Legalized Wickedness by Lyman Beecher

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 8, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 26.

Legalized Wickedness

By Lyman Beecher

THE dealers in ardent spirits may be compared to men who should advertise for sale consumptions, fevers, rheumatisms, palsies, and apoplexies. Would our public authorities permit such a traffic?—No; the public voice would be heard at once demanding the punishment of such enemies of our race; and the rulers that would not take speedy vengeance would be execrated and removed. But now the men who deal out this slow poison are licensed by law; and they talk about their constitutional rights, and plead that they are pursuing their lawful callings. These traffickers in the blood of men tell us that this work of death is their living—their means of supporting their families. But where lies the difference in criminality between the dram-seller, who for gain administers slow but certain death, and public murderers? The former is licensed in his wickedness by law; the latter must be hanged.—Lyman Beecher.