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Temperance in the Home

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · May 23, 1907

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 84, No. 21.

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Temperance in the Home

By Augusta C. Bainbridge

AUGUSTA C. BAINBRIDGE
“I WONDER if beer is very bad for people to drink. It looks pretty; but it smells queer, and I know it costs money. Papa does not drink it, neither does mama; but other men and women do, who look just as nice as our folks. Some folks say it is good, and some say it is bad. How is a boy to know?”
He was walking just ahead of me, telling his difficulties to his friend, and you could easily read between the lines that a battle was on. The temptation to drink beer had come to him. He wanted to find an excuse to yield to it; and yet he was not ready to yield just then.
“Why, George, you know it’s the alcohol in the beer that makes it bad; just as any kind of poison in anything will make it bad.”
“But everybody doesn’t put alcohol into beer; they just drink it as it is.”
“Good; that’s just it—‘as it is.’ It is bad, and it is bad because the alcohol is in it. Nobody puts it there when he drinks it; but it forms in the beer while it is being made. You know it is made from grain, most always barley. The barley is malted and ground. Say, George, come over to the house. We have some pictures of the whole business, and father knows all about it. If he is at home, he’ll tell us. But I know it pretty well.”
What a difference! Two boys from Christian homes—one had been fortified, and one had been left defenseless.
It is important that our children learn their lessons for the day-school, yes, and for the Sabbath-school. But who will give them the knowledge they must have in order to meet the world as they find it? These temptations are here; and better, far better, spend a few hours now teaching them how to meet them and overcome, than to spend months and years in grieving over their fall.
Not one child in one hundred will want alcoholic liquors after he has been taught that alcohol is the product of decay, of rottenness, or, as one German chemist states it, “The excrement of the yeast fungus.” Nothing appetizing in that, is there?
The luscious fruits, the toothsome grains—these are inviting; but who desires decay?
Let us not neglect the school or the Sabbath-school; but let us give in our homes the truth that will unmask the tempter, and set our darlings free. Many things we can afford to leave undone, but not this. Now that temperance forces are gaining ground, the liquor dealers are studying every wicked art to entrap the boys and girls; but since truth is stronger than error, we need not fear, if we do our part.
San Francisco, Cal.