02. History

History My interest in the cause of temperance was awakened by the evidence which crowded upon me, as a pastor in the city of New York, of the aboundings of intemperance. The use of alcoholic drinks was then universal. Liquor was sold by the glass at almost every corner. It stood on every sideboard, and was urged upon every visitor. It was spread upon every table, and abounded at all social gatherings. It found a conspicuous place at nearly every funeral. It ruled in every workshop. Many merchants kept it in their counting-rooms, and offered it to their customers who came from the interior to purchase goods. Men in all the learned professions, as well as merchants, mechanics, and laborers, fell by this destroyer. These and other facts so impressed my mind that I determined to make them the subject of a sermon. Accordingly, on the Sabbath evening of September 17, 1820, I preached on the subject from Romans 12:2 : “Be not conformed to this world,” etc. After a statement of the facts which proved the great prevalence of intemperance, I branded distilled spirits as a poison because of their effects upon the human constitution; I urged that therefore the selling of them should be stopped. The sermon stated that, “while the drunkard is a guilty person, the retail seller is more guilty, the wholesale dealer still more guilty, and the distiller who converts the staff of life, the benevolent gift of God, into the arrows of death, is the most guilty.” Then followed an appeal to professors of religion engaged in the traffic to abandon it.

These positions were treated with scorn and derision. A portion of the retail dealers threatened personal violence if I dared again to speak on this subject.

During the week, a merchant who had found one of his clerks in haunts of vice, in a short paragraph in a daily paper, exhorted merchants and master-mechanics to look into Walnut Street, Corlaer’s Hook, if they would know where their clerks and apprentices spent Saturday nights. This publication determined me, in company with some dozen resolute Christian men, to explore that sink of iniquity. This we did on Saturday night, September 23, 1820. We walked that short street for two hours from ten to twelve o’clock. On our return to my study, we compared notes, and became satisfied of the following facts. On one side of Walnut Street, there were thirty houses, and each one was a drinking-place with an open bar. There were eleven ball-rooms, in which the music and dancing were constant. We counted on one side two hundred and ten females, and at the same time on the other side eighty-seven, in all, two hundred and ninety-seven. Their ages varied from fourteen to forty. The men far outnumbered the women, being a mixture of sailors and landsmen, and of diverse nations. Many of them, both men and women, were fearfully drunk, and all were more or less under the influence of liquor. We were deeply pained at the sight of so many young men, evidently clerks or apprentices. The scenes of that night made a permanent impression on my mind. They confirmed my purpose to do all in my power to save my fellow-men from the terrific influences of intoxicating drinks. I began promptly, and incorporated in a sermon the above and other alarming statistics of that exploration, which I preached on the evening of Sabbath, September 24, 1820, notice having been given of the subject. The text was Isaiah 58:1 : “Cry aloud, and spare not; lift up thy voice like a trumpet,” etc. My first topic was the duty of ministers fearlessly to cry out against prevailing evils. The second topic was the sins of the day, particularly Sabbath desecration and drunkenness, with their accessories. After a statement of facts and other arguments, my appeal was made to the Scriptures, which are decided and outspoken against intemperance. The house was crowded with very attentive listeners. No disturbance took place. A fearless, honest expression of sentiments, if made in the spirit of love and without exasperating denunciations, will so far propitiate an audience as to induce them to hear the argument or appeal.

I soon found that the concession so generally made, even by ministers, that the Bible sanctions the use of intoxicating drinks, was the most impregnable citadel into which all drinkers, all apologists for drinking, and all venders of the article, fled. This compelled me, thus early, to study the Bible patiently and carefully, to know for myself its exact teachings. I collated every passage, and found that they would range under three heads: 1. Where wine was mentioned with nothing to denote its character; 2. Where it was spoken of as the cause of misery, and as the emblem of punishment and of eternal wrath; 3. Where it was mentioned as a blessing, with corn and bread and oil—as the emblem of spiritual mercies and of eternal happiness. These results deeply impressed me, and forced upon me the question, Must there not have been two kinds of wine? So novel to my mind was this thought, and finding no confirmation of it in the commentaries to which I had access, I did not feel at liberty to give much publicity to it—I held it therefore in abeyance, hoping for more light. More than thirty-five years since, when revising the study of Hebrew with Professor Seixas, an eminent Hebrew teacher, I submitted to him the collation of texts which I had made, with the request that he would give me his deliberate opinion. He took the manuscript, and, a few days after, returned it with the statement, “Your discriminations are just; they denote that there were two kinds of wine, and the Hebrew Scriptures justify this view.” Thus fortified, I hesitated no longer, but, by sermons and addresses, made known my convictions. At that time, I knew not that any other person held this view. There may have been others more competent to state and defend them. I would have sat at their feet with great joy and learned of them. Such was not my privilege. From that day to this, though strong men and true have combated them, I have never wavered in my convictions. The publication some years later of Bacchus and Anti-Bacchus greatly cheered and strengthened me. So also did the lectures of the Rev. President Nott, with the confirmatory letter of Professor Moses Stuart. From these and other works I learned much, as they made me acquainted with authorities and proofs which I had not previously known.