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Next to the Manse Scheme and Ragged Schools,
there is no movement in which Dr Guthrie took such a conspicuous interest as
that of temperance. Forty years ago, a teetotaler was comparatively a rare
avis. He was regarded as a well meaning but eccentric man, who had "a bee in
his bonnet." Then it required more courage than it does now, to resist the
temptations planted thick as thorns on a rose bush, in the path of the total
abstainer. The movement was treated, even by men otherwise respectable and
exemplary, with scorn and ridicule. The use of intoxicating drinks had
become so common with the people, no matter what their rank or condition, as
to enter into the economy of every day life—and be regarded as an
indispensable adjunct to christenings, births, marriages, and even funerals.
The common mind had come to regard drink as a panacea for all the evils that
flesh is heir to; and alike in the palaces of the rich and the hovels of the
poor, it was as much in request as the very "staff of life" itself. Under
these circumstances, it required no little moral courage to take, as Dr
Guthrie ultimately did, such a firm and determined stand against the
drinking usages of society. The Doctor gives the following account of the
origin of his teetotalism. Along with Mr J. 0. Brown and Mr Bridges he had
been travelling in Ireland, as a deputation to that country, shortly after
the Disruption. "In this journeying," he says, "we reached a town called
Omagh, from whence we had to travel a mountainous country to another place
called Cocton. The day was one of the worst possible, with bitter cold and
lashing rain. Half-way there stood a small inn, into which we went, as a
sailor in stress of weather runs into the first haven. Those were the days,
not of tea and toast, but when it was thought that the best cure for a wet
coat and a cold body was a tumbler of toddy; and we no sooner got within the
inn than the toddy was ordered. We took our toddy, and, no doubt, in
moderation. But if we, with all our haps on, were in an uncomfortable state,
far more uncomfortable was our half-ragged carman; if we were drenched, he
was drowned. Of course, we felt for our courteous and civil driver, and we
thought that what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander, and we
offered him a glass; but the carman was not such a gander as we, like geese,
took him for; to our perfect amazement, not one drop of the toddy would he
touch. He said, 'I am an abstainer, and will take no toddy.' "Well, that
stuck in my throat, and it went to my heart and (though in another sense
than drink) to my head. That and other circumstances made me a teetotaler."
The "other circumstances" referred to are
undoubtedly his experiences of the effects of drink in his pastoral work
among the inhabitants of the Cowgate, and other slums of Edinburgh. Very
soon after he came to the metropolis, he saw enough to convince him that, so
far as the poor were concerned, drink was the root of nearly all their
destitution, misery, and crime.
When the "Scottish Association for the
Suppression of Drunkenness" was formed in 1851, Dr Guthrie was urgently
requested to write the introductory pamphlet of a series to be issued by
the. Association. This was the origin of his "Plea on behalf of Drunkards
and against Drunkenness." In this Plea he announced himself as an abstainer.
"Speaking individually," he says, "we think ourselves bound to say, that we
go much farther than the principles of this Association would carry us—than
most of the esteemed and honourable men with whom we are here associated. On
principles of patriotism and Christian expediency, we think that the evil
has arrived at such a pitch, that it were well if, instead of either
attempting to muffle or even to muzzle the monster, the country would agree
to put a knife through its heart, in the entire disuse of all intoxicating
liquors." The "Plea" was argumentative throughout, gave a number of very
telling facts and figures, and produced a profound impression. A still
greater effect, however, was produced by the delivery and publication, some
years afterwards, of the discourses on "The City: its Sins and Sorrows."
