Spirit of the age. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1849-1865, 1854-01-11

human heart IN Its WandcrngS and With
tear for its follies, points with smile of hope
and forgiveness back to honor and truth
The proud spirit which would fling back
with scorn the hatred Of world, would melt |
and sway like summer leaf at the gentle
! utb,5sis setivs eS1sis.sEa Of .sEaE.!s nf kindness ess---
Whispering .-..---z..----.- q
Moral suasion has accomplished much in
winning men from their cups-more than
the penal enactments which drag the drunk
ard from legalized hell, to Incarceration or
fine. 1t has saved many from the fang
which gitters in the bubbles on the beak-
er's brim. Even from the midst Of deep
est ruin, some word or kindly deed has
brought back the erring to virtue and duty.
1t is doing much yet, and will never fail to
do much, while there are hearts to love the
drunkard and weep over his ruin.
There are some of our friends who avowE
their readiness to rely solely upon the power
OF moral suasion for the removal of intem-
perance. 1t seems 10 us strange infatua-
tion. Prayers, and tears, and appealing
words, against an evil impregnable in its cit
adels oflegislation, and backed by the whole
force of the government! Would the same
friends content themselves with appealing to
the incendary and the murderer to spare
their homes and their lives, and the torch
and the knife at the same time commissioned
to do the internal work, and the hand that
welded them protected by law? What
would the cold blooded butcher care for the
pleading of innocence or weakness, when H.
censed for price, to drench the very hearth
in warm blood? And woad the incendiary,
empowered to burn, and sustained by the
so-caled respectable, in the light of the
kindling fame, renounce the desolating bu-
siness which he had purchased of government
the right to engage in?
God never designed that wicked world
should be governed BY moral suason He
himself has put on record penal enactments
against sin-against vice and crime. Unit
human nature is utterly changed, mora
suasion, as sole-restraining power, will be
impotent. All the blessed influences of the
Gospel, the influence of home, friends, vir
tuous teachings, and the hopes of happiness
and Heaven, as motive power will not re
strain the vicious All men are not suscep
tible moralinfuences. Ifthey were the dus
ofoblivion mightgather upon ourstatutes, and
not crime should mar the harmony of the
universal brotherhood of man.
Those who deal in rum, are certainly tht
last class which should ever utter worC
about moral suasion, and claim that th,
temperance reform should be carried forward
upon that basis alone. We could smile a
the GOODNESS of the idea but for its insulting
wickedness. 1t comes with a bad grace il
the teeth of facts, upon a record of NOR
than twenty-five years. duration. Here, a
elsewhere, moral suasion has had its effect
and men, regardful of its influences, hav
yielded to the light Of truth and abandone,
wickedness. And in the high noon c
our reform, those who still persist, agains
reason, right and revelation, in the business
ask the people to follw their direction in tn
matter, and continue course which, up t
this day, they have utterly disregarded!
With legislation against it, it requires th
whole power Of the temperance reform t
keep its giant antagonist at bay, while
security it revels upon all which comes will
in its clutch. Moral suasion knows not
phase which it has not assumed in this gre;
/ work. From broken, altars where every dc
mestc tie lay shivered, prayers have gor
up where there was no hope but Of Heave
Gather them from the angels record, and
tempest of prayers would swell its note
accusing thunder. An ocean Of tears III
drippcd its bitter way over cheeks whic
T bloom not again. Days and years ha'
} passed by, until ages of sorrow have acc
!, mulated in judgment. Wherever the vi
Tins Of the wong hare loved, and sutfere
and died-at home, in the aims house, du
geon, or on the scaffold, the sob, the Sc
r row, and the wall, have appealed to the a
t thors Of all the woe, vice, and crime. Nut
b ly, but ah! how eloquently, the GOVERN
a and ragged drunkard's child, and the pal
4 faced wife and mother, have presented to Il
s dealer his cruel wickedness and their bitt
: wrongs!
e The rumseller is not ignorant and deaf
e lie knows the sweep Of the engine in
e hands. He sees its effects, and while
e own neighbors, and kindred even, are {
|, monized and imbruted by the drug frc
his hands, he sends them home to wou
n the innocent and the helpless. Every q
IT he drops into his drawer, is the price of t
: hunger, nakedness, and degradation of thc
,e who never wronged him or his. He kno
II the enslaved appetite cannot turn away, a
j, he feeds it to the death. He deliberat