Temperance and Health by Lyman Abbott

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 18, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 11.

Temperance and Health.

By Lyman Abbott

TEMPERANCE, in the Scripture use of that term, is a much broader and deeper word than in our modern use of it. We might expect that with enlarged life, words would take on an enlarged meaning; in fact, the history of language shows that spiritual words grow narrower rather than broader, and shallower rather than deeper. Faith, which in the New Testament writings signifies the profoundest spiritual experience, has come oftentimes simply to mean an intellectual opinion. Charity, the warmest word in the New Testament, has been so chilled in the progress of time that “cold as charity” has become a proverb. And temperance, which in its original import signifies the power of self-restraint, the entire mastership of the animal nature by the moral and spiritual, has come to mean simply abstinence from intoxicating liquors. Even in its most restricted sense, temperance should mean more than that. The virtue of temperance should carry with it simplicity in life and daily self-denial. It is the reverse of luxury and the gratification of the flesh; it is, to use Paul’s phrase, “keeping the body under,” or, to use the child’s paraphrase, “keeping the soul on top.”

The story of Daniel at the court of Babylon furnishes out of experience an answer to the only argument which has even any speciousness in it in favor of what is commonly termed “high living.” The king appointed a luxurious table for the children of Israel who were to stand before him. Daniel requested permission to abstain from this luxurious table, and live on a vegetable diet and on water. The eunuch objected. This asceticism, he said, will impair your health and good looks, and so endanger my life. Try us, replied Daniel, for ten days, and see what is the result. This seemed reasonable, and the eunuch consented; and at the end of ten days they appeared better in health and in countenance than all those who fed at the king’s table.

The experience of Daniel is confirmed by the experience of the world. The water-drinkers are healthier and stronger, do more work, sleep more soundly, endure more fatigue, and are less liable to disease, than the moderate drinkers. My readers will remember the experience of Franklin in England, drinking his water, while his fellow-workmen drank their six pints of beer, and defended their course by the argument that they needed strong beer to make them strong. He refuted their theory by carrying two forms of type, one in each hand, up the stairs; a feat which none of the old beer-drinkers could perform. Let any reader of these lines run in mind over the circle of his acquaintances, and see how many he can remember whose health appears to him to have been impaired by simple living and by water-drinking, on the one hand, and how many he can enumerate who have impaired their vital forces, or even absolutely incapacitated themselves for their life-work, by the use of wine and beer.

A few years ago Mr. Arthur Reade brought together a large number of letters from men of letters and science, giving the results of their personal experience and observation in respect to the effect on the brain and the intellectual life of the use of wine and tobacco. There was a considerable difference of opinion as to the use of tobacco, a number holding that it was serviceable as a means of rest; but there was an almost unanimous testimony that the use of alcohol and stimulants was either absolutely injurious or simply non-serviceable. Mr. Reade embodied the results of the letters in these declarations: 1. Alcohol and tobacco are of no value to a healthy student; 2. The most vigorous thinkers and head-workers abstain from both stimulants; 3. Those who have tried both moderation and total abstinence find the latter the most healthful practice.

Mr. Gustafson, in “The Foundation of Death,” gives the statistics of some English life-insurance companies. These show a considerable less death-rate among the total abstainers than among moderate drinkers; and some of the life-insurance companies charge a materially less premium to the total abstainer. Thus experience on a large scale, and scientifically formulated, appears to bear out the experience of Daniel, that water-drinking is better for health than wine-drinking.

If from the result of extended observation we turn to a scientific consideration of the physiological effects of alcohol on the human body, observation is sustained and confirmed by analysis. The human body is constantly undergoing destruction and repair. Every vital activity, whether of mind, brain, or muscle, destroys some tissue, which must be carried away and replaced by new tissue. In order that vitality be maintained, a certain specific temperature of the body must be maintained. The consumption of tissue maintains it. Thus the operations of vitality in the human body may be compared to those of a furnace in a dwelling-house. New coal must be put upon the fire, and as it is burned out the ashes must be removed. That body is in the healthiest condition in which this process of combustion is going on in the most normal manner; in which the twofold process of destruction and repair suffers the least possible hindrance.