Religious and educational aspects of temperance / by various authors.

Date:
[1874?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Religious and educational aspects of temperance / by various authors. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    62/172 page 58
    68 MISREPRESENTATION BY INJUDICIOUS ADVOCATES. instrumentalities for extending the Redeemer’s kingdom. That it has sometimes been advocated in a wrong spirit, and by injudicious or ignorant persons, we freely admit; hut if that is a sufficient reason for standing aloof from it, Christianity itself might be abandoned on the self-same ground. Possibly some persons may have rested far too much on the merits of their Teetotalism ; and so have many Christian professors rested sadly too much on their religious profession, or we should not hear so much of the danger of self-righteousness, or see so much of hypocrisy and incon- sistency. The sincere Christian does not forsake his prin- ciples because they may be misunderstood or misrepresented by some ignorant or violent persons who profess to adopt them: why then should Teetotalism be judged so harshly, and neglected so unfairly, on account of the weakness or ignorance of some of its advocates ? And when we consider how many have been raised from the depths of degradation and misery by this instrumentality, and how deeply many of these have felt bound in gratitude to advocate its claims, in the absence of those who were far better qualified, but who stood aloof, is it too much to expect that the veil of Christian charity should be drawn over the errors or extra- vagances which may have occasionally offended the taste, or wounded the feelings, of judicious friends, and supplied un- charitable opponents with occasions of reproach 1 One of the objections brought against Teetotalers we should consider too insignificant to notice, were it not ad- vanced upon what is supposed to be Scriptural ground, viz.: —That our system is a species of asceticism, at variance with that Christian liberty which may be well expressed in the words of the Apostle—“ To the pure all things are pure,” &c. Now, we believe that no one can repudiate the doctrine of asceticism, or appreciate the bounties of Him who giveth us
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