The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1911-01-06
Alcohol In Relation to the Home
(Mr. and Mrs. Bramwell Booth, of tn
Salvation Army

AlcOnOi IN ReIaI1On 10 the Home
(Mr and Mrs. Bramwell Booth, of the
Salvation Army
The home is not only the seed plot of
a nations continued existence. but is
the spring from which proceeds all
that is essential to the true patriotism
of the people. to the real power of any
community, and to the sustained in
fiuence of national life and institu-
tons.
Anything, therefore, which bears for
good or i'll upon the homes and upon
the home life of the people is of SUI
preme Importance to every nation.
\ wide experience of the conditions
of life in many countries, and a some
what close acquaintance with the inner
facts of social progress among the
working and peasant classes over a
large part of the world. has brought
an important body of information on
this and kindred subjects to the offc-
ers of the Salvation Army. This paper
is intended to present to the congress
some of the principal conclusions at
which we have arrived as to the in
fluence of strong drink upon the life
of the people as that life is seen in
their homes.
/. And We first remark-alcohol in
the home dissipates and wastes the
substance and material resources of
the family.
The use of strong drink is also, we
find. a principal foe to thrift of every
kind.
, Alcohol dissolves the vigor and
spirit which make and keep the home
a living factor
s. Alcohol humbles and only too
often destroys the. natural dignity and
prestige of home and of family life.
We verify believe that many a revo-
lutionary spirit, many a reckless Grim
inal. many a forsaken woman took the
first steps on the way to ruin under
the influence of a home in which strong
drink had already undermined all that
moral dignity and natural prestige
which should have been a strong bull
wark against those very evils.
T. Alcohol tends to weaken and ul-
! timately overthrow the authority OF
the family. TO the great injury of the
children.
Perhaps in nothing is the evil effect
of the use Of intoXicants fraught with
more gravity for the future than in
this. Here is the degradation and de-
struction. as its very source, of that
lawful and natural authority. without
the recognition OF which human life
would be little better than a habita-
ton of wild beasts.
5. Alcohol opens the door of the
home to the most vicious forms OF
self-indulgence and impurity.
s. Alcoholism is the implacable en-
envy of all that belongs TO the ethical
advance of the community.
once the drink habit is entrenched
in the home. and all those baneful an
I tagonismS manifest themselves in a
thousand ways. The children feel
them: the grown youths and maidens
suffer from them: the visitors and
friends. the servants and attendants
if such there be. do not escape their
influence. and the heads of the family
receive a further dreadful impetus OF
the way. TO moral and spiritual atrophy
and death. The home, so degraded, in
stead of a nursery Of moral beauty
and of spiritual life. becomes little
more than a charnel house of dead OF
dying souls.
For the reasons here briefly referred
to. We of the Salvation Army say that
strong drink ought to be banished
! from the home, from the church
which is the earthly home Of the fam
lily Of Christ and from the use of al
civilized peoples. And on these grounds