Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1888-06-29
THE CITIZEN.
MISCELLANEOUS.
w, ~. COLUMN.

Report of the Committee on Tenn
perance and Prohibition at the late
General Conference of the Methodist
Episcopal Church:
"Reafirming all our former deliv-
erences on total abstinence aud the
prohibition of the liquor.traffic, we
submit for your adoption the follow
ing sections:
I.-PROGREss AND DUTY.
We have ample reason for congrat-
ulation that the temperance reform is
engaging public attention as never
before. While some miuds are yet
torpid. not apprehending the vital is-
sues, and while, to some intense re-
formers, such lettering in the march
of reform seems objectionable, never
theless a growing multitude of re-
doubtable men and women are learn
ing both to wait and to hasten with
Providence. In this great moral ad-
vance. we recognize the duty OF the
Methodist Episcopal Church, with all
other Christian bodies, to march at
head of the column, to inspire and
direct the movement.
u.-TEMPERANCE ORGANIZATIONS.
In response to the memorial ad-
dressed to this body by the Woman's
Christian Temperance Union, we
gladly recognize, with high apprecia-
tion, their great work, preventive,
educational, evangelistic, social, and
legal.n and the extension of it's sphere
through its eminent representatives,
abroad in the great Foreign Mission
countries. We also tender fraternal
greetings and hearty godspeed to
the National Temperance Society ,and
all other organizations engaged in
advancing this reform, especially to
ell who labor upon Gospel temper
ance basis. We welcome our adopt
ed fellow citizens to these expanding
ranks. We urge a spirit of kindly
Cancellation and cordial cooperation
among all temperance workers. We
recommend that the Temperance
Committees appointed by the Quar-
terly Conferences in all our charges,
and the Annual Conference Temper
ance Societies, seek to enlist our peo-
pie more fully in this great movement
against the drink customs and the
drink traffic which disgrace our civil
zation.
III.-TOTAL ABSTINENCE.
We renew our time honored testi-
mony in favor of total abstinence from
alcoholic liquors. The best modern
science has irrefragably demonstrated
that there is no legitimate place for
alcohol, not even in the form of the
milder liquors. and in however mod
crate quantities, in a healthy living
organism. This testimony of science
has been independently confirmed by
the impartial demonstration of life
insurance experts critically seeking
sure bases on which to conduct great
financial interests. Total abstinence
is now fully vindicated as something
more than "a dietetic whim," or a
fanatical craze; and we can accept of
nothing less than this, as security for
personal safety, and as the basel prin-
ciple of the temperance reform.
IV.-scIENTIFIC TEMPERANCE IN
sTRUCTION.
We hail with joy the enactment OF
laws providing for scientific temper
ance instruction in the public schools
of thirty four States and Territories,
under which six and half million of
children and youth are being taught
the evils Of alcoholic beverages. We
urge that those laws be strengthened,
wherever necessary, by suitable self
enforcing penalties. We also call for
the exclusion from those professedly
temperance, but fatally misleading,
text books, which directly or implied
ly encourage tic moderate use of the
milder intoxicants. We are glad to
learn that that many of the publish
ers of such books have undertaken a
revision, and are now bringing them
to the scientific standard of total alb
stinence. Let the text books, which
are to shape our children's lives. be
closely scrutinized.
We trust all school boards will
make a note of this.