The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-09-14
BEECHER ON TEMPERANCE.
| Moral Means the Only Ones Effective to
Supplant Appetites.
Christian Union.

Suppiant Appetites.
Christian Union.
To a mother: You have asked the Christian
Union not to publish your letter. yet it might
have come from any other mother. 1t is the
echo of myriad mothers hearts On almost
every street corner, in every village street, the
net is set for the unwary. What mother car be
sure that her nesting will never be caught in it,
.How many boys have looked out of laughing
eyes into loving eyes of FIVE and out of eyes red
with drink into eyes red with weeping at twenty
FIVE! What mother can be sure of her own boy?
No wonder she catches at any and every remedy
that offers her safeguard
But there is but one safeguard and it is neither
prohibition nor the pledge.
Both prohibition and the pledge may be means
to that useful end; both may help you to that
which is the only and final remedy, but neither
is that remedy. Prohibition aims to remove
temptation from the tempted to shut up the
grog shop to close the club, to Danish wine
from the table as well as from the counter; even
to exclude it from the Lords table as well as
from the counter. There shall be no more
temptations, then there will be no more sin.
Now, to exclude temptation from weak nature
while the nature is growing stronger Is often an
excellent thing to do You may keep your boy
in cold water home you may keep him in an
inebrlate asylum, you may send him on six
months sea voyage, you may migrate with him
to Maine Kansas. For day or year you
may shut out sight or smell of liquor, but so
long as his safety depends on keeping tempta-
ton from him, so long he is not safe. God has
made life full of temptations, and no monastery
cell was ever so Quilt as to keep temptation per-
manenty out. The pledge on the other hand,
is the promise of the tempted not to yield to
temptation. To secure from fallen men a
promise of reform is the first step toward re-
form, but this is all; it is not reform. To secure
from yet unfallen man promise that he will
not fall, is first step toward security, but it is
only first step; it is not security You do well
to train your boy not to alcoholic liquors in
any shape. They are generally needless and
always dangerous to the young But that train
ing is not a.safeguard. Thousands upon thou
sands of young men have been trained at home
never to touch, or taste or, see wine, who have
gone out to fall victims to debauchery the first
year of their homeless life.
No man can ever be made secure from any sin
by having temptation kept from him, or by re-
solving to keep himself from temptation. He is
safe only when he is strong enough to overcome
it. There is only one safeguard against intern
perance-Paurs BE not drunk with wine,
wherein is excess but be filled with the spirit
and the first half of the text is valueless without
the other half There is no specific for intern
perance any more than there is for covetous
ness, or ambition, or pride vainglory, or licen
tiousness orany other wickedness There are not
two Saviors-one for incompetence and the other
for the remaining sins on the calendar. There
There is but one Savior-hewho gave men power
to become the sons of God. There is no short
cut to seIfcontrol; there is no bath in which you
can plunge your Achilles and have him arrow
proof.
What is intemperance? It is the triumph of the
animal over the intellectual and moral; the
appetite is master, the soul is enslaved. The
drunkard is in the condition of France
during the Region of Terror The mob has the
mastery of the city. The man is turned bottom
side up the bottom is at the top and the top is at
the bottom. The only remedy is to turn him right
side up again; to give intelligence and virtue the
control of the city; to make the spirit master and
the animal the slave; to dethrone appetite; to
enthrone conscience and reason again. pledge
may help you to do that, so may prohibition;
but neither pledge nor prohibition can take the
place of that moral resolution, and neither of
them can accomplish it. Any man who is liable
to be swept away by the strength of his own
bestial passions needs to be born again; and no
man is safe before Some men of weak appetites
are never in danger; but for the man who is in
danger there is no safeguard except in new
power that makes him master over himself.
Every man of vigorous animal organism car
ries tiger in him. Prohibition puts the tiger
in cage, and SAYS you shall not drink blood
Moral suasion says take the tigers pledge to be
chance that the tiger may break through the
cars of the cage, and always possibility that he
Will change his resolution to be q vegetarian.
Nothing can afford safety EXCEPT such a ch..@@go
OF na.-ure as transforms the tiger, and subaues
1t and brings it under its masters control.
This was Christs remedy for intemperance; it
was Pauls; it is the Bibles. No other affords
safeguard; all others are merely tributory to
thls lntemperance is sin; from 1t man can
only be redeemed as they are, from any other
sin. neither by legislation on the one hand, nor
by good resolutions on the other. but by the re-
generating power of Gods spirit working on
them This is the only safeguard, mothers, for
your boys. Train them to habit, not only of
temperance, but of total abstinence; but do not
imagine they safe" except as by precept by
example by prayer, you have trained them to
be children Of God. Drunkenness is fruit of
the flesh; you cannot have a safeguard against
q NV no tur IF
the tree is changed. The life of God in the soul
is the only protection against the fruits of sin in
the life. Goodness is the only safeguard against
drunkenness