GOOD HEALTH | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Oct 17, 1878

GOOD HEALTH.

Drunkard's Arguments Answered.

(Concluded.)

19. ALCOHOL DRIVES AWAY DULL CARE.

It will not be disputed that alcohol will dissipate cares, pains, and sorrows. It makes a poor, homeless, friendless, poverty-stricken wretch feel as rich as a king. It makes the doomed murderer forget that he is soon to swing into eternity from the gallows. It makes the fallen outcast from society forget her shame. In short, it makes the user momentarily oblivious to that which is unpleasant in life.

But the release thus obtained is only for a moment, and it is inevitably succeeded by a return of the same old burden, rendered more galling and onerous by the stings of conscience and the goadings of remorse.

When a man's brain is so benumbed that he does not know his real condition, and loses sight of the realities of life, he is likewise incapable of appreciating any of those higher experiences and sentiments which constitute the highest enjoyments, the true realities of life. Only gross and sensual pleasures can be experienced when the mind is befogged by alcohol.

20. ALCOHOL IS A GOOD MEDICINE; AND IF IT WILL MAKE A MAN WELL WHEN SICK, WILL IT NOT KEEP HIM WELL ?

Alcohol is not a good medicine, as elsewhere shown. It is a poison, always, under all circumstances. But if it were a medicine, this would certainly be reason enough for discarding it; for a medicine is supposed to be a substance peculiarly adapted to meet the demands of the system when in a state of disease. Almost any one of those substances popularly known as medicines will make a man sick if used habitually.

21. I CANNOT REFORM.

One more oft-repeated argument requires notice. It is the argument which the confirmed, besotted drunkard uses. He admits all we claim concerning the sin of drunkenness and the direful effects of the vice, for he sees himself a wreck in consequence of its use. He deplores his wretchedness, and curses the man who first placed the burning liquid to his lips. He contrasts what he is with what he might have been, and weeps over his condition; but if you speak to him of reform, he wails, "Alas! it's now too late. I can't reform."

"Never too late to mend" is as good a motto for the drunkard as for any other person. It is true his will is nearly paralyzed, his conscience blunted, and his faculties obscured. It is true that his life is nearly wasted, and that, at best, he has but a few more days to live; and yet, reform is possible, and he may yet escape the stigma of a drunkard's grave. Let him summon to his aid all his few remaining energies. Let him call to his rescue every spark of manhood still glowing in his dilapidated soul; and let him make one desperate strike for liberty from the slavery of his loathsome vice.