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Temperance in the Home

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 17, 1907

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 84, No. 42.

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Temperance in the Home

By Augusta C. Bainbridge

What Shall We Drink?

AUGUSTA C. BAINBRIDGE
“The drink of flowers, Distilled in bowers, Is just the drink for you.”
“When a person is thirsty, he wants a drink, and I’d like to know what he is to drink,” said Ned to Cousin Flora.
“Well, Ned, you have answered your own question, if you only knew it.”
“How?”
“You said, ‘When a person is thirsty, he wants a drink,’ and of course you mean that you want to get rid of your thirst by drinking something, don’t you?”
“Well, yes; what then?”
“The thing you drink must take away thirst; and there is only one thing in all the world that quenches thirst, and that is water. The cleaner, the purer, it is, the sooner it quenches thirst. Many drinks are used to quench thirst, but some only add to it. I know what you are thinking of. I saw that large blue and gold sign down by the new store, with that foaming glass pictured on it. And I saw quite a number of boys standing around, and peeping in, and talking, and edging off and coming back. Why do you suppose that sign, ‘Thirsty? Take a drink!’ is there?”
“Because hot weather is here, and we are all of us thirsty and looking for something to drink.”
“Yes, and I’ll tell you this; that sign will deceive many, especially boys; but you don’t need to be one of them.”
“Why?”
“Because you know that water quenches thirst, and beer only makes one more thirsty.”
“I wonder why that is.”
“Because water was made by Him who made the human body, and he always makes everything to match. Water is a natural drink, and thirst is a natural condition of a human being, especially on a warm day; and one just fits the other.”
“I suppose that is so.”
“Of course it is. Water cools the mouth and the throat, as it passes into the stomach. It dissolves the food, and it enters the blood, carrying nourishment with it, for you know that our blood is about three fourths water. When you drink it, your thirst is gone. It does its work; so you see you have answered your own question—a drink, a natural drink, quenches thirst.”
“Do not other drinks, like beer and wine, quench thirst?”
“Just think a minute; when your thirst is quenched, it is really gone, and you don’t want to drink any more; is not that so?”
“Yes, that’s so.”
“But when you drink beer or wine, you always want more and more and more; what does that prove?”
“That it does not quench thirst, of course; but why is that?”
“Because of the alcohol that is in these drinks; and one of the dangerous and most peculiar properties of alcohol is that it creates a craving or unnatural desire for itself.”
“I don’t see why that is.”
“No more does any one else, but we all know that it is a fact. Alcohol is the product of decay, and hence a poison, and all poisons have their peculiar properties, and that is one of the properties, or effects, of alcohol.”
“What a lot of sense there is in natural things!”
“Of course; now tell me why anything with alcohol in it is not a natural drink.”
“It was not made a part of our bodies, like water.”
“Good! go on.”
“It smells bad, and it tastes bad, and it burns the mouth and throat, and does not quench thirst.”
“Very good! what else?”
“It makes one sick, and more thirsty, besides hardening the food that ought to be dissolved.”
“There, that will do for to-day. Now go and tell all you have learned to all the boys you know, and you may win out ahead of the new sign. Who knows! You can try.”
Oakland, Cal.