“I fear,” said Thorwald, “that I have talked too much about Mars and not insisted enough on hearing about the earth. Suppose something should happen to break off your visit?”
“You wouldn’t miss much, Thorwald.”
“We certainly should regret exceedingly not learning many things that you could tell us,” he said.
“Yes,” I answered, “but you cannot profit by our experiences, while we of the earth are in a condition where we need all the help and advice you have for us. If we ever return to our home we want to tell all about your advanced civilization and how you have overcome the evils that vex our race. But I wonder why the doctor doesn’t come. I think I will go and see, but I promise not to interfere with his liberty of action.” I soon returned with my friend, and we all went to breakfast. The doctor said he would not eat much, as he felt somewhat indisposed. Here was something new in the life of this household, and each one began to express sympathy and ask what could be done. The doctor was amused, and I said I thought a good, hearty breakfast would make him all right. But Thorwald insisted that something unusual should be done, although his inexperience was so great that nothing feasible suggested itself at first. Zenith was in favor of all repairing to the library, hunting up the histories of the days when people were ill, and finding out the proper remedy for his ailment. This would have been a logical proceeding, but I thought to myself that they did not understand the value of time in such cases and that the doctor would probably either recover or die while they were at work.
As I did not appear to be any more alarmed than my companion was, the excitement soon subsided. But Thorwald was not satisfied yet, and after some further thought his face brightened and he asked me if a glass of good wine would not be the thing for the doctor. When I replied that it would probably not hurt him, Thorwald told his son to go and bring up a bottle of the oldest wine in the cellar, and soon not only the patient but the members of the family and myself were all partaking. No more was heard after this of the doctor’s indisposition, and Thorwald no doubt felicitated himself that he had effected a cure. The situation was rather suggestive to me, and while we were drinking, and eating our breakfast, I could not refrain from saying:
“If some of our friends on the earth could see us now, Thorwald, we would be discredited in all that we might say about your higher condition. It would do no good to expatiate on your ripe character and on your attainments in knowledge and virtue. I fear they would not believe much of it if they knew that you not only drank wine yourselves, but encouraged its use by giving it to your guests.”
“Why,” said Thorwald, “you could tell them the wine was brought out to be used as a medicine, and that the rest of us drank to keep the doctor company. But when you see your friends you had better tell them the truth at once, that while we all take wine here frequently this is the only instance where I have ever known it to be used medicinally.”
“They would tell us,” said the doctor, “that you have made one mistake at least, and that it is a dangerous thing to have wine in the house, and especially to give it to children.”
“He would have a very gross and imperfect conception of our character,” said Thorwald, “who should have the thoughts which you express. I can judge something of the nature of the feeling which you say exists on the earth, however, for only a few days ago I was reading a full account of the different temperance movements on our planet. Few subjects in our history are more interesting. Do not despise the temperance reformers, and if you think they are sometimes too radical you can afford to excuse that for the sake of the absolute good they accomplish. All through the early part of our career there was a perpetual warfare against the drinking habit. At first wine was an ordinary article of food, and in some countries more commonly used for drinking than water. There was much abuse of it, but in general people used it as a matter of course, without thinking they were any more responsible for the drunkards than they were for the intemperate in eating. But the evil of overdrinking increased, and some religious reformers found that the easiest way to check it was to forbid all use of intoxicants. Here is an extreme example that I have read of what one such reformer taught: ‘If a single drop of alcoholic liquor should fall into a well one hundred and fifty feet deep, and if the well should afterwards be filled up and grass grow over it, and a sheep should eat of the grass, then my followers must not partake of that mutton.’ Could any of your prohibitionists be more radical than that?
“In later times many kinds of strong and poisonous drinks were made, and untold harm was done by their use. Drunkenness was the most fruitful source of crime and misery; it, more than any other cause, filled the jails, the almshouses and the insane asylums; it kept men in poverty and squalor; it scattered families and changed men, and sometimes women, too, into beasts. No class or profession was free from the evil, for it disqualified the scholar and statesman for their duties just as it unfitted the laborer for his daily task. It helped to debauch politics and public morals, while it brought disgrace and ruin to private reputation and character. More money was lost by it than was spent to educate and Christianize the world, and it cost more precious lives than war and pestilence combined. Being a crime utterly selfish and debasing, as well as extremely tenacious of its hold upon the individual life, it was almost the greatest enemy to the spread of the gospel.