p. 1 | THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC by Ellen G. White

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 20, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 41.

THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC

By Ellen G. White

Buying Wretchedness and Poverty — Creating the Appetite in Children — In Some Instances the Church Shelters It — Will Have to Answer Before God By Mrs. E. G. White

“Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; . . . that saith, I will build me a wide house and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is ceiled with cedar, and painted with vermilion. Shalt thou reign, because thou closest thyself in cedar? . . . Thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it.” Jer. 22:13-17.

EVERY DOLLAR A CURSE

This scripture pictures the work of those who manufacture and who sell intoxicating liquor. Their business means robbery. For the money they receive, no equivalent is returned. Every dollar they add to their gains has brought a curse to the spender.

With a liberal hand, God has bestowed His blessings upon men. If His gifts were wisely used, how little the world would know of poverty or distress! It is the wickedness of man that turns His blessings into a curse. It is through the greed of gain and the lust of appetite that the grains and fruits given for our sustenance are converted into poisons that bring misery and ruin.

BUYING WRETCHEDNESS AND POVERTY

Every year millions upon millions of gallons of intoxicating liquors are consumed. Millions upon millions of dollars are spent in buying wretchedness, poverty, disease, degradation, lust, crime, and death. For the sake of gain, the liquor-seller deals out to his victims that which corrupts and destroys mind and body. He entails on the drunkard’s family poverty and wretchedness.

When his victim is dead, the rum-seller’s exactions do not cease. He robs the widow, and brings children to beggary. He does not hesitate to take the very necessaries of life from the destitute family, to pay the drink bill of the husband and father. The cries of the suffering children, the tears of the agonized mother, serve only to exasperate him. What is it to him if these suffering ones starve? What is it to him if they too are driven to degradation and ruin? He grows rich on the pittances of those whom he is leading to perdition.

SOME RESULTS OF HIS WORK

Houses of prostitution, dens of vice, criminal courts, prisons, almshouses, insane asylums, hospitals, all are, to a great degree, filled as a result of the liquor-seller’s work. Like the Babylon of the Apocalypse, he is dealing in “slaves and souls of men.” Behind the liquor-seller stands the mighty destroyer of souls, and every art which earth or hell can devise is employed to draw human beings under his power. In the city and the country, on the railway trains, on the great steamers, in places of business, in the halls of pleasure, in the medical dispensary, even in the church, on the sacred communion table, his traps are set. Nothing is left undone to create and to foster the desire for intoxicants. On almost every corner stands the saloon, with its brilliant lights, its welcome and good cheer, inviting the working man, the wealthy idler, and the unsuspecting youth.

In private lunch rooms and fashionable resorts, ladies are supplied with popular drinks, under some pleasing name, that are really intoxicants. For the sick and the exhausted, there are the widely advertised “bitters,” consisting largely of alcohol.

CREATING THE APPETITE IN CHILDREN

To create the liquor appetite in little children, alcohol is introduced into confectionery. Such confectionery is sold in the shops. And by the gift of these candies, the liquor-seller entices children into his resorts.

Day by day, month by month, year by year, the work goes on. Fathers and husbands and brothers, the stay and hope and pride of the nation, are steadily passing into the liquor-dealer’s haunts, to be sent back wrecked and ruined.

WOMEN AND CHILDREN FORMING THE HABIT

More terrible still, the curse is striking the very heart of the home. More and more, women are forming the liquor habit. In many a household, little children, even in the innocence and helplessness of babyhood, are in daily peril through the neglect, the abuse, the vileness of drunken mothers. Sons and daughters are growing up under the shadow of this terrible evil. What outlook for their future but that they will sink even lower than their parents?

From so-called Christian lands the curse is carried to the regions of idolatry. The poor, ignorant savages are taught the use of liquor. Even among the heathen, men of intelligence recognize and protest against it as a deadly poison; but in vain have they sought to protect their lands from its ravages. By civilized peoples, tobacco, liquor, and opium are forced upon the heathen nations. The ungoverned passions of the savage, stimulated by drink, drag him down to degradation before unknown, and it becomes an almost hopeless undertaking to send missionaries to these lands.

CIVILIZED MEN HATED BECAUSE OF IT

Through their contact with peoples who should have given them a knowledge of God, the heathen are led into vices which are proving the destruction of whole tribes and races. And in the dark places of the earth, the men of civilized nations are hated because of this.

LIQUOR MEN IN THE CHURCH

The liquor interest is a power in the world. It has on its side the combined strength of money, habit, appetite. Its power is felt even in the church. Men whose money has been made, directly or indirectly, in the liquor traffic, are members of churches, “in good and regular standing.” Many of them give liberally to popular charities. Their contributions help to support the enterprises of the church and to sustain its ministers. They command the consideration shown to the money power. Churches that accept such members are virtually sustaining the liquor traffic.

Too often the minister has not the courage to stand for the right. He does not declare to his people what God has said concerning the work of the liquor-seller. To speak plainly would mean the offending of his congregation, the sacrifice of his popularity, the loss of his salary.

LIQUOR DEALERS' GIFTS NOT ACCEPTABLE

But above the tribunal of the church is the tribunal of God. He who declared to the first murderer, “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground,” will not accept for His altar the gifts of the liquor-dealer. His anger is kindled against those who attempt to cover their guilt with a cloak of liberality. Their money is stained with blood. A curse is upon it.

“To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? saith the Lord. . . . When ye come to appear before Me, Who hath required this at your hand, to tread My courts? Bring no more vain oblations. . . . When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you: Yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: Your hands are full of blood!” Isa. 1:11-15.

The drunkard is capable of better things. He has been entrusted with talents with which to honor God and bless the world; but his fellow men have laid a snare for his soul, and built themselves up by his degradation. They have lived in luxury, while the poor victims whom they have robbed, lived in poverty and wretchedness.

GOD WILL RECKON WITH THE TRAFFIC

But God will require for this at the hand of him who has helped to speed the drunkard on to ruin. He who rules in the heavens has not lost sight of the first cause or the last effect of drunkenness. He who has a care for the sparrow, and clothes the grass of the field, will not pass by those who have been formed in His own image, purchased with His own blood, and pay no heed to their cries. God marks all this wickedness that perpetuates crime and misery.

The world and the church may have approval for the man who has gained wealth by degrading the human soul. They may smile upon him by whom men are led down step by step in the path of shame and degradation. But God notes it all, and renders a just judgment. The liquor-seller may be termed by the world a good business man; but the Lord says, “Woe unto him.” He will be charged with the hopelessness, the misery, the suffering, brought into the world by the liquor traffic. He will have to answer for the want and woe of the mothers and children who have suffered for food and clothing and shelter, and who have buried all hope and joy. He will have to answer for the souls he has sent unprepared into eternity. And those who sustain the liquor-seller in his work are sharers in his guilt. To them God says, “Your hands are full of blood.”