Personal Experience of a Physician

by John Ellis

Another clergyman wrote:—

"I was called to officiate at the funeral of a child. The parents—who were non-professors of religion—became much interested in the New Church. I furnished them suitable reading matter and visited them occasionally. Within a year they united with our Society. The man had formerly been a drinking man, but had ceased entirely. They were regular attendants on our church services. He was a mechanic. His well-behaved life restored public confidence in him, and he soon found constant employment at his trade. After about two years he felt a desire to take the Lord's Supper. I did not dissuade him; for, as he had abstained so long and faithfully, I felt sure he would continue. He presented himself with the communicants. Upon receiving the cup he took a sip and moved to return the cup to me; but suddenly, the old appetite being touched by the alcoholic spark, he returned the cup to his lips—it was about two-thirds full-and nearly drained it, as though urged on by demons. Poor man! Realizing what he had done, and evidently feeling disgraced, he at once arose and left the temple. From that time he returned to drink, and I have been unable to regain sufficient influence over him to effect his return to our services.

"Another man in my Society formerly drank to excess. I dare not encourage him to come to the communion. A majority of our members favor intoxicating wine for the Lord's Supper. How they can do so after witnessing its dreadful effects, I cannot understand. But the light is spreading, and may the Lord hasten the full day."

O Lord! how long? how long shall such evils continue in our churches?

Of course I replied to the article in the New-Church paper alluded to above, and others replied to me, and I to them in return; but it was not long before notice was given that the discussion would cease, and that with three unanswered articles against me in one number of the paper, and that in a paper edited by a clergyman, and published by the General Body of the Church. Well, looking for the welfare of the Church and its members which I loved, I could not stand still and see such false and dangerous views boldly and dogmatically proclaimed in the most extensively circulated periodical of the Church without doing my best to counteract them. Consequently I wrote a reply in a tract form, and sent it to every New-Churchman whose name I could obtain. This was but the beginning. An article appeared in another periodical of the Church to which I was allowed to reply; but the discussion was soon closed, and I was given no chance to reply to the last communication, and a reserved communication which was published afterward. Finding that there was no chance to present the temperance side of the wine question fairly before the readers of these two periodicals, I was led to write several pamphlets in reply to such articles as appeared in favor of the use of fermented wine, in which I endeavored to present fully and fairly, generally in the language of its advocates, their views of the question, and I endeavored to answer them in the light afforded by the Sacred Scriptures, the writings of the Church, ancient history, science, and well-known facts as to the manufacture and preservation of unfermented and fermented wines in all ages.

Several pamphlets were published in reply to the advocates for the use of fermented wine in our New-Church periodicals in the course of five or six years, of which about 10,000 of each were printed and sent to all Newchurchmen whose names I was able to obtain in this country, England, and elsewhere, hoping to reach as far as possible the readers of the writings of my opponents and others. The following are the names of the pamphlets written, printed, and sent, viz: "Pure Wine, Fermented Wine, and Other Alcoholic Drinks," published in 1880; "The Wine Question in the Light of the New Dispensation," in 1882; "Reply to the Academy's Review," in 1883; "Intoxicants, Prohibition, and our New-Church Periodicals," 1885, to which was added "Deterioration of the Puritan Stock," 1884; making in all, with index, 736 pages.

Finally, I had printed an edition of all of the above pamphlets from the plates, and bound in cloth, of which I sent a copy to all New-Church ministers in the world whose names I could get, and to some others.

My controversy with the clergy on the wine question led me to fear that there were other evils gradually creeping into the Church organization which should be exposed, and against which both laymen and clergymen should be warned; therefore, I wrote a tract entitled, "The New Church: its Ministry, Laity, and Ordinances, with an Appendix on Intoxicants and Our New-Church Periodicals," published and sent out in 1886, the latter part to answer some articles which had recently appeared in the Church papers. This tract was sent to about 10,000 or 11,000 Newchurchmen.

Then I wrote and compiled and condensed from my previous writings, including "The Avoidable Causes of Disease," a work of 511 pages, fully presenting the wine question in all its aspects, and the use of tobacco and opium, and the bad habits of women, faulty methods of rearing children, etc., etc., of which in paper covers I sent out over 10,000 to my New-Church brethren, and about 40,000 copies I sent to clergymen of various denominations.

In the year 1883 my attention was seriously called to the signs of deterioration of the Puritan stock in New England, especially in Massachusetts, my native State, where it was shown that in six years, ending in 1881, the deaths among the native population fully equaled, if they did not exceed, the births; whereas, among the people of foreign birth, the births exceeded the deaths by over 87,000. And I found, on visiting my native town in Western Massachusetts, and the school district where I attended, where we used to have about thirty scholars in the winter and twenty in the summer, when I was a boy, and although there are but two families less residing there now than when I was a boy, and all native Americans, still I found that they had but eight or nine scholars during the winter, and not enough to keep up a school in summer.