Lest its pictures should be regarded as exaggerations, he lays:—
"No good cause has ever but suffered from
injudicious zeal and extravagant statements. Regard for truth, and my very
anxiety to see this evil arrested, unite in preventing me from indulging in
exaggeration—were it possible here to exaggerate: I say possible to
exaggerate. For what flight of fancy, what bold strokes of painting, what
graphic powers of description, could convey any adequate idea of the evils
and sorrows that march in the train of this direful and most detestable
vice? Standing on the surf-beaten shore, when ocean, lashed by the tempest
into foaming rage, was up in her angry might, I have seen a spectacle so
grand and where she couched in the valley, arrayed in a gay robe of summer
flowers, I have seen nature so beautiful; and where rattling thunders
mingled with the roar of the avalanche, and untrodden peaks of eternal snow
rose clear and serene above the dark mysterious gorge, within which the
battle of elements was waging, I have looked upon scenes so sublime, as to
pass description. Nor colour nor words can convey an adequate idea of them.
To be understood they must be visited, to be felt they must be seen.
"Incredible as it may appear, this remark is no
less true of many regions of sorrow, and starvation, and disease, and vice,
and devilry, and death, that the smoke-stained walls of these dingy houses
hide from common view. These were for years the painful field of my labours.
Let no man fancy that we select the worst cases, or present the blackest
side of the picture. Believe me, it is impossible to exaggerate, impossible
even truthfully to paint the effect of this vice either on those who are
addicted to it, or on those who suffer from it —crushed husbands, broken
hearted wives, and most of all, those poor innocent children that are dyeing
under cruelty and starvation, that shiver in their rags upon our streets,
that walk unshod the winter snows, and with their matted hair and hollow
cheeks, and sunken eyes, and sallow countenances, glare out on us, wild and
savagedike, from these patched and dusty windows. Besides, if the extent of
this evil has been exaggerated, it is a fault that may be pardoned. It is a
failing that 'leans to virtue's side.' Perhaps she exaggerates his danger,
but who quarrels with the mother, whose love for her sailor boy keeps her
tossing on a sleepless pillow—praying through the long hours of a stormy
might, as her busy imagination fancies that in that wild shriek of the
fitful wind she hears his drowning cry. "When the nursery only has caught
fire, and a faithful domestic, plucking the babe from a burning cradle,
rushes into your chamber, and makes you leap to the cry, The house is all on
fire! will he, that hurries away to save the rest, challenge the
exaggeration! Exaggeration is as natural to earnestness of purpose and depth
of feeling, as a blush to shame, or a smile to happiness, or the flash of
the eye to anger."
We give one or two of the Doctor's word
pictures, mode of putting the argument, and heart stirring appeals: —
"With a pagan from any part of China, that vast
empire, but one which our opium trade and greed of gain has demoralised, I
say that I should be afraid to find myself in many districts of this city of
schools, and colleges, and churches, and hospitals, and benevolent
societies, and people of high Christian worth and unquestionable piety. Amid
the idle groups of bloated women, and half-naked children, and wrecks of
men, filling up many a close-mouth and foot of filthy stair—with our path
crossed by some reeling drunkard, who launches himself headlong into the
common sewer—with so many shops, under Government licence, turning health
into disease, decency into tattered rags, love into estrangement or bitter
hatred, young beauty into loathsomeness, woman's natural modesty into loud
and coarse effrontery, mothers' milk into poison, mothers' hearts into
stone, and the image of God into something baser than a brute—how could I
look that sober, upright pagan in the face, and ask him to become a
Christian? I must be dumb, lest he should turn round on me to ask:—Are these
Christians?i Be these the fruits of Christianity? I would repel the charge.
But what if he should follow it up with a blow less easy to parry? Pointing
up to those here who are rolling in wealth, or enjoying the abundant
comforts of their homes, or the ordinances of their worship, he might next
ask:—What are these Christians doing? What do they to save their
fellow-creatures from miseries that move a pagan to tears? What to save them
from crimes unpractised by those whom you call the followers of the false
prophet, by us to whose distant land you send your missionaries to turn us
from our fathers' idols? What could I say? How would I look? With what
answer could I meet the withering sarcasm:—'Physician, heal thyself!'
