p. 392 | TEMPERANCE, FORSOOTH! by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 1, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 25.

TEMPERANCE, FORSOOTH!

By Editor

REFERRING to the matter of closing saloons on Sunday, the Denver, Colo., News says:—

“The business on that day is exceedingly offensive to a large majority of the people of Denver, a fact that has been demonstrated very conclusively.”

Then are we to understand that it is not offensive to the large majority on other days?

“The Sunday liquor traffic is a monstrous injustice to the community. It entails pinching want on hundreds of families in Denver.”

Does it not have the same effect on other days? There is many times the amount of poor men's wages spent in saloons on Saturday night that there is on Sunday. Wherein is “Sunday liquor” any worse than other liquor? Do they have a particularly bad kind for Sunday, and something that is not so “exceedingly offensive” on other days?

“Occasionally the Sunday saloon has to be credited with a murder, like that of a week ago.”

Only “occasionally”? Why, such things occur quite frequently on other days of the week. How is it, then, that it can only be said of Sunday that “the crime that is infused into society because of the liquor traffic on that day, to be developed in future festering forms, cannot be computed”? Alas for the so-called temperance element in this country! When it stands ready to remove the odium of the liquor traffic on six days of the week as a sacrifice upon the altar of the pagan Sunday, then it is time to take in the “temperance” sign and sail the Sunday flag pure and simple. If temperance principles have no longer any practical utility only as a stepping-stone to Sunday adoration, then their usefulness has ceased.