Temperance: Moral or Political? by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 19, 1888

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 14, No. 40.

Temperance: Moral or Political?

By Editor

The California Conference of the Methodist Church South in its recent session at San Diego, adopted a resolution declaring that "temperance is a moral and not a political question." This was, we suppose, in answer to the "vote-as-you-pray" war cry of the Prohibition party. We have no idea that the Southern Methodists wish to be understood as opposing restrictive or even prohibitory legislation; or that by "moral" they mean "subject only to the moral law." The idea seems to be that each elector has the right to decide for himself whether he will act with one party or with another, or whether he will vote at all. And in this the Methodist Church South is quite correct.