The True Temperance Standard.
By C. D. Mack
It is not enough that we pledge to abstain from the use of alcohol “as a beverage!” Our Saviour long since taught that “a house divided against itself cannot stand, and if Satan cast out Satan, how shall then his kingdom stand?” The Evil One knows the truth of this, and still has looked down upon all this hue and cry, this flourish of trumpets along the lines of the temperance armies, with supreme indifference. So long as we aim our guns away from the drug store he does not care how loudly we war. With that he can make and remake drunkards faster than our best efforts can unmake them. He knows that so long as man looks upon alcohol as a friend in need (and who does not?), his position is safe. So long as we carry the odor of alcohol upon us, is there any hope? So long as we resort to the use of it in our ailments, is there any hope of the temperance cause? Need we expect to induce the people to cease drinking, or the rum seller to abandon the traffic? More: would it be for the best to close up all the liquor stores? Would it not at times cause a slight inconvenience to ourselves? If we must use alcohol in our sickness, can we, with any degree of propriety, ask the common drinker to abandon the use of it in his ailments? He does no more—in principle—than we. He loves it, looks on it as a “friend in need.” Our tippler bought his dram at the liquor-store end of a grocery; we bought ours at the rum-hole end of a drug store. That's the difference. Oh! if we are going to take hold of this gigantic evil to crush it out, if we intend to grapple with this desperate presence, if we mean to rid the world of the crime of intemperance, why not quit this half-hearted basswood temperance movement, and show the grip and sinews and daring of men. I do not claim that temperance workers are indifferent; it is not the lack of grace that makes the reform move so slowly. It is not because efforts are not made to destroy intemperance; it is because our efforts are made in the wrong direction, because we have been taught wrong, have believed wrong! Among the most active human agencies in this work of ruin, are our family physicians. They perform the fatal work of administering to all classes from infancy to gray-haired age; laying foundations for appetites that drag their victims down through all the sorrowful ways of the drunkard, again renewing a once conquered habit, and so sending the poor victim with swift speed down the wild, dark whirlpool of death. But most of all is the teaching that this withering curse, this scathing blight upon all living things, this demon of the glass “is essential to human life.” This doctrine has been the guiding star that has signaled on the host of Satan in all ages. This dark untruth has been a masked battery from which he has swept the ranks of humanity throughout the world. The physician is not alone in his work. Side by side with him stands the distiller, the brewer, the wholesale trader and the common rum seller. They are all in one firm; all gather sheaves from one harvest field; all draw their pay at one bank. We believe there is no man entirely bad. And as we love to linger in the warm sunlight and drink in the glad joyfulness from the sparkling eye of friendship, avoiding the gloom, the deformed and the cold look of hatred, so we like best to hold up to view the better qualities of our fellow-men; and as they are good and true, we love them; as they are wise and brave, we honor them; as they are unfortunate, we mourn for them. But as they are devilish, we oppose them. There is love for their humanity, honor for their wisdom, tears for their sorrows, but death for their avarice. I am not intending to give hard names to any of these gentlemen whom Satan is making use of in this way. I do not even wish to dwell upon their crime. I would that I could gather up all the living victims of their avarice and let them see the ruin they have wrought. I would that I had some means of estimating the sense of shame and degradation, the destitution, the heart-aches and the nameless agonies they have produced. Then could I lift the veil which hides from us the damned in hell—gathered there by their agency; then would I leave them to their conscience and to God. Our temperance armies are virtually arrayed against these men, more—they are arrayed against the powers of darkness. In this conflict, the interests and hopes of the world are in their keeping. If we are true to this great trust, true to ourselves, and faithful to the interest of mankind, in due time the glad news will be proclaimed: “Alcohol is conquered.”—C. D. Mack, in Golden Censer.