I believe that, if the same amount of money had been expended in propagating the gospel, as has been laid out by these total abstinence societies, more real converts to temperance would have been gained, because principle and true religion would have been the bases on which the reformation was founded.
Throughout the whole Bible and Testament, there is not a single command to abstain totally from either wine or strong drink; but there is a positive one respecting the abuse, and dreadful denunciations against the drunkard. Then in respect to the prohibition, the false prophet has, in the Koran, forbidden his followers to use wine at all. Now, which do we profess to follow,—the precepts of Jesus Christ, or those of Mahomet? But some will say, if your brother offends by his intemperate habits, you should abstain altogether, that you may become a good example to him. By the same rule, if my brother is a glutton, I should abstain from food also. Now, I believe with the Apostle, “that all the creatures of God are good,” and lawful for us to use; but we are not to abuse them, “but to be temperate in all things,” thus acting up to the rule of scripture, and setting a better example than if we wholly abstained from fermented drink. Any other rule, excepting in cases of notorious drunkenness, is, in my opinion, anti-scriptural, and therefore wrong.
The new American society, “The Sons of Temperance,” which now takes the lead of all other temperance or tee-total societies, is a secret and benefit society, having its signs and pass-words. In the hands of clever leaders and designing men, may not a society of this kind become a great political engine?
Sometimes very ludicrous scenes occur at temperance meetings. A few years ago, when this question was first agitated in Canada, a meeting was held in a school-house on the English line, in the township of Dummer. The lecturer, on that occasion, was an itinerant preacher of the Methodist persuasion. After descanting some time in a very fluent manner, on the evils arising from intemperance, and the great numbers who had lost their lives by violent means, “for my part,” said the lecturer, “I have known nearly three hundred cases of this kind myself.”
This broad assertion was too much for one of the audience, an old Wiltshire man, who exclaimed, in his peculiar dialect, “Now, I know that ’ere be a lie. Can you swear that you did ever see three out of them three hundred violent deaths you speak on?”
“Well, I have heard and read of them in books and newspapers; and I once saw a man lying dead on the road, and a jar, half full of whiskey, beside him, which, I think, you will allow is proof enough.”
“I thought your three hundred cases would turn out like the boy’s cats in his grandmother’s garden. Now, I will tell thee, that I did know three men that did kill themselves by drinking of cold water. There was John H——, that over-heated hisself, walking from Cobourg, and drank so much water at the cold springs, that he fell down and died in a few minutes. Then there was that workman of Elliott’s, in Smith, who dropped in the harvest-field, from the same cause; and the Irishman from Asphodel, whose name I forget. So, you see, that more people do die from drinking cold water than whiskey.” Then he turned round to a neighbour, who, like himself, was not over-fond of cold water, and said, “I say, Jerome, which would you rather have, a glass of cold water, or a drap of good beer?”
“I know which I would take,” exclaimed Jerome; “I would like a drap of good beer best, I do know.”
This dialogue raised such a laugh against the apostle of temperance, that the meeting was fairly broken up, leaving the Wiltshire man triumphing in his victory over cold water and oratory, in the person of the lecturer. The dryness of his arguments prevailed against the refreshing and copious draughts of the pure element recommended by his discomfited opponent.
A good joke is not, however, a good argument, though it stood for one at this meeting. Total abstinence is the best plan to be adopted by habitual drunkards, who, if they can get at strong drink at all, seldom keep their pledge of sobriety. The British and Foreign Temperance Society, in fact, advises the habitually intemperate to abstain altogether, while, at the same time, it aims at bringing the man to repentance and reformation, by the renovating influence of the gospel. If I differ in some respects from that society, in its prohibition against the use of spirits altogether, in such a climate as Canada, I still must consider its views far more liberal, and more consistent with scripture rules, than that of any other for the promotion of temperance, as, indeed, possessing more of that charity, without which even the most fervent zeal is worse than useless.