THE GREED OF THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC.
The liquor traffic is Satan’s two-edged sword; it destroys both the dealer and the customer. Satan has a penchant for destroying; “as a roaring lion, he walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” For this reason we are enjoined to “be sober, be vigilant.” I Peter 5: 8. Another significant warning is, “Wo to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.” Rev. 12: 12. The strong drink evil is this adversary’s most effective implement of destruction. It goes steadily and persistently, night and day, and under all manner of garbs. It reaches the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the learned and the unlearned. As Satan is a destroyer, so his chief agent, the liquor dealer, partakes of his nature. He deems it an injury if the law undertakes to protect any class from his subtle attacks. He resists the law that would prevent his beguiling the poor laborer out of the hard-earned means so much needed for the support of wife and children. He resists the law that would keep the youth of minor age out of his den. And now the dealers in alcoholic beverages declare themselves and their business outraged because Judge Emmons, of Boston, has decided against the practise of selling liquors to women in public saloons. Thus the insatiate greed that attaches to this implement of destruction will brook no restriction, will regard no barriers, tho they be reared to protect the peace of the family, the virtue of women, or the innocence of children. But there is an ordinance that the rumseller will have to meet at the bar of the Supreme Court of the universe, whose penalty can not be set aside: “Wo unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness.” Hab. 2: 15.