Books: Personal Experience of a Physician
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John Ellis >> Personal Experience of a Physician
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Again, the writer of the article I am reviewing says:--
"Drunkenness is always and everywhere a sin; whether drinking is a sin
depends upon circumstances; and whether the circumstances are such as to
make drinking sinful, each individual must decide for himself, and answer
for his decision, not to a priesthood, a society, or a newspaper press, but
to his own conscience and his God."
While drunk the drunkard is insane, and when not drunk he is an abject
slave. His appetite controls him, soul and body; he will sacrifice his
property, his reputation, and the comfort of wife and children to gratify
it. If, gentle reader, you have witnessed the struggles which some have
witnessed of men striving earnestly to break loose from that habit, you
would not be so ready to pronounce drunkenness always a sin; you would
hardly dare thus to judge the poor victim. God alone can realize what he
suffers. I ask the intelligent reader, in the light of reason and common
sense and of the Word of God, which is the greater sinner, the man who,
after he has witnessed all the wretchedness, sorrows, drunkenness, and
deaths which we see around us, deliberately takes his first glass of the
fluid which has caused this misery, or continues to drink after he has once
commenced, while he has the ability in freedom to restrain his appetite, or
the man who, by thus drinking, has lost his freedom and reason, and then
drinks to drunkenness? If either is a sinner, can there be any doubt as to
which is the greatest sinner? A far greater number, die from steady
drinking than from drunkenness; they die from an inability to withstand the
ordinary causes of disease, or to resist diseased action when attacked, and
vast multitudes die from diseases caused by so-called temperate drinking,
short of drunkenness. The statistics of insurance companies show that the
average duration of adult human lives is shortened from seventeen to
twenty-four per cent. Is it no sin to enter upon or to continue such a
life? Is such deliberate self-murder no sin? And again, no man living who
commences and continues drinking can have any assurance that he will not
become a drunkard. I well remember when a young man, perhaps eighteen years
old, standing on my native New England hills, working upon the highway with
a young man three or four years older than myself. I said to him that I
thought it was well to make up our minds never to drink intoxicating drinks
during health, and to join a temperance society; he differed from me, and
he said that when he was tired, or went out in the cold and wet and got
chilled, he thought that a little "cider brandy" did him good. "But," he
exclaimed with great energy, "the man who cannot restrain his appetite is a
fool! If you ever hear of my getting drunk, tell me, and I will quit
drinking." I intimated to him that it then might be too late. Alas! alas
for that young man! he became a drunkard; he spent the farm left by his
father; his wife died; his children were scattered among friends; and years
after, when I returned to my native town, I was told that he was a pauper
at the poorhouse.
We are told by the reverend gentleman in the _Christian Union_ that
nature produces alcohol in the juices, as though its production was by a
natural and orderly process. The process of fermentation is just as natural
as the putrefaction of meat, when not prevented by care, and from an
altogether similar cause; and as orderly as the eating of grain by rats if
no care is taken to prevent it; and it is a no more natural or orderly
process. The writer tells us that:--
"Whether the community can properly, without infringing on the liberty of
the individual, prohibit all manufacture and sale of alcoholic liquors, is
a political question, on which the life and teachings of Christ throw no
light."
A strange statement, indeed! Is it not right to prohibit theft, highway
robbery, and other evil acts? Do Christ's teachings throw no light upon
such questions? "Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself." In our country
the government is by the people and for the people, and voters are
responsible for the laws made or unmade; and they should be governed by
Christ's precepts and not by political cliques. We do not hesitate to enact
laws to prohibit druggists and others from selling other well-known poisons
to people without the prescription of a physician, for fear they may
possibly be used by the purchasers to harm either themselves or others; and
I presume the reverend writer does not seriously question the justice and
propriety of such laws; yet, strange to say, we license men, and thus give
the sanction of the law, to sell fermented wine, beer, and other
intoxicating drinks, and allow them to sell tobacco, all deadly poisons,
when they know the purchasers will use them to harm themselves and others,
and often destroy their lives. Yes, we thus license men to sell when we
know that these poisons are sold to men and women who are controlled by an
unnatural appetite instead of by reason; when it is known that they have
harmed and killed more of the human family than all other poisons put
together, and that many of the purchasers, to say the least, will certainly
use them to destroy health, reason, and their own lives, and to render
their own families and all intimately associated with them unspeakably
wretched and unhappy. And yet, exclaims the above writer, whether the
community can prohibit such sales of alcoholic liquors or not, without
infringing on the liberty of the individual, "is a political question, on
which the life and teachings of Christ throw no light." And the inference
is that Christians, preachers, and our religious press have nothing to do
with this question. "O consistency! thou art a jewel." Let stealing become
as universal as the selling of intoxicants, and wives and children thereby
be deprived of their means of support as extensively as they are by the
selling of intoxicants, would the reverend gentleman stand aloof, and
represent that the life and teachings of Christ throw no light upon the
question of prohibiting such a violation of the Divine commandments? Shall
Christians stand aloof from enacting laws to prohibit stealing for fear of
infringing on the liberty of individual thieves? Can crimes be prevented
without interfering with the "personal liberty" of criminals to commit
crimes?
