p. 21 | Temperance by W. N. Glenn

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 13, 1881

Temperance.

By W. N. Glenn

SUPERFLUITIES.

BY W. N. GLENN.

[Extract from an essay read before the Oakland Health and Temperance Club.]

THIS feature of human life has come to occupy such a prominent position that it seems to demand some attention, some consideration of how it influences almost every phase of society. To come to the point at once, I venture the proposition that the superfluities of life, commonly indulged in, are principally the causes of the hardships endured by the masses. It is the ornaments, the desserts, the stimulants, the revelings, that impel their coveters to an extra strain of brain, or muscle, or purse, to procure the extra enjoyment. We must not deprecate the encouragement of the beautiful to a sufficient extent to arouse and nourish an appreciation of the splendors which nature supplies for our enjoyment, and which more and more expand as the finer sensibilities are cultivated and prepared for the enjoyment of indescribable glories in the immortal kingdom. This is legitimate labor and investment—a laudable ambition. But when every nerve is put to the utmost tension, and the nerve of others borrowed, to produce or procure indulgence to be consumed upon lust, then we have superfluity—intemperance if you please. All superfluity is intemperance.

The principle that "man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long," if universally carried out in practice, would save much unnecessary toil, anxiety and expenditure of means. But practically there is no end to unnecessary wants, and one superfluous indulgence is sure to beget another imaginary need.

The lust for extraordinary things, beyond what true comfort really demands, is to a great extent caused by the disposition to mimic those a little higher in the social scale, as measured by income or official station. The young man who receives thirty dollars a month feels that he must dress as well, fare as sumptuously, and otherwise show off as luxuriantly as he who receives seventy-five or one hundred dollars. And the man or family limited to seventy-five or one hundred dollars a month must keep pace with those whose income is fifty or one hundred per cent. more. And so on up the scale. No one seeks a lower level as a base of requirements in this life, but all human wants seem to have an upward tendency—all the more with continued indulgence. In short, our supposed necessities are generally gauged by what other people have. The question is not, How little can I get along with? but, How much does some one else enjoy? And remonstrance is answered with the query, Why not; are not we as good as they? and if so, are we not entitled to enjoy as much as they?

The frail, ever-tired matron, who don't see how she ever can get her work done, will persist in putting twice as much labor on the extras as would be required on the necessaries. And while panting,complaining and perspiring over the cook-stove, double the effort is bestowed upon the trimmings, and desserts, and relishes, as would be necessary to prepare simple, healthful food.

But it is not all the woman's fault; a stronger than she is no wiser, and her superfluous toil is oftener a sacrifice to the demands of his eye and appetite than for the sake of gratifying herself. If we do not notice so directly the extra labor upon masculine superfluities, it is because men procure theirs ready prepared; but they are nevertheless procured at the cost of labor and thought that had better be at rest, or of means that might be better employed in some more rational manner.

So long as mankind seeks for the acme of happiness in the pleasures or enjoyments of the present, so long will there be a reaching out for things that a higher and holier aim would not crave. So long as man marks out for himself no grander pattern than his fellow-man, and laboriously seeks a co-indulgence with the more opulent or extravagant, so long will he be a slave.

Why is it that, as many men grow "better off," as it is called, their cares, labors, anxieties and troubles increase? Because they continue striving to do as others do who are still better off than they, and the task of "keeping matters square" grows more and more difficult. These are the ones that hard times always strike the hardest. This is the class (rather than the acknowledged poor, who do not try to make other than the poor man's display) that swell the list of defalcations, bankruptcies, insanities and suicides. It is mainly the intemperate efforts to follow the styles and indulge the habits of others that produces the many financial disappointments, social discouragements, and human wrecks, abounding in our midst.

The forbidden tree in the garden of Eden was a superfluity, and the results of Adam's indulgence should be a sufficient warning for all time to come. And the whole line of human history is strewn with demonstrations of the truth that "waste begets want;" that the inordinate desire for surplus accumulations is constantly bringing wretchedness upon the covetous themselves or their victims; and that superfluous eating and drinking, dressing and carousing, and reaching after unnecessary and injurious enjoyment of all kinds, beget the natural fruits of sorrow, misery and regret.