Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-11-22

e9ouo Snail not lnneTlt tAO
uoa-nor drunkards?" The WORD OF Ioo ls
pain and strong against all drunKaros;
froDably more would have been SAID, ana
1,., S1.rohger yet, If they had known Ine sort oI
urunkenness that we know. They hau a
great deal of drunkenness, no DOUBT, Dut u
s WAS inherent from that winch appears az
,i nne pollce courts. The drink was WINE, the
Ilgn1 wine of those Southern countries
winch Is still drunk like water.
Didn't Know Modern Liquors.
IL was as different from the fierce liquors
OF the North as vinegar is different from
nitric acid. 1t degraded men. but it did not
make them violent. 1t stole away their
senses, out 1t did not make them maniacs.
IL was the mother of sensuality, but not OF
crime. II was pernicious but it was not
Polson. mere is no comparison between
that wedding wine at Cana made by the
word of Christ and the adulterated distilla-
tlons or to-day brewed by the devil.
NO uouDt one of the great causes OF the
s shameful 1ntemperance of this country. is
the Impurity of liquor. II adulteration
coulo be prohibited that would be o prohibit
ton indeed If the juices of the fruits of
the earth could be brought to men sweet
pc a reformation. The traveller sees no
drunkenness in Europe. And yet he sees al
most universal drinking. 1t is not drinking
that makes men drunkards it ia what they
drink. John Calvin, in Geneva, allowed the
saloons to be kept open. But every man
must say grace before he drank, and what
he drank was good.
The Selfishness of the Drunkard.
There is no need of extending comment to
make clear why no drunkard shall have
part in the kingdom of heaven. Selfshness
and Christianity cannot very well go to-
gether. One must crowd the other out. The
man VINO is most unlike Christ of any man
that breathes is he who, instead of making
life better and happier for those who live
with him. makes it dreadful. A drunkard is
likely to be the most selfish and the most
cruel of all human beings. Deliberately, for
the qualification of his own gross, beastly
appetitcs, he throws away his opportunities,
wrecks his manhood, impoverishes his
family. breaks the hearts Of his friends,
turns his home into hell. Those who do
not know him despise him; those who do
know him wish he were dead.
The evil of drink is probably the worst foe
commonplace that three-fourths of the
crime which has to be punished by the State
is committed by people who are pushed on
ny this foul spirit of drink. The saloon and
the pollce station are near neighbors.
The Liquor Business Not Respectable.
The only decent thing about this traffic is
its sense of shame. 1t hides itself behind
closed doors, needs screen between itself
and the street, is afraid of the light. But
there in secret it is every day getting hold
of more young men than the church is, and
turning them into dangerous citizens. We
read of the horrors of the Russian prisons,
but the saloon keeperha a greater burden
OF broken hearts to answer for than the
Gar.
Now, what shall we do? We have two
kinds of responsibility in this matter, one
public and the other private, as citizens and
as Christians. 1t is our duty as citizens
to help on all such legislative reformation
as seems best calculated to defend the State
from the danger of an army Of drunkards.
Absolute prohibition is neither natural nor
possible defence. The next thing is re-
striction. We have seen in this city how the
liquor traffic, under the control of law and
by the wise administration of righteous
judges, can be held in check.
Touching the saloonkeepers' Cupidity.
A system of high license. which shall make
it a matter of money for a saloonkeeper to
keep an orderly saloon. which shall shut up
the lowest places, which snail ensure the OBJ
servance of the law about Sunday closing
and sale to minors and habitual drunkards,
offers the best way of reformation which has
yet been tried. We ought to support that
system, and resist every diminishing of it,
and encourage every endeavor to make it
better. The proportion of one saloon to
every 500 inhabitants is a good standard.
wish that all the saloon keepers could be
converted. believe that Christian sa-
loon keeper might be the most useful man
in the community. The saloon is the poor
mans club, and the saloon keeper is the
president of that brotherhood. If he had a
only what was absolutely free from poison,
and sold it only to the right people, and pro-
vided decent entertainments along with it,
and put out his hand to help every poor fell
low whom he saw going down. instead OF
giving MIN push, would not have him
change his occupation. A Christian saloon
might do as much good in the neighbOrhood
as Christian church.
A Matter Of Individual Conscience.
As for our duty in the matter OF our own
copduct hat ppnst ba left IN evarv
conscience. Christ teaches total abstinence
in the case of every man that needs it. "Tf
thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them
of and cast them from thee" The word "of-
fend' here means "to cause to stumble" It
is good thing to have hand or O foot, but
life is better than either. One of the plain
duties of a Christian is to give up even the
good for the sake of the better.
Drinking Is not a sin, but we are taught
every day by fearful examples how easily it
may lead into dreadful sin. Whoever finds
that drinking hurts him, dims his sight,
clouds his mind, sensualiZes him, leads him
into unprofita Bile companionship, makes him
neglect his business or his prayers, makes
him even a little ashamed to look into the
face OF his mother or his wife, must stop.
He must stop, or else go on. He must stop
now or he cannot stop at all. No man has
any business to play with an appetite for
story, was not the one who could drive
within two inches of the edge, but the one
who kept away as far as he possibly could.
The InfiueIc, Upon Others.
And we have not only ourselves to think
of; we have need every day to remember
our responsibility for our example. Christ
says that whoever sets stumbling block in
his brothers way, "it were better for him
that a milestone were hanged about his
neck, and that he were drowned in the
depth of the sea-" at must needs be that
the offence cometh." 1t is not a sin to
drink but it is sin to set temptation in
anybody's path. Upon him shall lie the
fearful responsibility of shipwrecked soul
who persuades weak will into the way of
evil. Woe to him who puts the cup to his
neighbours unwilling lips.
In these present days, with the evils of In
temperance SO close about us. with the
conditions of society, it Is a serious thing,
indeed, to set even wine upon public table.
There are times, as someone says, when it is
well to have every nasterleSs dog shot, for
fear of hydropnobia: while IN general, we
have no antipathy to dogs. There are
peculiar circumstances whfcn make total
abstinence commendaDle.
Some Measures OF Reform.
great deal can be done by the influence
of Christian public opinion. There would
be far less drinking if men were only prop
erly ashamed to drink too much as they
are to eat too much, and if the declination
of glass of wine were as natural a thing as
the declination of second piece of bread.
There would be less drinking if the young
women of society showed more plainly what
they think about young men who drink.
1t ought not to be necessary, but it is, that
es out Of every 100 marriages, in which the
bridegroom has been known to be in the
habit of getting drunk, even at rare inter-
walls, end in failure, in protracted and unut-
terable misery. Such marriage is the most
hazardous of experiments. There would be
less drinking ii men had the decency to
abolish the trcatir & habit, perhaps the most
disoustinp custom of reSDectaDIe DeOple |