III. History of f lie Temperance Movement. — The first eflforts to stay this tide of death date back many years. In all nations — even in ancient times — there were per- sons who abstained, generally through religious mo- tives, from the intoxicating drinks of their day. Such were the Nazarites among the Jews, and the Vestals among the Romans. All through the ages, excess has been condemned by the thoughtful, while the moderate use of intoxicants was long deemed allowable, if not nec- essary. Thus the colonies of Massachusetts and Con- necticut, as long ago as 1G39, passed laws designed to lessen the excessive use of distilled liquors.
John Wesley was the pioneer of the modern reform. In the year 1743 he prepared the "General Rules" for the guidance of his societies, and in warning his people against the sins of the times he names drunkenness, buying or selling spirituous liquors, or drinking them, un- less in cases of extreme necessity. This is one of the rules which, as he declares, " we are taught of God to observe, even in his written Word;" and tlie rule stands to-day, in the exact words of Wesley, in the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Chuirh. Wesley was equal- ly outspoken in the pulpit. In liis sermon On the Use oj" Money is the following passage:
"Neither may we hurt our neighbor in his body; therefore we may not sell anything which tends to im- pair health. Such is, eminently, all that liquid fire com- monly called dianis, or s^pirituous liquors. It is true' these may have a place in medicine . . . although there would rarely be occiision for them, were it not for the unskilful- ness of the practitioner ; therefore such as prepare and sell them only for this end may keep their conscience clear. . . . But all who sell them in the common way to any that will huy are poisoners general. They muider his" majesty's subjects by wholesale, neither does their eye pity or spare. They drive them to hell like sheep; and what is their gain? Is it not the blood of these men? Who, then, would envy their large estates and sumptuous palaces? A curse is in the midst of them ; the curse of God cleaves to the stones, the timher, the furniture of them. The curse of God is in their gardens, their walk, their groves; a tire that burns to the nethermost hell. Blood, blood is ihere ; the foundation, the floor, the walls, the roof, are stained with blood. And canst thou hojje, O thou man of blood ! though thou art clothed in scarlet and fine linen, and farest sumptuously every day — canst thou hope to deliver down thy lields of blood to the third generation ? Not so, for there is a God in heaven ; there- fore thy name shall soon be rooted out."
These bold words were uttered at a time when the use of intoxicating liquors was universal, both in England and America. Thus John Wesley leaped at once to a position which other reformers did not reach in almost a hundred years. Indeed, in regard to another matter, somewhat akin to alcoholic indulgences, he at once ad- vanced to a positifin towards which his followers in our own day are feebly struggling, but which no Church, as such, has yet reached. He strongly counselled his peo- ple not to use snuff or tobacco, and, in regard to his preachers, made it a positive rule that none of them was " to use tobacco for smoking, chewing, or snuff, un- less it be prescribed by a physician."
In 1G51 the people of East Hampton, on Long Island, resolved, at a town meeting, that no one should retail liquor but such as were regularly authorized to engage in the business, and even then not to furnish " above half a pint at a time among four men." Something like a prohibitory law is said to have been passed bj' the Virginia colony in 1070, but what the novel experiment amounted to caunot now be ascertained. The practice of providing liquor on funeral occasions generally pre- vailed; and it was not until about the year 1700 that an earnest combined effort was made by the various churches to abolish it, and even this small reform was not accomplishetl till many years afterwards.
On Feb. 23, 1777, the Continental Congress, then in session in Philadelphia, passed unanimously the follow- ing resolution :
'■'■Resolved, That It be recommended to the several legis- latures of the United States immediately to pass laws the most effective for piUtiii2; an immediate stop to the per- nicious practice of distilling grain, by which the most ex- tensive evils are likely to be derived if not quickly pre- vented."
This, however, seems to have been a war measure rath- er than an attempt at reform. It makes no mention of present effects, but is prompted by the fear of some fut- ure evil, probably a scarcity of grain, caused by the gathering of farm laborers into the army, and the con- sequent lessened production.
In 1789 two hundred farmers of Litchfield, Conn., united in a pledge not to use distilled liquors in their farm-work the ensuing season. In 1790 a volume of sermons, the authorship of which has been attributed to Dr. Benjamin Rush, an eminent patriot and philan- thropist of Philadelphia, and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, made a powerful impression in regard to the evils of the alcoholic vice, and the physicians of the city united in a memorial to Congress, in which they compare " the ravages of distilled spirits upon life" to those of " plague or pestilence," only " more certain and extensive," and pray the Congress to "impose such heavy duties upon all distilled spirits as shall be effect- ual to restrain their intemperate use."