hings the very
brute would blush to do; and then he will say it was one of the devil's
jokes. The effects on individuals, families and generations, born and
unborn, cannot be exaggerated; and the drunkard is a tempter of God and
the curse of society.

Temperance is a moderate use of strong drink; teetotalism is absolute
abstention therefrom. A man may be temperate without being a
teetotaler; all teetotalers are temperate, at least as far as alcohol
is concerned, although they are sometimes, some of them, accused of
using temperance as a cloak for much intemperance of speech. If this be
true--and there are cranks in all causes--then temperance is itself the
greatest sufferer. Exaggeration is a mistake; it repels right-thinking
men and never served any purpose. We believe it has done the cause of
teetotalism a world of harm. But it is poor logic that will identify
with so holy a cause the rabid rantings of a few irresponsible fools.

The cause of total abstinence is a holy and righteous cause. It takes
its stand against one of the greatest evils, moral and social, of the
day. It seeks to redeem the fallen, and to save the young and
inexperienced. Its means are organization and the mighty weapon of good
example. It attracts those who need it and those who do not need it;
the former, to save them; the latter, to help save others. And there is
no banner under which Catholic youth could more honorably be enrolled
than the banner of total abstinence. The man who condemns or decries
such a cause either does not know what he is attacking or his mouthings
are not worth the attention of those who esteem honesty and hate
hypocrisy. It is not necessary to be able to practice virtue in order
to esteem its worth. And it does not make a fellow appear any better
even to himself to condemn a cause that condemns his faults.

Saloon-keepers are engaged in an enterprise which in itself is lawful;
the same can be said of those who buy and sell poisons and dynamite and
fire-arms. The nature of his merchandise differentiates his business
from all other kinds of business, and his responsibilities are of the
heaviest. It may, and often does, happen that this business is
criminal; and in this matter the civil law may be silent, but the moral
law is not. For many a one such a place is an occasion of sin, often a
near occasion. It is not comforting to kneel in prayer to God with the
thought in one's mind that one is helping many to damnation, and