The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1914-08-07
Incorporate Temperance.
Food for the Temperate and Intem-
perate to Ponder Over.


example to society than the temperate drnker sets:
that If the temperate drinker can take these drinks,
and yet preserve his SObiety it his duty to abstain
and deny himself for the sake of his weaker brother
who cannot This argument is strong and it is as fas-
clnatng as 1T IS strong and why? Because it appeals
to the great active principles in all true religion-e
prncple that IS as undyng in the human heart tina
God who put it there-the principle of the nobility
and the grandeur of self-sacrice But then every
mans duty is as he thinks it. Because the moderate
drnker conceves of duty in different manner to that
IN which the Prohibtionis conceiges of it, does
follow that ne IS the less conscientious sef-sacrc-
ing. He may adorn his life with the sweet virtue of
self sacrifice in hundred different ways to all of
Which the Prohlbtonlst may be stranger and yet be
utterly unable to that it his duty to evince the
virtue IN the Prohbitionsts direction Besides it does
not OF necessity follow that total abstinence is anv
selfsacrlfce at ALL 1t is only the man to whom drink
Ing IS so pleasant an indulgence to be dangerous
one, who can be said to practice selfsacrce in ab
staining from It, Besides, is it true that tn man who
totally abstans sets noble example to his weaker
brother than the temperate drnker? 1t is certainly
true that if everybody followed the example of the
Prohibtionist, nobody would get drunk: but it is
equally true that If everybody followed the example of
the temperate drlnker, neither would anybody get
drunk The one example would seem to be just as
good as the other for If either example followed
we should have what we do SO sorely need-a sober
people. The temperate mantle man who wisely
uses thng-practces selfcontrol in regard to that
tnlng. There is small virtue IN keeping sober if you
drink nothing but cold water The virtue is to drink
something stronger than water and keep sober on that
Water as Shakespeare tells US, is too weak to be
sinner"
If we have an unwise longing for anything, totally
to abstain from although good thing to dois not
necessarily the way to eradicate that unwse longing
from ones nature There is danger that the repressed
appetite may at any time break forth and leave us
stricken with shame. So long as men keep from it
they safe; but the distant smell of it often
fatally allure them to a fatal indulgence There are
some Prohibltlonists who cannot bear the smell of
whisky mile off; when the smell comes to them they
feel lmpeed by an irresistible force, to rush up to
their temptation and drink themselves to madness
There many men of this sort-men who, from her.
edltary tendency, from their Wild reckless and
thoughtess personal indulgence, have become so thor
Oughy the slave Of this that only the hard tyran-
ny OF an external law the thing that save them
They infinitely TO be pitied far more to be pited
perhaps, than blamed. Their frailty is not so much a
vice as it disease. You can only do one of two
things for these them up that they can't
get at the thing by which they sin, lock the thing
up so that it can't get at them If you lock the thing
up through which they sin then you punish the many
who the thing innocenty fer the fault of the
few who can't. To these men the total abstinence
pledge is uSeful-bu the pledge is not enough.
1t prevents, long it is observed the qualification
of their fatal appetite but it does not eradicate it,
The resources OF medical science are simple enough to
achieve that end and the only possible cure for such
is observance OF the discipline which, in their
case, medical science would impose.
it is because such men are induced to think the
pledge all sufficient to them that they lapse,
and again, into SOtishneSS. They sign the
pledge, apparently, only with the intention of break
ing it again, when the first temptation presses itself
course, it seems to me more destructive to their
manhood than if they had never signed the pledge at
all. man can better afford think, to take glass
too much OF good many glasses too much than he
afford to be an habitua yioator of his sacredlv
pledged word The temperance reformation fear is
responsible for good deal of the looseness which OBJ
tanS IN society with regard to the SacredneSs of a
mans pledged word Temperance reformers confound
Prohibition with self.control. The two things
tally and radically distnt have not conquered any
| have oplv
away from it and succeeded in erecting barrier be-
tween M yseh and it. or locked myself up somewhere
so that can't get at me. If cannot face the vice,
grappe with II and conquer It, had better away:
but it is not much If a virtue to brag about. John
Milton saith truly 81 cannot praise fugitive and