Reasons for total abstinence [14 March 1890]

[Editor: An article advocating the Temperance cause. Published in The North Melbourne Advertiser, 14 March 1890.]

Reasons for total abstinence

1. — No moderate drinker can be at all sure that he will not on some occasion drink too much.

2 — All who drink in moderation are liable in time of mental or bodily trouble or debility, and in the gradual approach of old age, to drink too much. Many professing Christians, not abstainers, on failing in business, or losing wife or child, or meeting a great disappointment, have taken to drink excessively.

3 — Moderate drinkers set an example to the young which, if they attempt to follow, it may be the ruin of them. Abstainers set an example to youth which all may safely follow, and which may be the means of saving many from drunkenness.

4 — Moderate drinkers, if parents, throw their influence over their children on the side of the strongest temptations to which they can be exposed.

5 — All who use intoxicating liquors as a beverage have practically no influence in preventing others from drinking.

6 — Total abstainers can never drink too much, and will be in no danger of taking wine as a remedy for sorrow.

7 — Those who drink in moderation may transmit a constitutional predisposition to their children much stronger than they had in beginning their own lives: a tendency which with a father’s example and the presence of the tempter, may prove practically irresistible; so it often comes to pass that the worst effects of the habit are to be seen in the second generation.

8 — The highest form of Christian life is self-denial for the good of others. Total abstinence, if it be a great sacrifice should be practised for our own sake, for we are in danger; if it be not great sacrifice, what generous mind would refuse to abstain in order to save the weak, and to help those who are so earnestly striving to resist the temper.

Source:
The North Melbourne Advertiser (North Melbourne, Vic.), Friday 14 March 1890, page 3

[Editor: Corrected “pratically” to “practically”.]