and I said to him: "Stowell, I want you to sign the temperance pledge." Said he, "I would, Mr. Gough, if I was not a Christian." I said, "Why should that hinder you?" "Because the grace of God is able to keep me now, and I don't want any temperance pledge or temperance societies. I want to show my young friends that the grace of God is able to keep me without any other agency whatever." Very good idea, but the province of the grace of God is not to prevent drink from affecting a man's brain and nervous system, if he drinks. You can poison a Christian to death just as quick as you can a Hottentot; and if a man brimming over with the grace of God, and a man who doesn't believe in the grace of God, take prussic acid together, they will go down together. It is folly to talk of the grace of God preventing physical effects from physical causes.

That man kept a little general store, and drove into the city to get a load of goods. When he got in—it was a drizzling afternoon—he took a glass of brandy and water, to keep out the cold. When he got his goods loaded up, he took another—only two. When he came out to the square in the village, he got off from the wagon and backed himself against the thills, and there he stood. Some one said, "You are drunk." So he was.

There were young men there that did not like church members; there were young men there that sneered at the revival. It was "nuts" to them; they gathered around him. "That is one of them! That's a new convert—converted in the revival! Made a speech in the prayer-meetin' last Thursday night! Set him up! Old fellow, now give us some talk!"

That man disgraced the church, so they said. So they disciplined him, and it broke his heart. He came to me after giving up that little store, and said: "Give me some work on your farm," and I did, and he worked for me eighteen months. "I have given up all business, all hope; they have disgraced me." Why? Because he could not stand two glasses of brandy and water. If he had stood it, they would not have touched him, not one of them. He might have drank twenty glasses, and stood it, and the church would have taken no action, whatever, in the matter. Now I know men in that church who drink more than two glasses every day in their lives. I would like to see the church undertake to touch them. Oh, wouldn't there be a row! Touch me! Anybody ever see me drunk? Don't touch me! He could not stand it, that is all. There are some men who can stand it, and some men who cannot stand it. You say it is because they are weak-minded. I say the mind has very little to do with it. If a man is weak-minded because he yields to temptation, and acquires this awful appetite, what do you say of the man who breaks it? Ah, it requires some nerve, some vim, some force, some decision of character, something of the iron will, to break a bad habit.—John B. Gough.