Intemperance
By Mrs. M. A. M’Curdy, Rome, Ga
Intemperance has so rapidly grown to be the crowning curse of all nations and has taken so deep root in the heart of many influential countrymen as to cause the impediments that are thrown in the pathway of those who try to promote the cause of “God, home, and native land” to appear to be legions.
The horrors of intemperance have never been fully portrayed. No pencil is black enough to paint the picture and do it full justice. No tongue is eloquent enough to tell the sad, sad story in all its details. It has so spread itself as to compel us to style it a wide and verily a withering curse. It is the parent of many physical disorders, that begin with bleared eyes, a blistered tongue, general derangement of the stomach, paralysis of the nerves, and hardening of the liver; and to so great an extent it poisons the blood as to cause coagulation of the brain. All of which, as a natural consequence, induce and aggravate many diseases, ending with causing to be dug a myriad of premature graves.
Intemperance is a mental curse, and it clouds the judgment, dethrones reason, promotes ignorance to the extent that to approach the unenlightened upon the subject of temperance is the means of incurring the displeasure of many, and in numerous instances causes vile epithets to be applied to those who are advocates of the cause of temperance.
Another great and startling reason why all persons should abstain from the use of intoxicating liquors is that it is a mental curse, because it produces imbecility and transforms its unhappy victims into maniacs and fools. Intemperance or the use of alcoholic liquors brings a curse upon the morals of all nations, and thereby proves to be a moral curse. It weakens the will and so influences the passions as to hush the voice of conscience and prepare the way for every vice and crime. Then, with all that, let us briefly review a few of the attendant miseries of intemperance that are about us like a swarm of locusts coming as a plague: In the slimy trail of this alcoholic serpent can be found everything that is dark and dreadful—yea, everything that is ruinous. In it can be found men without manhood, women without womanhood, infancy without hope, want and woe, rage and wretchedness, disease and death; and, furthermore, in the trail of this venomous serpent can be found broken vows and broken hearts, bad manners and bad morals, bad words and bad actions, bad parents and bad children, a bad beginning and a bad end. Then surely intemperance is the crowning curse of American society; and as such the traffic is, as has been often said, a gigantic crime. It came and continues to be an unwelcome intruder. It erects in our midst distilleries or dramshops. Everywhere we need the church and schoolhouse, these being uplifting and elevating forces, while the distilleries and dramshops are mediums through which distress and want, sorrow and death, are brought into our midst in an inconceivably short time, carrying to untimely graves and everlasting woe hundreds—yea, thousands—who otherwise might be saved.
The traffic is a temptation and a snare, a man trap and a woman trap, luring ever its victims to death and damnation. No wonder that Lord Chesterfield, in words as eloquent as they were burning, should say of rumsellers: “Let us crush out these artists in human slaughter who have reconciled their countrymen to sickness and ruin and spread over the pitfalls of debauchery such baits as men cannot resist.” And his suggestions continue to be repeated, serving as a nucleus to which many cling and receive strength for present and future action. Yet there is room for more, as the battle is fierce and will possibly be long.
The traffic is a monster of cruelty. It has ever been one of tears and groans and blood, in vice, crime, and misery; ever conscienceless, unprincipled, and as cruel as the grave, while the trafficker is rarely ever moved by widows’ woes, though they swell into rivers of tears. His heart seems to be incased in stone, while he applies his infamous trade and hoards his unhallowed wealth, regardless alike of the claims of God and the cries of his murdered victims.
For heartless cruelty and desolating results, the highway robber is not to be compared with the vender of alcoholic beverages, because the robber simply demands your money or your life, while the liquor seller demands your money and your life; and there being more than half a million of them, they seem to be determined to rule the remaining faction of sixty millions with worse than a rod of iron, even proving insolent and defiant to the last degree. Sitting supreme in our national Congress and walking with a swing of conscious triumph up and down our legislative halls, monarchs of all they survey, succeeding in every effort made to muzzle ministers, bribe lawmakers, control officers and business men of our country, and place the nation in great peril. The traffic is an intolerable burden to the state, a burden on every back, a blight on every industry, sapping the heartblood out of all concerned. Think of $900,000,000 as a direct annual drink bill, and an equal sum to cover the sad consequence. Two-thirds of this amount is expended by laboring men at the sacrifice of personal comforts and family necessities. Then why, O why, will not a greater number of our male relatives assist in striking every saloon until they are all crushed into hopeless flinders? and why will not a greater number of our women unite with those who are making efforts to raise up many who have fallen through and by the use of intoxicating liquors, and in many ways assist our husbands, brothers, and fathers in laying plans that will in the near future annihilate the demon rum? Last, but not least, the liquor traffic is a deadly foe to the Church. Well and truly did Charles Buxton say that “the struggle of the Church, school, and the library all united against the beer shop and the gin place is but one development of the war between Heaven and Hades.” The traffic paralyzes the pulpit, hardens human hearts, alienates men and women from the Church of God, and in so doing rises like a mountain in the path of Christian civilization, and we agree with Rev. A. A. Phelps in saying: “It is a terrible fact, sad enough to make angels weep, that the two hundred thousand grogshops of this nation are doing more to damn the people than all the Churches are doing to save them.” Then, in conclusion, let us rally to the cause of temperance and apply the prohibition as to the deadly upas tree of intemperance, taking God and his word for our guide, adopting our Creator’s philosophy, imitating his example, and thereby build on those basic principles that underline the eternal throne, ever remembering that there is work for all to do, and that in God’s universal system
None fall back or slip aside;
Each of all the mighty forces
Serves with dignity and pride.
There are evils we must strangle,
There are enemies we must fight,
Cruel foes most fierce and active
Keeping back the good and right.
We must all be up and at them
Meet them here and meet them there;
Brothers, fathers ever active,
Women diligent in prayer.