Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1868-03-18
i GmperallrH.
Tempt not thy Brother.

We stood the other day with young man
in the dressing-room Of a clubhouse, after
fashionable entertainment In accordance
with detestable habit, a supply Of liquor
stood on the table, that gentlemen might help
themselves more privately and freely than in
the snpper-room. An old man came in and
invited our young man to join him in glass
Of whisky. No." the youth answered, col
oringly, IL am teetotaier." The other
looked at him over his glass with amazement,
saving, " pity you, and drank alone.
Many a soldier marches up to the cannon's
mouth, amid cheers, and drums, and smoke,
with less courage than that young man was
called upon to show For it is easier for many
a man to face death than derision.
We happened to know that this young man
had, six months before, been leader in n set
of convyial, reckless young men. BY a no
bic effort of self-contro, he had suddenly
wrenched himself away from all his former
habits, had joined temperance organization,
and became as active in its cause as formerly
in the career of dissipation. Who can esti-
mate the evil when one such young man is
laughed or persuaded out Of his good resolu-
tons?
All =" he said to us afterward, it costs
little for man who has never used liquor to
keep away from it, 1t is the man who has
used it to whom it comes hard, especially when
the usages of society are tempting him. But
ladies are the worst. When ladies press a
young man to drink wne it is hard to resist.
( They ought to help, and not hinder him in
doing what he knows to be rigAt."
Behind the whole question of temperance
I laws there lies the question of the drinking
usages of society. Are they right or wrong ?
We hold them utterly wrong.
+ If wine or alcoholic liquors are ever needed
as a medicine, let them be used as such. But,
when in every company there may be at least
one person who is struggling against his ap-
petite, and for whom that one moment may
be the trial hour, we hold his risk to be too
great to be balanced by a little pleasure to
the rest "'Tis an awful thing to play with
souls,n says Browning, the poet 1t is after
all. a fearful kind of hospitality" which
urges upon guest ticket TO sin and shame
If he thenceiorth travels on that road, who
is responsible?
We complain of the late Governor Andrew
for instance, not that he believed that prohibi.
tory laws increased drinking. We complain
of him that by urging in his celebrated argu.
ment the usefulness, or, ut least harmlessness
of moderate drinking. he did more than any
man has done for long while to break down
the temperance reform aud to support the
drinking habits of society. Had he struck
merely at temperance legislation, it would
have been different thing But he struck
I, at the whole temperance agitation of forty
years and so far as his argument went, car
ried us back to the beginning of it. Any
person convinced by his reasoning would
thenceiorth feel free to have wine and brand,
at his dinner-tabe and whisky-punch at hi,
evening parties. Against such usages we shal
always labor. However safe we personally
may feel, we trust never to put temptation il
our brothers way.
Q 1t took years of agitation TO bring TEN
perance people TO the principle Of total alb
stnence. For years they were satisfied Will
pledges that included alcoholic drinks, bu
did not include wine or that bound a maj
> to drink no more than he could help" or
not to drink except on the Fourth of July.
But at last everybody began to comprehend
that every drunkard was but II moderate
drnker gone to seed Nobody ever begal
life drunkard or deliberately aimed to b
one Every drunkard was moderate drinke
. first So the question recurs Ought we {
drink intoxicating drinks at all We appea
> for the negatiye.-iadepeAdeu