Teetotalers and teetotalism : a letter to the Rev. Dr. Campbell, in vindication of teetotaliam and the teetotal body from the attacks made by him and his anonymous correspondents / by Thomas Beggs.

  • Beggs, Thomas, 1808-1896.
Date:
[1854]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Teetotalers and teetotalism : a letter to the Rev. Dr. Campbell, in vindication of teetotaliam and the teetotal body from the attacks made by him and his anonymous correspondents / by Thomas Beggs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    that the Divine being or his assistance are ignored. Are we {■' to make our Temperance meetings into religious meetings, or be condemned as Atheists ? It may be that many men are deterred from joining our body from this cause, but I believe that such men would find some other pretext if that was not in existence. Now, I shall not shrink from or evade the charge. I have always been and am now opposed to any form of public worship being adopted at our Temperance \ Meetings, except such meetings are held in places of worship and in connexion with Christian congregations; and I protest against any means being used to coerce us into a practice which experience has shown to be undesirable. I will always lift my voice against the Temperance platform being made other than neutral ground, where men of all denomina¬ tions can meet to promote the common good. The question of opening our meetings with prayer is not one of to-day, but has been discussed again and again; there is no rule for or against it; and I will venture to affirm that in the majority of cases, prayer is adopted at the commencement of our meetings. I never made an objection where the feelings of the managers of the meeting were in favour of such a course, but X have during a lengthened Temperance advocacy never seen reason to alter the opinion I first adopted. I am therefore determined not to be silent when this intense sectarianism, which would carry the peculiar points of its own creed, and the ceremonies of its own form of worship, into every assembly where it enters, attacks us for the omission of public prayer. I should speak with the greatest possible deference before you on general subjects, but it is no boast when I say, that I have had much more enlarged opportu¬ nities of estimating the nature of the work in which we are engaged than you can possibly have. I am an advocate of pure and uncompromising Teetotalism, as I believe that it is the instrumentality by which we must lift up the down¬ trodden and debased masses of our countrymen; and I can prove by hard dry statistics, that more has been done to improve their condition by its means than by any other that have been employed during the present century. What is the great scheme of our enterprise ? It is this. We have found that the drinking system is at the root of most of our social ills, that it is the parent of ignorance, the fountain of crime, disease, and uncleanness. Science and experience have shown that strong drinks, whereby we mean all liquors containing the subtle poison alcohol, are the enemies of health, and therefore their introduction into the human system is as much at variance with the laws of God as written upon the human constitution, as if arsenic, prussic acid, or any other deadly poison were taken. Besides all this, it can be shown that the drinking customs keep up, feed, and foster manifold crimes, cruelties and follies. The business of the Temperance Reformation therefore is, to teach mankind the nature and properties of intoxicating drink, and to expose the inconsistency, wickedness, and folly of the