p. 10 | THE DRINK CURSE by Rev. H. C. Minton, D.D.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 1, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 13.

THE DRINK CURSE.

By Rev. H. C. Minton, D.D.

The drink curse is the wholesale blight of the human race. It is the black demon that strikes death on every side. It threatens Christian nations and heathen nations alike with that damnation of body and soul which means death in the life that now is and death in the life that is to come. No Christian pulpit is worth the name whose utterances are not clear and persistent and consistent in behalf of the work of Christian temperance. Any church is disloyal to its Lord, untrue to its trust, and unfaithful to its opportunity, unless it not only says, “God speed the temperance cause,” but also counts itself a magnificent temperance society. Christianity is itself an offense and a sham if it is not a mighty courage, a tremendous moral force for the throttling and killing of this monster. The Son of man is come to seek and to save the lost; but there is no broader and smoother and more frequented way of the lost than that which leads from the whisky saloon.

I have no patience with men who stand off and say, “O, everybody means well; we must be charitable; we are not to judge of motives.” Liquor dealers, as a class, mean nothing on earth but the liquor dealers’ interest, the liquor dealers’ pocket-book. They organize, they plan, they work, they do everything but pray—I don’t believe they pray much—for the success of their man-killing, nefarious craft. I do not believe in the sin of intemperance, even in fighting the drink traffic and the drink habit; I would not abuse or debase the pulpit by calling any class of my fellow-citizens in the community hard names; but this is the simple fact, their own journals and press organs take no pains to disguise and conceal it, and we may as well recognize and realize that there is in the community a strong, stalwart, stubborn, and well-organized element that absolutely plans for that which in effect curses society, cuts down noble lives, loots households of love and cheer, multiplies widows and orphans, blights happy homes, and smears the face of our beloved land with the slimy trail of this deadly serpent. May he forgive our moderation, may he forgive our indifference and our oily polite nothings in speaking about, and in working against, this awful sin and crime of intemperance.—Rev. H. C. Minton, D.D., in Pacific Ensign.