Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 74

A Pagan Plea

A Pagan Plea.

In what has been already said I have inevitably anticipated to some [unclear: nt] the last of the moderate drinker's defences, the plea that "if a man [unclear: ses] to make a beast of himself, it U no affair of ours; it is his own [unclear: out,] and he must take the consequences. He deserves to suffer, and [unclear: must] bear his own sins." Such an attitude is, of course, sheer paganism, [unclear: paganism] of the lowest and most shameless type. It is the morality of [unclear: who] had carried his denial that he was his brother's keeper to its logical conclusion by becoming his murderer; it is an absolute rejection of the law Christian love and membership taught in the New Testament. This [unclear: ect] the question I have already dealt with at sufficient length. But if page 18 on its moral side the argument completely ignores the [unclear: rudimenty] Christianity, it also implies an equal ignorance of tbe facts of drink problem. The assumption that the chief sufferer from [unclear: intemp] are those who deserve to suffer is absolutely fictitious. The [unclear: re] piteous feature of the whole awful business is that the burden [unclear: n] falls upon innocent victims. There is nothing which should [unclear: qui] the heart and conscience of the moderate drinker more than [unclear: I] fact that the dreadful sufferings which his indulgence entails upon community are the lot, for the most part, of those who are as free [unclear: f] reproach as himself. Some there are who by hereditary taint or [unclear: con] tional weakness are unable to drink in moderation, who cannot discover defect till they have crossed the line, and whom you may as well [unclear: atte] call back afterwards as counsel the leopard to change his spots. Relation this class is a small one, but its limits can never be ascertained in [unclear: adv] and it will always include many who would otherwise be among brightest ornaments of their kind. As some minds are too stupid to [unclear: go] so some souls are too coldly tempered to be set on tire by strong drink.