The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1885-03-27
TEMPERANCE READING.
MODERATE DRINKING.

Drinking Customs of Society-A Few Sci
entific Facts.
The following extracts are from re-
cent sermon by Rev. John H. Barrows,
D. D., Chicago:
Inc argument against moderate
drinking is twofold, and is more and
more appreciated by wise and beneyo-
lent minds. 1t is, in the first place, an
appeal to wisdom, to far-seeing rru-
dence. Is it safe to continue habit
which confessedly does no good, ex-
cept in few and those temporary cases,
and may make you slave and posi-
bly, at last victim? In what are called
the best circles of Chicago arc hundreds
of men and women who are drunkards
occasional or well-confirmed. Stories
are told to my ear that would soften 3
harder heart than Nero's. The Ian
guage of Shakespearean tragedy is not
too strong and intense TO describe the
sorrows which drunkenness has brought
into Christian homes in this city. Not
one OF these drnnkards became such ct
q bound. The deadly habit may have
been twenty years in fastening its fet-
tiers on Its victim, and at last unman-
ming him by paralyzing his will. A
friend of mine once said to a temper
ate drinker: please tell me if you find
that you care to have your daily drinks
any more now than six months
ago." A man wrote me letter last
year, in which he confessed that his
moderate tipping had been increasing,
gradually uniting him fot clear TIL Ak
ing in his business. What multitudes
do not question themselves as to these
tendencies! The evil of dethronsd
will, diseased body, a ruined life, a
broken family, lost soul, is such thlat
wisdom says: do not begin walking
in that way which leads in thousands Of
cases to such direful ends" II should
be remembered that habits which are
comparatively safe in Europe ale found
not to be safe in the dry, exciting, elect
trical air of America. But why should
| speak of the habits of the continent of
Europe as in any measure safe? Has
not the prophecy of the last French
King that the vine would prove the
great curse of France been already real
lied? Even the French Government
has become alarmed by the direful in
\ crease of drunkenness. The light wines
have prepared the way for stronger
drinks, and there are few cities of the
world where these stronger drinks are
more generally used than in Paris. The
French have way of covering drunk
enness and other vices from general
knowledge, but Government reports
tell us the awful facts.
Secondly, the argument against mod
crate drinking is an appeal to benevol-
ence. Is it becoming in you as one
well-disposed toward your fellows, to
continue habit which strengthens the
drinking customs of society and thus
Indirectly binds the letters of drunken
ness on weaker men? 1t should not be
forgotten that there is solidarity in
human society, and that social customs
work downward, and indeed in all di-
rections. Do you not appreciate the
Biblical, the Pauline teaching, which,
while insisting on the right of each man
to decide for himself, plainly points out
the Christian principle of renouncing
what may be permissible to you for the
sake OF not injuring, as Paul says, the
brother for whom Christ died? 1t has
been the folly of some of our Temper
ance speaking that it has heaped male
dictions upon the moderate drinkers,
instead of appealing steadily and low
ingly to the noblest instincts of human
nature and asking them to make sac
rifice of what they deem liberty for
the sake of Others. it MAJ be members
of their own families. / know of rich
man in Providence whose only son had
been brought home to him intoxicated,
and he remarked to him, saying: 81
have done everything for you. EYES,"
said the son, ''and you taught me to
drink wine," and he struck his father
to the earth.
Listen to the appeal of DIR. John
Hall: s'Fathers! do without it for the
sake of your young sons, if for no other
reason. How can you tell but that
their swift feet may trip to that de-
struction on this side of which your
slower feet have been able TO haltP"
The Christian principle should per-
suade you to leave off drinking for the
sake of the weakest and the lowliest.
and certainly for the sake of those in
your own household. Let the young
men of your families do as you may
think it right for you to do, and what
fearful probabilities loom up before you!
DIR. Mott used to remark how those
young men who st college persisted in
the use of intoxicating drinks soon
sank into obscurity and often into
drunkard's graves.
1t is hazardous, then, to form habits
which are so frequently fatal, and it is
becoming in all Christian and well-dis-
posed people to exercise by their exam
pie commendable, salutary and re-
straining influence over men generally.
These are the principles which made
the early temperance reformation so
mighty. These are the principles which
have swept the use of intoxicating
drinks out of three-fourths of the pros
porous, respectable and intelligent fam
lies of America.
To-day occasional or moderate drink
ing is very great evil. While literary,
political and business clubs exercise
their liberty of drinking wine, they
help paralyze the efforts of more earn
est men to crush out the wasteful and
deadly rum traffic. But very respect
able and influential men will not be
won into better ways by the puerile fall
lacies called arguments which we
sometimes hear from Temperance plat
forms. nor by hearing themselves In
suited as worse men than the inetriates
who drink up their fortunes and starve
their children and murder their wives.
But such men IRE oFen to reason ard
to facts. They are reached by appeals
to benevelence. The customs which
they uphold are condemned by the best
science of our day as deteriorating the
human stock. Alcohol lowers the tenn
perature, corrupts the blood, taxes the
whole system to eleminate it, units the
man to endure the stress either of
arctic or equatorial climates. and leaves
him the victim to be smitten down by
contagious disease. The reports show
that four-fifths of those swept away by
the cholera of 1882 were addicted to
alcoholic drinks. In certain town in |
Russia I1nrSons oivan tn drinking ityyPre |