Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1897-03-19
WHY OUGHT YOUNG PEOPLE TO
BECOME MEMBERS OF THE
GOOD TEMPlAR ORDER.

[Kitue II. Nc cullom in "The internationally
To be Good Templar one promises
not only to abstain from the use of alec
holic liquors as beverage, but to, Just
so tar as he can, discountenance their
use in the community and to endeavor to
abolish them from the land. But why is
it one should abstain from the moderate
use of liquors? What possible harm can
there be for one to indulge, one who has
a strong will, who knows when he has
had enough and can stop ere he becomes
Intoxicated? All, my dear friends, how
many noble men and fair women have
made that same assertion and have in
time fallen victims to the cursed drink,
fallen so low they have never been able
TO rise again. Passing from cell to cell
in our states prison, going through our
aim houses. our Insane asylums. glanc-
ing at idiotic children, seeing many
beautiful women haggard and cid in
their youth, many once intelligent,
manly men, stupid, debauched and de-
graded in early years-when we see all
this do we not wonder what the
cause of 1t all is? And when we in
qure, we find it has been caused in some
manner by liquor.
Alcoholic drinks contain a poison
which creates an appetite, which in time
seems never to be satisfied. IT'S true
there are many moderate drinkers who
have neY er fallen to the lowest depths
of vice. But they know not when they
may fall; but if they do not fall, is not
their influence of the worst kind? All,
yes; for others, seeing it, so often say:
"Look at them liquor does not harm
them. | surely have as strong a will,
and intOXicants can not possibly harm
me-" but they find in time how very
weak is their will when fallen to the
lowest scale of degradation. Who then
is to blame? Who, some day, at that
great white throne above, will have to
answer for some one having left life of
purity?
In unity there is strength and that is
why there is a temperance organization;
that is why every noble young man and
every pure young woman should go into
such an organization, and do what they
can to alleviate the suflerngs of their
fellow-b beings. Enter the Good Templar
order with heart and soul, and even
th~ugh personally you may not be able
/ to lift one who has fallen low in vice and
crime, yet as an organization you can
do so much: you can bring in, at least,
those who have Dever tasted the wine,
/ thus saving them from many temptations
| Generations before us have done so much
to up-lift those held low in the bonds of
slavery. The colored slave they freed
we, of the present, have to free the
country of its present slavery. The
work of our order, then, is to liberate
our country from the tremendous tyr
amy skiing alcohol" holds over it.
Many of us are awake and realize the
awful tyranny, the glittering, glistening
temptations while others still are asleep,
unmindful of the harm it is to do them
and theirs some day. Mothers and
fathers perhaps may not realize it until
their beautiful babes have grown to man
hood or womanhood and come staggering
under the influence of liquor into theil
presence. VIII not their hearts ache
bitterly when the son, perhaps the
daughter may. say; 81 am just what my
father or my mother made me. They
taught me to indulge In strong drink
they created for me this never satisfied
appetite"