p. 16 | TEMPERANCE by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Feb 28, 1906

TEMPERANCE.

By Editor

THIS week we give our "Outlook" and "Home" departments mainly to the subject of temperance, as the subject is popularly treated. But this is not to say that from this view-point all there is of this question, or even the fundamental principles, are to be seen. The inspired Word enjoins us to "be temperate in all things," and this includes much more than abstinence from the ordinary stimulants and narcotics. The seeker after temperance matter in this paper will not by any means get it all without a careful reading of the article beginning on page 3, entitled, "It Is Written." Satan injected sin and death into this world by a play on the appetite of our first parents, and through perverted appetite ruin has run riot in the human family ever since. So Christ began at the point of appetite to overcome sin in the flesh. Thus the overcoming of the natural, physical tendencies by the power of the Spirit is the root of the temperance question. From this standpoint every issue of the Signs of the Times is designed to be a temperance number. When men, through faith in Christ, have "condemned sin in the flesh," by having fulfilled in them "the righteousness of the law" of God, the temperance question will be forever settled; and not till then. Any temperance effort not based on this Gospel principle can only be superficial and limited in its results.