World book of temperance

Front matter

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3=2.

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Part I.— Bible Temperance Lessons

/c^« .. c- ..,,,1 f,i,.,i Tvi...^ for other iiidoxes; p. 207 for TeiiiperiiiKe ("onimentary (use for , namiiona?- heU- ^a l!;n7;u...th,..' lh.Us'\vlth 'eUry lesson); Re.-ltations (see Topk-al Index).

Sacrificing Future Good for Present Appetites (Genesis 25) 9

God's Great Gift of Water (Exodus 17) 1"^

God's Flaming Displeasure at Drink in the Church (Leviticus 10) 2,->

The Nazarite Pledge, "Limited," the First Temperance Pledge (Numbers 6) 33

The First Total Abstinence Fraternity (Jeremiah 35) 39

How the Pitcher Led to Victory and the Bottle to Defeat (Judges 7) 47

A Traffic to be Hated and Destroyed (Psalm 10) 55

"Whosoever is Deceived Thereby is Not Wise" (Proverbs 20) 63

••^Wisdom's Warnings Against Wine (Proverbs 23) 69

Alcohol's Harvest of Woes (Isaiah 5) '^^

Nation's Destroyed by Drink (Isaiah 28) 87

When in Babylon Do as Babylonians Ought to Do (Daniel 1) 97

Sports that Kill (Daniel 5) 105

Drink Outherods Herod (Mark 6) 113

♦Drugging the Guards (Luke 12) 12»

Your Father Calls, Come Home (Luke 15) > 133

*«How Love Keeps and Liquor Breaks the Commandments (Romans 13) 145

♦Christianity an Abstinence Religion (Romans 14) 153

*For the Sake of Others (1 Corinthians 10) 159

*True and False Liberty (Galatians 5) 165

The Holy Spirit a True Stimulant (Ephesians 5) 171

Why Abstain ? (1 Thessalonians 5) 1'^^

The Spiritual Conquering the Spirituous (1 Peter 4) 191

The Holy City Coming Down (Revelation 21) 197

Temperance Tour of the World 203

PART II.— TEMPERANCE COMPEND AND CYCLOPEDIC INDEXES. Temperance Commentary and Biblical Index 207

Temperance Sayings of Eminent Men and Biographical Index 2o3

Blackboard Temperance Lessons 257

Liquor Dealers' Claims Answered 265

Why the Cigarette Evil Must Be Combated 267

Foods as Temperance Auxiliaries 269

The Allied Reforms 275

Temperance Literature 277

Topical Index 281

Geographical Index 284

International Reform Bureau 286

International Sunday-School Association Pledge 288

*Intei-national Sunday-school Temperance Lessons for 1909 are: June 27, Rom. 13: 8-14; Sept. 26, 1 Cor. 10: 23-33; Nov. 28, Rom. 14: 10-21.

For 1910 the lessons are: Feb. 20, Matt. 7: 1-12 (treating Golden Rule as basis^of temperance, which closely accords with lesson above on Rom. 13); May 8, Prov. 23: 29-35; Sept. 25, Gal. 5: 15-26; Nov. 13, Matt. 20: 17-30 (a lesson on "Watchfulness," to wMch lesson above on Luke 12 is devoted).

CIVIC RIGHTEOUSNESS PRELUDE.

I

The International Sunday-school Convention has suggested that Temperance Sunday should deal with civic righteousness, not temperance alone.

Supt. (or Pastor ) : What is civic righteousness?

Asst. Supt. (or school ) : It is doing right in matters of government; the citizen doing right in every vote, the State in every law.

Supt. In what words are Christians required by their Master to perform their duties to government as well as their duties to God?

Asst. Supt. "Render to Csesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's."

Supt. What is the practical meaning of that law, and the deeper one on which all law is based, "Thou shalt love God and thy neighbor"?

Asst. Supt. All these divine laws aim to establish right relations — right relations between man and God, first; then between man and man, the double relation that constitutes religion.

Supt. And what does government have to do with securing these right relations ?

Asst. Supt. Government, so far as it uses force and penalty, aims only to establish right relations between man and man.

Supt. What does civic righteousness require of a Christian citizen and a "Christian nation" in the matter of temperance, in view of the fact that intemperance, more than almost anything else, destroys "right relations" between man and man? Do any of the Ten Commandments condemn our drinking usages or our drink traffic?

Alcohol is the Decalogue's worst foe, and abstinence is its best friend. But it is a great error to suppose there are only ten commandments. Surely New Testament commandments are no less binding, and one of them, formerly mistranslated, is, "Abstain from every form of evil."

Supt. Have teachers and religious teachers any right tO' teach temperance ?

Asst. Supt. Surely we ought to teach what our churches have so often approved by resolutions, even if we had not stronger reasons in our Bibles, in whose pages prophets and apostles reasoned with kings of "righteousness, temperance and a judgment to come."

Supt. For kings there was a "judgment to come," but is there a judgment day for governments and for nations?

Asst. Supt. Their judgment days, the Bible teaches, come in this world, and every great world empire of antiquity has undergone sentence of death for its sins. Not one government since the world began has flourished a thousand years. It was not to an individual but to a nation that revival text was first spoken, that would be most appropriate for a civic revival to save a whole city, "Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel!"

Sacrificing Future Good for Present Appetites*

2y And the boys grew : and Esau was a skilful hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents. 28 Now Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison : and Rebekah loved Jacob.

29 And Jacob boiled pottage: and Esau came in from the field, and he was faint:

30 And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom.

31 And Jacob said. Sell me first thy birthright. 32 And Esau said, Behold, I am about to die: and what profit shall the birthright do to me? 33 And Jacob said. Swear to me first; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birtliright unto Jacob. 34 And Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way : so Esau despised his birthright.

