Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1874-04-17
Most Reverend Archbishop Pur-
cell ON " Temperance
CINoINYArI, ONO, March u. lS74

SlNClNNATlt OhlOs huIcu IGs loif'
Archbishop Purcell publishes the fol-
lowing letter in answer to numerous
written and personal applications by
Ohio women for sympathy and assist
ance in the whisky crusade:
1YTEMPERATE TEMPERANCE AGITAToRs
St. Paul, in his instructions to tie Ro-
mans, and through them to all Chris
tians, advises them not to be more wise
than it behooveth to be wise; but to be
wise unto sobriety." (Romans xii, 30. J
The undersigned takes this occasion to
answer the numerous applications made
to him for sympathy and cooperation
in the crusade against intemperance.
Scarcely has he ev't. had the spiritual
care Of a congregation, as priest or
bishop, without warning those who heard
him of the temporal and eternal evils
resulting from excess, in sermons and
pastoral letters He has insisted
on the necessity and exhorted TO
the observance OF holy temperance, GO
ing SO far in one of these letters, many
years ago, as to express the wish that
not one of his flock was low, disrepu-
table saloon keeper. For ten years he
practiced total abstinence, hoping by
example to induce those whom his words
did not reach to shun the vice that leads
to every other vice He is even now
totally abstinent. This he considers
pretty good; but he cannot go to the ex-
cess suggested by some of the lady
league. He. cannot instruct or preach
that it is sin for a day laborer, who
has to carry the hod on boiling hot
day in July or August up steep ladder
to the third or fourth story of building,
to restore his exhausted strength by a
glass or two of beer This he would
consider cruel. If the toiler has the
physical endurance and the will to do
without the beverage, in the name of
God let him do it, and if he can't take
this refreshment without drinking to ex-
cess, let him abstain altogether or quit
the hard work or die, for 1t Is better so
than to be drunkard.
Again, the Archbishop cant ask a
clergyman to blaspheme the Divine Au-
thor of our religion by asking Him why
He made wine at Cana in Galilee, to re-
create guests at wedding; why He in
stituted the Eucharist, the Lords Sup.
per, partly in wine, of which He COM
manded the Apostles to drink; why Je-
bovah's Holy Spirit teaches us in the
Bible that God made wine to cheer the
heart of man" Psalms CHI, l3), and the
vine to ask why it should desert its
"wine that cheereth God and man
Judges tx, l3). Why did the dying pa
triarch, under the influence of Divine
inspiration, wish his son abundance Of
wine? Why, again, does the Holy
Ghost tell us that it is hurtful always to
drink water or wine, but that to mix
them is pleasant, or sometimes to drink
one, sometimes the other, in the last
verse Of the Old TESTAMENT But God,
they object, did not make the wine. We
have shown that He did make it. Neither
did He make the bread except in the
miracle OF the loaves in the desert; but
He made the grape and the wheat, from
which wine and bread are made-the
one by process not much simpler than
the other.
Catholics then go to the Bible, and
they understand it. And, with the
blessed book before them, we cannot,
with bell book and candle, with praying
aud psalm-singing in the mud, excom.
muuieate those who drink or those who
dispense the liquid which God has made
to be used with moderation and thanks
giving. This, then, is the edict of the
Word of God. Use, but do not abuse"
and if you can't use without abusing
use not at all.
Some few years past three or four
Protestant clergymen called on the
Archbishop to ask his cooperation in an
attempt to abate the nuisance of the
grog-shops; he told them that when there
was question of the licensing or absolute
prohibition of the sale of inebriating
liquors, he earnestly recommended the
imposing of as heavy fine or license on
the venders of such liquids as they could
bear. and inexorsbly to close, by all the
penalties known to the law, those vile
bar rooms where bad liquor is sold to
minors, drrnkards, men or women, who
are now the pests Of the community,
disgrace to their families, and teaching
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