The Working Temperance Church
I rVERY true and timely moral reform -* — ’ should be born and nursed, and reared and supported by the Church of Jesus Christ. There is not a single moral precept which sinful humanity needs, but the Church should teach it; there is not a wholesome example to be set, but the Church should practise it. That Christian church will be the most Christlike which does the most to “seek and to save the lost.”
Among all the great moral reforms, none has a stronger claim on Christian men and Christian ministers than the enterprise for saving society from the crime and curse of drunkenness. And intemperance never will be checked, the liquor traffic never will be prohibited, the drinking usages of social life will never be overthrown until the members of Christ’s Church all feel that they are also members of Christ’s great Temperance Society. If the Church does not save the world, then the world will sink the Church. And what a burlesque it is to style that church organization a “salt of the earth” which has a trimmer in its pulpit and tipplers in its pews!
Holding these incontrovertible opinions, we earnestly insist that every Christian church which expects to do its whole work must have a Temperance department as much as a Sunday school or a missionary department. It must have a machinery to promote total abstinence, just as much as a machinery to promote Bible distribution or Mission-schools, or Sabbath observance. A well-appointed steamer must have not only a good engine in its hull and a good pilot at the wheel, but a good supply of life-preservers in the cabins.
What are some of the essential features of a working Temperance Church?
I. We reply that the first essential is a thorough teetotaller in its pulpit. An active
Temperance Church with a wine-bibbing minister is as rare a curiosity as a victorious army with a drunken commander. A zealous teetotaller will not only practise abstinence from intoxicating drinks, but he will preach it as a vital part of his gospel-message on the Lord’s day. The Bible abounds in Temperance texts; and every community abounds in people who need to hear them. It is the pastor’s ofl3.ce to expound the causes and the curse of drunkenness. It is his office to create a Temperance conscience among his congregation. It is his duty to take the lead in arranging and conducting Temperance meetings in his neighborhood.
Not only may a zealous Temperance pastor look for revivals in his flock, but also for a more extended influence among the surrounding world.
A fearless preacher against popular sins commands, in the long-run, the popular ear and the popular heart. Let the career of a Beechei; in Brooklyn, a Tyng in New York, a Barnes in Philadelphia, a Kirk in Boston, and a Hatfield in Chicago testify to this fact. The minister who brings God’s Word to bear against the great sins of the time must be heard and will be felt. He may repel a few trimmers and time-servers; he may awaken some bad passions in the self-indulgent and the lovers of their lusts; but he attracts to him the warm-hearted, the philanthropic, the spiritually - minded. Drunkards’ wives will persuade their husbands to come and hear him. Mothers will rejoice to place their sons under his faithful ministry. The benevolent will co-operate with such an earnest advocate of Christian reform. The masses love and honor a hold defender of the right. It is not the man who drifts with the current of evil, but he who, like the sure-anchored rock, stems the current, that is sure to arrest the popular attention and command the popular heart.
II. Every efficient church should have a well-organized total abstinence society. The title to membership should be the simple signing of the abstinence pledge. We would recommend, also, that an annual payment of a half-dollar should be made by each member, in order to provide some permanent income for the society. Collections should also be taken up at public meetings; but tickets of admission should seldom be used, because they tend to exclude the very persons who most need the benefit of the lecture. The public meetings of church societies should be held in the church edifice, and as often as proper advocates of the cause can be secured to address them. Better no meetings at all than to have the audiences trifled with by a catch-penny buffoon or ranting adventurer. The number of acceptable speakers might be vastly increased if Christian laymen, as well as ministers, would fit themselves for this noble and needed work by studying Temperance books and publications. It is easier to make a good Temperance address than a good political speech; but political speakers are plenty as blackberries.
The best possible music should be provided for all public meetings, and the Pledge should always be circulated at the close. It is the province of the society to subscribe for and circulate Temperance papers through the congregation. Several times in each year the tracts of the National Temperance Society might be distributed in the pews.
Such an organization does not require much “constitution and by-laws,” or many officers. A wide-awake president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer, and a live board of half dozen “managers,” are amply sufficient. Choose your president for his working qualities, and not for his “name.” All meetings should be opened with prayer or the reading of God’s Word
In Surrey Chapel, London, the celebrated Newman Hall has a Temperance society which has enrolled 8,000 members in fifteen years; 150 reformed inebriates have been received into membership with the church in which Brother Hall is so bold and faithful a spiritual leader. There is also a Band of Hope, which enrolls a great number of children.
III. This leads us to say that a working
Temperance Church will lay out no small part of its efforts on the youth of the Sunday school. Here is the point to apply prevention. As the Sunday school deals with the beginning of life, it should logically deal with the beginnings of sin. If all our children could be kept from touching the first glass, intemperance would disappear.
In efficient Sunday-school operations, the following are absolutely indispensable: —
Good Temperance books in the library.
A circulation of the Youth’s Temperance Banner, or some similar paper, among the scholars.
The Total Abstinence Pledge discreetly administered by the teachers.
Frequent and simple addresses to the school on the dangers of tampering with drink, and on the sin and sorrows of the drunkard.
No teacher’s breath should ever be flavored by the odors of the wine-glass or the beercup.
Total Abstinence should be taught as a
Christian virtue. “Woe unto him who causeth one of these little ones to stumble.”
IV. Our final recommendation is, that every church-member should make Temperance a part of his daily religion. The bottle is the deadliest foe to Christ in our churches and our communities. A friend of Christ must be the enemy of the bottle. More souls are ruined by the intoxicating cup than by any single vice or error on the globe. Every professed Christian who gives his example to the drinking usages is a partner in the tremendous havoc which those evil customs produce.
“If any man will come after Me,” said the Divine Master, “let him deny himself.” And the great Apostle only clenched this glorious precept when he said, “It is good not to drink wine whereby my brother stumbleth, or is oifended, or is made weak.” On this immutable rock of self-denial stands the Temperance reform! There the Divine Founder of Christianity placed it; with Christianity it is linked; with Christianity it will stand or perish. We do not hesitate to close this brief paper with the declaration that with the triumph and prevalence of Christian self denial in the Church is bound up the only hope of the triumph and prevalence of pure Christianity in our world.