LETTER XXXIII.
From Clarence to Carlton.
Dear Robert,—Permit me very respectfully to ask, on
which side of this question does your squireship rank? Are
you writing at me or the temperance societies in your last?
Perhaps you aim at being a moderate, or a conservative—a
very adroit and sensible sort of a fellow that sees faults on
both sides and none in himself—hey? However, I must try
and answer not only “temperately,” as you suggest, but
also seriously, lest I be led away by your levity.
I know, dear Robert, you think with me, when I call the
Temperance Reformation a noble—a holy cause; a cause
worthy every good man's prayers and labors; a cause no
truly good man can really oppose, but which fills his heart
with joy at its success and sorrow for its defeat. Error in
judgment may induce such a man temporarily and seemingly
to oppose. Abuses in its administration, as an organized
government of opinion, may make him abandon certain forms
and schemes of the reformation; but the reformation itself,
fairly understood, no man, with the benevolence of Christ in
his heart, surely can either abuse or oppose. He must be
a very anomalous minister, or elder, or deacon, that can
seriously and habitually wish evil to the cause; and opposition
in such men looks very like the folly and wickedness
of not entering into the kingdom of heaven ourselves and
preventing others from entering.
But in proportion as the cause of temperance is dear to
a good man, he will of necessity be more jealous of every
new movement in its behalf. He will scrutinize all such in
their principles and bearings, before he will admit or advocate
them; and if deemed of pernicious tendency, he must
and will openly and fearlessly oppose. He will be suspicious
of all advocates and professed friends, who, from affected or
mistaken zeal for this good cause, shall slight or injure, or
oppose other
moralities, or any plain law or ordinance of God.
He will not tolerate for a moment any specious reasoning
that shall tend to make one phase of morality superior to
the whole of morality, much less to the gospel. He will not,
he dares not, allow that all sacred and time-honored usages
shall become merely subservient to this incidental and temporary
institution. For this is a temporary institution that
must of necessity end with the attainment of its object: but
the others are designed to be coeval with the life of man, and
will remain till the dissolution of the world.
A good man must regard the cause of temperance as one
of solemnity; hence he can but oppose all frivolity and levity
in all that aim to promote it, as inconsistent, and, indeed, as
subversive of the cause. But, Robert, is there no temperance,
save in a temperance society? May a good man never
be exemplary in the strict abstinence required by a pledge,
and yet for reasons withhold or even withdraw his name
from a society? And are there no good reasons for this
course? but must a man of necessity be a wine-bibber,—according
to the silly and malicious insinuations ultra advocates
for societies make respecting him?
Granted, all other things being equal, that it may be
obligatory or advisable to increase strength by union; yet
when other things are not equal, we may fight in this war at
our own charges—and certainly we may do good service as
partisans. Now, Robert, at Somewhersburg, is a state of
affairs rendering it proper and necessary for the clergy to
withdraw—not from temperance, but from our local temperance
society.
And, first, Robert, the tone assumed by our society in
their public lectures, and papers, and even daily conversation,
is vituperative and offensive. This we decidedly object to;
because it is vulgar and canting; shows profound ignorance
of all courtesy; is vindictive and provoking; and wholly
different from the style of rebuke authorized by the Bible.
It is, moreover, impolite, and hardens and emboldens offenders;
for they are so over-belabored as to excite sympathy
and create friends.
Again, our society has forgotten the modesty, simplicity
and gentleness of its original principles. We commenced
resolving to set no example of evil to men, and in no way to
tempt them unnecessarily to use intoxicating drinks.
In pursuance of this plain and simple resolution we put
away our bottles and decanters; and, on all befitting occasions,
we persuaded others to follow our example. We began
not with the maker and the vender, but with the drinker.
If the drinker ceased, the makers and venders must cease.
But if the drinkers ceased not, they would find and create
the others, even if the others had previously no existence.
Drinkers will make and vend for themselves. By dealing
with the drinker, therefore, we thought was the way to “lay
the axe at the root.”
We gave, indeed, offence and created alarm; but as we
never abused makers and venders en masse, or threatened,
they had no fair pretext to attack us, and they only lamented
that we were going too far with our rigorous notions. Hence
they did not absent themselves from our churches; although
in the meanwhile the business of making and vending decreased
as the drinkers diminished, and we had a fair prospect
it might at last be wholly abandoned. Now, however,
we no longer aim to persuade, but to order—we would not
minister, but rule. All whose names are not to the pledge are
said to be against us. Our entire effort seems not so much
for the advantage of the drinker as for the punishment of the
vender. We shut our eyes to a very obvious fact, that the
drinker as really creates the vender as the vender does the
drinker. Nay—it is absolutely and necessarily true, if the
drinker stops, the vender ceases:—the reverse is far from
being a necessary consequence. If a miracle were in a
moment to stop all makers and venders, and the drinkers retained
their appetite and were in the majority—the whole
machinery of making and selling would soon be again in
full force.
It is beyond a doubt important and right for communities
to remove, as far as possible, all temptations to idleness and
drunkenness, so that the thoughtless may not be drawn
away; but while all this is legally and judiciously doing, the
best and safest and most lasting cure for the evil is, to make
men every where sober on principle, and not by mere expedient.
Water cannot be long checked in its onward course.
Obstructed in one way, it will work for itself other channels;
if other channels are stopped, it will rise and run over the
dam. I am, therefore, willing and ready, Robert, to vote for
laws regulating and restraining the selling of intoxicating
drinks; partly that as many
temptations as possible may be
removed, and partly as a mere experiment: but I should
still have my doubts as to the entire efficacy of legislative
enactments.
Further, out here our society aims at dictating to men in
many ways magisterially and looks after them inquisitorily.
By public resolves passed amid noise and uproar we say,
“all men who profess to be temperance men are not consistent,
unless they deal, eat, travel, sojourn, employ, &c., on
exclusive temperance principles!!” Mere abstinence from
drinks is with us the whole of virtue! And all professed temperance
men and reformed drunkards are naturally and necessarily
endowed with all honesty, liberality, suavity, skill,
promptitude, and, in short, all the other excellencies!! And
all other men are, of course, wholly destitute of all good
qualities, and shall be, as far as our society can disenfranchise
them, out off from all right of citizenship and claims of humanity!!!
The society out here has become clannish. Figuratively,
they do battle, and properly so, against king Alcohol; and
without a figure, and that both directly and indirectly, they
do battle, not only against maker and vender, but against
moderates and conservatives. The defence is, that they
“only roll public opinion along and allow the ball to crush
whatever opposes;” yet a sly and secret and oblique shove
sends said ball maliciously, with its crushing momentum,
against some innocent and worthy people. In the melee,
rampant ultraists, with something like implacable hate, purposely
mistake a friend for a foe, and roll this same ponderous
weight over an unsuspecting neighbor. Public opinion
depends for its value on the material from which it
is made, and is sometimes a ball that ought to be itself
broken into pieces, instead of being used to break other
things. Even when manufactured of the very best articles,
it may be so worked as to do some very injudicious and
harmful labor; and that the ultra and demagogue well understand.
Hence, when we are only opposing malice and
trick in these
movers, many with great folly think we are
opposing the movement and the reformation itself!
I have other reasons for withdrawing from our society;
for we may not be identified with what is doing a needless
harm, although it is accomplishing some good. We cannot
merge our ministerial character and influence, and jeopardize
our reputation for candor, liberality, caution, charity; and
become so bound to the interest of one class of men or sinners,
as to forget or be indifferent about men or sinners of
other kinds and classes.
Adieu,
