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.The last sentence exaggerates.The transformation of the clergy,however, cannot be exaggerated; the old sots had seen the light andbecome new men.But there were people who wondered why, peoplewho, knowing their Bible, knew that Paul had told Timothy to havea few sips of the grape for his recurring illness.And they knew about80 Chapter 3other references in the Good Book that encouraged the use of alcoholicbeverages, either directly or by implication, such as Jesus turning wa-ter into wine.What were God s earthly representatives in nineteenth-century America going to make of tales like these, appearing as they didin the Lord s own manual? How were they going to explain them byway of justifying their new outlook?They were not.Instead, they simply disregarded such references.The Bible, after all, is a wondrously all-encompassing volume, and asthe masters of the altar began to change their attitude toward booze,they found their new point of view emblazoned in scripture as clearlyas the old.They found Eli s telling Hannah to get rid of her wine, anangel s assuring Zechariah that his son would drink no liquor and thusbe filled with the Holy Spirit, and even Paul s doubling back on himselfto declare that it was good neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, andmore forcefully, that drunkards should be included with murderers andsodomites as candidates for the fiery throes of eternal damnation.It was from passages like these that the American Temperance Soci-ety took its cue.Henceforth, it  resolved in the strength of the Lord.to produce a change of public sentiment and practice, with regard to theuse of intoxicating liquors. Other societies also invoked the Lord, andupon this rock they began to build their movement, a movement which,as John Allen Krout points out, came at a time of great religious awak-ening in the United States, an explosion of interest in matters divineand otherworldly.This meant that temperance nowtook on the attributes of a great revival.Temperance workers wereevangelists preaching a new gospel, and they stated its dogmas in the pulpitphraseology of the day.Persons who responded to the powerful appeal andsigned the pledge were known as  converts. For the programs of the soci-eties into which the  converts were gathered the evangelical prayer meet-ing served as a model.Appropriate verses, set to familiar gospel tunes, weresung with all the fervor of religious exaltation.The emotional appeals ofthe speakers and the  testimony of the pledge-signers strongly suggestedthe revivals of the evangelical sects.It must be admitted that not all clerics supported the alliance be-tween temperance and faith.Bishop John Henry Hopkins of the Epis-copal Church of Vermont said that he was opposed to it because it gave prominence to one particular vice, contrary to doctrines of theBible. Further, he explained,  The outward reformation of a singleThe Father of Prohibition and Other Kinfolk 81vice is nothing, when the heart remains unsanctified and the curse ofGod still hangs upon the soul. But Bishop Hopkins s voice was not thevoice of the choir; most pastors of the time seemed pleased enough to bemaking inroads on a single vice, seeing it as a starting point, a footholdon the path that would lead to the eventual salvation of their flocks.But as all of this was going on, another front was opening in the waragainst alcoholic beverages, one that proved equally energetic, equallypurposeful, and at least at the outset, equally effective.Temperancegroups of secular orientation, harkening back to Benjamin Rush scharge that hard drinking was  anti-federal, began to wrap their pleasfor sobriety in the flag [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]