can see the world as it now is for himself. If he be satisfied with it of course he can let it alone, but if his spiritual imagination is sufficiently vivid to see and be attracted by the spectacle of the same soil bearing not thorns, but golden grain, he will be willing to pass through a painful period of digging and burning and waiting for the grain to ripen.

XXXII.

THE QUESTION OF TEMPERANCE.

"John the Baptist came neither eating bread, nor drink= ing wine; and ye say, He bath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Bebold a gluttonous man, and a wine-bibber.”—LUKE vii. 33, 34.

WHAT has the Church to say concerning the matter of temperance? From the pulpit, of course, one speaks not as a publicist or as a reformer, but as a pastor to Christian people. I would like to state briefly what I believe Christ and His Church to teach His people concerning their duty in this matter. It would be a waste of time to dwell very long upon a statement of the evils produced by drunkenness. Everybody knows them, and everybody deplores them. The waste of substance, the disease, crime, poverty, distress of mind, body, and estate which is caused by this evil is incalculable. Everybody knows that. In the face of this situation what shall the pulpit say to the people as to their duty? There is a very short and easy answer. It is one which is frequently given. It is contained in two words, "Total abstinence."

There is very grave danger in laying upon the Bible a burden which it cannot bear. The Bible will not take upon itself the responsibility of teaching total abstinence! I am quite alive to the fact that right at this point some will use their liberty as a cloak for maliciousness, and others will be offended and walk no more with us. This is unfortunate, but it is no new misfortune. There have been unreasonable people in the world for many generations. They were not satisfied with John the Baptist's course, and declared that he had a devil because he was a total abstainer. Then they turned upon his Master and called Him a glutton and a winebibber because He was not a total abstainer.

The business of the pulpit is not to please any |

class, but to state the truth of God.

Now, what is the attitude of the Scripture toward the vice of drunkenness? It is to be noted in the first place that it was a vice perfectly well known to the writers of the New Testament, and one which came under the eye of the Master during His life. Horace and Plautus and Terence and Plutarch and Martial, all alike, treated this vice in a fashion which shows that it was so common that it was scarcely regarded as a vice at all. So, if the New Testament Scriptures fail to say with regard to it what some would wish they had said, it is not because they were not familiar with the facts, or because the facts were less flagrant in their day than in ours.

In the second place, it is to be noticed that the Scriptures class drunkenness with other sins, and refuse to put it in a category by itself. Current custom to-day, unfortunately, takes a very different attitude. It singles out this particular sin as though it were something exceptionalexceptional either in the irresistible quality of its temptation, or exceptional in the fact that it is not really as mortal an offense as the others. alongside which it is named. There are a dozen euphemisms for being drunk. Every other sin is called by its own name; it is not disguised by some gentler term. Theft is theft, lying is lying, and adultery is adultery; but in common speechi there are a dozen terms for being drunk, which do not altogether convey the idea that a man who gets drunk is guilty of a moral fault. The Scriptures never make this mistake. They call the evil by its right name, and class it with other sins for which the sinner himself is responsible. The popular way of dealing with this produces two evils. In the first place, it breaks down the moral resistance of the person who is tempted, if it is intimated to him that he is a "poor victim of drink," especially if it is intimated that he is the unfortunate possessor of an inherited appetite. He very quickly takes the kind-hearted but foolish reformer at his word, and regards himself as a victim rather than a sinner. In the second place, popular speech directs the public indignation against the wrong party.

If one

tithe of the public abuse which is addressed to the rum-seller were brought to bear upon the rum-drinker, the evil, if not eradicated, would be greatly lessened. For, after all, the man who sells the rum is not the criminal. At most he is only an accessory before the fact. We do not pity the man who commits burglary, and fine and imprison the man who sells him the jimmy. It would be just as wise to do so, as to pity the fellow who gets drunk and fine the saloon-keeper who sells him the liquor. If public opinion could be so revolutionized that for a period of six months it would treat the man who gets drunk as it does to-day the thief or the sodomite, drunkards would come to be very scarce.

What does Christianity provide in the way of incentive or in the way of restraint? The chief thing is the simple teaching of the New Testament as to the value, the destiny, and sanctity of the human body. It says to every follower of Christ, "Your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost." If you abuse it you commit not only a physical fault, but an offense which is in its nature sacrilege. "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?" Your bodies are members of Christ.

When we part from the Christian teaching concerning the sanctity of the body, it would be hard to establish any moral ground against either drunkenness or suicide. Besides this, however, it adds "a counsel of perfection" to what is a