What Is True Personal Liberty?
[From the "Special Edition" of October 19.]
# What Is True Personal Liberty? An effort has been made by some professed friends of the cause of temperance to associate us with the whisky interest, because we do not advocate the cause of Sunday. We have little to say in answer to this class, because they know better. Their accusations are criminal, because they know them to be unjust. They are simply bearing false witness, knowing it to be such. But the friends of the whisky interest sometimes wonder why we do not ally ourselves to them, and labor with them to overthrow the Sunday Law, seeing that the law touches the interest of both them and us. We consider them entitled to a frank reply, and we therefore in kindness offer them our reasons. They are entitled to a reply because they are sincere in making the inquiry. They consider their business as legitimate as ours, and as much entitled to protection or to475non-interference. We differ with them in this, and give our reasons. Of and for our own denominational connection we speak, and we hazard nothing in saying that Seventh-day Adventists will be found uniformly following useful trades. They are almost entirely producers or mechanics. They are never found connected with any business which can work injury to their fellow-men. As nearly as any class of Christians in the world will they be found conforming to the gospel as announced in the song of the angels at the birth of the Saviour—giving glory to God, and showing good-will to men. But those who traffic in ardent spirits cannot be ignorant of the fact that their business brings no good to any but the seller, and that is measured entirely by dollars and cents. It is not morally beneficial to the seller, while it is degrading to the buyer and user. What a lesson is furnished by the case of the woman in this State who was found on the railroad track, with her head crushed to a shapeless mass. A bottle of whisky in her pocket told the story of her degradation and death. Families, once happy, are suffering in shame and destitution, because the liquor-seller has taken their means of support, and given that which substitutes hatred for love, abuse for kindness, squalor and rags for comfort and abundance, and suffering and anguish for social happiness. Not a liquor-seller in the land but knows that the natural result of drinking is drunkenness, and the certain consequence of drunkenness is poverty and misery. And the suffering does not all fall where it ought, on its producers; it falls largely on the innocent who have had no share in the wrong—on helpless wives and little children. We have been close observers of the liquor traffic and its consequences for years; we have made it a matter of study. We are satisfied that it is the cause of more suffering and misery than any other one thing existing. We are opposed to it; we cannot countenance it, and we cannot consent to become its ally, even if we knew we could accomplish an end which we desired by the alliance. Again, our objection to the Sunday Law is on a basis purely Scriptural. We confess our allegiance to the law of God, and we dissent from the law of California because it stands in opposition to one of God's commandments. More than this, it not only exalts an institution in rivalry with the Sabbath of the Lord, but its result is to make us sacrifice our allegiance to God's commandment by compelling us to observe this rival institution. It discriminates against our religion in favor of that of somebody else. It disregards our conscientious convictions, and robs us of our religious rights and privileges. Nothing of this kind can be said of the liquor traffic. Its opposition to the Sunday Law is not based on any principle; it is acting solely for worldly gain. It has not a single text or doctrine of Scripture to justify it; but many texts of Scripture are justly brought to bear against it. It neither glorifies God nor brings peace and good-will to men. If judged by its characteristics and consequences, as all actions ought to be judged, it stands condemned at the bar of humanity. We profess to no sympathy for it, and repeat that we can form no alliance with it. It has always been held in this land of civil and religious liberty, that legislatures may not restrain freedom of conscience or govern in matters of religion, when the religion does not interfere with the rights of others; when it is based on the principles of right, and is not made a pretext for immoral practices. But our religion injures no one; it is based on an explicit commandment of God; it is free from fanatical vagaries and extravagances; it inculcates the strictest morality, and opposes wrong of every nature. It is a truth beyond reasonable dispute, that civil laws are not just if calculated to bind our consciences and restrain the exercise of our religious privileges. But the whisky interest has no such facts to present in its favor. It may properly be placed under restraint by civil law, because it injures the weak and the helpless; it takes from men and their families the means of support without returning any just equivalent. And by inducing crime and pauperism, it greatly increases our taxes, and seriously affects the wealth and prosperity of the country. In this, it is a proper subject of legislation. Instead of uniting with it to oppose a law which limits its operations and lessens its gains and its evils on one day of the week, we would unite in asking for a law to restrain it from injuring individuals, families, and society, every day in the week. In this we are not unmindful of any one's rights; we would guard the rights of all classes. But we must deny the right of any man or any class to injure the innocent and the helpless for the sake of making money. Making money is a legitimate proceeding, providing it is made with a due regard for the rights and the welfare of others. In brief, we have now given our reason. "With malice toward none," we take our stand on this platform, and from it we cannot remove, unless the whisky interest will give a better reason than that which we have to offer. We are ready to hear it whenever it is produced.