What is stealing when compared to the selling of intoxicating drinks and
tobacco as they are sold in our streets, and all over our own and other
lands? Kind Christian parents, which in your estimation would be the
greatest crime, and which would you prefer, that a thief should steal from
your boy or son, before he is twenty-one years of age, or after you cease
to be responsible for him, his money, or that a man should sell cigarettes,
beer, fermented wine, or other intoxicants unbeknown to you, and take his
money, giving these poisons instead, and thus leading him on step by step,
until an unnatural appetite is formed, and he becomes a slave to the use of
a poison often before he has reached the age when his rational faculties
are fully developed; and when by the use of these poisons the full
development of his body is prevented, and his prospects for enjoying good
health thereafter and of living to the allotted age of man are most
materially lessened. In both instances his money is taken, and we know, by
the poverty-stricken men and women and young men we see visiting our
saloons, that some of the saloonists, as well as the thief, will take his
last penny. Which is the greatest crime, to steal a man's money who is
under bondage to a perverted appetite, and consequently comparatively
irresponsible for his acts, or to sell him the above named poisons, which
so seriously prevent development and endanger his health, reason, and life,
and which bring such wretchedness and sorrow to so many homes? In both
instances the man's money is gone, his wife and children are deprived of
the benefit which might result from its legitimate use; but in the one case
the man returns to his family a sober, loving husband and father--in the
other, perchance, drunk, or on the direct road that leads to drunkenness.
In reply to his intimation that the Bible permits Christians to use
fermented wine, but the Koran does not allow Mohammedans to use it, I would
simply intimate to the reverend gentleman that the Lord, in His good
Providence, has permitted, through the Koran, the Mohammedans to be
protected from the drinking of fermented wine and other intoxicating
drinks, as He has attempted to protect Christians directly by the numerous
warnings in His Word; but the difference lies right here--the former have
heeded the warnings, while the latter have not, and hence the fearful
drunkenness prevalent in Christian countries. And we see the people of
Christian countries sending their whiskey into heathen or Gentile lands
with their missionaries. Alas! alas! Which is better--to be a good heathen
or a drunken Christian?
A gentleman whom I desired to see resides at Constantinople. He is an
Englishman, and when my wife and myself were there in 1885 he had resided
there twenty-two years, and had run the largest flouring mill in Turkey. We
visited his mill, which was about two miles up the Golden Horn, and he
spent an evening with us at the hotel where we were stopping. During our
conversation I said to him: "I would like to know about the Mohammedan
Turks: what kind of men are they? In our country you can hardly call a man
by a worse name than to call him a Turk." He replied that the Government
officials and those who come much in contact with foreigners are apt to be
corrupt enough. "But," he exclaimed with great emphasis, "the laboring
Turk! the laboring Turk has a great future before him!! If I want a man to
row me down the Golden Horn when the weather is rough, or to watch my mills
when I am away and asleep, who I know will do his duty faithfully, I always
choose a Turk instead of a Christian." He admitted that the fact that they
never drink fermented wine or other intoxicating drinks was one of the
causes of their greater reliability.
"Hon. Chauncey M. Depew will scarcely be accused of fanaticism on the
question of liquor drinking. His opinion as a man of wide observation and
knowledge of human nature is valuable even to those who would discount his
opinions on the political methods of dealing with the evil. Here is Mr.
Depew's experience as stated in a speech before a company of railroad
men:--
"'Twenty-five years ago I knew every man, woman, and child in Peekskill.
And it has been a study with me to mark boys who started in every grade of
life with myself, to see what has become of them. I was up last fall and
began to count them over, and it was an instructive exhibit. Some of them
became clerks, merchants, manufacturers, lawyers, doctors. _It is
remarkable that every one of those that drank is dead;_ not one living
of my age. Barring a few who were taken off by sickness, _every one who
proved a wreck and wrecked his family did it from rum and no other
cause_. Of those who were church-going people, who were steady,
industrious, and hard-working men, who were frugal and thrifty, every
single one of them, without an exception, owns the house in which he lives
and has something laid by, the interest on which, with his house, would
carry him through many a rainy day. When a man becomes debased with
gambling, rum, or drink, he does not care; all his finer feelings are
crowded out. The poor women at home are the ones who suffer--suffer in
their tenderest emotions; suffer in their affections for those whom they
love better than life.'"--_The Voice_.
I think almost every man who is 75 years old, if he will look back and
review carefully his youthful acquaintances, can bear almost if not equally
as strong testimony as to the effects of intoxicating drinks on human life.
It is certain that but a small proportion of the drinkers who died
prematurely were drunkards; they were simply what is called temperate
drinkers.
