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Present Situation
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elevation of soul, for the sake of gratifying appetite. Instead of gain,
they experience only loss. This they do not realize because of their
benumbed sensibilities. They have bartered away their God-given
faculties. And for what? Answer. Groveling sensualities and de-
grading vices. The gratification of taste is indulged at the cost of
health and intellect.—
The Review and Herald, March 4, 1875
.
The Insidious Gradual Change
—The use of intoxicating
liquor dethrones reason, and hardens the heart against every pure
and holy influence. The inanimate rock will sooner listen to the
appeals of truth and justice than will that man whose sensibilities
are paralyzed by intemperance. The finer feelings of the heart are
not blunted all at once. A gradual change is wrought. Those who
venture to enter the forbidden path are gradually demoralized and
corrupted. And though in the cities liquor saloons abound, making
indulgence easy, and though youth are surrounded by allurements to
tempt the appetite, the evil does not often begin with the use of in-
toxicating liquors. Tea, coffee, and tobacco are artificial stimulants,
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and their use creates the demand for the stronger stimulus found in
alcoholic beverages. And while Christians are asleep, this giant evil
of intemperance is gaining strength and making fresh victims.—
The
Signs of the Times, December 6, 1910
.
Temptations on Every Hand
—In private lunchrooms and fash-
ionable resorts, ladies are supplied with popular drinks, under some
pleasing name, that are really intoxicants. For the sick and the ex-
hausted, there are the widely advertised “bitters,” consisting largely
of alcohol.
To create the liquor appetite in little children, alcohol is intro-
duced into confectionery. Such confectionery is sold in the shops.
And by the gift of these candies the liquor seller entices children
into his resorts.
Day by day, month by month, year by year, the work goes on.
Fathers and husbands and brothers, the stay and hope and pride of
the nation, are steadily passing into the liquor dealer’s haunts, to be
sent back wrecked and ruined.—
The Ministry of Healing, 338, 339
.
On the “March to Death”
—That men may not take time to
meditate, Satan leads them into a round of gaiety and pleasure
seeking, of eating and drinking. He fills them with ambition to make
an exhibition that will exalt self. Step by step, the world is reaching