Moderate Drinking by Sol.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 4, 1871

Moderate Drinking.

By Sol.

Permit me to illustrate my views of moderate drinking, by relating substantially a thrilling scene which occurred in a neighboring town in a neighboring State, while the people were gathered together to discuss the merits of the license question, and decide informally whether neighbors should any longer be permitted to destroy each other by vending alcoholic poisons.

The town had suffered greatly from the sale and use of intoxicating liquors. The leading influences were opposed to total abstinence. At the meeting, the clergyman, a deacon, and the physician, were present, and were all in favor of continuing the custom of license—all in favor of permitting a few men of high moral character to sell alcohol—for they all agreed that alcohol in moderation, when used as a beverage, was a good creature of God, and also to restrict the sale or moderate use, was an unjust interference with human liberty, and a reflection upon the benevolence of the Almighty. They all united in the belief that in the use of alcohol as a beverage, excess alone was to be avoided.

The feeling appeared to be all one way, when a single teetotaler, who was present by accident, but who had been a former resident of the town, begged leave to differ from the speakers who had preceded him. He entered into a history of the village from its earliest settlement; he called the attention of the assembly to the desolation moderate drinking had brought upon families and individuals; he pointed to the poor-house, the prison-house, and the grave-yard, for its numerous victims; he urged the people by every consideration of mercy, to let down the flood gates, and prevent, as far as possible, the continued desolation of families, by the moderate use of alcohol. But all would not do. The arguments of the clergyman, the deacon, and the physician, backed by station, learning, and influence, were too much for the single teetotaler. No one arose to continue the discussion or support him, and the president of the meeting was about to put the question when all at once there arose from one corner of the room a miserable female. She was thinly clad, and her appearance indicated the utmost wretchedness, and that her moral career was almost closed. After a moment of silence, and all eyes being fixed upon her, she stretched her attenuated body to its utmost height, then her long arms to their greatest length, and raising her voice to a shrill pitch, she called upon all to look upon her. “Yes!” she said, “look upon me, and then hear me. All that the last speaker has said relative to moderate drinking, as being the father of drunkenness, is true. All practice, all experience, declare its truth. All drinking of alcoholic poison, as a beverage, in health, is excess. Look upon me. You all know me, or once did. You all know that I was once the mistress of the best farm in this town. You all know, too, I once had one of the best—the most devoted, of husbands. You all know I had five noble-hearted, industrious boys. Where are they now? Doctor, where are they now? You all know. You all know they all lay in a row, side by side, in yonder church-yard; all—every one of them—filling the drunkard’s grave! They were all taught that moderate drinking was safe—excess alone ought to be avoided; and they never acknowledged excess. They quoted you, and you, and you, as authority, pointing with her shred of a finger to the priest, deacon, and doctor. They thought themselves safe under such teachers. But I saw the gradual change coming over my family and prospects, with dismay and horror; I felt we were all to be overwhelmed in one common ruin; I tried to ward off the blow; I tried to break the spell—the delusive spell, in which the idea of the benefits of moderate drinking had involved my husband and sons; I begged, I prayed, but the odds were greatly against me. The priest said the poison that was destroying my husband and boys was a good creature of God; the deacon, who sits under the pulpit there, and took our farm to pay his rum bills, sold them the poison; the physician said that a little was good, and excess ought to be avoided. My poor husband and my dear boys fell into the snare, and one after another was conveyed to the dishonored grave of the drunkard. Now look at me again—you probably see me for the last time—my sand is almost run. I have dragged my exhausted frame from my present abode—your poor-house—to warn you all—to warn you, deacon—to warn you, false teacher of God’s word”—and with her arms high flung, and her tall form stretched to its utmost, and her voice raised to an unearthly pitch, she exclaimed, “I shall soon stand before the judgment-seat of God—I shall meet you there, ye false guides, and be a swift witness against you all.” The miserable female vanished, a dead silence pervaded the assembly. The priest, deacon, and physician, hung their heads. The president of the meeting put the question: Shall we have any more licenses to sell alcoholic poisons, to be drunk as a beverage? The response was unanimous—No! Friends of humanity everywhere, what would have been your verdict had you been there?—Sol.