The Buchanan County guardian. (Independence, Buchanan County, Iowa) 1858-1864, 1858-09-02

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] tumultuous cataract, seething, foaming
and roaring, on rope which vibrates to
the hghtest touch, and from which he
sees with his own eyes, daring, deluded
victims constantly precipitated into the
yawning gulf below. They are mode
rate drinkers, forsooth. Alas, for poor
human nature, in vice there can be no
moderation. The amount may indeed
vary, but the essence is the same. The
blaze of candle is as much fire as the
tempest tossed flames which enveloped
Moscow during its conflagration. The
currant of vice is ever onward to one
who commits himself to its stream. Its
waters are those of,s.eatb, aud their very
touch polution. There never, since the
creation of man, was single drunkard
on the face of the earth, who was not, in
the commencement, moderate drinker
No man was ever at once drunkard.-
The vice is not at once full grown, as
Minerva sprung from the brain of Jupiter.
NO, as the child becomes man, it be-
gins feebly, and grows overpowering.
Ii is not, like the waists of some of our
tight laced ladies, 3 rN
"Small by degrees and beautifully less"
but commencing in the garb of pleasure,
1t ends in the form ofsqualid want, and
miserable death. In their own views all
drinkers are moderate drinkers. The
reeling drunkard, the driveling sot, the
slavering inebriate, all claim to be mode
rate drinkers. So that if we admitted,
| for the sake of Argument, what | trust
that man may safely attempt to be only
moderate drinker, never to yield to ex-
cess, still will not that man, so confident
in his powers of crossing the cataract on
the bridge of a single rope-will not even
he admit. that the majority of men have
not his steadines of nerve, nor h2 faculty
Of
:" Standing on the brink of all we hate
and yet never taking the fatal plunge :?
Will he not acknowledge the manifold,
the countless, the fatal dangers of intem-
perance !? Will he not acknowledge the
indescribable woes it has produced p
Does he not know that moderate drink
ers, who occupy for the nonce, respecta-
BILE stations, are like false beacon lights
kindled on breakers and quick sands,
not to warn against, but to lure to des-
truction /? Does he not know that
drunkards invariably point to these mod
crate drinkers as proofs of the safety, the
utility, and the responsibility of spirit
drinking? Does he not know that his
example prevents the reformation of
drunkards, and plunges them deeper
and deeper into perdiion ? He cares
not for liquor, he AYERS. He has no at
taehment to it. He could at anv time
leave off without sacrifice. In the
name of God, then, why does he not do
it? In the name of humanity, why
does he not forbear? Has he no bowels
decomposition, no sympathy with distress.
no yearnings for progression and i'm
provement, no ears for the cries of an
gush, no eyes for scenes of horror, no
heart for the compunctions of pity, no
kindred with his fellow man whom he is
himself assisting to destroy? Alas, it is
the moderate drinkers who are the main
clogs on the wheels of temperance, and
in the broad road themselves TO disease
and death, they push those over the
precipice who stands upon its brink
Beware, then, my hearers, beware of
moderate drinking! The trite axiom,
Touch not, taste not, handle not, is the
only course of safety.
The speaker next described the immoderate
Ic,n lya, Iacta I, IT,, I.
drinking, proceeded in these words.l
Thus we see that drunkenness, like the
emotions of jealousy, described by Iago
to Othello, +" makes the meat ii feeds on"
Alcohol engenders thirst for alcohol.
The more its devotee drinks, the more he
is led to drink, and he becomes guilty of
the crime of habitual Drunkenness
Crime, l say crime !-and l will not
qualify the expression. 1t is a crime, and
one which is the fruitful parent Of many
others. Intemperance is the most active
and the most perfdious enemy OF do
mestic happiness. The husband who
delivers himself to it, dishonors his sta
ton, and renders himself either odious to
his wife, or constant source of grief
and modification. Losing his reason, he
becomes gross. brutal, wicked, base. He
takes advantage of his superior strength
he beats his wife and his Children
He ceases to have for weakness the re-
spect which is its due, and drives his
wife from the domestic hearth in search
of tenderness and consolation. He alien
ates not less certainly the respect and af-
lection of his children. What esteem can
they entertain for father whom they see
unable to govern himself? They con
ceive necessarily that distaste which is
excited by degraded being ; they dis
credit the lessons he gives them in his
lucid moments, and frequently, as the
climax of misfortune, they are corrupted
by the very example Of him whose first
duty should have been to teach them
moderation, and make them honest and
yirtuous. 1t is woe OF human nature
that familiarity with evil overcomes the
horror that it first inspires. As PorE
most truly and beautifully observes
"Vice is monster OF such frightful mein,
As TO be hated needs but to be seen;
But seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure. then pity, then embrace"
Rut the enrruption of ayar,,,la ;s NJ,