My husband continued to talk while the pledge was circulating. Some hesitated, thinking that the platform was too broad in including tea and coffee; but finally their names were given, pledging themselves to total abstinence.
(Te 203.1)
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VC
Brother Hunter, who was then called upon to speak, responded by giving a very impressive testimony as to how the truth found him, and what it had done for him. He stated that he had drunk liquor enough to float a ship, and that now he wanted to accept the whole truth, reform and all. He had given up liquor and tobacco, and this morning he had drunk his last cup of coffee. He believed the testimonies were of God, and he wished to be led by the will of God expressed in them.
(Te 203.2)
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VC
As the result of the meeting, one hundred and thirty-two names were signed to the teetotal pledge, and a decided victory was gained in behalf of temperance.—Manuscript 79, 1907.
(Te 203.3)
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Work Everywhere—Give prominence to the temperance reform, and call for signers to the temperance pledge. Everywhere call attention to this work, and make it a living issue.—Manuscript 52, 1900.
(Te 203.4)
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The Dark Blot Remains—Notwithstanding thousands of years of experience and progress, the same dark blot which stained the first pages of history remains to disfigure our modern civilization. Drunkenness, with all its woes, is found everywhere we go. In spite of the noble efforts of temperance workers, the evil has gained ground. License laws have been enacted, but legal regulation has not stayed its progress, except in comparatively limited territory.—Christian Temperance and Bible Hygiene, 29.
(Te 203.5)
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VC
Fruitage of License Laws—For a paltry sum, men are licensed to deal out to their fellow men the potion that shall rob them of all that makes this life desirable and of all hope of the life to come. Neither the lawmaker nor the liquor seller is ignorant of the result of his work. At the hotel bar, in the beer garden, at the saloon, the slave of appetite expends his means for that which is destructive to reason, health, and happiness. The liquor seller fills his till with the money that should provide food and clothing for the family of the poor drunkard.
(Te 203.6)
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VC
This is the worst kind of robbery. Yet men in high position in society and in the church lend their influence in favor of license laws! And why?—because they can obtain higher rent for their buildings by letting them to liquor dealers? because it is desirable to secure the political support of their liquor interests? because these professed Christians are themselves secretly indulging in the alluring poison? Surely, a noble, unselfish love for humanity would not authorize men to entice their fellow creatures to destruction.
(Te 204.1)
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VC
The laws to license the sale of spirituous liquors have filled our towns and cities, yes, even our villages and secluded hamlets, with snares and pitfalls for the poor, weak slave of appetite. Those who seek to reform are daily surrounded with temptation. The drunkard’s terrible thirst clamors for indulgence. On every side are the fountains of destruction. Alas, how often is his moral power overborne! how often are his convictions silenced! He drinks and falls. Then follow nights of debauchery, days of stupor, imbecility, and wretchedness. Thus, step by step, the work goes on, until the man who was once a good citizen, a kind husband and father, seems changed to a demon.
(Te 204.2)
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VC
Suppose those officials who at the beginning of [the year] granted license to liquor dealers, could [at the end of the year] behold a faithful picture of the results of the traffic carried on under that license. It is spread out before them in its startling and frightful details, and they know that all is true to life. There are fathers, mothers, and children falling beneath the murderer’s hand; there are the wretched victims of cold and hunger and of vile and loathsome disease, criminals immured in gloomy dungeons, victims of insanity tortured by visions of fiends and monsters. There are gray-haired parents mourning for once noble, promising sons and lovely daughters, now gone down to an untimely grave....
(Te 204.3)
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VC