An appeal to the people for the suppression of the liquor traffic : a prize essay / by Rev. H.D. Kitchel.

  • Kitchel, Henry Denison, 1812-1895.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An appeal to the people for the suppression of the liquor traffic : a prize essay / by Rev. H.D. Kitchel. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    defended by many as a natural right, and practised with im¬ punity. An opposing sentiment springs up, and finally turns the drift against it. Still it holds ground, and multitudes claim it as an inalienable and constitutional privilege to steal. Jn short let it stand just where this equal crime of drunkard-making now stands. Who does not see that to obtain and enforce Law against theft would in that case be for a time as difficult and delicate a matter as we find this % This impatience therefore is utterly unreasonable. It demands an impossibility. It overlooks all the conditions of force and authority in Law. An immense friction is to be overcome by any new statute in an unwonted direction, before it can have full force and easy applicability—a friction which in some cases of reformatory Law may for a time almost forbid its present motion. This is inevitable and must be endured. Let righteous Law have its place on the Statute-book. It will be much that it stands there. For there is a power in right Law beyond its immediate availability. Like wisdom it standeth in the top of high places, and its voice is to the sons of men. Law is itself one v>f our highest moral means, and has an educative influence on the popular mind and heart. Let there be right Law, there¬ fore, and we will apply and enforce it as we can. Its restrictive energies will more and more develop themselves ; and the time is not distant when no Law will have easier operation than this. It only remains to consider now the plausible objection, that while the popular mind is yet so divided and unsettled, it is pre¬ mature to demand legislation. Wait, we are told, till you are strong enough to carry and keep a perfect Law. Wait till this moral want shall have become the undoubted will of the people, and they shall have made up their minds so clearly that there shall be noue of this fluctuation and painful uncertainty. We must decline such counsel. We cannot wait—we ought not to wait—and it would be ruinous to attempt it. We can¬ not, for as by a Divine impulse the Temperance sentiment is already everywhere assuming the shape of a struggle for Law against the Traffic. We have reached that stage cf this Reform. The progress of things has brought us to this pant of our work. It is in vain to decline it. The crisis has come and we must meet it. Nor ought we to wait. Such is the character of this traffic, so fully is it now known to be the fountain-head of all the evils of