This is a story of how a Roman Catholic priest started preaching total abstinence from alcohol and then called out the bishop of Detroit for drinking minutes after he had signed an oath never to drink again. Hello, church, and welcome back to our series of book reviews from our resource desk. In today’s video, I examine our booklet called Temperance, and in it Charles Chiniquy tells a few stories of how much he hated alcohol in a day when alcohol was not really frowned on. I mean, it kind of sounds like our day today, doesn’t it? We are going to look at this Roman Catholic priest’s first exposure to someone who was a total abstainer, a Protestant medical doctor. Then we will look at a story of a drunken mother who killed her own child in a stupor. And last, we will look at how Chiniquy’s colleagues and their superiors tried to justify their own drinking of alcohol while they wanted the common people to stop.
The Doctor and the Autopsy
The author, Charles Chiniquy, was a Roman Catholic priest in the mid-1800s. He was completely devoted to God. He loved the Lord, but he was so bothered by many of the teachings in his church that it eventually led him out of Catholicism and into Christianity. These booklets that we have are just excerpts from his larger book called Fifty Years in the Church of Rome. We have pulled out certain chapters, and it was in chapter 8 that Chiniquy talks about meeting a Protestant medical doctor, Dr. Douglas. Chiniquy poured a glass of brandy and drank it, and the doctor asked, “Why did you drink that?” Chiniquy said, “It is a good preservative against the sickness of the air. I am going to be hearing confessions all day, so I need to take some precautions.” The doctor said, “No, it is poison, and by drinking it you have made yourself more susceptible to the diseases out there.” Chiniquy dismissed the doctor at first, until the doctor invited him to come to an autopsy the next day. There was a sailor who had died, and they were going to cut into the body. When they cut into it the next day, the doctor showed Chiniquy how the man’s arteries were so deteriorated by the alcohol; it was piercing holes in the man’s arteries. Then they got to the lungs, which were covered in these white spots, these little white ulcers, and little red spots, and every muscle throughout the man’s body was weakened by the alcohol. Then they got to the stomach and realized how much the stomach hates the poison, so that when it is drunk, the stomach tries to expel it, at first by vomiting, and once you get over that, by dispersing it throughout the body, just trying to get it out of the stomach. It was through that dispersion that this man’s death came about. The doctor went on to explain much more than that to Chiniquy, and then Chiniquy said, “These bodies, opened before me, were books written by the hand of God himself, and they spoke to me as no man could speak. By the mercy of God, to that study is due the irresistible power of my humble efforts in persuading my countrymen to give up the use of intoxicating drinks. But here is the time to tell how my merciful God forced me, his unprofitable and rebellious servant, almost in spite of myself, to give up the use of intoxicating drinks.”
The Mother and Her Baby
It was not only the medical side of alcohol that changed his mind, but its effect on people’s lives. He tells the story of a young mother from a good side of town. She grew up with wine at the table, and so as a child she learned to drink, first a little here and a little there, but then more and more, until she became addicted to alcohol. Then one day she was carrying her baby in her arms, and she was in a drunken stupor, and she stumbled and fell against the stove. The baby’s head hit the corner of the stove, and all the weight of the mother fell upon it, and it killed her baby. In this fit of despair, she is screaming and trying to slit her own throat, and her husband grabs the knife just in time. All through the night she weeps and wails and begs the body of the baby to come back to life. The next morning, this woman who had been agonizing all night collapsed right there in front of Chiniquy, and blood began streaming from her mouth, and she died too, six hours after killing her own baby. Chiniquy said of that horrible incident, “What I had just seen and heard could not be buried and forgotten in the grave.”
The Bishop of Detroit
The last chapter in our booklet tells of when the bishops of a nearby area had heard of Chiniquy’s success in helping communities. They were wanting the same thing in their Detroit community, and so they invited Chiniquy out to the Detroit cathedral to preach his messages on abstaining from alcohol. He was scheduled for five sermons, or lectures, calling the people to give up all intoxicating beverages. It ran in the newspapers and everything. Well, after his third sermon, the bishop of Detroit heartily congratulates him. They were very excited to have Mr. Chiniquy in for their temperance cause. The bishop takes him by the hand and leads him to the back, to the dining room area where the other priests were, and he said, “Let’s go refresh ourselves.” Chiniquy said, “I shall never forget my surprise and dismay when I perceived the long dining table covered with bottles of brandy, wine, beer, etc., prepared for himself and his six or seven priests, who were already around it, joyfully emptying their glasses. My first thought was to express my surprise and indignation and leave the room in disgust, but by a second and better thought, I waited a little to see more of that unexpected spectacle. I accepted the seat offered me by the bishop at his right hand. ‘Father Chiniquy,’ he said, ‘this is the sweetest claret you ever drank,’ and before I could utter a word, he had filled my glass with wine and drunk his own to my health. Looking at the bishop in amazement, I said, ‘What does this mean, my lord?’ ‘It means that I want you to drink the best claret you have ever tasted.’ ‘Do you take me for a comedian, and have you called me here to play such a strange comedy?’ I said, with lips trembling with indignation. ‘I did not invite you to play comedy,’ he answered. ‘I invited you to lecture on temperance to my people, and you have done it in a most admirable way these last three days. Though you did not see me, I was present at this evening’s address. I never heard anything so eloquent on that subject as what you said. But now that you have fulfilled your duty, I must do mine, which is to treat you as a gentleman and drink that bottle of wine with you.’ ‘But my lord, allow me to tell you that I would not deserve to be called or treated as a gentleman were I vile enough to drink wine after the address I gave this evening.’ ‘I beg your pardon for differing from you,’ answered the bishop. ‘Those drunken people to whom you spoke so well against the evils of intemperance are in need of the stringent and bitter remedies you offer them in your teetotalism. But here we are sober men and gentlemen, and we do not want such remedies. I never thought that physicians were absolutely bound to take the pills they administer to their patients.'” Then Chiniquy took from his pocketbook the bishop’s printed address and his public and solemn promise never to drink, nor to offer any intoxicating drinks to others, and he read it aloud and said, “Are you the same bishop of Detroit, called Lefevere, who has made this solemn promise?” “My dear Chiniquy, I did not invite you to preach to the bishop, but only to the people of Detroit.” So that made for a very awkward meeting with the bishop the rest of that night and the rest of the week as he was preaching, but Chiniquy stood his ground, and for the rest of the meetings there was no more alcohol served after the evening services. That is how that week went. Some years later, Chiniquy received word that the bishop had died a sad and miserable death, having rejected his oath and returned to the bottle. What a horrible poison, and Chiniquy led thousands of people away from it over the course of his life. Even today we are still benefiting from his zeal on the subject. It is quite an interesting read, and if you have not read the booklet, I encourage you to do so. This is just an excerpt from the larger book, and in our other videos we have discussed and covered some of the other excerpts from the larger book, and I encourage you to look at those videos. But until then, grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. God bless you. Thank you for watching the video. I really pray that it can be a blessing to you and really help bring the Bible home. If it was a blessing and a help to you, would you consider liking the video and subscribing to our channel? We look forward to seeing you in the next video.
