Temperance | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Jun 14, 1883

Temperance.

False Ideas of Liberty.

SUPPOSE before the missionaries went to the Fiji Islands, a man from that island had drifted over and located in the city of Des Moines. You recollect that the Fiji Islanders were cannibals. Four missionaries went there the first time. They preached the first time and then the natives got mad, killed three of them, roasted and ate them. The other one they didn't eat because he chewed tobacco. I admire their taste. Well, before that period, suppose this Fiji Islander had come. Now, he is a different man from you. His teeth are different, his head is especially different He has different passions, different appetites, different ideas. For a time he retains his inclinations, but at last, the old appetite in him being aroused, he makes a raid on your home, catches your fat baby boy, kills him, dresses him, cooks him, and puts him on the table for a meal. You get your shotgun and go up to interview him. Don't kill him on sight. When you see what he is doing, you say: "What have you done?"

"Why," he says, "Nothing, only killed a boy."

"But you have committed murder."

He says, "I don't understand."

"Why, you have killed this child. You had no right to kill him. You have no right to do what you are doing."

"I thought this was a free country!" he exclaims.

"It is a free country, but it is not a free country to commit murder in."

"But," he says, "I used to eat babies over in the Fiji Islands. Have not I got a right to eat them here?"

What would be the answer? "Sir, the government of the United States is not the government of the Fiji Islands. Your social customs have developed your form of government, our social customs developed our form of government. When you leave that government you must leave every custom that is inimical to this government or destructive to its institutions, for we have no desire to have introduced here the customs that propagated the governments of your native island."

Suppose the ex-Khedive of Egypt, when he was desposed, instead of moving to Italy, had moved over here with his wives and children and gone to housekeeping in Des Moines. An officer takes him by the shoulder and says, "Hold on, sir, what are you doing?"

"I am keeping house."

"You are my prisoner."

"What for?"

"Bigamy."

"What is bigamy?"

"Having more than one wife."

"I thought this was a free country!"

"It is."

"I used to have these wives in Egypt. Have not I the right to have them here?"

What would you say to him? "Sir, this government is a different government from the government of Egypt. This government is a product of our social institutions. Consequently when you come to this country you must leave every custom that would be injurious to the welfare of this country and the perpetuity of this government." The idea that American freedom means universal license is the dangerous idea in this country.

In my State a young woman recently from Europe was brought into our court charged with the murder of her infant child. When the indictment was read, and she was asked, through an interpreter, to plead, her answer was: "I thought this was a free country."

The idea that this country has no forms, no customs, no laws, no institutions, which immigrants are bound to respect; that men have the right to come here and follow any customs, any ideas, any theories, and any practices, is an idea utterly antagonistic to American institutions, and if carried out will ultimately build on the chaos of our liberties the worst despotism that the world ever saw. —The People vs. the Liquor Traffic.

IN reply to addresses of welcome from various temperance societies in the north of England, Bishop Wilberforce, of Newcastle, said that he is thankful every day that he is a total abstainer. He is better in health, lighter in head, and heavier in purse for it.