A CALL FOR TEMPERANCE WORK.
By G.
At the close of the general meeting of the Society of Friends, recently held in Indianapolis, a call was issued to the various Christian bodies in the United States to unite in practical effort against the evils of the liquor traffic. The call invites the governing bodies of the various denominations of Christians in the United States to appoint delegates to represent them in a conference to be held in the city of Washington, to begin on the second Wednesday of March, in the year 1906. Incidentally this is a notification to the liquor traffic that, if the various denominations respond to the call, in three years and four months from this time there will be the beginning of a proposed united effort of Christians against its ravages. King Alcohol will hardly be much frightened at this declaration of war. However, the call contains a statement of fact that Christians would do well to consider. We copy the following pointed extract:— We are confident that the consensus of opinion of professed Christians of our land is opposed to the evils of the liquor traffic, and we find a want of co-operation in practical effort to give effect to this opposition because none of the propositions heretofore made has met the approval of the general judgment of Christian people. We recognize that this is the case in our own body, and we believe it is likewise true of others. As a result, the church exerts far less influence than it should to prevent the evils produced by this great cause of poverty and crime, and which also is a most serious obstacle to the spread of the Gospel. There is no doubt that the compromising attitude of the church toward the liquor traffic is one of the great obstacles in the way of the Gospel message. This has been illustrated over and over in the limitation of church temperance effort to the one purpose of securing temperance on Sunday. In the large cities the ideal condition of temperance is closing saloons on Sunday. When this fails, the impression seems to prevail that nothing else can be done. The work must always begin with a crusade for Sunday closing, and if that fails the effort practically ends there. Thus in so many instances it develops that the nominal temperance effort has no real temperance sentiment behind it; the spirit of the movement being the spirit of enforced Sunday observance. Every move of that kind is an encouragement to the liquor traffic to the extent that it acknowledges the legitimacy of the business on every other day of the week, especially where there is no united church opposition to legalizing the trade as other trades are legalized and recognized. Often and in divers places we hear of campaigns to secure high license for saloons, and usually the churches are practically united in the endeavor. They look upon it as a kind of punishment to the evil-doers, but they do not reflect that it never yet restricted the amount of liquors sold and consumed. The higher the license the more the liquor business contributes to the public expense, and the more indispensable it is thought to be from the standpoint of the commonwealth. But it is upon just such impracticable issues as these that the churches usually unite in the name of temperance. A few years ago in this city the question of prohibition was submitted to the popular vote. The church leaders were very certain they could carry the Sunday-closing issue, but they were equally certain that they could not carry prohibition,—and they didn’t. Why?—Because Sunday closing was only a Sunday-observance measure, designed as an opening wedge for closing everything else, while prohibition was a temperance measure—just that, no more, no less. Thus it was demonstrated that the denominations were willing to unite for enforced Sunday observance, but not for practical temperance work. The call of the Society of Friends is correct in its statement of conditions, and the need for united effort; but its proposition gives too much grace to the evil it is intended to combat. All the liquor element ever asks is postponement of the time for effective opposition. Yet it would be practically impossible for all the governing bodies of the various denominations to act sooner. It is time just now for all Christians to unite as one man, by precept and example, to discountenance not only the liquor traffic itself, but everything that works toward enlarging its field of operations. All can unite in the education of the people, especially the youth, against the habits and the institutions that tend to create appetite for intoxicants, or that tend to lead them into temptation. With all the profession of Christianity in this country, there ought to be sufficient influence to refuse license for the continuance of a traffic that is admitted to be the direct cause of the greater portion of the crime committed in the land. It would be a great help in keeping the evil thing in disgrace, in calling the attention of the unwary to its innate venality, if it were but outlawed, and thus discredited by the authorities. A union of Christian people to this end could accomplish a great work. But the longer it is delayed, the stronger the monster becomes—in the State, in the church, and in society in general.