Spirit of the age. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1849-1865, 1857-02-04
Moderate Drinking-The Drunkard.

~ 10 NV q ~ Ou
MS tightening folds. Ruin not your own
peace and the happiness of your friends, and
walt not for the Christening hand of Heaven
70 teach You wisdom with calamity, and
quench FOUR thirst with fire.
There can Le no halfway work in this re-
form. Total abstinence is the doctrine. ssbe-
ware OF the first glass" is the watchword of
the Sons OF Temperance. How many young
men, IN the brightest days of youth, have
rained by that first glass, administered
probably in the social circle, or, perchance,
by a lady friend, who proffered the ruby
forgetting that at the last " it biteth
like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder"
The bodily suferings of the drunkard are
often described in a graphic manner, but
those s~uferings, however severe, are not to
be compared to the moral agonias that con-
vulse the soul. It is an immortal being that
sins and suffers and as his earthly house
diasolves, he IS approaching the judgment.
seat, in anticipation of a miserable eternity.
Conscience thunders, remorse goads, and as
the gulf opens before him, he r~eeoils, and
trembles, and weeps, and prays, and resolves,
and reforms,-oad seeks " yet again. Oh
this blasting, whitening curse, this corrodinr
evil OF lntemperance, overspreading with its
mantle Of ruin the fairest portions of Gods
earthly heritage, what ruin does it work up
on the heart and moral constitution! All
the rest it does one might overlook. fit
only made him sick, destroyed his beauty,
and sent him to a premature grave-if it
only dilapidated his fortune, or took his life.
we might forgive it. Man must die, and
what only aceelerates this q few DAYS or
weeks might be overlooked. But there is a
dlviner part, which, on the authority of rev.
%e!ation, was breathed into him by God, and
the voice Of him who cannot lie has uttered,
No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of
heaven" Nothing else destroys parental
feeling-that feeling which, when all hone of
life has forsaken, still clings to him. It is
alcohol alone that has the power to do this +:
you may poison him, still, at the point Of
death, he will remember his wife, his chill
dren, his country, and his friends. What
else can poison the h cart, and lift the arm
against tho innocent? You may make a
man a murderer, a robber, an enemy of his
kind, but let him go to his wife and children,
and ne is stall a man. Nothing but alcohol
can destroy the chivalry of manhood, can
raise the arm of man against tfral, feeble, IN.
Rocent acoman. The common calamities Of
life may be endured.-poyerty, sickness, and
even death mag be met-but there is that
which, while it brings all these evils with It,
Is worse than all put together. When the
husband and father forgets the duties he
once delighted to fulfill, and By slow degrees
becomes the creature Of internperance, there
enters into that house the Sorroav that rends
; the spirit, that cannot be alleviated. tina
cannot be comforted. 1t is here, above all
, where she WHO has ventnred all finds that ali
ls lost. Womau-silent, suffering. devoted
y ~woman-Aers bends to her direst affection
Truly she measure of her woe is full whose
, husband IS a drunhdrd. Who will protect
her when he is her insulter, her oppresser
What shall delight her, when she trembles
i at the sound of his voice? That hearth !;
b indeed dark that he Las made dssolate.-
There, through the dull ~midnight hour, he,
+; grieis are whispered to herself, her bruised
heart bleedS n secret. There, while the cru
t ell author of her distress is drowned in dis
tant reVelry, she holds her solitary vigil
!; waiting, yet d~reading, his return. To throw
0 a deeper gloom over the present, memor,
turns back, and brooas upon the past. Like
Q the recollection, to the sun-strickeu pilgrim
Q OF the cool spring at which he drank in th,
" morning, the memory OF other days come
over her, as if only to mock her parcheC
and weary spirit. She recalls the arden
70 Lover, whose graces won her from the HON
e Of her childhood /; the enraptured father. VIII,
0 bent with such delight Ger his nev-bor,
children; and she asks if Mis can really b
him,-this sunken being, who has now moth
e ing for her but the sot's disgusting brutal
ty, nothing for those abashed and trembIin
children but the sot's disgusting example,
Can we wonder that amid all these aeoniz
ing moments, the tender chord of violate,
affection should snap asunder? That th
seorned and deserted wife should feel an,
lie confess, I" there is no killing like that whicI
e kills the hearth" That though it would hav
is been hard for her to kiss the cold lips of he
le dead husband, and lay his body in the dust
e 1t ls harder to behold him so debasing lif
that his death would be greeted in mercy.-
to Had be died in the light of his goodness. be
: queathing to his family the inheritance Q
es an untarnished name, an example of virtue
re that should blossom for his sons and daugh
tiers from the grave, though-she would haY
to wept bitterly indeed, Jet the tears of grie
n would not have been, as now, also the tear
&c OF shame. But 80 behold hin turning ava
s. from the station he once adorned, degrade
ID from eminence to ignominy, turning hi
dwelling to darkness, and its holy sndeal
a. ments to mockery,-oh! what a bruises
crushed heart must that be that must sufe
of this
sA% correspondent writes us. that
negro woman, belonging to j. N. NJ. Smit
and anegro man, belonging to Mr.. G. PER-,
Of Franklih county, were frozen to death i
,e attempting to go from a ~nejpbbor's honse