Intemperance

Front matter

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EDITED BY AAW ROBINSON’B’D

Theology Library

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PAGE vl Contents

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER Ix

CHAPTER X

Brancues AND MEETINGS

CHAPTER XI

Practica, Hints

CHAPTER XII

Work AMONG CHILDREN .

CHAPTER XIII

Causrs oF INTEMPERANCE.

CHAPTER XIV

Persona REsPoNnsIBILITY

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CHAPTER I THE URGENCY OF THE EVIL

Ir would be strange if this series of Handbooks for the Clergy did not contain a volume upon the subject of Intemperance. All kinds of social problems and questions force themselves upon our attention. We recognise the claim they have upon our time and thought. We acknowledge that it is a distinct and leading part of our duty to strive to solve and answer them. The well-being of the people is, in a sense, our very raison détre. Could we, then, pass by this great evil without giving the most searching thought to the discovery of the best means by which to raise the heavy burden under which so many are groaning, and to remove this gigantic obstacle which stands between them and their service of Almighty God ?

There have been epochs in the past which, as we can see clearly now, were marked by achievements which had called loudly for accomplishment— times in which “the people then living” had committed to them a special work to do. Is this not such a time? and is not our task that of the amelioration of the general condition of the masses, by

x A the controlling, guiding, uplifting power of our Holy Faith? and are not the sufferers from the great sin of Intemperance calling to us the most loudly for help and for deliverance ?

Much has been said and done in regard to this sorely needed work of reformation which has been worse than unwise, a fact which makes it ten times more necessary that men of zeal, who are at the same time men of sense, men filled with enthusiasm for their Master and also of discerning love for their fellow-men, should be the leaders and the workers in a cause of such magnitude and unspeakable importance.

But am I assuming too much when I imagine that we are all agreed that this is an evil of gigantic proportions ; that it is a national vice ; that it is a source of bitter suffering and shame and loss to multitudes of our people? It may be that I am; for this I know, that, although I have been directly interested in the work of temperance reform for over five-and-twenty years, and have attended a great many meetings upon the subject, and have heard speeches almost without number about it, the researches which the writing of this little book required have proved a revelation to me, and have shown that I had not half understood the real dimensions of the evil. With others it may be as it was with myself,

Two hundred years ago Chief Justice Hales said of a catalogue of the worst crimes: “I have found that, if they were divided into five parts, four of them have been the product of excessive drinking.” Have things greatly improved since then? Let us listen to Lord Chief Justice Coleridge: “Judges are weary with calling attention to drink as the principal cause of crime. If they could make England sober, they would shut up nine-tenths of her prisons!” And what of the inevitable result of this? The fear is at last being felt by those in chief authority that degeneration and decay may be the fate of this country if things continue as they are.

Major-General Sir F. Maurice, in the course of an address given at the annual meeting of the Manchester Sanitary Association, stated that three men out of every five who volunteered for the army were rejected as being physically unfit. This question of physical decay was, he asserted, one of appalling national magnitude. Among the contributing causes he referred to the custom of giving babies intoxicating drink. Doctors had told him that “ gin livers” in children under three years of age were a common feature in hospital practice. The resulting infant mortality was a most serious consideration, and the survivors were anzemic, miserable specimens of humanity, not fit for civil work, far less for military.

In the “Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration,” lately published, are these words: “Mr. Eccles submitted some striking figures (1) from Dr. Tatham’s letter to the Registrar-General (2) from certain insurance tables to prove the effect of alcohol in shortening life. According to the first it has been ascertained that of 61,215 men between 25 and 65, 1000 die in one year, but of 61,215 publicans no less than 1642 die in one year, while of the Rechabites (abstainers) only 560 die. Under the second head the higher vitality of temperance lives is shown by the fact that, whereas out of 100,000 persons aged 30, some 44,000 would, according to the average rate of mortality, survive to the age of 70, over 55,000 abstainers might be expected to reach that age, or 25 per cent. more.”

It would require the space of an encyclopedia were I to bring forward the utterances of all the distinguished persons who have borne similar testimony. I will only cite here one in each of the departments of our daily life. Sir F. H. Jeune said that, as President of the Divorce Court, he could not help seeing that one-half of the matrimonial troubles which came before him could be attributed to excessive drinking.

