Temperance by T. L. Cuyler

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 5, 1882

Temperance.

By T. L. Cuyler

An Enemy Hard to Conquer.

THERE are some enemies that it is easier to keep out, than it is to drive out when they become strongly intrenched. One of these deadly enemies is the habit of using intoxicating drinks. No delusion is so dangerous as the idea that it is easy for an habitual drinker to stop drinking. Out of my long connection with the temperance reform, let me draw a few examples, which may perhaps startle some good people who have a very "slip-shod" and shallow way of talking about the conversion of inebriates. This week I learn that a very kind-hearted man whom we received into our church several years ago has relapsed again into drunkenness. He had been a hard drinker, but gave good evidence, as we thought, of a change of heart. For some time he "ran well," and then stumbled and fell. We labored with him faithfully and he was restored. Several times since that he has fallen, and once we were obliged to place him in an inebriate asylum. I have known that man to offer the most penitential and pathetic prayers in our devotional meetings, and then stop for a drink at a dram-shop on his way home from the meeting! That man when he drank his first glass became a slave. Often has he cried out from the depths for deliverance; but I very much fear that in spite of our efforts and his own resolutions he will yet die a drunkard. His father was addicted to the same vice, and the hereditary taint is in his system.

The most remarkable case that I have ever dealt with was a young married man—of excellent family—who was received into my church in New York twenty-five years ago. He had been convivional in his habits, but we had strong hope that the grace of God had radically altered him and made him a "new man in Christ Jesus." After several years of sobriety he relapsed (under strong temptation) into intemperance. For a long time he remained a pitiable sot. Once, while his lovely wife was lying dangerously ill, I persuaded him to enter an inebriate asylum. But he leaped out of an upper window and returned to his home; the sight of the poor creature at her bedside gave his wife such a shock that she died in a few hours! Even this awful tragedy did not reform him, and he continued to drink as before. At length he was induced to sign a pledge, to attend the house of God, and claimed to be reconverted. He secured an excellent situation, and, well attired and happy, used to speak in our prayer-meetings with great fervor and declare that "by God's grace his feet were now upon the rock." So encouraged was I by his apparent reformation that I published (under a fictitious name) the narrative of his "conversion," for the encouragement of others whose cases were as desperate as his had been. But alas! he was on no "rock" that was out of the reach of the waves of temptation; and after two years he was swept off again into the horrible vortex. He attempted suicide during a debauch, and soon afterwards died—a drunken outcast. I might multiply these melancholy examples to prove that when any man or woman forms a habit of using alcoholic drinks, he or she becomes a slave. From that horrible bondage even apparent conversion does not always rescue them; for, as Dr. Hodge once said to me, "the thirst for liquor is sometimes a physical mania from which even the grace of God no more saves a man than from the poison of typhoid fever in the system." This is a fearful statement to make, and some may assert that that eminent saint, and the writer of this paragraph may be "limiting the power of the Divine Spirit." God forbid! But let us not shut our eyes to painful facts, although we may interpret them erroneously. The incontrovertible facts are that hundreds of persons who have regarded themselves as spiritually converted have relapsed into beastly drunkenness. The published biography of Mr. John Vine Hall (the author of the "Sinner's Friend") will occur to many readers as a striking example of this.

Are drunkards never permanently reformed? Yes; let us rejoice that a few of the vast number are saved, "yet so as by fire." They are an exceedingly small minority. Out of those who are received into church membership a very large proportion have their subsequent falls; and of these many are never restored to sobriety. I have spent a vast deal of labor upon the attempted reformation of inebriates. Quite a large number of those who have sincerely professed to be "renewed by the Divine Spirit," I have received into church membership. Out of all this number I can recall only one who has never had a single relapse into intoxication since he united with the church. Several have fallen often and been restored. Others have precipitated themselves into hopeless drunkenness, and sunk to rise no more! This is a painful statement to publish, but I do it under a very strong conviction of duty. I do it as a solemn warning to every one—within the church and without it—of the absolute peril of tampering with any and every intoxicant. I do it in order to emphasize the fact that the only absolute safeguard against drunkenness is entire abstinence. No living man, no, not even any minister of Christ, is completely safe from even the risk of being overcome, who is playing with this treacherous serpent.

I have designedly avoided any discussion about hereditary appetite, or "Bible wines," or the "removal of the appetite," or any other controverted question. My single aim is to state solemn facts, and let them carry their own weighty argument. They prove incontestibly that strong drink is an enemy hard to conquer. He who lets the enemy in has no assurance that he will ever drive him out. The only sure salvation is never to admit him at all.—Rev. T. L. Cuyler.