The physical disasters
that follow the continued use of intoxicating beverages are sad enough, and
terrible enough but the surely attendant mental, moral and spiritual disasters
are sadder and more terrible still. If you disturb the healthy condition of the
brain, which is the physical organ through which the mind acts, you disturb the
mind. It will not have the same clearness of perception as before; nor have the
same rational control over the impulses and passions.
Heavenly order in the
body.
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To understand a subject
clearly, certain general laws, or principles, must be seen and admitted. And
here we assume, as a general truth, that health in the human body is normal
heavenly order on the physical plane of life, and that any disturbance of that
order exposes the man to destructive influences, which are evil and infernal in
their character. Above the natural and physical plane, and resting upon it,
while man lives in this world, is the mental and spiritual plane, or degree of
life. This degree is in heavenly order when the reason is clear, and the
appetites and passions under its wise control. But, if, through any cause, this
fine equipoise is disturbed, or lost, then a way is opened for the influx of
more subtle evil influences than such as invade the body, because they have
power to act upon the reason and the passions, obscuring the one and inflaming
the others.
We know how surely the
loss of bodily health results in mental disturbance. If the seat of disease is
remote from the brain, the disturbance is usually slight but it increases as
the trouble comes nearer and nearer to that organ, and shows itself in
multiform ways according to character, temperament or inherited disposition but
almost always in a predominance of what is evil instead of good. There will be
fretfulness, or ill-nature, or selfish exactions, or mental obscurity, or
unreasoning demands, or it may be, vicious and cruel propensities when the
brain was undisturbed by disease, reason held rule with patience and loving-kindness.
If the disease which has attacked the brain goes on increasing, the mental
disease which follows as a consequence of organic disturbance or deterioration
will have increased also, until insanity may be established in someone or more
of its many sad and varied forms.
Insanity.
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It is, therefore, a very
serious thing for a man to take into his body any substance which, on reaching
that wonderfully delicate organ the brain, sets up therein a diseased action; for,
diseased mental action is sure to follow. A fever is a fever, whether it be
light or intensely burning; and so any disturbance of the mind's rational
equipoise is insanity, whether it be in the simplest form of temporary
obscurity or the midnight of a darkened intellect.
We are not writing in
the interest of any special theory, nor the spirit of partisanship, but with an
earnest desire to make the truth appear. You must not accept anything simply
because we say it, but because he sees it to be true. Now, as to this matter of
insanity, let him think calmly. The word is one that gives us a shock and, as
we hear it, we almost involuntarily thank God for the good gift of a
well-balanced mind. What, if from any cause this beautiful equipoise should be
disturbed and the mind lose its power to think clearly or to hold the lower
passions in due control? Shall we exceed the truth if we say that the man in
whom this takes place is insane just in the degree that he has lost his
rational self-control and that he is restored when he regains that control?
In this view, the
question as to the hurtfulness of alcoholic drinks assumes a new and graver
aspect. Do they disturb the brain when they come in contact with its substance
and deteriorate it if the contact is long continued? Fact, observation,
experience, and scientific investigation all emphatically say yes and we know
that if the brain is disordered the mind, will be disordered, likewise and a
disordered mind is an insane mind. Clearly, then, in the degree that a man
impairs or hurts his brain temporarily or continuously in that degree his mind
is unbalanced; in that degree he is not a truly rational and sane man.
We are holding your
thought just here that you may have time to think and to look at the question
in the light of reason and common sense. So far as he does this, will he be
able to feel the force of such evidence as we shall educe in what follows, and
to comprehend its true meaning?
Other substances besides
alcohol act injuriously on the brain but none compares with this in the
extent, variety, and diabolical aspect of the mental aberrations which follow
its use. We are not speaking thoughtlessly or wildly but simply uttering a
truth well-known to every man of observation, and which every man, and
especially those who take this substance in any form, should lay deeply to
heart. Why it is that such awful and destructive forms of insanity should
follow, as they do, the use of alcohol is not for us to say. That they do
follow it, we know, and we hold, up the fact in solemn warning.
Another consideration,
which should weight with everyone, is this, that no man can tell what may be
the character of the legacy he has received from his ancestors. He may have an inheritance
of latent evil forces, transmitted through many generations, which only awaits
some favoring opportunity to spring into life and action. So long as he
maintains a rational self-control and the healthy order of his life be not
disturbed, they may continue quiescent; but if his brain loses its equipoise,
or is hurt or impaired, then a diseased psychical condition may be induced and
the latent evil forces be quickened into life.