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32
Temperance
His Manhood Is Gone
—Look at the drunkard. See what liquor
has done for him. His eyes are bleared and bloodshot. His counte-
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nance is bloated and besotted. His gait is staggering. The sign of
Satan’s working is written all over him. Nature herself protests that
she knows him not; for he has perverted his God-given powers, and
prostituted his manhood by indulgence in drink.—
The Review and
Herald, May 8, 1894
.
An Expression of Satan’s Violence
—Thus he [Satan] works
when he entices men to sell the soul for liquor. He takes possession
of body, mind, and soul, and it is no longer the man, but Satan, who
acts. And the cruelty of Satan is expressed as the drunkard lifts his
hand to strike down the wife he has promised to love and cherish as
long as life shall last. The deeds of the drunkard are an expression
of Satan’s violence.—
Medical Ministry, 114
.
Indulgence in intoxicating liquor places a man wholly under the
control of the demon who devised this stimulant in order to deface
and destroy the moral image of God.—
Manuscript 1, 1899
.
Calmness and Patience Lost
—It is not possible for the intem-
perate man to possess a calm, well-balanced character, and if he
handles dumb animals, the extra cut of the whip which he gives
God’s creatures, reveals the disturbed condition of his digestive
organs. In the home circle the same spirit is seen.—
Letter 17, 1895
.
The Shame and Curse of Every Land
—The bleared, besotted
wrecks of humanity—souls for whom Christ died, and over whom
angels weep—are everywhere. They are a blot on our boasted
civilization. They are the shame and curse and peril of every land.—
The Ministry of Healing, 330
.
The Wife Robbed, the Children Starved
—The drunkard has
no knowledge of what he is doing when under the influence of the
maddening draft, and yet he who sells him that which makes him
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irresponsible, is protected by the law in his work of destruction. It
is legal for him to rob the widow of the food she requires to sustain
life. It is legal for him to entail starvation upon the family of his
victim, to send helpless children into the streets to beg for a penny or
to beseech for a morsel of bread. Day by day, month by month, year
by year, these shameful scenes are re-enacted, until the conscience
of the liquor dealer is seared as with a red-hot iron. The tears of