Excerpt from Intemperance and Crime, 1883: Leaves From the Diary of an Old Lawyer
A few months ago I attended a temperance meeting at Chautauqua Point. While seated in the auditorium, waiting for the lecturer, I heard an old gentleman, whom I knew to be a strictly temperate man and a good Christian, remark to a minister who sat by his side: "The temperance question is an old story, it is worn threadbare; nothing new can be said on it, and the people no longer take any interest in it." This remark set me to thinking, and I thought it ought not to be true. I thought that any story that had for its aim and object the advancement of the moral condition of mankind, and the physical well-being of the human race, never could and never ought to grow old. I remembered that the story of the awful tragedy that was enacted on Mount Calvary eighteen hundred years ago had not "grown old," and that although that story had been told by a pious ministry all over the world for nearly two thousand years, yet to the humble, penitent sinner at the foot of the altar it was as full of interest and as new to-day as it was to the people of Nazareth in the infancy of Christianity. I recollected that the civilization and enlightenment of the world were because that old, old story has been so often told; and that where it had been told the most frequently, there mankind was most prosperous and happy; and that to repeat that story to fallen man missionaries had been sent to the uttermost parts of the earth; from the northern land of perpetual winter to the sunlit isles of the summer seas, that "old story" had been listened to by countless millions of the human race, and that under its influence barbarism had given place to civilization, idolatry to the proper worship of the Creator, and the hope and faith of the Christian had robbed death of its terrors and the grave of its victory.
And yet that story had by oft-repeating tongues been "worn threadbare" for hundreds of years; not a fact or incident had been added to it that was not known to the humble shepherds of Judea and the fishermen of Galilee.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге Intemperance and Crime, 1883