Temperance and the Church.
Rev. T. L. CUYLER writes as follows to the Christian at Work. His words are worthy of thoughtful consideration: There is really one ugly fact which we as Christians must not ignore—either in our conventions or in our churches—and this ugly fact is, that tippling is increasing frightfully in the community, and that drunkenness is making inroads into our congregations, is blackening some names on our church rolls. I do not believe there is a church of any considerable size in our country which does not contain some members who are to-day endangering themselves by tampering with strong drink. “If some of our members do not stop drinking we shall have to discipline them,” said the deacon of a prominent church to me lately. The deepest anxiety I feel for several members of my own large flock, is that they may fall under the dominion of that ensnaring cup “which is a mocker,” and which upsets a Christian’s brain just as soon as any other man’s. Some are endangering themselves by using ale or wine every day as a medicine. Others are tempted to take it in the chop-houses and the restaurants. “Nearly every gentleman around me calls for liquor with his dinner,” was the testimony of one of my church officers to me last week. And so the drinking usages and the curse of drunkenness are eating their way into social parties, into our congregations, and too often into the ranks of the communicants at the Lord’s table. I could give facts that would astound those who never look “under the123crust,” and see what the devil is about, with his “sapping and mining” apparatus. Our Christian conventions ought to ventilate this important question with thoroughness, and yet with prayerful tenderness and wisdom. It is not a pleasant topic to handle, but it must be handled. Some of the time spent in talking about the sweetness of “Christian union” had better be given to a discussion of that bitterness of death which wine and whisky are causing in every social circle. This whole work of saving men and women from drunkenness belongs to the followers of Christ. They have no more business to leave it to outside organizations, to “orders” and lodges,” and other benevolent societies, than they have to leave the care of all God’s poor to police officers or keepers of almshouses. Every Christian church ought to have a temperance wheel in its machinery as much as a Sunday-school wheel. Every minister ought to preach and to practice abstinence from the social glass. If alcoholic drinks poison the body and endanger the soul, then the physical and spiritual effects of strong drink ought to be carefully explained from the pulpit. Teachers ought to do this, too in the Sunday-school. The temperance pledge might be wisely used in every class where the children are old enough to understand its force and binding consequences. I have always thanked God that I signed a total abstinence pledge in childhood. It kept me from tampering with the “hot toddy” in college, and from “taking just a little” when I went to a wedding or a dinner party. —Sabbath Recorder.