The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1890-09-12
A STRONG COMBINATION.
Church and School Hand In Hand In tho
Temperance Cause.

ought to rise to the Temperance level
of the public schools. Mandatory in
struction in the schools of twenty seven
States and all the Territories of the
American, Union has recently set up in
the name of science a new. unassail-
able and alluring standard. Below that
standard the voluntary Temperance in
| quotations, directly or indirectly given
by the precept and example of the
| churches, ought not to he allowed to
fall. This does not necessarily mean
that the churches ShodIl devote as
much time as the schools do to scien-
tific Temperance instruction, nor that
they should employ the methods 0t the
schools. But it does mean that they
should not be satisfied with inferior re-
suits. The standard enforced by vol
untary Christian action in the re-
ligious training of the family in the
matter of Temperance, ought not to be
lower than the standard made manda-
tory by public law in their secular
training. This principle of reform in
the relation of the churches to the Tenn
perance cause is as fair and safe as it is
comprehensive and radical. 1t means
| that the Sunday-schools should DO
taught as sound Temperance doctrine
as the secular schools. 1t means that
preachers should all lift their precept
and example in tho pulpit and parlor to
the level which secular teachers arc
now required to attain at the school
desk. 1t means that the church men,
bers everywhere should rise to the
| TnT1 Of
struction in the common schools.
| What is the level? The mandatory
| Temperance instruction now given in
the public schools requires everywhere
total abstinence from all narcotics;
that is, from both alcohol and tobacco.
A majority of the future citizens of the
| Nation are now in schools which teach
total abstinence. Such instruction is
mandatory in all the schools, naval and
military, as we'll as Territorial, now
under the care of our Federal Govern
ment. 1t has been necessary to achieve
great victory over apathetic, corrupt
or hostile State Legislatures in order
to secure this advanced Temperance in
struction by authority of public law.
| 1t has been necessary to achieve o
greater victory over the foremost pub
fishers of textbooks to induce them to
issue sound Temperance doctrines in
volumes on physiology and hygiene.
| Both these victories, by the blessing Of
| Heaven on the labors of Mrs Hunt
and her assistants in the Womans
National Christian Temperance Union,
have been achieved, and so new era
dawns. Great publishing houses. such
as the Appletons, A. S. Barnes & Co.,
| Ivison, Brakeman az Co. and Van Ant
werp, Bragg 81 Co., or such as the
syndicate of textbook publishers lately
organized, now issue approved Temper
perance textbooks all keyed up to the
| level of toGal abstinence.
| If standard and approved Temperance
textbooks are used nothing less than
total abstinence can be taught in the
secular schools. 1t is highly important
that school-teacher should bring his
personal example up to the level of his
official precept, but in twenty-seven
States and Territories of the American
Union every teacher must now bring
his official precept up to the level OF
total abstinence. If teacher should
be total abstainer, then, for yet
stronger reasons, every preacher should
be, and every church member.
AS to the methods by which the Tenn
perance instruction of the young is to
be brought up in the churches to at
least the level it has attained in the
schools, each church must of course de-
! eide for itself. / venture to suggest
only that by pulpit hints or by special
addresses or lectures, by Sabbath-school
instruction, by the use of pledges, and
by the circulation of sound Temperance
literature, and especially by personal
example, the standard of total absti-
hence should be everywhere reached in
the churches. Mr.. Spurgeon was many
years wine-drinker, but now he says:
"More men have been killed by grape
juice than by grape-shot"
The new, approved Temperance text
books, which are now molding the sec.
ular schools of the Nation, ought to be
in all Sunday-school libraries. Once a
month at least, instruction in harmony
with these standard books should in
some way be effectually given In all
! Sunday-schools. Lift the youth, the
adult mem bership and all the preachers
of our churches to the level of total alb.
stinence. which is now the level, not
only of the secular schools, but even of
the life assurance societies, and inn
mense results must sooner or later fol-
low. The new heights and uplands of
scientific Temperance instruction and
religious precept and example will form
a vast watershed, down which will flow
new rivers of Temperance sentiment
with resistless currents and unflinching
cataracts that will cleanse the land
Joseph Cook, in Chicago Advance.
Ruinsof Poor-House.
ELI Perkins," who was lately maxi
ing observations in Iowa, was ''inter-
viewed" as he was passing through
Sioux City. He had been at Ackley the
day before for the first time in nine
years. Nine years ago it had seventeen
saloons, and the banks and farmers sent