A Cause of Accidents—We read of steamboat disasters, and railroad accidents, and what is the matter? Somebody in many, many cases has beclouded the mind with intoxicating drink. He did not feel the weight of responsibility resting upon him. Many, many lives have been lost because somebody got drunk. Thus lives will be charged to the man that put the bottle to his neighbor’s lips. (Te 288.1) MC VC

In olden times when a man had a vicious animal he paid for it. It says in Exodus 21:28, 29: “If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall be quit. But if the ox were wont to push with his horn in time past, and it hath been testified to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but that he hath killed a man or woman; the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death.” (Te 288.2) MC VC

Now we wish to carry this principle right out to those that brew the deadly poison. Here is the law that the God of heaven gave to regulate what to do with vicious animals. Christ is seeking to save, and Satan to destroy. I ask you that have reasoning powers to think on these things. The man that is intoxicated is robbed of his reason. Satan comes in and takes possession of him and imbues him with his spirit; and his first desire is to bruise or kill some of his loved ones. Yet men will allow this accursed thing to go on, that makes man lower than the beast. What has the drunkard obtained? Nothing but a madman’s brain. And here the laws are such that the temptations are continually before them. (Te 288.3) MC VC