Church Action on Temperance [pp. 595-632]

onr Temperance.
tions are to be done or left undone according as the agent, in
the special circumstances of each case, judges doing or not
doing them to be of good or evil tendency to himself and
others. And while tendencies to promote other and inferior
kinds of good and evil, such as health, wealth, and worldly
happiness, or the contrary, are not to be underrated, what
is paramount and overmastering is the tendency to promote
moral good or evil. When a man clearly sees that the ten!
deney of an act, as compared with its omission, is to promote
the moral welfare of himself or others, he equally sees it to be
his duty to perform it, and if evil, to refrain from it, unless he
has blunted his moral sense. Accordingly, the obligation to
do or forbear things indifferent depends, first, on circumstances,
and next, on the view the agent takes of the tendency of the
act in those circumstances.
Giving money to a beggar is an act indifferent. Our obli gation in regard to it varies with circumstances and the view
we take of them, whether we are able to give, whether he
needs it, whether it will encourage idleness and vagrancy,
whether he will use it to procure needful food, rairnent, or
shelter, or spend it for vile liquor. No further illustration is
necessary to show the heaven-wide difference between the relations of moral obligation to things indifferent and things intrinsically right or wrong. Does it, however, depend on circumstances, and the view we take of those circumst-iices,
whether we ought to love and obey God, confess Christ, do justice, love mercy, maintain truth, a- in from fraud, intoxication, profanity, and blasphemy? Th' on the one hand. On,.
the other, it is equally clear from what have already adduced, that actions indifferent, although not intrinsically moral
or immoral, nevertheless are not without relation to moral obligation, but, in their own way, full within its scope, and often
under its most stringent and relentless gripe. Suppose, e. g.,
in the instance above noted, one is confident that the beggar
who solicits his money will spend it in a drunken frolic, on the
one hand, or that he will use it to keep himself or family from
perishing by cold or starvation on the other. Is there not obligation, even the categorical imperative which allows no release fromn it, in either case? But, then, suppose some other
vOL. XLIII.-NO. IV. 49
1871.]
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