TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 10, 11 July 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

"SOMETHING TO KEEP HIM UP." It is amazing how seldom men. give to others, or even fairly acknowledge to themselves, what is the real reason why they habitually use intoxicating liquors. Some take Them, as they say, because a moderate quantity is beneficial ; they are not in poor health, but then a small allowance of spirits will fortify them against disease. Others take them because the state of their stomach requires it ; no food will remain there until a glass of spirits or a portion of a glass has prepared the way for it. Others again use them because they require " something to keep , them j up." They would fall down altogether were it not for a little quantity of ardent spirits ! And so on do the moderate drinkers go ! The real reason in most cases why men are not abstainers is because they love the article they use. It would hardly do just to say this right out; it would be thought that they were on the high road to drunkenness if they were to do this. Nor do they care to admit this to themselves; it would be a confession of weakness and danger which no man i 8 willing to make. False reasons are thus devised to deceive themselves and others. Both among men and women who have got on the slippery slope, and are moving surely downwards, this is the constant assertion that " something is needed to keep them up." The doctors have said so, and who should know bo well as they ? And so persistent are they in the repetition of this assertion, that even their nearest relatives, who have feared for their intemperance, have begun to think that there is something in it. Now, we do not mean to enter on any formal disproof of the assertion. We have done this again and again. Wo have given no end of facts to show that abstinence^ from intoxicants is more conducive to health than their moderate use ; and that this so-called modorate use creates the very diseases which it is meant to heal. We have proved over and over again that for any form of work, whether mental or manual, abstinence is best. We have shown that, even in diseaso, the freedom with which drink has been used has been disastrous. We shall not traverse again in this paper these lines of argument. We would look at this most deceptive plea in another way. We have known a goodly number in our ,time who have used spirits professedly because they required something to keep them up, and we know how it fared with them. There was one who was a rigid abstainer when we knew him over 30 years ago. He had then not long passed his majority. He was in vigorous health, wrought hard, and was prospering in the world. Long years afterwards, when we again met, we found that he had his abstinence, and by the advice of hia physician had begun to use what he called "Old Tom." He needed it. Some kidney derangement or other required to be corrected by this "Old Tom." Well, "Old Tom" was most faithfully taken, but by-and-by " Old Tom " got the mastery ; and this promising merchant, who was regarded as a pattern of propriety, was found to be occasionally flushed in the countenance- and indistinct in speech ! Then came bankruptcy. Old friends now turned their backs on him, and he had to leave almost penniless the place where he might have made a fortune. And all through the belief that he could be kept up by " Old Tom." It ■was "Old Tom" that brought him down physically, financially, and morally. This crisis awoke him, and led him to abandon "Old Tom;" and with the result that he is regaining health and happiness through plain food and honest water. We have come across not a few young mothers who have also been led to believe that stimulants in some form were necessary to keep them up. The idea of nursing without porter was preposterous. The child would be starved in a few weeks, and they themselves would utterly break down ; and we have followed the history of some of them. The porter -which was used in the time of nursing came by and by to be continued after nursing was over. And then it was supplemented by a glass of wine ; and so on the matter went until the mother was brought down to a wreck by what was supposed to keep her up ! We have also had a considerable acquaintance with preachers, and have found among them £hose who believed that spirits were needed to revive the jaded frame after preaching. It was not an uncommon thing , for a preacher to be asked in the manse when the pulpit work was over "if he would partake of spirits ; and' even yet this is sometimes done. But' with what results ? Just the old story; the spirits, instead of keeping up, have pulled down. How many a bright eye has drink closed ; how many an eloquent tongue has it paralysed; how many a noble intellect has it laid low ; how many a tender and pure heart has it corrupted ; and how many a stalwart frame has it ruined for ever ! Even the pulpit has been robbed by it of its brightest ornaments. Now, the plain teaching of all this is that if something is needed to keep us up, we should be careful to use only that which will accomplish this end. Common sense should ever remind us that if we are to be strengthened it must be by food, and 'air, and exercise, and not by stimulants. The bellows may brighten the flame, but it wastes the fuel ; the whip and spur quicken the speed of the courser, but they exhaust his strength. And so with stimulants; and the human frame. Moreover, , when stimulants cannot be used" without peril, better bear weakness than run the risk of intemperance. But abstainers will find, as we have said, thnt their abstinence, so far from inducing weakness, will promote strengthen. Away, then, with the intoxicant from young and old, from mother and child. Wo shall have, when wo have seen this, no more crying from incipient topers that something is needed to keep them up.