No Compromise

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 6, 1916

The following was found among Elder T. M. Steward's papers, after his death. It was evidently written in answer to some advertising sent him by a liquor firm in Kentucky:—

“GRAYSVILLE, TENN.,

“Jan. 29, 1905.

“________, Ky.

“SIR: I don't think you know me. I am seventy-eight years old. I never drank a glass of liquor in my life. There is not money enough in the world to tempt me to begin now. I signed the first temperance pledge I ever heard of, when I was only eight years old, and have kept it ever since.

“I have been preaching the gospel for more than fifty years. I expect to join the heavenly family soon, and as temperance is one of the requirements to join them, I make it a sacred duty to live it. And when I remember that intemperance has caused four fifths of all the sorrow and suffering and crime in the world, I shun it as I would a viper. How I should like to see the curse banished from the earth! ‘Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.’

“I don't understand how any man with a spark of human nature can deal out this health-destroying, soul-cursing, life-killing stuff, when he ought to know that he must give account in the day of judgment for every act of his life. We are commanded by our Creator to love God with all the heart, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This is the law by which we are all to be judged.

“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come. . . . and he shall send Jesus.' ‘Be ye reconciled to God.’”