"Go not away, I pray you, under the delusion,
that like a fog-bank which lies thick and heavy on the valley, when heights
are clear, and hill tops are beaming in the morning sun, intemperance is
confined only to the lowest stratum of society. I know the contrary. Much
improved as are the habits of the upper and middle classes—and we thank God
for that, extending as that improvement has done to those who stand beneath
them in the social pyramid—and we bless God also for that, and hoping that
this improvement, like water percolating a bed of sand, will sink down till
it reaches and purifies the lowest stratum—we have met this vice in all
classes of society. It has cost many a servant her place, and—yet greater
loss—ruined her virtue. It has broken the bread of many a tradesman. It has
wrecked the fortunes of many a merchant. It has spoiled the coronet of its
lustre, and sunk the highest rank into contempt. It has sent respectability
to hide its head in a poor house, and presented in luxurious drawing rooms
scenes which have furnished laughter to the scullions in the kitchen.
"But it has done worse things than break the
staff of bread, lower rank, wreck earthly fortunes, and crown wealth with
thorns. Most accursed vice! "What hopes so precious that it has not
withered, what career so promising that it has not arrested, what heart so
tender that it has not petrified, what temper so fine that it has not
destroyed, what things sc noble and sacred that it has not blasted! It has
changed into ashes the laurel crown on the head of genius, and, the wings of
the poet scorched by its hell-fire baine, he who one!; played in the light
of sunbeams, and soared aloft into the skies, has basely crawled in the
dust. Paralysing the mind even more than the body, it has turned the noblest
intellect into drivelling idiocy. Not awed by dignity, it has polluted the
ermine of the judge. Not scared away by the sanctity of the temple, it has
defiled the pulpit. In all these particulars, I speak what I know. I have
seen it cover with a cloud or expose to deposition from the office and
honours of the holy ministry, no fewer than ten clergymen, with some of whom
I have sat down at the table of the Lord, and all of whom I numbered in the
rank of acquaintances or friends.
"The. frightful extent, of this vice, however,
is perhaps most brought out by one melancholy fact. There are few families
amongst us so happy as not to have had some one near and dear to them either
in imminent peril, hanging over the precipice, or the slave of intemperance,
altogether 'sold unto sin.' Considering the depravity of human nature, and
the temptations to which our customs and circumstances expose us, that fact,
however melancholy and full of warning, does not astonish us. But, to see a
father or mother, to see a brother or sister venturing on the edge of a
whirlpool, in whose devouring, damning vortex they themselves have seen one
whom they loved engulphed, does fill us with astonishment. I knew a mother
once, who saw her only son drowned before her eyes. Years came and went ere
she could calmly look upon the glorious ocean, or hear without pain the
voice of the billows amid which the boy was lost. How many have a better, or
rather a bitterer, cause for hating the sight of the bowl! Considering how
many are lost—sink into perdition, victims to this vice—I do wonder that so
few Christian, or no Christian, but loving parents, candidly consider the
question, whether it be not their duty to train up their children according
to the rule, 'Taste not, touch not, handle not.' I have wondered most of all
to see a pious father indulging in the cup that had been poison-death to his
son. Why does he not throw it away, cast it from him with trembling hand.
Taking up the Knife, red with the blood of his child-making sure that it
shall be the death of no one else—why does he not fling it after the lost
—down, down into the depths of hell!
"Grant that there were a sacrifice in
abstaining, what Christian man would hesitate to make it, if by doing so he
can honour God and bless mankind? If by a life-long abstinence from all
those pleasures which the wine-cup yields, I can save one child from a life
of misery—I can save one. mother from premature grey hairs, and griefs that
bring her to the grave—I can save one woman from ruin—bringing him to Jesus,
I can save one man from perdition—I should hold myself well repaid. Living
thus, living not for myself, when death summons me to my account, and the
Judge says, Man, where is thy brother? I shall be found walking, although at
a humble distance, in the footprints of Him who took his way to Calvary. He
said 'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his
cross daily, and follow me.' This cross, which has been borne by
missionaries to pagan lands, which has been held high in the battle-field
hymen nobly fighting for their faith, which rose above the red scaffold
flowing with martyrs' blood, may be carried into our scenes of social
enjoyment, and, a brighter ornament than any jewels flashing on beauty's
breast, may adorn the festive table. If this abstinence is a cross, all the
more honour to the. men who carry it. It is a right noble thing to live for
God and the good of man."
