Samson's Strength, sealed with the impress of Christian Temperance

SAMSON'S STRENGTH

AND

SAMSON'S TEMPERANCE.

BY JAMES H. KELLOGG.

Physical power is a proper object of desire and admiration. "A
sound mind in a sound body" is a phrase of more than ordinary
significance, and mental endurance and moral courage receive tone
and vigor from bodily energy. A sinewy frame is a goodly support
to a royal brain and illustrious talents. The ancients made much
of bodily strength, and proved and tested its excellence in a
multitude of ways. Then, more than now, it was synonymous with
great success, and now, as well as then, it oft determines who shall
be the winner of the race. Now, more than ever, the whirl and rush
of mental activity demands a physical culture which shall endure
the rack and strain of business, social, and public life.

The Bible, in its wondrous protraitures of persons, draws the picture
of one pre-eminent for physical strength and prowess. The feats
of Samson are simply amazing in their revelation of bodily power.
They speak of physical ability which leaves the acrobats, the
gymnasts, the men of muscle of this day in the place of dwarfs and
pigmies. They tell of achievements impossible almost for combined
legions of the present or of past generations. To him the herculean
task was but as the idle sporting of a play-hour. To slay a lion
was but to aim a single blow at the roaring enemy. To remove the
gates of a city was but a moment's work at the hour of midnight.

Whatever may be said of the details of his life and character
otherwise, or of his weak and sinful conduct, in the matter of
physical supremacy he stands without a peer in history. As his was
no common strength, so his was no common temperance. He was "a
Nazarite unto God" from his birth, one of the three thus specially
designated in the divine Word; and his mother, too, was enjoined
before his birth that she should "drink not wine nor strong drink."
These facts are significant -- THE STRONGEST MAN A TOTAL ABSTAINER,
AND HIS MOTHER LIKEWISE. There must be a key in this to the
importance which God attaches to physical freedom from intoxicants.
Why otherwise should this representative man of towering strength,
of amazing physical power, be thus carefully shielded from intemperance?
Why else should the angel, the "man of God" with the "countenance
of an angel of God, very terrible," reveal this purpose concerning
Samson? Again, we find this divine direction repeated to the father,
and with such impressiveness that Manoah said unto his wife, "We
shall surely die, because we have seen God." All this must have
been obeyed, for "the child grew, and the Lord blessed him. And
the Spirit of the Lord began to move him."

Now, there can be no question that the abstinence of Samson was
absolute, complete, TOTAL. He used neither wine nor strong drink
while his great strength was in process of development and exercise.
He constitutes the grand example of physical power coupled with
total abstinence from all intoxicants. His was no half-way position,
no temporarizing course, no mere expediency. It was implicit
obedience to a high and lofty command. Mark the contrast between
Samson, in the glory of his physical prowess, and some of our
so-called "temperance" disciples of the present day. In the one
there is the consistency of an undeviating refusal, in the other
the hesitating, irregular, temporizing course, which neither wins
respect nor secures advantages. The Bible deals with evils promptly
and radically. It resorts to no questionable expedients, and
countenances no half-way work. To the straightforward, plain-mainded
reader there can be no room for doubt that THE GREAT MASS OF ITS
TESTIMONY IN WARNINGS, REPROOFS, AND INSTRUCTIONS IS OVERWHELMINGLY
ON THE SIDE OF TOTAL ABSTINENCE FROM INTOXICATING BEVERAGES. Samson
was A BIBLE TEMPERANCE MAN. Behold him in his proud consciousness
of the grandest bodily powers, the noblest human constitution, a
royal development of bone and sinew, a splendid specimen of the
muscular teetotaler!

Young man, would you have clear head, and strong limbs, and vigorous
constitution, and enduring powers? Would you follow the Samsonian
line of physical development, and aspire to something more than
pigmy size or infantile weakness? Would you grow strong and powerful
in body, and clear and vigorous in mind, and warm and generous in
spirit? Then forswear the cup, banish the hateful drink for ever,
and proclaim yourself a true disciple of TOTAL ABSTINENCE. Young
woman, would you grow sweet and lovable in person, pure and true
in thought and rich in glowing graces of the inner life? Touch not
the rosy wine, beneath whose ruddy surface lurks the soul-destroying,
body-burning poison. Put to the pledge your soft, fair hand, and
link your sympathies with those whose hatred to foul rum is righteous
and eternal. Dear boys and girls, water, "sparkling and bright,"
sweet, pure and beautiful, dripping in diamond drops, bubbling in
silvery beauty, shining in the sunshine as the snow in its purity,
as the clouds in its cleanness -- this is the drink for the children.
It will give you rosy cheeks, and sparkling eyes, and merry laughter,
in the place of sickness, and want, and woe.

Samson was a royal man in his glorious God-given strength, sealed
with the impress of Christian temperance. We may not, as he did,
carry off the gates of a city like Gaza, but let us pray that the
boys and girls, the young men and women, the old and young together,
may have grace and power enough, bodily and spiritual, to overcome
the groggeries, the beer-saloons, and drink-dens of the land!

SHORT TEMPERANCE SERMONS.

"Every moderate drinker could abandon the intoxicating cup if he
would; every inebriate would if he could." -- JOHN B. GOUGH.

"Oh! that men should put an enemy in their mouths, to steal away
their brains! that we should with joy, pleasure, and applause
transform ourselves to beasts!" -- SHAKESPEARE.

"Those men who destroy a healthful constitution of body by intemperance
and an irregular life do as manifestly kill themselves as those who
hang, or poison, or drown themselves." -- SHERLOCK.

"I challenge any man who understood the nature of ardent spirits,
and yet for the sake of gain continues to be in the traffic, to
show that he is not involved in the guilt of murder." -- DR. LYMAN
BEECHER.

"It is not the drunken husband, father, son, or brother that feels
all the keen torments of the drunkard's home. No! it is the wife,
the mother, the sister and daughter. The intemperate man drinks
the cup, but the dregs at the bottom are left for the woman." --
REV. HOSEA BALLOU.

-- from National Temperance Society Tract No. 110.
.

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