Health and Temperance by J. B. Finch

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

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 44.

Health and Temperance.

By J. B. Finch

A Just Comparison.

WHENEVER you force the beer advocates in this country to first principles they always disavow their connection with the fruits of the traffic, and preface their statement with, "I am a temperance man." Why do they not say, "I am a beer man; I would rather have a boy who would get drunk; I would rather have a wife who would get drunk!" Why do they not stand by their business instead of sneaking and crawling?

Comparisons bring out colors. Compare the traffic with other trades. The liquor men will admit that a minister is as good as a saloon keeper as long as he behaves himself as well. Then write with the propositions already stated, the principle of political economy taught us when we were boys at school: that there are but three ways of getting money or wealth—make it, have it donated to you, steal it. Some would say find it, but you cannot base a principle of political economy on chance. Change the form and it is in this shape: without making it or having it donated to him, any man who obtains wealth is a thief. In honest business every man is bound to render a fair bargain. Although it may be unpopular doctrine in this country, I say I have no sympathy for the accursed thing called sharpness, which justifies lying to a man in a trade and then laughs about the trick; it is no better than stealing. I would respect a man who would steal twenty-five cents from my pocket-book; as much as I would a man who would lie to me in a trade and get it in that way. When I have taken a man's word it hurts my faith in humanity to find my trust betrayed.

You hire a minister, you pay him (that is, I suppose you do). . . . I call the minister up and say to him, "You get money; now, sir, tell the people what you give them for the money they pay you; show them what you give them. Mr. Minister, they do not pay you alone for preaching, although it is pleasant and instructive to listen. They do not pay you to run revivals, though it is a good thing to take the minds of the people away from this world to the future. . . . But, Mr. Minister, you are not living for to-day, for to-morrow, for next week, for next year; will you come up here now and defend your work? We do not want you to defend it by boys or by middle-aged men; we want you to come here by the death-bed of the Christian and tell us, sir, if you will defend your faith there." Would not he come and say, "That is the test I want. I do not want you to try Christianity by the sunshine Christians who work for the Lord on Sunday and the devil the rest of the week; nor by the people who are in the church as an insurance society to keep them from burning after they get on the other side; but I am willing Christianity shall be judged by the record and life work of people who have loved God and kept his commandments. By that test I am willing to be judged." My friends, it matters not how far we may have drifted upon the sea of doubt and unbelief, we must accept such a test and say to the man of God: "Any person who teaches morals and smooths the pathway to the grave, thereby lighting up the dark future, is entitled to a world's gratitude. You earn your money, stand aside."

We want to examine another trade, and we call the school teacher. "What do you give the people for what you receive? They pay you and they expect that you will return value received. What do you give back?" The teacher would come, and calling up the educated merchant, doctor, lawyer, and tradesman, would say: "This is the result of my work." "Universal education is the foundation of liberty." Then reaching his hand to the teacher of morals—the minister—would say: "Educated conscientiousness and educated intellect—a dual unit—is the only safe foundation for a Government of the people, by the people, and for the people." Let me say to you, if I may say it in a temperance talk, that I believe, in this country, any system of education that does not educate the morals as well as the intellect, is a fraud and a failure. . . . To make a symmetrical man or woman, the moral nature must be developed, side by side with the intellectual, or the student becomes an intellectual monstrosity.

Therefore we say to the teacher, "Take your place with the world's workers who fairly earn the compensation they receive."

We want to test another trade, and we shout out to the blacksmith. We say: "You get money, come up here, and bring specimens of your work." He would come, and, holding up a horseshoe, would say: "Here is my work. Every time I put a shoe on a man's horse he is better off, and I am better off, if he pays me." Place him beside the minister and teacher. And . . . now we have tested these, we want to test the man of the dram-shop by the same standards. "Come up, sir. You said a minute ago the minister was as good as the saloon keeper, if he behaved himself as well. If the minister is as good, you must get into the same scales of political economy where we have weighed him. Do not plead the baby act, but come. You dare not come? Do you hesitate? You get money, you toil not, neither do you spin, and yet few workmen can wear such clothes as you do. What are you giving for what you get? Come up here, sir; bring a finished specimen of your work; hold it up here for the crowd to see, and show us its fine points!"

What would he bring? What does the dram-shop manufacture? What has it always manufactured? It has always manufactured drunkards, first, last, and all the time. A dram-shop keeper is as distinctly a drunkard-maker as a man that makes shoes is a shoemaker. That is all he ever did make, that is all he ever will make. Show me a first-class sample of dram-shop work. Could you induce a liquor dealer to come up here and hold it up? What does he say? You say to him, "You make drunkards." His very first excuse is, "I will not have any old drunkards hanging around me." If it is a good thing to make a drunkard, a drunkard must be a good thing after he is made. Suppose, ladies and gentlemen, the minister should come here and give you, as a reason why his church should be indorsed, that he did not have any old Christians hanging around his prayer-meetings. Would not that be a good advertisement for the Christian religion?

I saw by the papers that at the Des Plaines camp-meeting they called together on the platform all the old men and women who had been in the Christian service fifty years, and there was a crowd gathered around the platform to hear their testimony; the papers stated that the feeling pervading the audience was wonderful. Why do not the drunkard-makers come up here and call up a number of their veterans—a number of men they have worked on for ten, fifteen, or twenty years, with red noses, bleared eyes, ragged clothes, toes creeping out of their shoes? Bring them up here and then stand up and exhibit them, opening the Bible—let the liquor seller now act as interlocutor—open the Bible and read: "No drunkard shall enter the kingdom of Heaven," and then call on them to testify. By their evidence we are willing to stand or fall. Why will not the drunkard-makers do it? Is their business so mean, so low, so devilish, that when they have broken down a man who has stood by them through thick and thin, when he has given his money, character, everything, they kick him out and say, "We do not want any old drunkards around us!" The business is afraid to meet its record. Such is the evidence of the case.