In January 21, 1882, the Alliance News published a list of the more serious crimes and offences which had been reported in the newspapers of England, Wales, and Scotland for the last week of 1881 and the first of 1882 as having been committed entirely under the influence of drink. The result was this:—14 murders, 16 suicides, 9 attempted suicides, 15 cases of stabbing, 111 premature, sudden, or violent deaths, 53 violent assaults, 54 assaults on policemen, 9 cruelty to children, 65 assaults on women, &c. The Alliance News had announced beforehand its intention of publishing this list in a special supplement, so certain was it of what the result would be. But it had so far under-estimated the miserable and shameful total that the supplement ran into eight pages, and even these were so far from sufficient, that six additional columns, of seven pages, were required to comprise the list. And this at a time which included the octave of the great Christian festival of Christmas! Can we say things have mended ?

In January, 1904, the same newspaper (Alliance News) published a list of the more serious crimes and offences which had been reported in the newspapers of England, Wales, and Scotland for the last week of 1903 and the first of 1904 as having been committed entirely under the influence of drink. This record, which only aims at giving a short summary of each case, is an equally appalling evidence of the terrible power of the intemperance as that of the previous date above quoted. if printed as an appendix to this book it would take considerably over 400 pages, or at least three times the size of the present volume. The following are the results:—During this one fortnight there were, of the cases reported, 5 drink-caused murders, 3 manslaughters, 29 suicides, 21 stabbing cases, 62 sudden or violent deaths, 13 outrageous assaults, 67 assaults on constables, 68 cases of robbery or damage to property, &c., &c.—those all caused entirely by drink. In all 3292 of these cases are recorded, and the whole forms such a miserable and shameful story of national degradation that the editor rightly calls it “The Nation’s Black Record.”

Admiral Sir W. King-Hall, when in command of H.M.S. Russell, at Falmouth, in the presence of his ship’s company, read out the punishments of the past year, which showed that more than two-thirds of the offences arose from drink. He then said: “I know nothing of temperance work, but you see all this disgrace, and punishment, and misery is due to drink. If we give it up, this cannot happen.” He gave it up, and was followed by large numbers of his men, who remained true to their promises.

I will not touch here on the vast array of medical evidence which may be called. I shall deal with that later on. Let me mention the names of some men, in our own profession, who have spoken, in no uncertain tones, upon this matter. And, in the forefront, let me place the honoured name of Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury. Strong as he was, and convinced as he was upon this matter, who could accuse him of extravagant words, or uncharitable acts in connection with his temperance work? Certainly he was not a man to be carried away by his emotions. What was it, then, which touched him sodeeply? Why was it that he spent so large —as some who were least informed upon the facts thought, so disproportionately large —a portion of his valuable time in the advocacy of temperance reform? Why was it that, in his declining days, when rest was essential to his very life, he yet could never refuse the call to a temperance meeting? Those who have heard him tell the story will not readily forget it. I remember well, at Dover, hearing him give an account of his early experiences as Bishop of Exeter with reference to this. He was sitting in his study writing, when he was told that “a clergyman” desired urgently to see him. He was at once admitted, and, when the door was closed, he flung himself, in an agony of shame and grief, at the Bishop’s feet, and cried—“ I have come to you as my Father in God. Have pity on me and help me if you can. I am that most degraded creature, a drunken clergyman.” It was because so many of his people were thus weak and enslaved, that this strong man gave up his own liberty, and

