A Legacy of Evil

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 7, 1909

STRIKING testimony to the curse of even moderate indulgence in alcoholic drink is borne by a writer in the Cosmopolitan, who says:—

In a record of ten families in which the parents were moderate drinkers, it was recently found that of the fifty-seven children born of the unions, twenty-five died in the first few weeks, six were idiots, five undergrown, five had epilepsy, five suffered from lesser diseases which could be traced to the influence of alcohol, and of the whole number only eleven were considered normal. In the same locality a similar record was made of ten families in which both parents were temperate. Here it was found that five of the children died in the first few weeks, four suffered from slight diseases which were curable, two suffered from “inborn defects,” and the large proportion of fifty out of sixty-one were normal.

Only the records of the last day will reveal the terrible effects of intemperance on the human family. It saps the vital energies, debauches the moral nature, ruins the home, corrupts society, menaces the state. It produces paupers and imbeciles, and fills our state prisons and almshouses. Every Christian has a duty to set his face resolutely against this tide of evil.