I fully agree with the reverend writer in the _Christian Union_ that
we should not judge others to be bad or evil men because they do not speak
and act just as we think they should, for we cannot see the motives from
which their words and acts spring--they are known to the Lord alone; but
should we not judge whether a man's words and acts are true and useful and
in accordance with the Divine Commandments, or whether they are false and
evil and in violation of the commandments? For instance, when we clearly
see that the arguments in favor of fermented wine are all based upon
assumptions which the most careful investigations by scholars as competent
as any in the world show have no foundation in truth, and when we find from
historical records that in all ages its use has caused an immense amount of
suffering, wretchedness, drunkenness, and an untold number of premature
deaths; and we see the same results following its use all around us at this
day; and when science teaches us that its use is entirely unnecessary
during health, and a direct violation of the laws of health and life; and
when in the Sacred Scriptures fermented wine is likened, as to its effects
on man, to the poison of dragons and the cruel venom of asps, and Solomon
tells us that at last "it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an
adder;"--is it not clearly our duty to show to our fellow-men, and
especially to the young, that to commence drinking fermented wine or beer,
or to continue to drink so long as we have the power to resist the
inclination to drink, is a violation of the commands, Thou shalt not kill,
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God supremely, and not the gratification of a
perverted appetite; and should we not as clearly as possible point out the
truth, and call men to repentance and to the shunning of such evils as sins
against God? How else is the world to be reformed and elevated, and the
life of the New Jerusalem to descend from God out of heaven, and find an
abiding place among men?
The boy, the young man, and those of all ages, in whom the regenerate life
has either not commenced or has barely commenced, cannot be expected to
live and act up to the Pauline maxim--"if meat cause my brother to offend,"
etc. Satisfy such that fermented wine is not the "cup of devils," but that
it derives its life from the Lord through heaven instead of through hell,
and that it is a good and useful drink, and that it is to be hoped the time
will come when it can be safely drank, can they want any greater license
for commencing and for continuing the life which leads to drunkenness? No
one ever intends to become a drunkard or to destroy his life by drinking.
He only drinks enough to satisfy his perverted appetite and to make him
feel good; that is all.
Now, dear Christian reader, what can be more unfortunate for the Christian
Church than for clergymen standing high in the Church, as do several who
have written in favor of fermented wine, to write when they possess
_only_ such an extremely superficial knowledge of the wine question,
in its Biblical, historical, scientific, and medical aspects, as is
manifested in the article under review, and several others which have been
printed and circulated within a few years? And how unfortunate that such
articles should ever be published in religious periodicals that enter the
homes where dwell children, and the young and innocent as well as drinkers!
I thank the Lord that no religious paper bearing such seductive messages
ever entered my father's house as I approached manhood.
The greatest obstacle which the grand temperance reformation has to
encounter to-day is the stand publicly taken by so many of our clergy and
religious periodicals in favor of fermented wine as a good and useful
drink, and the use of intoxicating wine as a communion wine in so many of
our churches. But the True Light has come into the world, and it will shine
more and more until the perfect day.
As to tea and coffee, while they can hardly be compared with intoxicating
drinks, tobacco, and opium, as to their injurious effects on man when he
uses them, yet they are very far from being harmless; for, like the other
poisons named, their use begets an unnatural appetite which healthy fluids
will not satisfy, and they cause symptoms and diseases characteristic of
the fluid taken. Tea causes sleeplessness, palpitation of the heart, and
other symptoms, while coffee causes the "coffee headache," often destroys
the morning appetite; if given to children, interferes with their
development, interferes with digestion, and causes a variety of nervous
symptoms about the chest and stomach. Parents make a great mistake and do
their children great injustice when they allow them to taste of tea or
coffee before they are twenty-one years of age, or until they have passed
out from their control. If the young can be kept from becoming enslaved by
such habits, and consequently remain in freedom, until their rational
faculties are fully developed, in the increasing light of this new day, it
will not be difficult for them to see that all such substances should be
avoided. They do not add to one's enjoyment, for they, like intoxicants,
tobacco, and all stimulating condiments, destroy or seriously impair the
natural delicacy of taste with which the Lord has endowed us, when we eat
or drink wholesome and needed articles of food. I am seventy-six years of
age, yet I never had a better appetite, and food never tasted better than
it does to-day; and I attribute this to my having so generally avoided
improper articles of food and drink. After a most patient and careful
examination of both sides of the wine question in the light of Divine
Revelation, ancient history and of science, for many years, and after
having witnessed the fearful demoralization, the wretchedness and sorrow,
the diseases and deaths which result from drinking fermented wine and other
intoxicants, nothing so surprises me, and discourages me, in regard to the
immediate future of the American people, as the pertinacity and persistency
with which so many of the clergy of our country, without any careful
examination of both sides of this question, are striving to justify the use
of fermented wine as a beverage and even as a Communion wine. Instead of
assuming and ignoring everything, let the advocates of fermented wine
answer the following inquiry by the Rev. Dr. Eliphalet Nott, President of
Union College: "Can the same thing, in the same state, be good and bad; a
symbol of wrath and a symbol of mercy; a thing to be sought after and a
thing to be avoided? Certainly not. And is the Bible, then, inconsistent
with itself? No, certainly."
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