Declaration of Principles

            (Adopted 1874 and Reaffirmed at the 2021 Convention)

 

 

            We believe in the coming of His Kingdom whose service is perfect freedom, because His laws, written in our members as well as in nature and grace, are perfect, converting the soul.

            

            We believe in the gospel of the Golden Rule and that each man’s habits of life should be an example safe and beneficent for every other man to follow.

 

            We believe that God created both man and woman in His own image, and therefore we believe in one standard of purity for both men and women, and in equal right of all to hold opinions and to express the same with equal freedom. 

 

            We believe in a living wage; in an eight-hour day; in courts of conciliation and arbitration; in justice as opposed to greed of grain; in “peace on Earth and good will to men.”

 

            We therefore, formulate, and for ourselves adopt the following pledge, asking our sisters and brothers of a common danger and a common hope, to make common cause with us, in working its reasonable and helpful precepts into the practice of everyday life.

 

I hereby solemnly promise, God helping me, to abstain from all distilled, fermented and malt liquors, including wine, beer and hard cider*, and to employ all proper means to discourage the use of and traffic in the same.

 

To confirm and enforce the rationale of this pledge, we declare our purpose to educate the young; to form a better public sentiment; to reform, so far as possible, by religious, ethical and scientific means, the drinking classes; to seek the transforming power of Divine grace for ourselves and all for whom we work; that they and we may willfully transcend no law of pure and wholesome living; and finally we pledge ourselves to labor and pray that all these principles, founded upon the gospel of Christ, may be worked out into customs of society and the laws of the land.

 

            *Changed to “hard cider” by action of 1976 National Convention.