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38
Temperance
the idol he has set up for the man to worship is all pollution and
crime, and the worship of the idol will ruin both soul and body, and
extend its evil influence to the wife and children of the drunkard.
The drunkard’s corrupt tendencies are transmitted to his posterity,
and through them to the coming generations.
A Demon Power at Work
—But are not the rulers of the land
largely responsible for the aggravated crimes, the current of deadly
evil, that is the result of the liquor traffic? Is it not their duty and in
their power to remove this deadly evil? Satan has formed his plans,
and he counsels with legislators, and they receive his advice, and thus
keep in activity, through legislative enactments, a multiplicity of evil,
which results in much misery and crime of so terrible a character
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that human pen cannot portray it. A demon power is at work through
human instruments, and men are tempted to indulge appetite until
they lose all control of themselves. The sight of a drunken man,
were the sight not so common, would arouse public indignation,
and cause the drink traffic to be swept away; but the power of Satan
has so hardened human hearts, so perverted human judgment, that
men can look upon the woe, the crime, the poverty, which floods the
world through the drink traffic, and remain indifferent....
Day after day, month after month, year after year, Satan’s death
traps are set in our communities, at our doors, at the street corners,
wherever it is possible to catch souls, that their moral power may be
destroyed, and the image of God obliterated, and they be sunken in
degradation far below the level of the brute. Souls are imperiled and
perishing, and where is the active energy, the determined effort on
the part of Christians, to raise a warning signal, to enlighten their
fellow men, to save their perishing brothers? We are not to talk of
devising methods to save those who are dead and lost, but to move
upon those who are not yet beyond the reach of sympathy and help....
By legalizing the liquor traffic, the law gives its sanction to the
downfall of the soul, and refuses to stop the traffic that floods the
world with evil. Let lawmakers consider whether or not all this
imperiling of human life, of physical power and mental vision, is
unavoidable. Is all this destruction of human life necessary?—
The
Review and Herald, May 29, 1894
.
The Responsibility of the Liquor Dealer
—Those who sell in-
toxicating liquor to their fellow men ... receive the earnings of the