WHAT IS TEMPERANCE?

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 14, 1881

WHAT IS TEMPERANCE?

Dr. F. R. Lees, whom we regard as Chancellor Crosby's equal in linguistic attainments, and his superior as a logician, says: “The English word ‘temperance’ is derived directly from the Latin temperantia, the root of which, as of tempus, templum, is found in the Greek temno, tempo, ‘to cut off.’ Hence, temperantia (temperance), as a virtue, is the cutting off of that which ought not to be retained—self-restraint from, not in, the use of whatever is pernicious, useless, or dangerous. This etymology is an adequate vindication of the application of the word ‘temperance’ to the practice of abstinence from all intoxicating liquors, as being a cutting off of those articles of diet that are best put away; and as the swiftest, simplest, and only effectual method of cutting off the intemperance that devastates the land.”