HOW TEMPERANCE WOULD HELP TRANSFORM THE EARTH.
By Amos R. Wells
The story is told of a toper who stayed very late one night in a saloon. “Send that fellow home,” said the saloon-keeper’s wife to her husband. “No, never mind,” was the answer; “he is shingling our roof for us.” These words happened to be heard by the sot, who said nothing, but soon went home. Several weeks later the saloon-keeper met him on the street. “Well, Jack, why haven’t we seen anything of you lately?” “Because nowadays I’m shingling my own roof.” That is one way in which temperance would help transform the world; it would shingle the right roofs. It would put silk on the back of the laborer’s wife, not the saloon-keeper’s. It would feed his family, send his children to school, and build up a bank account for him. Sir Isaac Newton well said, “I will not beget necessities for myself.” The successful life is the independent life, but a tippler soon becomes a slave. He thinks his hands are not so strong without his morning drink, but that drink is palsying every muscle. He thinks his nerves are not so keen without it, or his mind so clear, while all the time it is deadening his nervous system and befuddling his intellect. Work everywhere would be better done without alcohol, newspapers be edited better, lawyer’s pleas be more pleasant, tables be better made, and horses better shod. Did you ever hear of a situation where the fact of a man’s drinking moderately would recommend him? If even the most strenuous advocate of “personal liberty” were “out of a job” and seeking one, would he say to the desired employer, “One of my qualifications is that I am a moderate drinker”? However much employers may drink, and whatever aid they may pretend to receive from stimulants, they always give themselves the lie by preferring sober employees. John Wesley, whose vigorous temperance teaching did so much for England, even gave up tea-drinking, about the middle of his life, that he might not be the slave of any habit. After three or four days of severe headache, he conquered his body in that respect, and concluded that the omission of that beverage was a decided gain to his health. When eighty-four, he declared that for twelve years he had not felt such a sensation as weariness, and he attained the excellent age of eighty-seven. As a matter of contrast, pass down the streets of any city and look in at the saloon windows (providing you have the wise law abolishing screens). You will see no gray hairs in those places. Every bartender and every drinker will be a young man. Why is this? After all, however, the severest perils of intemperance are in the realm of the soul. No drunkard can enter heaven. No drunkard will want to enter heaven. While, on the contrary, a temperate life is a life held close to God. As Hannah More wrote:— “He who can guard ’gainst the low baits of sense
Will find Temptation’s arrows hurtless strike
Against the brazen shield of Temperance.
For ’tis the inferior appetites enthrall
The man, and quench the immortal light within him;
The senses take the soul an easy prey,
And sink the imprisoned spirit into brute.”