Thus, in his "Plea," and in "The City: its Sins
and Sorrows," he laid so much to the door of strong drink, and appealed so
earnestly on behalf of its victims, that public feeling in Edinburgh, and
wherever his books were read, was stirred to its uttermost depths. Perhaps
no works that have ever been written, either before or since, have done more
to promote the temperance reformation. The terrible earnestness of the
writer, his well known philanthropic character, his thorough knowledge of
the evil, and his impassioned and pictorial eloquence, gave his opinions and
pleas a force and power that seldom attaches to temperance literature, even
of the most radical and pronounced type.
Besides that phase of the evil most familiar to
him in Edinburgh, there was another aspect of drunkenness with which he had
often come into contact in the country, and which had made an impression on
him from his earliest years. It was that form of the evil which is so common
at hiring fairs, and which often leads simple young men and women into
temptation and crime. He had seen in his early days, at the two half-yearly
markets in his native town of Brechin, scenes of debauchery and riot that
were simply, or at least chiefly, the result of the absence of any
counter-attraction; and he made up his mind that he would endeavour to
provide an antidote. Accordingly, he made a point of visiting some of the
principal fairs in the Lothians and the adjoining counties, commencing with
Biggar. Referring to this, he says:—
"Four weeks ago I was at Biggar Fair, and the
week after next I am going to Calder Fair—not to buy sweeties, far less to
drink whisky toddy; but recollecting what I witnessed in my early days at
the two hiring markets in my native town of Brechin, and the scenes of
drunkenness, dissipation, and disorder there enacted, I will go there for
the purpose of doing what I can to stop them, with God's help. I believe I
succeeded at Biggar Fail in keeping some hundreds of people sober, and
sending them home sober as judges; ay, and more sober than many judges have
often been."
Besides his "Plea for Drunkards," &c., and "The
City: its Pins and Sorrows," Dr Guthrie wrote two of the Pictorial Tracts
issued monthly by the Scottish Temperance League. They were entitled "The
Contrast," and "A Word in Season." Both tracts were written for the month of
January, in different years, and had an enormous circulation. The last of
the two had reference to a most tragic and touching incident, of which the
neighbourhood of Blairgowrie was the scene.
Dr Guthrie frequently appeared upon the
temperance platform; and the style of his advocacy will be seen from the
following extract,—taken from a speech delivered by him at a meeting of the
Free Church Temperance Society, held in the City Hall, Glasgow, 9th
February, 1859:— "Well, then, if these drinks are not good for the body, are
they good for work? I say they are not. What do you take a dram for?—Oh,
because it is cold. And in summer why do you take it?—Because it is so hot.
It is a most extraordinary thing this whisky. It is so good when they are
cold, and it is good when they are hot; but it is neither good when they are
cold nor when they are hot. Sir John Boss, Admiral Beecher, Edward Parry, Dr
Richardson, Sir John Franklin—all these men have faced the northern climate.
