Spirit of the age. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1849-1865, 1858-11-10
For the Spirit of the Ag'
The Temperance Battle.

The Temperance Battle.
The above is the title of a sermon writ
ten by the Rev. Jno. Marsh, ID. d., Cor.
Sec'y. of the Am. Temp. Union, New York,
from which | propose making few ex-
tracts, hoping thereby to encourage some
one to redoubled diligence in the cause of
Temperance.
His text is taken from End Chron Xxx.
Is. ''The Battle is not yours but Gods"
After few pointed preliminary remarks,
he asks the question: "Do you ask for the
proof? (of the assertion in the text.) IT.
requires no proof. l should as soon think
of offering proof that God exists, or that
he is possessed of the attributes Of Cod
1t must be so. 1t cannot be otherwise
To say that God is the friend ard not the
enemy of Intemperance, or that he is in
any way Indifferent to this great conflict,
would be the greatest Of absurdities not
to say blasphemy itself.
Such an evil-so destructive to mans
best interests for time and eternity-so
mocking God in his exquisite workmanship
fof the human frame, throwing it into a
bloated, staggering, loathsome thing, and
bringing it by thousands and millions to a
dishonored grave-so wasting Gods pros
perity, food enough to feed an empire, and
treasure enough in fifty years to fill the
world with Bibles, and ministers and church
es, so at war with the Bible, and the Sab
bath, and the Spirit it-engendering pollution,
blasphemy, contention, violence, suicides,
murders, blasting revivals, poiluting church
es, degrading ministers at the altar, going
before the missionary of the cross to the
heather and making them ten-fold more
inaccessible more the children ofhell than
before-such an evil, pervading the high
and the low, the rich and the poor, enter
ing the counsels of nations, and the tenn
pies Of Jehovah-never ceasing, never end
ing, no stop in the circuit Of those horrid
wheels which mangle and crush human
bodies without number, aud no cessation
in its more dark and terrible ruin to the
soul-a work which "has sent into perdi-
tion more men and women than that de-
luge which swept over the highest hill tops,
engulfng a world in which eight only were
saved"-such an evil, a voluntary outbreak
of the wicked heart against all physical and
moral laws of his kingdom, God must hate
and oppose, or he could not be God.
Intemperance contests Gods right to
every thing which he has made; to the
body, with all its wonderful workmanship
to the mind, his own bright image; to the
heart made to love and fear him to The
immortal soul which Christ has purchased
with his own blood; to the Sabbath a
Gods day, set apart for his glory; to th'
fruits and grains which he has prepared TO
man, for beast, and for the fowls of heaven
to the earth itself, as his rest, where ''h,
will dwell with men, and they shall be hi
people, and God himself shall be with them
and be their God, and where God shal
wipe away all tears from their eyes," Sue
a time as millennium, Intemperance say;
shall never come. | will destroy the beau
tiful body, and send it to an untimely grave
| will dethrone reason; will take ava
the heart l will break up family peac
and domestic happiness | will extrac
from the grains and the fruits of heaven
drink which shall turn man into a fienC
and earth into field of blood will MAX
the Sabbath the day of my triumph; ! wi
snatch souls from the arms of Jesus Chris
and throw them into hell; earth with a
its promised blessings of peace and bounc
less JOY, shall be the everlasting abode {
drunkenness madness, despair and deatl
Is it any wonder that the battle should b
Gods battle? Every poor-house, every ma
house, every penitentiary, and house of co
rection, filled with the degraded and ruine'
is the stamp of the Almighty upon this vic
and its inhuman traffic. Neighborhood
and States and kingdoms that have give
! their strength to the manufacture and sa
of Intoxicating drinks, and who have sal
"By this craft we have our wealth" hay
been cursed in all their borders with po
: erty and crime. Look at France, with i
millions of acres devoted to the culture
the vine; look at England, Scotland, an
Ireland, with their mammoth distilleri
) and breweries, destroying breadstuffs enoug
to feed millions day !; look, too, at OF
own country, where have been poured fort
rivers of the fiery poison, and how has Il
curse every where prevailed ! "With VIII
measure you mete, it shall be measured
you again" 'SThey that SOW the wind, sh;
; reap the whirlwind" Sixty thousand drum
: ards in Great Britain and forty thousal
Z in America, form an annual procession
u the grave, and the mourneIs 60 about t
" streets in rags, and shame and woe. L
distiller has rolled up wealth, but God b
le not suffered him to enjoy it. The impt
IT ter and yender have rolled up wealth, /
Is God has not suffered them to enjoy it. Th
sr, have howled npon their beds in angui