A SIGN OF THE TIMES by J. O. Beard

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 29, 1895

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 21, No. 34.

A SIGN OF THE TIMES.

By J. O. Beard

BY J. O. BEARD.

The last fifteen years have been years of active, persistent work on the part of temperance agitators. The work has been of two kinds: First, to secure laws against the liquor traffic, and, secondly, to educate the people as to the nature and effects of alcohol. In the line of legal work, Maine already had a prohibitory law, and Kansas, Iowa, and the two Dakotas put such a law into operation during this period. Washington, also, while a territory tried prohibition for a short time. Also in many other states laws have been enacted that were intended to restrict the traffic in liquid ruin, and especially to keep the youth from forming the awful habit. This work has chiefly been done through the old political parties. But in states where they have refused or hesitated, a prohibition party has been organized, and a national prohibition party has regularly placed its candidates before the people.

In the field of education, careful scientific minds have demonstrated that alcoholic liquor used as a beverage prevents the proper assimilation of food, vitiates the blood in the arteries before it has nourished the system, and deadens the nerve power, and that through these injuries almost every function of the body is deranged and threatened with total paralysis. And, further, economists have shown that upon the taxpayer, in the support of prisons, hospitals, asylums, besides the vast sums given in private charities, while at the same time it decreases the ability to bear those burdens. All these facts have been constantly kept before the people by the printed page and by public speakers.

In many states specially prepared books have been placed in the hands of public-school children, that they might know the physiological effects of alcohol upon the human system. What have been the effects of all this agitation? Have the prohibitory and other laws accomplished what was expected of them? Have the young men of our land been saved from drunkenness by the influences thrown around them and the education given them? If not, why not?

Theories and plans for working are necessary. But before they are persistently followed, it is well to pause long enough to see whether they will produce the desired results,

No doubt some, probably many, have been rescued from the gutter, and many youth have been kept from acquiring the fearful drink habit by the efforts of these ardent workers. That the evil tide has not been stayed, or even checked, but that it has swept on, an ever-increasing flood, is very emphatically shown by the following figures, which are furnished by the Statistical Abstract, as copied by Funk & Wagnalls Co., publishers of the Voice, New York City.

The figures marked gallons include all alcoholic liquors that paid internal revenue, whether distilled or fermented; and the population is the United States official estimate.

Year	Gallons	Population
1878	392,165,242	47,598,000
1893	1,207,731,908	66,826,000

The figures given in tables with these show that the enormous increase has been at a quite uniform rate year by year. But while the population increased less than forty per cent from 1878 to 1893, the consumption of alcoholic liquors from 1878 to 1893 was more than two hundred per cent. In other words, while the population in 1893 is not quite one-half more than what it was in 1878, the number of gallons of liquor used in 1893 is more than three times as great as in 1878.

Truly these figures are enough to appall the most hopeful. And there can be but one way of accounting for this increase, and that is that the hearts of very many have become so hardened by continued gratification of their lustful appetites that they have lost all self-restraint, and indulge in whatever they wish, even though they know while doing so that it will surely work their ruin. Must not such results always follow when men attempt to reform themselves? The leopard can no more change his spots, nor the Ethiopian his skin, than when the question was first asked by the prophet. Jer. 13:23. But especially is it true that such efforts will fail in these last days, when men receive not the love of the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness. 2 Thess. 2:10.

Man has not the power to direct his own steps (Jer. 10:23); therefore, when the sustaining and restraining influence of the Holy Spirit is withdrawn from man, as it is when he rejects the truth and work of God, he is left to be led captive by Satan at his will. Then must we not consider the lack of power to restrain self, the utter inability to refrain from that which is known to be not only dangerous but ruinous, as a marked sign of the rapidly approaching time when the Spirit of God will be entirely withdrawn from the world?