Rumselling and Men by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Apr 29, 1908

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 34, No. 18.

Rumselling and Men.

By Editor

THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES has naught against a single man who is selling alcoholic beverages. Let that be understood once for all. They are men,—sinners like all the rest of us by nature,—but men redeemed by the blood of Christ, and to whom as to all others is offered the free gift of salvation to eternal life. We would not discriminate between the “wo” which God pronounces upon the man who gives his neighbor drink, and the “wo” against those who “join house to house, that lay field to field,” or the “wo” uttered by the purest lips earth ever knew against the scribes and pharisees and hypocrites, who neither enter the kingdom of heaven, nor suffer others to enter; who tithe mint and anise and cummin, but leave undone judgment and mercy and faith and the love of God; who cleanse the outside of the cup and the platter, and leave the inside full of all uncleanness; who like whited sepulchers appear beautiful outwardly, but are within full of all uncleanness. The meaning and relative weight of each “wo” we will leave to God. We would that rumseller and hypocrite should turn to God with all the heart. But—and here we stand forever—we

are opposed to rum and its curse. We wish that its manufacture and sale were forever prohibited. We believe it would be better for all people, the rumseller included. He would find some other business which paid better, and gave more rest of conscience. But we believe that all laws prohibiting the liquor traffic should be just laws. Of this we shall have more to say hereafter.