The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1890-09-11


that the Sunday-schools should b
taught as sound Temperance doctrine
as the secular schools. It means that
preachers should all lift their precept
and example in the pulpit and parlor to
the level which secular teachers arc
now required to attain At tho school
desk. 1t means that the church mem
bers everywhere should rise ito tho
Temperance level of compulsory in
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 tho
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 noN
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
greater victory over the foremost pub
fishers of textbooks to induce them to
| issue sound Temperance doctrines III
! volumes on physiology and hygiene.
Both these victories, by the blessing OF
Heaven on the labors Of Mrs. Hunt
and her assistants in the Woman's
National Christian Temperance Union,
! have been achieved. and so a new era
dawns. Great publishing houses. such
as the Appletons, A. S. Barnes & Co.,
Ivison, Brakeman & Co. and Van Ant
werp, Bragg & Co.. or such as the
syndicate of textbook publishers lately
organized, now issue approved Temper
perance textbooks all keyed up to the
level of total 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 bis
person.l 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
! total abstinence. If teacher should
be a total abStainer, then, for yet
stronger reasons. every preacher should
be, and every church member
AS to the methods by which the Tenn
perance instr .ction of the young is to
be brought up in tho churches to at
least the level it has attained in the
schools, each church must of course de-
eide for itself l 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-
nence should be every where 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 membership and all the preachers
of our churches to the level of total ab-
stinence. which is now the level. not
| only of the secular schools, but even Of
| the life assurance societies. and i'm.
mense results must sooner or later fol-.
low. The new heights and uplands Of
scientific Temperance instruction and
religious precept and example will form
| vast watershed, down which will flow
new rivers of Temperance sentiment
with resistless currents and unfiinching
cataracts that will cleanse the land
Joseph Cook. in Chicago Advance