The interior journal. [volume] (Stanford, Ky.) 1872-1881, 1873-02-07
The Great Question.

The temperance question is now the
question Of the age. 1t is one that takes
hold Of every human interest as no other
does. II is not a local but an earth-wide
one. II is a question inside the church,
for all denominations alike; it is ques-
tion outside its pale, for man rs man.
We stagger under the very magnitude of
its appalling statistics, and yet we no
more take them into our conception than
We do the figures that measure the mag
nitude and distances Of the heavenly
bodies. Nearly all the poverty, the
wretchedness and the crimes Of the land
come Of drunkenness. 1t is at once a
leprosy of body, mind and soul. Here
is an embruted sot, whom we pass by
with our sympathy all lost in loathing,
or, if any feeling of pity asserts itself,
it is soon gone in the thought that the
poor wretch is simply crawling to the
grave along the gutter in which he was
born; but that filthy and stupid object
was once a man Of brilliant parts and
splendid education, who once ministered
among the purest at Gods altar, whom
children once revered and tender and
refined wife clung to with great, strong,
proud love. This is but single case !;
there are multitudes like it. Change
the word minister to lawyer, legislator,
physician, teacher, scholar, merchant,
and we have other multitudes. And in
the lower social planes there are still
vaster multitudes, all utterly ruined in
body, mind and estate-yea, in the i'm
mortal soul, by the demon OF drunken
ness. Indeed, we have no men of grand
er intellects, loftier moral natures, finer
sensibilities, tenderer and more loving
hearts, than they once were, whose con-
dition is now 80 far below that Of the
brutes.
Nor is this human ruin exceptional,
like the devastations of war, whose every
trace is removed by the long peace that
follows; or Of the pestilence, in whose
track life soon asserts its recuperative
energy. On the contrary, it is repeated
with all the regularity of the seasons.
If the future is to be as the past, young
men who are now the pride and expected
stay of their widowed mothers are, by
and by, to bring down their gray hairs
in sorrow to the grave; young husbands
are TO break the hearts of those whose
smile is now their chief joy; babes
which have been received as cherubs
from heaven are yet to become unclean
outcasts from man and God.
But is this terrible work TO 60 oni Is
this Moloch still to consume just as
many of our noblest sonsY this vampire
to suck out the life-blood Of their I'M
mortal soulsi this ghoul to eat out the
love Of husbands, wives and parents,
and transform our homes into hells 7
this enemy of all good still to march its
ceaseless procession TO our courts, and
and prisons, and gallowsf this maelstrom
still to engulf, year after year, its hun
dreds of millions of wealth. We say
that it is the question of the age whether
this shall go on or be stayed.
"Stsyedp says one; "let the strong
arm of the law arrest ii at once" But
law implies lawmakers; and lawmakers
are themselves only the representatives
Of the average sentiment Of their con-
stituents. No law is long possible which
the enlightened convictions Of the people
do not demand and are not ready to sup
port. Besides, many of the most inhu-
ential Of these constituents are interested
in the manufacture Of this Internal poi
son, or In its sale. or in rents derived
from is manufacture and sale. They
represent millions Of capital; stand 10
gether compactly, and are solid and de
termined in the matter; understand all
the arts Of lobbying. and control vastly
more than their own personal votes
even their bsotted victims are cajoled
into the forging Of aeir own chains and
keeping them tight and strong.
ID is not enpqsh, therefore, 10 sAy, Let
the Law look szlsr this thing, The law