p. 117 | Temperance

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 8, 1883

Temperance.

Temperance Notes.

REV. JUSTIN EDWARDS, D. D., for seven years the secretary of the American Temperance Society, gave the following cases in his fourth annual report in 1831: “In one case a father adopted the plan of using a little ardent spirit every day. He was never intoxicated, and never thought to be in the least intemperate. He only took a little, a very little, because he thought it did him good. For the same reason his children took a little daily, and so did their children. And now no less than forty of his descendants are drunkards or in drunkards' graves. Another man adopted a different plan. He would not use ardent spirits; he would not purchase it, nor would he suffer it to enter his house. He taught his children to treat it as a poison, a mortal poison; and they so taught their children. And now there is not a drunkard among them, nor has one of his descendants ever come to a drunkard's grave.”

For several years there has been in operation in London, under the care of an eminent physician (Dr. Edmunds), a medical institution known as the Temperance Hospital, all patients being treated there without alcohol in any form. Of the many thousands who have received treatment at this hospital during the six years of its existence, not one has been allowed to make use of wine, beer, brandy, or any other alcoholic beverage or liquid. According to the annual reports of the workings of the hospital, the experiment has thus far been a very gratifying success. This would also seem to be indicated by the fact that measures have recently been taken for the enlargement and permanent establishment of the institution. It is not impossible that it may soon be demonstrated that alcohol is altogether useless as a medicine. It is certain, at any rate, that preparations of alcohol are prescribed by physicians much more frequently than necessity demands, and to the immediate as well as remote detriment of their patients.

The prohibitory law now in force in Massachusetts was drafted by Gen. (now Governor-elect) Butler. For a liberal fee he gave to the perfecting of the measure his eminent ability and the skill acquired in his long practice in criminal law. According to The Watchman, he did his work so well, that in a protracted litigation it ran the gauntlet of all the courts up to the highest, and its constitutionality was affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States. When he was a candidate in 1879, he declared that if elected, he would enforce the prohibitory law—meaning of course that he would employ in good faith his executive authority to its fullest extent to give it effect. If our license law can be kept intact, and the towns under their local option will refuse licenses as generally as they have hitherto done, the prohibitory system will be in force in two-thirds of the towns, and a due enforcement of it will be in accord with public opinion, and a great boon to the Commonwealth.

Almost every young man likes the idea of some day “setting up business” for himself. The foolish spendings of many a youth would, if wisely saved, help to give him an independent start. The following illustrates this point: A New Orleans paper tells of a printer who, whenever his fellow-workmen at the case went out to drink beer, put in the savings bank the exact amount he would have spent if he had gone with them to drink. He did this for five years. He then looked at his bank account, and found that he had laid up $521.86. In five years he had not lost a day because of sickness. Three out of five of his fellow-workmen had in the meantime become drunkards. The water-drinker then bought out the printing-office, and in twenty years from the time he began to put by his money, he had laid aside many thousand dollars.

Col. Ingersoll has been sneering at the cost of religion. The total amount given for the support of the churches is about $47,000,000 per annum. The value of the liquors retailed in the United States in 1878 was $715,000,000. The annual contribution for religion per capita was $1.11, for education $2.02, for liquor $17—fifteen times as much to ruin souls through the liquor traffic as to save them through the gospel. Recalling the declaration of Daniel Webster, that no state is great or secure without education and religion, is not the policy suicidal which allows five times as much to make paupers and criminals of the people as is expended in the education of their minds and the salvation of their souls combined? But this is not all. The catalogue of the expense of the liquor traffic needs to be supplemented by at least an equal amount to cover accident, sickness, loss by crime and by police, judicial and penal expenditure. And above all, in terms which no arithmetic can express, there must be added the unutterable misery, the broken hearts and desolated hopes, and blasted names and lost souls. For these there is no computation and no realization short of eternity. For this traffic no Christian man can feel anything but abhorrence.—Selected.