Cider
23
If it is boiled and care is taken to remove the impurities, it is less
objectionable.
I have often heard people say, “Oh! this is only sweet cider; it
is perfectly harmless, and even healthful.” Several quarts, perhaps
gallons, are carried home. For a few days it is sweet; then fermentation
begins. The sharp flavor makes it all the more acceptable to many
palates, and the lover of sweet wine or cider is loth to admit that his
favorite beverage ever becomes hard and sour. Persons may become
just as really intoxicated on wine and cider as on stronger drinks, and
the worst kind of inebriation is produced by these so-called milder
drinks. The passions are more perverse; the transformation of character
is greater, more determined and obstinate. A few quarts of cider or
wine may awaken a taste for stronger drinks, and in many cases those
who have become confirmed drunkards have thus laid the foundation
of the drinking habit. For some persons it is by no means safe to
have wine or cider in the house. They have inherited an appetite for
stimulants, which Satan is continually soliciting them to indulge. If
they yield to his temptations, they do not stop; appetite clamors for
indulgence, and is gratified to their ruin. The brain is benumbed and
clouded; reason no longer holds the reins, but they are laid on the neck
of lust. Licentiousness, adultery, and vices of almost every type, are
committed as the result of indulging the appetite for wine and cider.
A professor of religion who loves these stimulants, and accustoms
himself to their use, never grows in grace. He becomes gross and
sensual; the animal passions control the higher powers of the mind,
and virtue is not cherished.
Moderate drinking is the school in which men are receiving an
education for the drunkard’s career. So gradually does Satan lead away
from the strongholds of temperance, so insidiously do the harmless
wine and cider exert their influence upon the taste, that the highway
to drunkenness is entered upon all unsuspectingly. The taste for stim-
ulants is cultivated; the nervous system is disordered; Satan keeps
the mind in a fever of unrest and the poor victim, imagining himself
perfectly secure, goes on and on, until every barrier is broken down,
every principle sacrificed. The strongest resolutions are undermined;
and eternal interests are not strong enough to keep the debased appetite
under the control of reason.