The success of the argument in favor of the existence
of an overruling Providence mainly depends upon that sense; and men ought
not in justice to be denounced for yielding to it in any case, or giving
it up slowly, especially when they are backed by interest, fixed habits,
or burning appetites.
Another error, as it seems to me, into which the old reformers fell, was
the position that all habitual drunkards were utterly incorrigible, and
therefore must be turned adrift and damned without remedy in order that
the grace of temperance might abound, to the temperate then, and to all
mankind some hundreds of years thereafter. There is in this some thing
so repugnant to humanity, so uncharitable, so cold-blooded and
feelingless, that it, never did nor ever can enlist the enthusiasm of a
popular cause. We could not love the man who taught it we could not hear
him with patience. The heart could not throw open its portals to it, the
generous man could not adopt it--it could not mix with his blood. It
looked so fiendishly selfish, so like throwing fathers and brothers
overboard to lighten the boat for our security, that the noble-minded
shrank from the manifest meanness of the thing.
Pages:
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326