These were men that, had never for weeks a dry stitch upon their backs—it
often happening that they were sheathed in ice; and the universal testimony
(and if these men are not to decide it, is it some wretched trooper in
Glasgow that was to do so!) of these men, who lived in sixty degrees below
zero, and faced the roaring storm and washing sea, was one unanimous
testimony to this effect, that spirits are the worst things that a man could
take when exposed to a severe climate, hard weather, and painful
circumstances. (Cheers.) Let us take one jump from the Pole to India. Look
at the list of the soldiers divided into as many total abstainers, moderate
drinkers, and drunkards. Now, the proportion in which they die is this —16
drunkards, 26 moderate drinkers, and just 15 teetotalers. That is the
question in regard to heat. I have settled that question in regard to cold,
I have settled that question in regard to heat; and, I say, I defy any man
in the world, in health, heavy work or light, in cold or warm weather, to
shew that the taking of porter, or ale, or spirits, will give him more
vigorous health. Now, don't tell me it is for heat. Then do you take it for
your temper? Do you say so? Many a poor wife knows the opposite—that it has
turned a husband into a hard-hearted, cruel, and unfeeling father. I would
not give anything for the company of a man who needed spirits to put him in
good spirits. Will any one dare to say that I am a gloomy man, or
ill-tempered? I defy them. "Will any one say that I am an unhappy man? I am
very happy, I am glad to say. I can tell you that I feel my spirits lighter,
and I feel my purse heavier. I feel my head clearer, and my heart better,
and my stomach better, for being a teetotaler. (Cheers.) I was in ill health
through over exertion in the cause of the church, and ordered by my
physician to take wine. I took it for three years; and as I was threatened
with gout, meeting Professor Miller one day, he said, 'If you continue to
take wine, you may lay your account to have the gout.'—'Then,' said I,
'henceforth I will give it up.' Since that day, three years have elapsed,
and I have had better health ever since, and worked more than before.
(Cheers.) Now, I adopted this cause of total abstinence, and I'll tell you
why; I don't think it is sinful to take spirits, but I hold it a matter of
the highest Christian expediency to be a teetotaler. I went to the poor
house, and found five out of six of the paupers there, directly or
indirectly, through drinking. I went to the prison, and found five out of
six of the culprits there, directly or indirectly, through drinking. I went
to the ragged school, and found 99 out of the 100 of them there, directly or
indirectly, out of drinking. I went down to the Cowgate, Grassmarket, St
Mary's Wynd, College Wynd, Brodie's Close, and I found it meeting me at
every corner, defeating me in every effort; it defeated our schools,
churches, and missionaries, and I felt that if these wretched, lapsed, lost,
degraded classes were ever to be raised in the platform of humanity, drink
must be banished from the land. I want to know if you ever saw a city
missionary not a teetotaler? I have seen some begin as moderate drinkers,
but they never continued long until they became teetotalers; and if the
audience were to go down and live in the Saltmarket for a few days, it would
do more good than my speaking to doomsday. If any one of you would go down
and hear that cursing, brutal husband, who, six years ago, was a noble
workman with a lovely wife, to whom he had pledged his heart and affections,
with their children clothed, and, happy to see their father, running to meet
him; but now they run from him, and his wife trembles to meet him, and makes
her prayer to God to strike her dead and take her out of the world. If you
were to see such a scene, I am sure you would all give your heart and hand
in this noble work.
I am sorry to detain this meeting so long, but,
as I understand there is a large number of office-bearers of the Free Church
as well as members present, I would like to say a few words more, especially
to them. My friends, I assume no presumptuous position. It was some time
before I made up my mind to join the temperance cause; and I would use the
argument with you that I did with a lady. I said to her—If you tell me of
the good drink does, I will tell you of the ill it does. I need scarcely say
that she could not tell me any good it does. (Cheers.) Well, now, I wish you
to think severally what good it does. Will you have a worse head, a worse
purse, or a worse body for being teetotalers? Do you think it would be a
great sacrifice to give them up? There never was so great a mistake in the
world. The first day I wanted my wine I thought the servant had not cooked
the dinner so well; the second day there was something funny about it; the
third day I never thought of the wine at all; and now when I go to dinner,
and see ladies and gentlemen drinking, it looks to me as if they were
drinking salts or castor oil. (Loud laughter.) Depend upon it, it requires
no sacrifice at all. If you mean to make a trial, I say, God help you. If
you do make it,—if you are a drunkard—oh! you need to pray long and deep to
God to help you. In regard to those who are not drunkards, believe me there
is no sacrifice whatever. I speak from experience. I put it to the Free
Church elders, to my brethren in the ministry, —I put it to the Free Church
members—that drink does no man real good except as a medicine. Is it true
that it does thousands eternal evil? Is it true that it has carried more
souls into hell than any other vicious indulgence? Is it true that it is the
cause of all the wrecks that flutter in your streets—the cause of the ruin
of nine-tenths of the females that walk the streets and disgrace their sex?