19 And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau thy first-born: I have done according as thou badest me: arise, I pray thee, sit and eat of my venison, that thy soul may bless me. 20 And Isaac said unto his son, How is it that thou hast found it so quickly, my son? And he said. Because Jehovah thy God sent me good speed. 21 And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee, that I may feel thee, my son, whether thou be my very son Esau or not. 22 And Jacob went near unto Isaac his father; and he felt him, and said. The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. 23 And he discerned him not, because his hands were hairy, as his brother Esau's hands: so he blessed him. 24 And he said, Art thou my very son Esau ? And he said, I am. 25 And he said, Bring it near to me, and I will cat of my son's venison, that my soul may bless thee. And he brought it near to him, and he did eat : and he brought him wine, and he drank. 26 And his father Isaac said unto him. Come near now, and kiss me, my son. 27 And he came near, and kissed him: and he smelled the smell of his raiment, and blessed him, and said, I See, the smell of my son is as the smell of 1 a field which Jehovah hath blessed. I

Note. — We insert as the test critical commentary on these lessons the American Revised text, representing ten years' work of the one hundred foremost Hebrew and Greek scholars of the English-speaking world — the points in which the American scholars differed being in preference for accuracy even where some conservative ecclesiastical tradition was involved. We assume that Sunday-school teachers need little more of exposition, and devote these lessons chiefly to application and illustration by which these old truths may be fitted to present needs.

Golden Text : The priest and the prophet reel zvith strong drink vision, they stumble in judgment. — Isa. 28: 7.

they err in

Here are stories of two hunts of Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, both sons of Isaac and Rebekah. By a moment's precedence Esau was the elder and so entitled to the "birthright," which carried about the same privileges that pertain to the elder son in a noble British family — the largest share of the family estate and the family honors, and, in the Abrahamic line, a special blessing of God also for this world and the other. Such was the priceless gem that the reckless hunter, Esau, possessed, but did not prize, being absorbed in the pleasures of the passing moment. Returning hungry from the hunt, ne found the quiet, agricultural, home - keeping Jacob cooking some savory soup of red lentils, and earnestly appealed for a share of it. Jacob replied, "I will trade my soup for your birthright." It was as if he had said, "I will give you fifteen minutes enjoyment of fifteen cents worth of soup if you will give me your future." And Esau accepted, made the hard bargain, saying to his conscience and his judgment because he felt a little hungry and faint, "Behold I am about to die, and what profit shall the birthright do to me?"

It is one of the most incredible stories of the Bible, yet no skeptic ever challenged it, for young and old are repeating every day, in every lO

World Book of Temperance.

town, that wicked and foolish exchange of future good for piesent enjoyment of appetite or passion. In every city every day there are even children of godly parents, who, for fifteen minutes of sinful pleasure, will give future health and happiness, the respect of men and the blessing of God for both worlds.

There is not a word about intoxicants in this part of the story, and the superficial method of selecting as temperance lessons only passages where wine or drunkenness is specifically mentioned, has prevented the assignment of this story for a temperance lesson. But it goes to the very root of the trouble, and although not even gluttony is alleged in this story it reveals the very characteristic of human nature that enables the liquor dealers of to-day to lure the generous Esaus of our time into bargaining away property and health and hope and Heaven for a momentary excitation.

Blinded by Wine.

Again, some time later, Esau returns ^rom the hunt, expecting to steal from his brother the birthright he has sold. But his treachery has been checkmated by his brother's treachery. Dishonesty has been defeated by lying. Isaac had sent Esau to the hunt with the promise that he should have the birthright blessing when he returned and once more delighted his father's appetite with a feast of deer meat. In Esau's absence Jacob has successfully impersonated him by cooking a kid, whose meat he declares to be the expected venison, and by putting the kid's soft hair on his hands, that they may feel like Esau's, and by dosing his father with wine that all his senses and his judgment may be the more easily fooled, Jacob has secured the birthright blessing, and Esau, whose bad bargain is thus confirmed, in all his life, "found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently, with tears."

The deeper temperance teaching of this story is the misleading influence of appetite, even in eating, when it leads to the sacrifice of future good, as in Esau, or to unwise choice of favorites, as in Isaac. But the use of wine to deepen the blindness of Isaac is significant, even though Jacob did not know as fully as modern scientists, or even as wejl as Isaiah, that it makes men "err in vision and stumble in judgment." That is why bad men used to treat before a trade. Julia Colman, in "The Independent" for March 22, 1894, gives numerous instances where auctioneers and salesmen, by dosing prospective purchasers with wine and beer, have led them to offer many times the value of the goods. When a Christian man, about to sell a standing forest years ago, refused to supply liquors to the crowd, as was then usual, the auctioneer said, "I am sorry, for the trees look larger and men feel more generous when they have been drinking, and you will get lower prices by omitting the drink." It reminds us of the custom in China to order one scale to sell by and another by which to buy. No less unjust is the man who uses drink to increase his selling price ; no less foolish the buyer who accepts drink when it is so manifestly at his own cost.

Here is an experiment by Dr. Mc- Culloch to show how alcohol dulls the perceptions :

"Hold a mouthful of spirits — whiskey, for instance — in your mouth for five minutes, and you will find it burns severely ; inspect the mouth, and you will find it inflamed. Hold it for ten or fifteen minutes, and you will find that various parts of the interior of the mouth have become

Sacrificing Future Good for Present Appetites.