The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1890-04-24
TEMPERANCE INSTRUCTION.

TEMPE RANCE INSTRUCTION.
Extracts from = Tract BY Frances e. Will
hard. President OF tho National W. O.
r. U. =.&.E s.z.,.s.sF 49,. = ... F..
Given 80 much clear thought and you
will get SO much clear action. Given so
much crazed thought and you will get
SO much crazed action. There is not al
axiom of mathematics more fixed than
this physical law. The man who can't
think his own thoughts, though mo-
body binders him; can't speak his own
words though everybody wishes that
he could; can't use his own Ave senses,
though they were given him for that
specific purpose; and whose cruelty is
greatest toward those he loves the best
presents natures supreme illustration
of the law that alcoholic stimulants
have no business in the economies of :
well-ordered physical life, and that the
time to teach this law is just as soon as
the child's brain can take it in. But
the same truth Is illustrated from
another point of view. The geography
of character is q ''branch," sure to be
taught some day in the public schools
But character is bounded on the north
by sobriety. on the east by integrity, on
the west by industry, and on the south
by gentleness But these cardinal
points are all determined by the first,
sobriety. Clearly note first that this
virtue must precede that of integrity.
AS George Eliot has said, with her
almost preternatural discrimination:
1--WE can not command veracity at will;
the power of seeing and reporting truth
is form. of health that has to be deli
cately guarded"
Dr. Benjamin Ward Rich. rdson, the
leading specialist of England, has spent
twenty-five years studying the effects
of alcoholic stimulants. During series
of experiments he associated three hun
dred chief physicians with him in this
study, and they met in London semi
annually to give. results. In one con-
clusion all agreed, and it was this: No
form of degeneracy produced by alco-
holic beverages is more invariable than
the drinkers untruthfulness in word
and deed. The person who drinks will
use all his ingenuity to conceal, first.
the fact itself. next its consequences,
and soon the fine edge OF perception and
conscience are worn away, so that he is
Enthusiastically in every thing. There
fore sobriety outranksr integrity as an
essential of genuine character. Next
comes industry. But the muscles are
only "middlemen" 'twixt mind and mat
ter: their masters are the nerves or
message-bearers, and alcohol strikes
for the brain as panther leaps upon =
deer. So that the muscles, receiving
wrong orders from the great nerve
center, move in unwieldy fashion; the
hand can not grasp tools, the foot reports
distance inaccurately; the man is trans
formed from toiler to a reeler, and proof
most painful and humiliating is given
that sobriety out-ranks industry upon
the map of character. But gentleness
remains to be considered. 1t is the per-
feet flower of strength, the ornament of
industry, the fragrance of integrity.
But gentleness Can not live without
sobriety. That is its vital breath, its
native air. For gentleness is ''gov-
ernor" of characters great engine, the
plumb-line of its perfectness, the binna-
Gle that holds its compass true, so that,
when you have ''boxed the compass, :"
you shall find sobriety the virtue that
dominates all others, since the clear,
calm, normal brain turns the pointer of
all human hope. Why should 1t not be
so? This body that we live in is in a
sense the universe to us. We got no
light save that which comes in through
this strange sky-light of the brain. The
uyC~1orfr1 1srvo To-
full, and it is all in all to him. 1t was
meant to be his perfect instrument and
not his prison. Perfect obedience to its
laws would make him the true micro
cosm-the mirror of the universe-nay
of its Creator. In his ignorance he be-
gan to use strong drinks, and honestly
called them "a good creature of God. :"
But the attractive Ingredient in all these
beverages is alcohol, poison that has
this changeless law, that it acts in ex-
act proportion to the quantity imbibed
upon the brain and nervous system pre-
cisely as fire acts upon water, tapping
1t up with a fierce and Unsuitable thirst.
This affinity of alcohol for moisture is
like feverish and consuming passion,
and the blistered nose, burnt brain. and
parboiled stomach of the drinking man
are natures perpetual object lessons to
illustrate the fact that alcohol must be
the rodoubtable enemy of an organiza-
ton made up as the human being is, of
seven in every eight parts of water.
Put with this fact one other, viz: That
alcoholic beverages are the only ones
on earth that have no power of self
limitation. One glass says two, and
two say three, until, as general rule,
from the power of self-perpetuation in
this appetite, the life of a drinker of
alcoholics has but two periods, in the
first of which he could leave off it he
would, and in the last, he would leave
of If he could. But how shall the young
and thoughtless avoid this supreme
peril of their youth unless they know
about it, and how shall they learn
without a teacher, and how shall they
teach except they be sent? This, then,
is the rationale of scientific Temperance
instruction in the public schools.
Natures WaV of bringing order ont of