THE KING’S BUSINESS
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ruption" (5:18-21); the fruit of the Spirit is "life everlasting” (5:22, 23). “Let us not weary.” Measure up manfully to your own load; lay hold cheerfully on your brothers; and hold on to the last mile. Alexander is said to have so admired the patient persist ence of a soldier in staggering with a bag of gold to the treasury, that he shouted to him, “Lug it on, my good man, clear through to your tent, for it is all your own.” “Unto all men . . . especially,” etc. Serve every brother in the flesh, especially a brother in the faith. Note: We have not touched on “temper ance” explicitly, but that the application im plicitly, point by point, is to that important and now most pertinent question should be obvious to every teacher. V. T he H arvest of I ntemperance . ■ : It is a harvest of death. The Army War College at Washington, made an investiga tion of the destructiveness of war. Begin ning 500 B. C. and covering all wars down to the Russo-Japanese war, they found that about 700,000 men had been killed in battle and 2,100,000 wounded. Alcohol is killing off as .many Americans every year as all the wars of the world have killed in battle in 2,300 years. Applied to the race, alcohol, is killing 3,500,000 every year and is therelore ten thousand times more destructive than all wars combined. Statistics gathered by life insurance companies prove conclusively that: nearly one half of the deaths that occur are due to alcohol. It is a harvest of crime. A presiding judge
pi the District Court in South Dakota in a recent address said that seventy-five per cent of all criminal cases which came before him for "trial were the direct result of the liquor traffic. A recent study of the police records of fifty-eight representative cities of the United States reveals the fact that three- fifths of all the offenses which called for intervention by the police were traceable di rectly to the saloon. The few weeks fol lowing the San Francisco earthquake and fire, when the city was under military rule and prohibition was in force, the police and city justices had nothing to do. With the resumption of civil authority and the open ing of the saloons, the policeman again swung his club, the patrol wagon thun dered through the streets, the city judges assessed their fines and the city jail speedily filled up. It is a harvest of economic loss. It is esti mated that each of the 700,000 men killed by alcoholism would have had, if sober, an eco nomic value of $8,000. Their death then means a loss of $5,600,000,000. The cost of providing for the added crime, pauperism, idiocy and insanity produced by alcohol in the United States and paid for by direct taxation exceeds $2,000,000,000 per annum. The economic loss from the lowered effi ciency of wage earners and wealth producers is estimated at about $8,000,000,000. Alco hol, then, places upon this nation alone a financial loss of $16,500,000,000. Help to stay the drinker; to lift the drunk ard ; to fill the ditch. Remove, lighten, behr the burden as you “have opportunity. \
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