The Republican., 1900-11-15
MODERATE DRINKING.
a TwO-FOId Argument Against
The Custom.

drinking is two-fold, and is more and
more appreciated by wise and beney-
olent minds. 1t is in the first place,
an appeal to wisdom, to far seeing
prudence Is it safe to continue a
habit which confessedly does no good,
except in a few and those temporary
cases. and may make you a slave and
possibly at last a victim? In what are
called the best circles of every great
city are hundreds OF men and women
who are Neutrality-suspicious. or
well confirmed. Stories have been
told to my ear that would soften a
harder heart than Nero's. Th lam
! guage of Shakespearean tragedy is
not too strong and intense to describe
the sorrows winch drunkenness has
brought into Christian homes in our
cities. Not one of these drunkards
became such at bound.
A man wrote me letter some years
ago in which he confessed that his
moderate tipping had been increas-
ing, gradually uniting him for clear
thinking in his business. What multi
tudes do not question themselves as
to their tendencies! The evil of de-
throned will, a diseased body, a ru-
ined life, broken family, lost soul,
is such that wisdom says: "Do not
begin walking in that way which
leads in thousands of cases to such
direful ends"
| 1t should be remembered that hab-
its which are comparatively safe in
| Europe are found not to be safe in
the dry, exciting, electrical air of
America. But why should l write of
the habits of the continent of Europe
as in any measure safe? Has not the
prophecy of the last French king that
the vine would prove the great curse
of France been already realized?
Even the French government has be-
come alarmed by the direful increase
of drunkenness. The light wines have
prepared the way for stronger drinks,
| and there are few cities of the world
where these drinks are more generally
used than in Paris. The French have
way of covering drunkenness and
other vices from general knowledge,
but government reports tell US the
awful facts.
Secondly, the argument against
moderate drinking is an appeal to be-
nevolence. Is it becoming in you, as
one well disposed toward your fell
lows, to continue the habit which
strengthens the drinking customs of
society and thus indirectly binds the
fetters of drunkenness on weaker
men? 1t should not be forgotten
that there is solidarity in human
society, and that social customs work
downward, and indeed in all direc-
tions. Do you not appreciate the Bib
lical, the Pauline teaching, which,
while insisting on the right of each
man to decide for himself, plainly
points out the Christian principle OF
renouncing what may be permissible
to you for the sake of not injuring. as
Paul says, the brother for whom
Christ died? If you push your appeal
with the moderate drinker beyond
this, and pound him with hard words,
you forsake the New Testament
grounds and play the part of bigot
and Pharisee. 1t has been the folly
of our temperance speaking that it has
heaped maledictions upon the mod
crate drinkers. instead of appealing
steadily and lovingly to the noblest
instincts of human nature. and ask
ing them to make a sacrifice of what
they deem liberty for the sake of
others, it may be members of their
own families. l know of rich man
IN Providence whose only son had
been brought home to him intoxicat-
ed, and he reproached him saying: Il
have done everything for you" ''Yes,"
said the son, 'and you taught me to
drink wine" And he struck his
father to the earth.
Listen to the appeal of the late DR.,
John Hall: Fathers, do without il
for the sake of your young sons if for
no other reason. How can YOU tell
but that their swift feet may trip to
that destruction on this side of which
your slower feet have Leen able to
halt?' The Christian principle
should persuade you to leave off drink
ing for the sake of the weakest and
lowliest, and certainly for the sake
of those in your own household. Let
the young men of your families do as
you may think it right for you to do,
and what fearful probabilities loom
up before you! DIR. Mott used to re-
mark how those young men who at
college persisted in the use of intox-
icating drinks soon sank into oh I
scurety and often into drunkards'
graves.
1t is hazardous, then, to form hab-
its which are so frequently fatal, and
it is becoming in all Christian and
well disposed people to exercise by
their example a commendable. salu-
tary and restraining influence over
men generally. These are the princi-
pies which made the early temper
ance reformation so mighty. These
are the principles which have swept
the use of Intoxicating drinks out of
three-fourths of the prosperous. re-
spectacle and intelligent families of
America.-Rev. John H. Barrows D. d.
in Christian Work