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Fifty Notable Years. Adams John Greenleaf
Читать онлайн.Название Fifty Notable Years
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Автор произведения Adams John Greenleaf
Жанр Зарубежная классика
Издательство Public Domain
The Temperance reform enlisted the sympathies of Universalists in the beginning. It was a vindication of the Gospel of enlightened and pure manhood, maintaining its supremacy over the sinful inclinations and indulgences "that war against the soul." Indeed, one of the first avowed advocates of the practice of total abstinence, as early as 1778, was the well-known and honored Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and a firm believer in Christian Universalism. He not only advocated this practice himself, but was especially interested in commending it to the attention of two religious bodies in Pennsylvania, the Episcopalians and Presbyterians, at their annual meetings. When in later days the attention of the Christian churches was called to the consideration of this reform, no more zealous friends of it were found than those among Universalists. The Universalist ministry was well represented, and its services welcomed by others. An instance is remembered of a deserved tribute, given in his peculiar quaintness of speech, by the elder Dr. (Lyman) Beecher, to Rev. Edwin Thompson, at an annual meeting of the Massachusetts Temperance Society. Mr. Thompson was State agent for the Society, and had been very active in its work during the year; so that a speaker alluded to him as having been in that time "the main spoke in the wheel." "Indeed," said Dr. Beecher, "it seems to me that he has been the hub, and all the spokes, and a considerable part of the rim!"
The reform in our country was quickened by the "Washingtonian" movement, which involved the reformation of the inebriate, and his work to redeem others from the destroyer. Although there were backsliders in this, as in all reformatory movements, yet the number of the saved justified a thousand times the interest taken in the great work itself. It was an indication of what might be done everywhere and in all time by Divine aid, and human will at work relying upon it. It seemed also to emphasize the truth that men, however far overcome by wrong habit, are not to be given over as irreclaimable. It was in accord with the grand idea that there are no lost ones so far astray as to be beyond the mercy which sent Him into the world, who said, "I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick."
Legislation took higher and stronger ground in reference to the evil of intemperance. The subject went into politics more than ever. The doctrine of prohibition gained advocates. A law favoring it was passed in Massachusetts, and afterwards in Maine. Prosecutions and law-suits followed, and appeals went up to the highest courts to test the constitutionality of the law. This was affirmed by them, just as the framers of the law knew that it would be. Despite all sophisms and evasions, the common sense of every man will settle down into the conviction that the people of a nation, if they would be really strong and free, must employ every safeguard against this giant evil, that has so constantly outraged and cursed our world.
The rising of the women of the West, in 1873, to suppress the demoralizing work of the liquor-saloons, was an outspoken, providential protest against these scourges of our civilization. Jeered by the thoughtless, and insulted and cursed by the dealers in the death-poison, it was an indication that made the traffickers in strong drink thoughtful, the friends of woman to take new note of her righteous demands and of her reformatory power, and every true soldier in the temperance army to put on new courage in view of the many instrumentalities which God is able to raise up in aid of His redeeming work with His children. One result of the Woman's Crusade has been the formation of the Woman's Christian Temperance Unions in all parts of our land.
The signs of progress in this reform are more significant than ever. The popularity of the Prohibitory Law in Maine; the Prohibitory clause just put into the Kansas and Iowa Constitutions, and proposed in other States; the numerous Reform Leagues; the proposal to institute in our Congress a thorough investigation in reference to the bearing of this question of liquor-making and vending on the industrial, social, and political welfare of our nation; the continued discussion of the effects of the use of intoxicants by leading statesmen, scientists, and medical professors of our age, and the bringing out of new facts, all showing the vital importance of the Temperance reform; and, also, the evident tendency of these movements, as apprehended by the devotees of the liquor interests themselves, moving them, as at a recent convention of brewers in Washington, to avow their determination to defeat, if possible, by all practicable means, the legal, moral, and especially the religious endeavors put forth against the evil by which they are enriched at the expense of the prosperity, happiness, and peace of so many millions of our land, – these facts are unmistakable indications of still greater achievements in the days and years to come.
Like most reforms, this one must work a long way on to its completion. The evil against which it contends is deep-seated and far-reaching. Appetite, avarice, and the drinking usages of society are its strongholds. But all these are not impervious to the inroads of the right upon them. The public conscience is awake to the demands of this reform as it never was before. When that is more truthfully and generally educated, moral suasion will have freer course, and restrictive laws will find a stronger support everywhere.
The history of our race is one of warfare. "Wars and fightings" have been realized among men from the beginning, and the world has not outgrown the sanguinary strife. Even during the time of which we are speaking in these pages, when so much has been done for the mental and moral enlightenment of mankind, these murderous human contentions have been going on in the Old World and the New. Our own nation has passed through one of the darkest passages of its history. The war of the Rebellion came of a war that existed previous to the withdrawal of the Southern States of our Union, the war of slavery, – for slavery itself is war always, an outrage on the rights of human beings, perpetrated by members of a common brotherhood. And thus one war opened the way to another. They who were warring upon others could no longer bear to have their wrong-doings questioned, but claimed the right to multiply and perpetuate them. So came secession, so came the fratricidal contest. The majority of the nation did not seek war, did not desire it. But the Unionists of the nation deemed themselves justified in resisting the efforts of the secessionists to dismember the nation, and so through a defensive warfare sought to preserve the Union. It was a terrible ordeal, and although the abomination of slavery was swept away, it was at the cost of tens of thousands of lives, of a vast amount of treasure, of suffering as yet unrevealed, and of a lamentable demoralization. The Almighty brought out of it a new order of things with our nation, by abolishing human bondage and placing freedom in the ascendancy. The new order, however, is not yet fully effected. It will take time, wisdom, patience, mutual forbearance, sympathy, and fraternal help to secure this result.
But one reform aids another. A higher view of the claims of human freedom will tend to effect a clearer perception of the great claims of the human brotherhood. If man is too good to be enslaved by his fellow-man, he is too good to be destroyed by him. If human freedom is sacred, so is human life. And we are sure that this grand conception has been very clearly realized, and as clearly affirmed, during the middle of the present century.
In the midst of the world's conflicts during this time, the advocates of peace principles, on both sides of the Atlantic, have not been inactive. They have had a hearing, if a limited one, in Christendom. Peace associations have been more operative than before, and the pulpit and press have made new appeals to the public for the promotion of peace principles. Excellent publications in essay, sermon, or oration have been issued from the press. We hear of one Sunday, in 1845, when one hundred and twenty peace sermons were preached in the city of London. Our philanthropic countryman, Elihu Burritt, has done much for this cause. One of the ablest and most admirable of appeals in behalf of "peace on earth and good will to men" was given in 1845, in Boston, by Charles Sumner, – who may be justly reckoned as one of the brightest lights among philanthropists and statesmen of the present century, – on "The True Grandeur of Nations." Moved by the threatening aspect of affairs between
Chambers' Miscellany.