The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1881-06-30
N. Y. Independent.
Temperance i'm the Church and Sunday
School.
BY MRS. SARAH K. BOLTON.


Hon. Henry Wilson once said il
my hearing: I'm my judgment, there
is but one way in which the great re-
suit of temperance can be reached
The Church must take up the matter.
Outside organizations have done great
good; but when the Church becomes
really in earnest we shall see a mar
velous work. She hardly realizes yet
how the traffic walks hand in hand
with Sabbath desecration; how con-
science gets so benumbed through
! liquor that the users of strong drink
care little for the House of God; how
infdelity and skepticism grow rank
among young men in beer-room con-
versation; how the poverty which
drink engenders leaves no means for
proper clothing for the Sabbath or
for church expenses.
The Church has made great ad-
vance, however. r. from what it was fifty
years ago. "Then," says Dr. William
Patton, "even Christians drank at
funerals, coming often an hour before
the exercises, to spend the time in the
supposed comfort and sympathy of
drinking together" Ministers and
deacons used liquors and offered them
to their guests.
Various large bodies of Christians
have expressed themselves unmistaka-
bly, upon temperance in the last t W
years. The Presbyterian Assembly in
1866 declared that total abstinence
from all intoxicating drinks as bev-
erage is demanded from every Chris
tian." Some prominent Presbyterians
evidently do not coincide with this.
In 1871, I'VE call upon the sessions
of our Churches to guard carefully
the purity Of the Church, by refusing
to admit to membership or to retain
those within her pale who are engaged
in the manufacture and sale of intoxi-
eating liquors as beverage" They
also. declare those who rent their
premises for the traffic or endorse Ii
cense to have reprehensible completely
in the guilt. They urge the forma-
ton of temperance societies in every
congregation and ask ministers and
people to use all efforts possible to
obtain prohibitory laws.
A Congregational Conference, held
some time ago, Investigated the tenn
perance matter in five cities. It re-
ported one member who rented three
liquor saloons and another four.
Such Investigations might wisely be
continued. When the crusade came
at the West, we found one wealthy
woman, churchmember, who rented
twenty saloons; but she very soon
evicted the occupants. The Methodist
Church is certainly not behind her sis
ter denominations.
But these resolutions, to be efficient,
mean active work. Each Church
needs temperance society as much as
she needs a missionary organization.
For specific good or evil special
means are required. A sermon occa-
sionally on missions is essential; but
it must be supplemented by we'll
ordered mission circles to educate the
children, concerts for prayer, and COM
mittees appointed to collect money, to
have the work effective.
Intemperance cannot be treated like
theft, or lying, or covetousness.
Look not upon the wine-cup" and
'Woe unto him that giveth his neigh
Dor drink" have been in the Bible
from the beginning, and yet public
sentiment has been so low that they
have been greatly overlooked. The
Church, surely, must lead in this mat
ter. Canon Farrar well says: IF
Buddhism has succeeded in making
China a sober nation, if Islamism has
ucceeded in making Mohan medan
lands temperate, surely, the Church
of God should blush that she has not
done so much"
The Church must do this work, if
it be saving ly done. The reform
clubs are most efficient helps and
should receive the warm welcome OF
the churches. We are too apt to
taboo methods not our own; and yet
most of US have seen that mans will
is weak at best and needs an omnipo-
tent pow er back of it. Would Edgar
Allan Poe have filled drum kard s
grave at thirty-eight if he had had
| the power WlCnln ullllSell W udfe
broken the spell? Would William
Pitt, leader of England's thought,
have been a slave to debasing appe-
tite if he could have mastered self?
A mother in England, widow, saw
her Youngest boy, her idol, getting a
fondness for beer. Her only other
son had come to America; and thith-
er, with many tears, she sent her
child, to place him, as she hoped, out
of the reach of temptation. The old
er brother, meantime, had become a
sot, and the younger soon copied him
n few years the latter married q
pretty girl, who believed his love fol
her would change him; but, after the
birth of two children, she could beal
her grief no longer and left him. He
became an outoast and a beggar
One night he stole into meeting
He had tried all helps Was there
anything besides? For the first time
in years he prayed, and the praye