8 Intenvperance stood beside them, and extended to them, not only his earnest sympathy, but also his ready help. Let me cite the testimony of but one more dignitary of the Church of England, lately called to his well-earned rest—Dean Farrar—who, amongst his many eloquent words upon this subject, said this: ‘I have seen widows who have become widows through drink, children fatherless through drink, and homes desolated through drink, and suicides and murders, and deaths by delirium tremens, and the sacrifice of children, and brutal assaults of husbands on their wives and sons on their mothers, and pecuniary loss and individual ruin and spiritual wreck, and family destitution and social degradation, and places where human beings live made worse than the lairs of wild beasts—and all through drink.” I will quote here but one more witness from amongst the leading statesmen of to-day. The Right Honourable C. T. Ritchie, late Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking at Dundee, on February 23, 1903, said: ‘‘ What I am certain of is this, that no town can be really prosperous or great if it is a drunken town. Crime as surely follows drink as night follows day. I have done something in my little way to deal with this terrific evil, and I am sure that all of us ought to do everything that lies in our power, both by precept and example, to impress upon people the awful results which follow on excessive drinking.” In introducing the Licensing Bill of 1902, he gave the following striking experience which had been the result of his tenure of the office of Home Secretary: “ For my own part, I am amazed to see the large number of crimes of violence which have come before me during the time I have been at the Home Office, which have been caused by drunkenness. I do not think I am going wide of the mark when I say that nine-tenths of the greatest of all the crimes have been in the main caused by drunkenness.” In estimating the value of that testimony, let us not forget that Mr. Ritchie had been Home Secretary when he spoke these words, and had seen the pages of England’s crime opened wide before him. When he speaks therefore of that “ terrific evil” he speaks as a man who knows. There is evidence enough, indeed, to satisfy us that there ws a great, an awful evil in our midst, which is working havoc amongst our people, who may rightly look to us, not only for sympathy and ‘instruction, but for guidance and for help. It cannot be too much to say that our care for such questions as this one of temperance is the measure of our own spiritual vitality, and of the sincerity of our discipleship to Christ.

I lately had the advantage of hearing an Indian lady, Miss Malvery, give a touchingly eloquent temperance address, and in it she told us the reasons which had induced her to dedicate her time and talents to this cause. Shortly after coming to England, she went to stay with a deaconess of her acquaintance who was living and working in the east end of London. ‘They had much to say to each other, and chatted together until midnight. As they were wishing each other “good-night” they heard a ring at the door-bell, and went down together to see what could be wanted at so late an hour. It was a bitter night and the snow lay thickly upon the ground, and, as the door was opened, an icy blast of wind seemed to cut them to the bone. Outside they found a poor woman, thinly and scantily clad, carrying a bundle in her arms. She was pale and emaciated, and seemed to be utterly exhausted. Addressing the deaconess, she pleaded for shelter for the night, for the babe she carried and for herself, from the bitter blast. Her husband was mad drunk, she said, and had turned her and her infant, who was seriously ill, out into the cold. She dared not return as he threatened to murder them should she do so. At once she was admitted. The fire was rekindled, her dripping clothes removed, and some warm tea prepared. And then, stooping gently over her, the deaconess lifted from her arms the child which she carried. It had been carefully wrapped within the shawl, which was her only warm covering. Gently this was removed, but, on seeing the infant, the kindly features of the deaconess assumed so troubled, and so sad a look, that the exhausted mother staggered across the room to see what was amiss. And it was just this—the little child was dead. In a dry-eyed agony of grief, she left it where it lay, with these piteously awful words— “And you say that there is a God of mercy who cares for and protects us. I will never believe in Him again, or try to keep right before Him!” In the extremity of her agony, she fled from the house, leaving the dead child behind her, and they never subsequently heard what became of her. With sundry other similar experiences of English “life” in the east end, this Indian lady was moved to undertake the temperance crusade, in which she is now engaged. I feel sure that could we make known hidden facts such as these, which are to be met with in our very midst day by day, few who profess and call themselves Christians would not be moved to help in some way to rectify so great an evil. It would be impossible that we, who are ministers of God to these people, should refrain from trying to do what she is doing and has done.

We cannot—we dare not—be silent on so urgent a matter, or refrain from uttering our warnings; from persevering in our entreaties; from being alert to educate and teach the truths which will put people upon their guard; and from thundering forth upon those who willingly and deliberately put a stumbling-block in the way of their weak brethren, as our Master did upon the guilty Pharisees, the woes which must fall upon the wilful enemies of God.

We clergy occupy a position which gives us great advantages for dealing with this matter. We see and know our people, we speak to them in public and in private. They expect us to talk to them of their temptations and shortcomings, not indeed in the tones of an autocrat, but with the frankness and the kindness of a friend—of a friend who concerns himself about them, because he is not only deeply interested in their welfare, but is prepared to sacrifice himself in the promotion of it. It is impossible, then, that we can refrain from speaking to them about this.

