Grand River times. [volume] (Grand Haven, Mich.) 1851-18??, 1857-10-21

For the EdstmanmHe Times.
Intemperance

In looking at the past history of the world
we discover many changes and are led to en-
quire the causes which have conduced to the
decay of governments and national existence.
We say, then, that there are periods in the
worlds history when drunkenness, thick and
fast, seems to have settled like pail on the
human intellect and palsied all its energies.
Such was the nightsthat settled slowly and
fearfully over Europe, on the dismember-
ment Of the Roman Empire, and shrouded
the world for ages in its rayless gloom. But
as those dark centuries went by with their
leadcn tramp blotting out nations from the
map Of nations, there was slumbering be-
meath principle, which was ere long to burst
forth, with volcanic energy, and place the
human mind once again on that lofty van
tage ground which Roman ambition and Gre
clan refinement had never attained.
Such was the reformation, when the hui
man mind awoke from its death-like stupor
and discovered this primary truth, that vir-
tuous intelligence is the only enduring basis
on which the fabric of human governments
can rest. I ask, where shall we begin
to picture the realities of intemperance p
We need not 60 back to the grave of buried
nations and enquire; all have witnessed the
desolating blast of intemperance, like the
syrocco that bears death upon its wing
Could / but lift the curtain which hides the
secrets Of the tomb, could the death cham
bers where sleep the dead be laid open to
the daylight, and each one of their histories
be revealed to the view of mortals, did all
the causes which induce disease and murder,
but stand out on the coffin lid or in horrid
sculpture upon the walls around the dark
prison house of skeletons and skulls, we
should then read the startling truth, that in
temperance cuts down and gathers into the
graveyard more than two-thirds Of those
who 60 to swell the list of the dead.
Oh weep for the thousands whose spirits have fled
Their history's truly enshrouded in gloom,
Their requiem the wind as it waves DER the tomb.
Who can consider, without shudder, the
ruin of that principle within us whose nature
is divine, and whose birthright is immortal
typ The traveller pauses in awe-struck 81
lence to contemplate the ruins of those splen-
did monuments of art whose fame has filled
all chimes and all lands, but what think We
must be his feelings while he views being
little lower than the angels, that beautiful
specimen of Gods handy work; this harp of
thousand strings once tuned in praise to
Him who gave it birth, but now fend in
human shape, waiting the awful summons of
that spirit grieved. He wakes and in dark
despair.
The scholar may surrender himself to that
food of melancholy which rushes on the soul
while he views 100000 of his fellow men
standing upon the verge Of shat burning
river, $4,000 of which 60 annually to swell
the waters of that tartarian stream. Who
has not seen powers the most gifted,
and talents the most shining, dcbased and
forever buried in oblivion. How many son
has risen with more than meteor magnif-
cenne, lit up the horizon with more than me-
ridian splendor, and then sunk, ere noon, to
the eternal midnight of the grave. If such
be the effects of the evil under consideration
in individual instances, with no previous
knowledge of history and the actual state of
facts, might we not predict with tolerable
degree of certainty its development on ma
tions and national institutions, being as they
are the aggregate of individual habits while
they so faithfully reflect their characteristics?
1t is true, that there are government gray
with the moss of ages, where no such senti-
ment prevails. Yet there are those where
vile and fostering corruption is interviewer,
with every fiber, and as sure as the records of
history or the deductions of philosophy are
true, they must fall, and that irretrievably,
thus affording but another demonstration of
the great truth, that enlightened moral prin-
ciple is the absolute condition of perpetuity.
Admitting the correctness of this position. It