AN ACKNOWLEDGED FAILURE.
By W. N. G.
THERE are many evidences that Satan is wily enough to head off all the man-made schemes for moral reform. An illustration is found in the popular efforts at temperance legislation, and especially in the efforts to enforce a nominal Sunday observance under the guise of temperance. The Brooks High License Law of Pennsylvania was thought to be a masterpiece in the way of temperance reform, and some prominent advocates of civil-law morality undertook to work a great reformation in Philadelphia by forcing the execution of that measure. The result is given in the New York Christian Advocate of July 22, by one of the most ardent advocates of reform along such lines, Dr. Charles Roads. Here is what he says:— The Brooks High License law of Pennsylvania was rigorously applied in Philadelphia in its first year, 1889, by four judges sitting as the License Court. They reduced the number of saloons from fifty-five hundred to sixteen hundred, and inspired such terror concerning violations of the law in the sixteen hundred that in one particular—that of suppressing Sunday selling—there is practically complete success. These apparent gains, however, are offset by a steady and alarmingly accelerating increase in the consumption of beer and distilled liquors, which Internal Revenue returns show to be far beyond the growth of population; by the great extension of the bottling business, which by energetic peddling has introduced beer into tens of thousands of homes hitherto free from it, and where now, as we know by many inquiries, it is freely given to the children; by young men's clubs, notoriously organized for drinking purposes, becoming very numerous and liberally furnished with all sorts of drinks on Saturday afternoons, which by the evasions of monthly dues are really Sunday saloons, thronged with men and boys all day. Besides these, there are still hundreds of “speak-easies,” or places selling more or less liquor without license. Coming from such an authority as Dr. Roads, one would naturally suppose that men who persistently cling to such delusions in the matter of moral reform would learn some lessons as to the utter futility of such measures. Especially would we suppose that the well-meaning doctor would himself learn something practical from his own observations. But he seems to follow the same ineffectual tactics with as much zeal as tho he had not himself demonstrated their utter failure. He claims that the suppression of Sunday selling is “practically a complete success,” yet there is “a steady and alarmingly accelerating increase in the consumption of beer and distilled liquors.” Then, we ask, What becomes of the much-lauded Sunday-closing scheme? But Dr. Roads, who is a great “Christian citizenship” enthusiast (and enforced Sunday observance is a prominent goal of this Christian citizenship movement), not only states the fact of the Sunday-closing failure in Philadelphia, but he shows the logic of the failure. Yes, he points out how it is worse than a mere failure, even a promoter of increased consumption of “beer and distilled liquors.” By cutting off the saloons, which every one knew to be evil, the licensed liquor traffic assumed a more respectable character, and through the “bottling business” entered the “homes hitherto free from it,” by the tens of thousands, “where it is freely given to the children.” This is a most striking illustration of the practical effects of the “civic righteousness” of which we hear so much in these last days. It is a striking illustration of what becomes, and what must become, of all the efforts of professed Christians to bring about the moral reform of the State by means of civil law, or any other merely human effort. And the most striking feature of the situation is that men who have thus worked out the problem in their own experience will persist in foisting it upon the church as the acme of Christian endeavor. But such is the delusion that must inevitably follow when Christians lay aside the Word of God as a weapon,—the Christian’s sole weapon, offensive and defensive,—and take up in its stead the political methods of the world. “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod.”