Untitled - Rore Sanctifica

4 The Exigency of Truth.
immediate and decisive action is to take place
irrespective of other considerations. This we
may illustrate by an example of moral truth.
No one donbts the moral evil of drunkenness.
The strict moralist would sav. with the Teetotal
i/ /
Societies, you must abstain altogether from
intoxicating drinks, not only you who give way
to over-indulgence, but you too who may be so
tempted, and who, for the sake of example, are
bound to give your moral support to the cause.
More moderate moralists will
say, granting the
moral evils of intoxication to be as Ogreat as
vvou
say, and expressing our entire conviction of our
own responsibilities
in regard to we it, yet
demur to your measures of
repression. However
valuable the most of what you say, this is to be
balanced by truths no less important and by
facts and arguments no less cogent. Lengthened
moral disipline is for the advanced, not for the
beginner ; when the immorality lies in excess
of what is permitted we are only bound to
contend against the abuse, not against the use :
and, seeing that men are what they are, your
cutting them off from the opportunity of
violating one moral law will inevitably lead to
the violation of others equally important. We
fail tlien to find that there is any greater
necessity
for immediate and decisive action in
the case of moral truths than there is in
political.
Indeed religion itself onlv professes to be able
O <*
-L