THE TEA SALOON by T.

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jul 26, 1899

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 25, No. 30.

THE TEA SALOON.

By T.

THE United States Church Army has opened “tea saloons” in New York under the plea that they will offset and counteract the influence of the whisky and beer saloon. We have mentioned this a time or two, but have not been prepared for the surprise that comes to us in the way of the support that some of the most influential temperance papers and temperance organizations are giving it.

These temperance papers speak of tea as a “harmless beverage,” and say that it “builds up,” while “alcohol burns up.”

A more cunning delusion could never have been planned by the enemy of all truth. Tea is a poisonous herb that is one of the greatest nerve destroyers in all the world. This is a fact that science, experience, and observation fully demonstrate.

Tea, by creating an unnatural appetite for something stimulating, is a perfectly natural feeder to alcoholism. The man who constantly indulges in the use of tea, finds that tea will not always satisfy the demand for a stimulant, and thus the way is opened for wine, beer, and whisky to approach the victim with their strongest temptations. In fact, tea, coffee, and tobacco, by creating an abnormal appetite, open a door of temptation to start many a man on the road to drunkenness who otherwise would have been spared from this awful evil.

Let us be careful about trying to find a “mild stimulant” that will drive alcohol away. That very stimulant enables the drink habit to fasten itself all the more securely. There is but one kind of temperance that is worthy of the name. The Bible defines it as “temperance in all things.” T.