Character of" The Pledge." 135 applied as was the action of Xerxes in casting fetters into the sea to curb its fury. What the total abstainer asserts, and what we have endeavored in this work to sustain, is that intoxicating drink is intrinsically different from other articles in dietetic use, because unadapted to man's real wants, and because calculated to do him physical injury, and, by creating an unnatural and terrible appetite, to plunge him into evil of every kind; this being so, the abstainer urges that no man has the right to expose himself or others to the danger which the use of such an article carries with it; and that, if he does use it, he is both exposing himself to needless temptation and tempting Providence to leave him to the folly of his ways. The primary question, then, is one of fact; and no Christian man admitting the fact could for an instant accuse the abstainer of either cowardice or a depreciation of divine grace. Nothing is more strongly enjoined in Scripture than the avoidance of needless temptation; and he who, under the pretence of honoring divine grace, subjects himself to such temptation, shows conclusively that the grace has not given him understanding or prudence. The Gospel teaches us to shun evil and danger when they have not to be met and confronted in the discharge of duty; and the grace which both discerns the danger and draws the Christian aside is incomparably more valuable than the rashness which tampers with temptation, and despises each warning against the evil. that is braved. Better far is the humility that even overestimates the power of the enemy than “the pride which goeth before a fall.” 6. It is said, "that if total abstinence be in accordance with Scripture, the same cannot be said of the pledge, which binds the conscience, and which seems to imply a deficiency in that Christian obligation which vows of Christian baptism and membership involve." But "the pledge," whether regarded as a personal declaration or a bond of association, is not open to this reproach. A pledge of total abstinence is an avowal of present conduct and a promise of future action; but there is nothing of bondage in this, and no diminution of individual independence. The pledge does not create any obligation; it merely expresses a sense of obligation already felt; and in what other shape could this sense of obligation show itself, except a statement of present fact and future intention? The real bondage would consist in being prevented making or taking such a pledge the form of which is indifferent, but the substance of which is inseparable from sincerity and candor of mind. If I think abstinence advisable, shall I not practise it? and if I practise it, shall I not avow the practice? and, if I intend to continue the habit, so long as I believe it right, shall I not say I intend to continue it? So, instead of forfeiting independence and Christian liberty by such a pledge, it is by means of it that I assert and express my liberty and independence. That the pledge can have any "binding" force, as distinct from personal conviction, or after conviction has changed, is a notion which never entered into any but an objector's head. As to the supposed slight to baptismal vows, nothing can be more illusory. The temperance pledge is not a vow unless the individual pleases to make it so, as he may please to make any other resolution: and, by "taking the pledge,” nothing more is done than to assert that abstinence is included under the general vows of baptism by which the soul entered into the service of goodness against evil-of God against Satan. It would be absurd to charge a man with disloyalty because he specified a certain act as one of allegiance, as to represent the pledge as impugning or overriding baptismal vows If (as the objector asserts), those vows comprehended all possible good, then, says the abstainer, all that I do in the pledge is to affirm that one of the forms of good I adopt and intend to pursue is the practice of abstinence Character of" The Pledge." 137 from intoxicating drinks. Considered as a bond of union, all objection to the pledge must be given up, or take a sweeping range; for every benevolent and Christian association involves a pledge, expressed or understood, on the part of those who conduct and support it. Men cannot act together without an agreement, and in the temperance pledge the friends of total abstinence find the form of agreement suited to their principles and object. If the necessity for such distinct pledges is lamented, on the ground that all Christian men should feel committed as such to every good work, the complaint may be accepted as a reflection on Christian inconsistency, and not upon the nature of the pledge. Those Christians who have for the longest period acted upon the pledge of total abstinence are the least able to understand what is meant by the “yoke of bondage" with which some who stand outside are pleased to connect it. Not those who zealously embrace a good work and continue faithful to it are held under any yoke or burden, but rather those who are the victims of delusion on questions of greatest moral and social value, or who are wanting in the selfdevotion and courage which would impel them to "do good and to communicate," remembering that" with such sacrifices God is well pleased." CHAPTER VI. PROPOSITION: THAT THE TRAFFIC IN ALCOHOLIC LIQUORS EXERTS A PERNICIOUS INFLUENCE CALLING FOR ITS LEGISLATIVE SUPPRESSION. TRADE or traffic, being a social act, is, by general consent, subject to social control. This control has at times. been exercised foolishly and injuriously; but never yet has the man appeared who, admitting that the social state is desirable, has held that the individual-the social unit -has the right to make his own individual inclination or opinion the rule of his social action. It is unanimously agreed that the freedom and even the good of the citizen must not be gratified so as to injure the commonwealth. As society guarantees each citizen the free use of his powers, and puts him into possession from his birth of many advantages of which he would have been otherwise destitute, it has a corresponding right to prevent him turning against society the powers it has protected and the advantages it has secured to him. Society may blindly or apathetically allow its right of self-defence and selfpreservation to lie disused, in regard to one or another form of flagrant evil, just as the individual may neglect his own improvement and support; but if, in any important particular, society has thus been remiss, true patriotism will urge those who perceive the error to awaken society to a sense of the neglect, and to the use of such remedial measures as are required by the nature of the Long-continued insensibility or oversight may have permitted evils and abuses to become gigantic in dimension and terrible in their strength; but this result is a reason, not for inaction and despair, but for a more case. The Liquor Traffic and Intemperance. 139 energetic endeavor to grapple with the difficulties of the situation. The slave-trade had developed into a great commercial interest, and had gained new vigor from the slave-systems it had implanted in our colonial possessions; but what it was, and threatened to become, was felt to be a spur to the philanthropic labors of the men who sought its suppression by the agency of law. In regard to another and different question, the police arrangements of the country, it was lamented by successive generations of statesmen, that the so-called police-system of our greatest towns was a national disgrace; and it is but of late years that we have endeavored to supply the lack of public service, injuriously prevalent for centuries, in this respect. In relation to trades of every kind, it may be laid down, as a rule without exception, that they are tolerated and protected solely with a view to the good of society; and no small part of the modern legislation on which we justly pride ourselves has sought to put a stop to incidental and collateral evils arising out of industrial pursuits. Even where those evils do not affect society, or the locality generally, but only persons who are employed in the trades themselves, the law has beneficially interfered to check such forms and degrees of activity as tend to injure health and shorten life. The reason why such trades are not entirely suppressed, is because they are believed to yield an overwhelming balance of benefit, and because it is believed that the abuses complained of are removable without a suspension of the works carried on. The Edinburgh Review has put the varied relation of law to pernicious trade in so pertinent a shape, that its words well merit citation: "There are some trades to which the State applies, not restriction merely, but prohibition. Thus the business of coining money is utterly suppressed by the laws of all civilized States; thus the opening of lotteries is a commercial speculation forbidden |