Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes | Page 7

of wrong Establish right.
And free is he, and only he, Who, from his tyrant passions free, By fortune undismayed, Has power within himself to be, By self obeyed.
If such a man there be, where'er Beneath the sun and moon he fare, He can not fare amiss; Great nature hath him in her care. Her cause is his."
Only let the "will," the "powers," the "freedom," and the "self" of which the writer speaks become the "Christ will," the "Christ powers," the "Christ freedom," and the "Christ self." Then the strongest chains of bondage must fly into flinters. For "if the Son make you free, ye are free indeed." (John viii, 36.)

II. DRUNKENNESS.
I. A TEMPERANCE PLATFORM.
WE bring to you three words of counsel with respect to this subject. First, Beware of the Social Glass; second, Study the Drink Evil; third, Openly oppose it. This is a Temperance Platform upon which every sober, informed, and conscientious person may stand. Would it be narrow or uncharitable to assert that not to stand upon this platform argues that one is not sober, or not informed, or not conscientious? The crying need of to-day is, that men and women shall be urged into positions of conviction and activity against this most colossal evil of our time. In our country the responsibility for drunkenness rests not with the illiterate, blasphemous, ex-prison convicts who operate the 250,000 saloons of our Nation, nor yet with the 250,000 finished products of the saloon who go down into drunkards' graves every year, but with the sober, respectable, hard-working, voting citizens of our country. Nor does this exempt women, whose opportunity to shape the moral and political convictions of the home is far greater than that of the men. When the women of America say to the saloon, You go! the saloon will have to go. The moral and political measures of any people are easily traceable to the sisters and wives and mothers of that people. You and I and every ordinary citizen of our country had as well try to escape our own shadow, as to try to escape the responsibility that rests upon us for the drunkenness of our people. To help us to do our whole duty in our day and generation in this matter is the purpose of our message.
II. BEWARE OF THE SOCIAL GLASS.
The first and least thing that one can do to destroy drunkenness, is to be a total abstainer. Beware of the social glass! But quickly one replies, "Why should there be any social glass?" "Why allow sparkling, attractive springs of refreshing poison to issue forth in all of our social centers, and then cry to our sons and daughters, to our brothers and sisters, Beware?" My friend, we must deal with facts as they are. There should not be a social glass; but what has that to do with the fact that the social glass is here? You answer, "Why allow these fountains of death to exist?" while we cry to our loved ones, "Beware!" We do not advocate the presence of these fountains; but while we seek to destroy them beseechingly we cry, "Beware!" The social factor in the liquor traffic is its Gibraltar of defense. Rare is the young man who has the intellectual stamina and moral courage to resist the invitations to take a social drink. And in our frontier and foreign towns many of our bright and respected girls use the social glass. But in its use is the beginning of a fateful end. The subtlest thing in this world is sin. Listen!
"Sin is a monster of so frightful mien; To be hated needs but to be seen; But seen too oft, familiar with the face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace."
The subtle thing about it is, that the first embracing of any sin seems to be but a trifling, an occasional affair. For one who lives in an ordinary city of a thousand inhabitants or upwards, unless he is an "out-and-out" Christian and selects only associates like himself, it becomes a real Embarrassment not to indulge in a social drink. It seems polite, clever, the kindly thing to do. And the sad fact is, that the majority of unchristian young people and many older ones do not decline. To prove this we have but to look at the human wrecks along the shore. Two young men lived near our home. Their parents were well-to-do. The family grew tired of the farm and moved to town. The boys fell in with bad company. They did not decline the social glass. Soon they furnished other young men with drink from their own pocket. This was fifteen years ago. To-day one of them is a hardened sinner, violent in his passions and blasphemous against God. The other one, having spent