Chapter II The Duty Of The Church

THE question is constantly asked, “ What can we do for the people? what can we do to bring them greater intelligence, stronger moral force, and to put them on the road to a higher social welfare?” And this is a concern of true Christianity. Our Lord said, “I have compassion on the multitude.” We recognise that we are not only right in deliberating and conferring on such matters, but that we are bound to do it. The social and temporal well-being of the people cannot but be of the utmost interest to those who are charged with the responsibility for their spiritual advancement. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the Church, if she is to justify her claim to be a Divine institution, charged with a commission by God Himself, can only do so by the reality of her care and whole-hearted work for those who are the beneficiaries of the trust to which she has been appointed. She has to vindicate her claim by showing that everything which affects the well-being of the people is her first thought. She must prove that she is no respecter of ee she is indifferent to the consequences which may ensue on her disinterested action, that her glory is in winning her people to Christ, rather than in amassing wealthy endowments, or in building many great and noble buildings, or even in multiplying services, in which her people can take no part because of the darkness of some great sin in which they still are lost. She must ever be ready to stand between the living and the dead, raising aloft the blessed emblem of salvation on which they may rest their dying eyes; foremost in defending the weak and the oppressed, being to them the interpreter of God; and keen to use the rich endowment of. heavenly grace with which her Master has equipped her for her work. It will be for her constantly to remind herself that it is useless to speak to men of the life to come when the surrounding circumstances of their present existence make it impossible for them to feel those higher influences, or to hear the appeals to **Come up higher,” of which the world is full to those who have an ear to hear. The devil must be cast out before she can hope to bring those who are now fettered by him to the foot of the Cross of Christ, ready to render to Him a sane, a worthy, and a reasonable service.

Can any one who knows the inner life of the great masses of the people of England deny that one of their greatest obstacles is intemperance ?

my that it is intemperance which largely blocks the way of the Kingdom of God for those for whom we are responsible to God? Our people are not godless: Godliness is waiting to be evolved in them. I believe from my heart that we should scarcely know the great masses of our people if we could change the social conditions under which they live; if we could revolutionise their habits; and if the curse of drink were removed from amongst them. Only those who are in ignorance of their lives could possibly deny this. What it would be to look forward to bank holidays and great festivals with no dread of the shame of intoxication marring them! What it would be to know that the Day of Rest was a real day of bodily and spiritual refreshment and recreation to those whose lot in life it is “to rise up early and so late take rest, and to eat the bread of carefulness!” What it would be to see husband and wife and children go forth together to their well-earned holiday, and come back sane and rational, happy though tired human beings, rather than _brutalised and degraded by drunkenness! What it would be to have our working-men returning to their task on Monday, not only none the worse, but infinitely the better, for their well-earned Sunday. A people capable of doing what the English people have done, with a history so splendid and so wonderful in many ways, can never be beyond hope, never beyond the possibility of the grandest achievements and attainments; and we, their priests and moral leaders, have had the task committed to us by our Lord Himself of trying to effect this change. We dare not question the commission, nor turn fainthearted at its magnitude. Pessimism has been called “‘the devil’s art”; Optimism in such a cause is but another name for Christian hope, and we must believe, ignorant and unworthy as we are, the power which Christ has given us is equal to the task.

Something of what Father Mathew did in Cork, we may—if indeed we have the faith to try—do ourselves in the parishes in which we have been appointed to carry on the Church’s work. How many thousands blessed the name of that man because of the freedom from sin’s oppression which he brought to them and theirs !

Oh! for such a word to be said to us by some of our people, as was said to a priest once by a man whom he had reclaimed from the thraldom of drink, on his deathbed, “I am blind,” he said, “‘and I cannot see you, but I pray that the light of heaven may be upon your soul, and I will pray on for you while I live.” That would be indeed a great and a high reward—a reward to win and to deserve which no amount of self-sacrifice and effort would be too great,

That it is an intensely difficult task, all who have touched it, even with the tip of their little finger, know full well. The passion for drink is so overwhelming, the craving so irresistible, the habit so enslaving, that those who work amongst the intemperate and concern themselves about their reclamation must be prepared for the sternest and the severest struggle, must expect disappointment after disappointment, must take lapse after lapse on the part of those for whom they are praying and labouring as a matter of course and the natural thing to be expected, and must be ready, “until seventy

~ times seven,” to forgive and to help again.

For, though no sin is easy to give up and to conquer, in this sin of intemperance we have one of the hardest to overcome. It is not only that it creates a physical condition which is most difficult to change and master, but there is, I believe, no other habit, save perhaps that engendered by long years of indulgence in impurity, which so weakens and overthrows the whole moral nature. Confirmed inebriates cannot speak the truth, they unhesitatingly stoop to the grossest deception, and the records of the divorce court show how it inflames the lower passions.

