CHAPTER XIV.
DRINK.

INTEMPERANCE is the immoderate use of anything, good or bad; here the
word is used to imply an excessive use of alcoholic beverages, which
excess, when it reaches the dignity of a habit or vice, makes a man a
drunkard. A drunkard who indulges in "highballs" and other beverages of
fancy price and name, is euphemistically styled a "tippler;" his
brother, a poor devil who swallows vile concoctions or red "pizen" is
called a plain, ordinary "soak." Whatever name we give to such
gluttons, the evil in both is the same; 'tis the evil of gluttony.

This vice differs from gluttony proper in that its object is strong
drink, while the latter is an abuse of food and nourishment necessary,
in regulated quantity, for the sustenance of the body. But alcohol is
not necessary to sustain life as an habitual beverage; it may
stimulate, but it does not sustain at all. It has its legitimate uses,
like strychnine and other poison and drugs; but being a poison, it must
be detrimental to living tissues, when taken frequently, and cannot
have been intended by the Creator as a life-giving nourishment. Its
habitual use is therefore not a necessity. Its abuse has therefore a
more far-fetched malice.

But its use is not sinful, any more than the use of any drug, for
alcohol, or liquor, is a creature of God and is made for good purposes.
Its use is not evil, whether it does little good, or no good at all.
The fact of its being unnecessary does not make it a forbidden fruit.
The habit of stimulants, like the habit of tobacco, while it has no
title to be called a good habit, cannot be qualified as an
intrinsically bad habit; it may be tolerated as long as it is kept