Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes County, Ohio) 1856-1865, 1859-07-07
A whitening Appeal TO Dealers
in Strong Drink.

The following eloquent appeal is from
the pen of the Rev. Alexander Duncan
son:
"DEALERs IN DRINK Yours is a mel
ancholy position-a more pitiful, more un-
worthy, more degraded, and mora sinful
position, cannot be conceived! To prey
upon the shame, the crime, the body, the
soul, the time, the eternity of fellow crea-
ture, is awful! To prepare the way of
bankruptcy, pauperi,m, disease, prison,
death, is not TO be coveted! To assist TO
ruin chracter, murder reputation, sink po-
sition and circumstances, filch a mans
crpmb of bread, is odious! To beggar
families, break the hearts of wives, scatter
domestic firebrands and death, break up
happy homes, divide united hearts, dissolve
family links of the closest ties, is a baseness
indescribable. To rise into riches by such
course is not to be rich; to be honored
is to be dishonored; to gain place in the
world is to have no dignity; 10 stand forth
in cause of religion is to daub Sion's walls
with untempered mortar. To swell out
into portly dimensions by the sale of strong
drink is the price ..of poverty; to rise into
luxury is a gain from wretchedness; to
walk abroad in ease is purchase from
perspiratlon and toll; to assume high airs,
and gad about all bespangled and bejew-
eled, is as ele sation wrong from shame, de-
graduation, misery and death. How infatu-
ated must the drinker be to be rolling
in every comfort and luxury, possessing
wealth and property, and all purchased at
the poor inebriate's expense. The public
an well clothed, while he is in rags; the
publcau's wife, handsome, buxom, jew
eled, but the poor drunkard's not where to
lay her head; the publican's children,
clothed, fed, educated, head and feet pre-
served from the inclemencies of the season;
but mark bis customers, cold starved, rag
ged, wet, diseased. What difference be-
tween the state of those that are supported
by strong drink. Surely, if reflection was
left in the drunkard's mind, the sketch we
have just given would Danish forever the
drinker from the drunkery door.
''And what state can that mind be in
that can keep such house? How desti
tute of all the finer feelings of humanity
to speak of religion would be nonsense.-
Where is love for his country and his kind :
Can patriotism inhabit such a bosom? In
possible. Can such a man be reformer
"a regenerator of society-and keep
house and sell an article to degrade, dehu-
mamie, and enslave his fellow-men, soul
and body, hand and foot9 Incredible
How much Of Christ's love can he in the
bosom of the man who continues to sell
spirits, and sees, and hears, and reads, the
awful deeds it is doing against God and
man? Not spark.
'And is it possible that the spirit
can commend his traffic to God in prayerG
Could lie lay his hand on bis heart, and
enter the divine presence, and crave God
to bless his efforts? II cannot be- His
blood would run cool, his soul would freeze
in the endeavor, his smitten conscience
could not bear the piercing glance of God;
he can only carry on his trade by forget
ting eternity, trampling on the sacred die
tates of conscience, and escaping from
thoughts of future death ahd Judgment
Infinitely better for q man to beg his bread
from door to door, than occupy such po-
sition. In this case he might be an heir
of heaven-but who can recognize the sci.
ling of whisky and eternal glory!"