Temperance by W. N. Glenn

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 20, 1881

Temperance.

By W. N. Glenn

REFORMERS AND REFORM.

BY W. N. GLENN.

[Conclusion of an essay read before the Oakland Health and Temperance Society.]

THE world is full of so-called reformers; what it needs is reform. There is no lack of teachers and teaching; the necessity is of proper teaching and truth. In its popular, unmeaning sense, reform is the great clamor of the age; and sin fat-tens upon the cry, while evil men and seducers wax worse and worse, and Satan gloats over the deceptions of the self-styled and world-lauded re-formers.

Great political reforms are little else than strifes for power, position, and money; and po-litical revolutions have been merely the over-turning of one evil that another might grow upon its ruins—thus revolving and revolving in ceaseless rounds until the iniquity of the race shall have become full.

And religious reform. What a marvelous mix-ture has been compounded under this name. Here and there upon the stream of time has risen a good and true reformer, who dared to re-sist the popular current, point out error, and plead for truth and right. Nobly they did their duty, amid persecutions and self-sacrifice. But how they might blush with confusion could they look back upon the havoc their successors have made of their work—the unintelligible mummery into which their plain doctrines have been trans-formed. How their teeth would set on edge could they but taste the unnatural fruit of the graftings that have been set in their plantings. The hundreds of divisions in the body that was enjoined by its founder to be one, tell the story of false reform in this respect.

And now we will take a glance at temperance reform. It is a noble cause, but much of the effort in that direction has been void of lasting effect because of its superficial character. Until quite a recent date this warfare has been con-ducted on the principle that the excessive use of alcoholic beverages is all there is of intemper-ance. Orders have been founded; societies or-ganized; periodicals established; pledges circu-lated; legislative bodies memorialized; laws passed; paid lecturers sent upon rambling missions; sa-loons bombarded with the prayers of enthusiastic women; and many other artifices brought into action,—all based upon the error that abstinence from alcohol is temperance; that rum is the root of all evil. The truth is, this feature of intem-perance is not a root, it is merely the legitimate fruit of other evils in which so-called temperance people indulge with impunity—creating, impart-ing, and fostering the tastes and habits which end in alcohol.

But why wonder that intemperance increases with all the combined efforts against it? How can the unconsecrated man be a true, effectual reformer? I have known the paid lecturer, after pouring from the rostrum volleys of pleadings before the unfortunate victims, and anathemas upon the cause of their ruin, go directly to the alluring saloon and spend hours and dollars at the billiard-table and in cigars, giving material aid and comfort to the enemy he was paid to de-nounce. While temperance laborers and advo-cates, individuals and families, continue by their best efforts to merely lop off the branches from the great tree of intemperance, and by their lives and means persist in watering the roots, is it any wonder it thrives under the treatment?

Reform in its true sense is not a spasmodic effort with a temporary effect; it is an undying principle with an eternal purpose. There is a difference between reform and special hobbies. Reform contemplates the general good of all; the hobby may so design, but it oftener cloaks a selfish purpose.

Reform is based upon wisdom and goodness, and its process is a relentless war upon evil; hence its devotees must be pure-minded, upright, unselfish. As the true scientist is constantly overturning the pet theories of speculators, so the true reformer must of necessity often run counter to the course of the hobby-rider.

Talk is not reform; nor is conviction, nor reso-lution, nor even penitence. These are but start-ing-points. Thousands arrive at these, but never actually embark upon the voyage of reform; and thousands more journey awhile to fall by the way and lose all. It is a toilsome voyage, especially for those who long defer the undertaking. It is a journey that ends not while temptation lasts. The constant, silent act of putting away evil and cleaving to that which is good—this is reform. Real, lasting, effectual reform is Heaven-born; and no reformer is worthy of the name whose anchor is not planted in the Rock of Ages.

Says an inspired writer: “Every one that strives for the mastery is temperate in all things.” And I am glad that in our day have been raised up consecrated reformers, having this principle for a standard; and societies have been inaugurated, and pledges prepared that aim at the root of intemperance. Shall we unite with them in full sympathy of action, or shall we do as the masses have done in the past—look on their efforts with indifference, or at best give nominal assent to their teachings without practical adop-tion? Why not all share alike the labors and profits of this good work. Let us inscribe upon our banners, and upon our lives, this talisman, “Temperance in all things;” then we will have reform indeed—a reform whose sequel will be happiness, and whose influence will win favor and power by its consistent example.