Temperance by Mrs. Jessie F. Waggoner

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Feb 9, 1882

Temperance.

By Mrs. Jessie F. Waggoner

Temperance in California.

BY MRS. JESSIE F. WAGGONER.

The Ledger of time has been shut up and sealed. One more year has slipped away leaving its foot-prints on the sands of time; not such as can be washed away by the first wave, but foot-prints which the waters of life serve only to pet-rify and leave unchangeable. How many of these foot-prints are down deep in the soft and miry clay of the broad road to death, and how few are embedded in the Rock of Ages, the entrance stone to the path that leads to happiness and life! And why this great difference? King Alcohol rules the world and men are his slaves. Unless they can break their chains enough to reach out and grasp the rock, they are lost for-ever. But the chains are so strong and are bound about them so tightly that without help many would sink in despair, who, by a little timely aid, would break loose and be free.

When we look back over the past year we feel something akin to sorrow and regret, for have we not stood idly by and seen first one and then another sinking deeper and deeper without raising a warning voice or stretching forth a helping hand? Then are we not responsible for some of the many foot-prints seen in the broad road? Yes, there in the heavenly ledger we see one, two, three (per-haps more) precious lives charged to our account! Oh, that we had been more faithful in our warn-ing, and had persevered longer in our efforts. Oh, that we had bent our whole energies to lifting them up and planting their feet upon the solid rock. But now it is too late; time never turns backward in his flight. The only thing now is to do in the present as we wish we had done in the past. God, in his merciful kindness, has per-mitted another new year to dawn upon us. We have it in our power, if God helps us and we im-prove our opportunities, to see, at the close of this year, a few less foot-prints in the broad way, and more in the narrow way.

"Then may our hearts, tried as by fire, Rise in new strength, fresh zeal inspire, Hope bid each doubting thought be gone And gird the New Year's armor on; And labor still, for o'er the land The ripe fields wait the reaper's hand."

The tidal wave of intemperance still sweeps over our land. It goes with such mighty power that perhaps a handful like us cannot stay the tide, more than to here and there erect barriers around our homes and loved ones; but we can man the life-boat and rescue some of the perish-ing as they come floating down, and we can go up to the head of the stream and prevent others from falling in.

Let us not talk about what we did not do last year, but let us talk now about what we are doing this year. One whole month of precious privileges and opportunities has already gone by. Aged, middle aged, youth, and children, what are we going to do this month for the cause of tem-perance?

Now, if ever, is the time for Seventh-day Adventists to stand out in a proper light before the world on this temperance question. We need not lower our standard so as to be able to join in with the world in what it calls temperance, but lift the standard high, and try in every possible way to get the world to come up to this higher plane of temperance.

One who saves a drowning man must be stronger than the one he is trying to save; then let us, as a people, throw away everything that is liable to weaken and unfit us for the work. Let us one and all sign the Teetotal Pledge, banish tea, coffee, and wine, as well as opium, tobacco and rum, gird on renewed strength, and come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty.

Sign the pledge yourself and then you can get others to sign it, for it is much easier to beckon them to follow, than it is to try to drive them on ahead.