Were this all, the task of reclaiming drunkards would be difficult enough, but, when we add to their own strong craving and propensity, the terrible temptations which teem on every side of B them, and from which there seems no way of escape, then indeed the difficulty of the work is magnified stupendously.

Think of the condition of those who have to live in the slums of our great towns, where at every corner of every street, of every lane, the gin-palace flames. Turn which way the people will, they cannot reach their homes without passing by it, and as the fetid, tainted air comes out to them through the swinging doors, it is enough, in many cases, to set on fire a desire which they had hoped to conquer, and which was, until then, lying dormant in them. In such places as these, and: to people circumstanced like this, it would be vain to go and speak of moderation. Those who would be pioneers in the work, leaders in the fight, must be prepared to go down to the level of the weak, that thus they may be the better able to save some; for those know best, who have worked in these places, that, for the dwellers in such localities, there is but one hope of salvation, namely, to close their lips absolutely against that which is their bane, their social ruin, and their shame, and which threatens to be their eternal destruction also.

I lately came across the following extracts from provincial newspapers, typical, I believe, of what might be found in many more. “The Salvation Army has caused a wonderful change here. Hundreds of those street skulks, who did g, and, for what they did, spent the wages in public-houses, are now found at the meetings singing praises to God, and praying for grace to help them in time of need.” And again this. “TI find no very serious drink cases reported in our city. The Salvation Army has got hold of a large number of the worst of our former drunkards.” For manifest reasons, I do not give the names of the towns about which these words were written, that thus I may be able the more freely to ask why it was left to the Salvation Army to do a work which the Church of England, with all her magnificent organisation, with her great prestige, with her divine authority and power, with her parish churches and cathedrals, with her numerous clergy and wealthy laity, had not only failed to do, but had not even seriously attempted ?

Thank God the work was done; but how great is the shame and the reproach to us, that we had thus neglected what we believe our Master has given us to do.

I recently heard a bishop of the Church, at home for a brief space from his far-off diocese, say that he was struck by what seemed to him the torpor which had fallen upon the Church of England here at home at the present time. We can hardly read Charles Booth’s book, Life and Labour of the People in London, and not acknowledge that, in its unprejudiced pages, we next to nothing find facts and records which seem to indicate that this is true. Does our treatment of the social condition of our people give evidence that the fire of enthusiasm has died down within us? that our service is cold and ceremonial? that our witness for our Master is feeble and uncertain ? that the worldliness, which is so characteristic of our time, has laid its paralysing touch upon us, and made us indifferent to the weightier matters of the law, whilst scrupulously observant of its ceremonies and externals? Let us all ask ourselves such questions honestly, face them squarely, and answer them without prejudice. As for our temperance work it is surely to our discredit that, until comparatively lately, we have not been in the van of this great movement. ‘There have been leaders, here and there, among the clergy who have done noble work; proportionately more rarely still, devoted laymen, who have laboured under a sense of imperative duty to make things better, but of the great body of the members of our Church, it must be said that, even now, they show an apathy and an indifference towards temperance work which is as strange as it is sad.

From the Temperance Record I take these words, which seem to me to be words of simple truth and soberness: “ Whatever position we feel called upon to take in reference to our own social habits, whether we are abstainers or not, it is utterly impossible for any one who loves his country, or cares for the Gospel of Christ, who can read either the sorrowful statistics of the drink traffic, or see the lives that are wasted and made wretched by it, to do so without a sense of dread, dread that all this means eventually, © and possibly very soon, a calamity of disastrous magnitude to the whole land. There is ruin and loss of life everywhere. 'That, surely, is argument enough.”

And I fear there is another matter in connection with intemperance with regard to which we have been greatly wanting. We have not been sufficiently forward in “preventive work.” We have not been as active as we might, and ought to have been, in educating our people as to the danger of alcohol; we have been chary of our words of warning.

The following is a translation of the chief points in a remarkable placard posted on the walls of Paris a few months ago by the Prefect of the Seine, and the Director of Public Charity :—

“ Alcoholism is chronic poisoning, due to the habit of drinking spirits, even though such indulgence does not lead to unruly drunkenness or even tipsiness. It is a mistake to say that alcohol is of service to men engaged in work that puts a strain upon muscles, or that it gives heart to the workman and enables him to withstand fatigue.