The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1890-06-26

| And boy, believe
Even though at the last
His wondrous love has dashed the cup aside
And given repentance better had died
| A child, uncursed by memories OF the past
| Mary A. Denison, in chronological Journal.
TEMPERATE DRINKERS.
They Not Only Neglect tho Good, But
Encourage tho Evil.
The obligation to complete abstinence
from intoxicating liquors rests upon two
considerations, the danger to ourselves
and the injury to others.
The danger to ones self is apparent
The poisonous effect of alcohol upon
the human system, even when moder-
stely used, is now generally, by scien-
tific authorities, conceded. But tho
danger to the user would still remain,
even if it were decided to be food rather
than poison. In fact, the direct physi-
ing quality. The result that should
make every moderate ~drinker turn pale
with apprehension is the appetite which
it engenders. Every draught taken is,
without question, another step toward
that abnormal condition in which desire
has passed beyond control, and the
victim has become bond-slave to the
habit. No medical testimony is needed
as to this. 1t is matter of common
observation. There are, no doubt,
among moderate users those who escape.
Some are saved 80 as by fire." Others
maintain to the end the mastery of their
~ Dr. 10 ~
nually pass from the ranks of the
moderate consumer to those of the
drunkard is notorious, and if the truth
were known, it is probable that there is
almost no one who, using Intoxicating
liquor at all, does not pass beyond the
limit that his own conscience and rea-
son prescribe. Thus the risk that every
moderate drink er incurs is extremely
great When the doctrine of chances
is candidly applied the odds he must
see to be against him, and the thought
chances fail, is enough to make him
tremble.
Now the immortality of moderate
drinking turns largely upon this ele-
ment of risk. No doubt it is often the
duty of men to incur risk. There are
useful and praiseworthy callings in
which the risk to bodily health and
sometimes to moral purity is constant
and often extreme. But needless expo
sure to danger shocks the moral sense
The man who recklessly leaps from
Brooklyn bridge or drifts over Niagara
Falls in barrel commits crime, even
IN ho Of ho ho1 4 10
life, is not his own in the sense that he
may wantonly throw it away. The risk
incurred is culpable in the degree in
which it is unnecessary. When the use
of opium to assuage great pain has en-
tailed the opium habit the victim is less
censurable than if, in thoughtless self
| indulgence, he has become needlessly a
slave. The sin Of tho moderate drink
er is, that for passing qualification he
| is willing to imperil his body and his
soul. He can not plead necessity, for
the experience of the last seventy-five
years incontestably proves that alcohol
as beverage is not necessary. Total
abstinence has passed beyond the stage
of experiment. Thousands of individ-
uals and of families and not few whole
communities have lived happily and
we'll without Intoxicating drink. He
can not plead that in his especial case
the risk is not considerable. This NO
man can say beforehand. The power OF
physical and moral resistance can never
be known until the experiment has been
tried, and NO intelligent being in the
presence of what is now known as to
the nature and effects of alcohol can be
justified in trying the experiment. 1t
is but to cast himself from precipice
in the hope that God, or fate, will save
him. Such temerity is no less a sin
now tn an in the temptation which Satan
brought to Christ eighteen centuries
ago.
The other consideration that imposes
abstinence is the injury to others. This
involves the effect of ones example
upon his family. friends and acquaint-
ances, and his relations to the drink
evil as it exists in society at large.
Every moderate drinker not only i'm.
perils his own safety but he throws the
weight of his example in the scale
against the safety of others. When
csc others are known to be peculiarly
susceptible to temptation or are, in
any way, especially committed to his
guardianship, his responsibility is i'm
mensely increased There is nothing
upon which the righteous indignation
of community more heavily and justly
descends than upon a mans teaching
vice-to children for example. The
most deadly charge against Socrates
that malice could invent was that he
corrupted the YOUTH No moderate
drinker is free from this sin against the
sonls of his fellows. Even if he could
security. nothing can relieve him from
blood outlines in the case of others.
The power of example is more obscure
and subtle than PHYSICAL cause, but
no less potent If one could administer
some material poison to friend which
would unconsciously transform him in.
to dipso-maniac, such an act would be
no more culpable than to lure him by
the seductiveness of personal example
to drunkard's doom. The far-famed
Mexican toloacht, or weed of madness, a
few drops of the milk of which, secretly
introduced into your friends soup, act
Immediately upon the brain, producing
at first violent madness, and then hope.
less idiocy, is fitting illustration OF
the fatal influence of the moderate
drinker upon the young and innocent.
He is employed, whether willingly or
not, as Satan's decoy to betray the weak
and tempted to disease and death.
The same reasoning applies to society
at large. The evil of intemperance