Who is Responsible for the Evils of Intemperance

BE.1894-01-22.001

When the lawyer asked Jesus what he should do to inherit eternal life, the Master replied by asking, «What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And He said unto him, Thou hast answered right; this do, and thou shalt live.» To gain eternal life, it is necessary to love God supremely, and our neighbours as ourselves. We are to be our brother’s keeper, not his destroyer. We are not at liberty to lead him into false paths.

BE.1894-01-22.002

But there are many who do not regard their duty to their neighbour. Look at the breweries planted all over the land, to supply to the public that which is a deadly evil. There are drinking houses all over the cities and towns, inviting the traveller to stop and water his horses at the troughs which are so convenient, and also to come in, and spend his money for a glass of intoxicating drink. The water is a blessing to the thirsty horses, but what a curse is the liquor to the man who enters and drinks! The traveller enters the public house with his reason, walking uprightly; but look at him as he leaves; the lustre is gone from his eye, his reason is paralysed, and he reels to and fro like a ship at sea.

BE.1894-01-22.003

The victim of the drink habit becomes so maddened under the influence of liquor that he is willing to sell his reason for a glass of whisky. His desire for drink is so strong that it eclipses all other desires; his moral power is so weakened that he has no strength to resist temptation. He is the slave of depraved appetite; body and soul he is in slavery. He cannot distinguish between right and wrong; he does not realize that God requires his heart’s best affections. The drunkard is a practical idolater; for whatever alienates the affections from the Creator, whatever weakens and deadens moral power, usurps his throne, and receives the homage that is due to Him alone.

BE.1894-01-22.004

The liquor-dealer puts the bottle to his neighbour’s lips. Instead of breaking every yoke, and letting the victims of depraved appetite go free, he binds them the faster in their chains. He robs the wife and children of the support that is their due. He takes from them a kind and sensible father, by dealing out to him a potion that makes him a madman. Under its influence the drunkard is full of cruelty and murder, and perhaps in his madness actually commits murder. Then he is brought before the courts, and those who legalized the traffic are forced to deal with the results of their own work. They permitted the sale of the intoxicating draught, and now it is necessary for them to send this man to prison or the gallows for his crime. Soul and body the man is lost, cut off from earth, and with no title to heaven; and very often his wife and children are left in poverty, to become a public charge.

BE.1894-01-22.005

But there is a higher tribunal than that of earth; and in that tribunal the effect is traced to the cause, and the man who put the bottle to his neighbour’s lips is charged with the sins committed through the influence of the draught that robbed another of his reason.

BE.1894-01-22.006

When a ship is wrecked in sight of the shore, and the people look on powerless to save, they are shocked and pained beyond measure. They try by every means possible to save those who are perishing, and when the ship has gone down, and all is over, their minds dwell on every painful detail. But in our land a legalized demon power is at work through human instruments, and men are tempted to indulge appetite until they lose all power of self-control. Day after day, month after month, year after year, these death-traps are set in our communities, at our doors, at the street corners, wherever it is possible to catch souls; and where is the active energy, the determined effort, on the part of Christians to enlighten and save their perishing fellowmen?

BE.1894-01-22.007

Shall souls always have to struggle for the victory, and the doors of temptation open before their very faces? Shall Satan always find agents to tempt those who are weak in moral power? Drawn into these dens of evil, shall he who has resolved to quit drink be led to seize the glass again, and in the first sip of the intoxicant find every good resolution overpowered and gone? One taste of the maddening draught, and all thought of the suffering, heart-crushed wife vanishes. The debauched father cares no more that his children are hungry and naked.

BE.1894-01-22.008

How many frightful accidents occur through the influence of drink. A train is wrecked, or a steamer at sea meets with a disaster; and when the matter is investigated, it is found that some one had taken too much liquor. How much of this fiery draught can a man in a responsible position take, and be safe with the lives of human beings?-He can be safe only as he totally abstains.

BE.1894-01-22.009

Physicians are responsible for making many a man or woman a drunkard. Knowing what drink will do for its devotees, they take the responsibility of prescribing it for their patients. What excuse can these physicians render for the influence they have exerted in making fathers and mothers drunkards? These parents transmit this appetite to their children, and thus the evil is perpetuated, and crime and misery increased. Thus it is that degradation, poverty, and woe are filling our world, and ignorance and evil are widespread. The sight of a drunken man, were it not so common would arouse public indignation; but human hearts are so hardened, human judgments are so perverted, that men can look upon the disgusting spectacle they can see the increasing hunger, nakedness, sin, and crime, and yet remain indifferent.

BE.1894-01-22.010

There are men who have taken high positions of trust, who have put themselves under obligations to work for the good of the people, who are untrue to these obligations. They do not love their neighbours as themselves; they neglect their duty as their brothers’ keepers.

BE.1894-01-22.011

Are not these men largely responsible for the terrible crimes, the current of deadly evil, that is the result of the liquor traffic? Is it not in their power, and their duty, to remove this deadly evil? God holds every one, and especially those in responsible positions, under sacred obligations to do his best for his fellow creatures.