Is it true that it fills the prison and the poor-house, and breaks human
hearts, and destroys more happiness than any other indulgence whatever! If
you cannot put your hand on any good, and I can lay my hand on that world of
evil, my dearly beloved Christian friends, what are we to live for? Am I to
live for my own indulgence when that is the cause of the ruin of thousands
and millions in the land? I say, No! Did Jesus live, for himself? He said,
'The Son of man came not to be ministered unto but to minister.' Did Paul
live for himself? He said 'He would eat no flesh while the world lasted,
lest he made his brother to offend.'
I pray you to take this subject home to your
knees to night. I say, souls are perishing in thousands by these drinks, and
I am entitled to ask, and do ask it, that you Christian men and women pray
to God that he would direct you and teach you what is your duty. If you can
go down before God and pray that he may keep you from being a total
abstainer—if you can pray God to keep you from being carried away by this
speech, do it, do it! This is a question that requires your solemn
consideration, and as you shall answer to Him who wont take from us this
reply, ' Am I my brother's keeper?'"
When Dr Guthrie was a student, there was not, so
far as he knew, an abstaining student within the University, nor was there
an abstaining minister in the whole Church of Scotland. But the success of
the temperance movement had effected a wonderful change in this respect, and
he was not more zealous in its promotion than sanguine of its ultimate
triumph. "In the course of another generation," he said, "the man who shall
sit down to his bottle of wine or his tumbler of toddy, will be as rare as
those creatures, the Megatheriums, which remain to us the strange specimens
of another, and, let us be thankful, a past generation." He was specially
anxious to secure the support of the ministry to the temperance movement. He
would rather see in the pulpit a man who was a total abstainer from this
root of all evil— drink, than a man crammed with all the Hebrew roots in the
world. In speaking of the benefits of temperance, he was accustomed to urge
four reasons for being an abstainer—";my head is clearer, my health is
better, my heart is lighter, and my purse is heavier". His plan for closing
the mouths of objectors to temperance principles, was to ask them if there
was no young man among their acquaintances or relations who had. been ruined
by indulgence in intoxicating liquors? He seldom got a negative answer. His
opinion was that Scotland was about the most drunken country in Europe. On
this subject he says, "During a tour in France, Belgium, Sardinia,
Switzerland, Prussia, and Germany, I have seen, in seven weeks, although I
was in Paris at the time of the baptismal fetes, and in Brussels during the
three days' celebration of Leopold having been on the throne for a quarter
of a century, less drunkenness than might be seen in Edinburgh in three
days." "What a blessed providence it is," said a distinguished foreigner,
"that you Anglo-Saxons are a drunken race; for, were you not, there is a
power, talent, and energy within you, would make you masters of the whole
world!"
One more reference to the dark record of his
experience, and we have done with this subject. It will show how strongly
and acutely he felt that the temperance cause deserved sympathy and support.
"Seven years of my ministry," he says, "were spent in one of the lowest
localities of Edinburgh; and it almost broke my heart, day by day to see, as
I wandered from house to house, and from room to room, misery, wretchedness,
and crime; the detestable vice of drunkenness, the cause of all, meeting me
at every turn, and marring all my efforts. If there is one thing I feel more
intensely than another, it is this; that drink is our national curse, our
sin, our shame, our weakness. I speak the words of truth and soberness when
I say that this vice destroys more men and women, bodies and souls, breaks
more hearts, and ruins more families, than all the other vices of the
country put together! Nor need I speak of the multitude of lives it costs.
Nothing ever struck me more, in visiting those wretched localities, than to
find that more than a half of these families were in the churchyard. The
murder of innocent infants in this city by drunkenness, out-Herods Herod in
his slaughter of the innocents of Bethlehem. I appeal to every missionary
and every minister who visits these localities, whether the great obstacle
that meets him at every corner, is not drunkenness. I believe we will in
vain plant churches and schools, though they be as thick as trees in the
forest, unless this evil is stopped." |
