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Chapter 1—Education in Temperance
What We Can Do
—What can be done to press back the inflow-
ing tide of evil? Let laws be enacted and rigidly enforced prohibiting
the sale and the use of ardent spirits as a beverage. Let every effort
be made to encourage the inebriate’s return to temperance and virtue.
But even more than this is needed to banish the curse of inebriety
from our land. Let the appetite for intoxicating liquors be removed,
and their use and sale is at an end.—
Gospel Workers, 388
.
The Rich Harvest From Educational Efforts
—Men of differ-
ent vocations and different stations in life have been overcome by the
pollutions of the world, by the use of strong drink, by indulgence in
the lusts of the flesh, and have fallen under temptation. While these
fallen ones excite our pity and demand our help, should not some
attention be given also to those who have not yet descended to these
depths, but who are setting their feet in the same path?—
Testimonies
for the Church 6:256
.
If half the efforts that are put forth to stay this giant evil were
directed toward enlightening parents as to their responsibility in
forming the habits and characters of their children, a thousandfold
more good might result than from the present course of combating
only the full-grown evil. The unnatural appetite for spirituous liquors
is created at home, in many cases at the very tables of those who are
most zealous to lead out in the temperance campaigns. We bid all
workers in the good cause, Godspeed; but we invite them to look
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deeper into the causes of the evil they war against, and labor more
thoroughly and consistently in the work of reform,”—
The Signs of
the Times, November 17, 1890
.
What to Teach
—It must be kept before the people that the right
balance of the mental and moral powers depends in a great degree
on the right condition of the physical system. All narcotics and
unnatural stimulants that enfeeble and degrade the physical nature
tend to lower the tone of the intellect and morals....
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