The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1871-01-07
What Will You Drink Z?
BY REV. THEO. l.. CUYLER.

BY REV. THEO. l.. CUYLER.
"WHAT will you drink" This is the Is.
tablished formula DOW in divers places
from the gentleman's dining table down to
the bar OF country tavern on tOwn-meet-
ing day. Tipping is on the increase. The
use of alcoholic medicines is on the in.
crease. The wine-bottle is slyly stealing
back again into certain circles from which
it was once banished, and Bourbon" is be-
coming as common in sickrOoms as pare.
goric used to be in our nurseries. Half of
the customers of the restaurants, at least,
call for liquors every day at their dinner.
AS natural result, diseases of the kid
neys are increasing in frequency, brandy
Favored breaths are detected in cars and in
nearly every crowd, and drunkenness is
groaeing JrighJuNy! The number of those
who are rescued from the terrible habit and
restored to sobriety cannot be more than
one out of every twenty.
There are many causes for this deplOra-
BILE growth of the drinking usages. And
one of these is the current falsehood that
alcoholic stimulants are positively bene.
fetal! In spite of the solemn declaration
of Gods Word that "wine is mocker,
strong drink is raging; whatsoever is de-
ceired thereby is not wise," there are mil
lions who insist that strong drink strength
ems them, and that whisky is a nourisher
as well as pleasant stimulant. Within
three years plausible little volume has
been published by Cambridge professor
to prove that men sought to smoke and
ought to drink vinous and fermented
liquors." These delusions are spreading,
too, in face of the awful fact that we can
hardly walk dozen squares in any of our
towns without meeting men rceling at
MONDAY in the open streets!
To this current deluson that alcoholic
drinks /" do more good than evil we re-
ply in plain, blunt Saxon, 1T Is LIE.
Not only daily observation of the fearful
| effects of strong drink, but the most accu-
rate modern science, pronounces it lie. If
careful scientific investigation has ever
established anything, it has established the
following positions:
a. Alcoholic liquors are nowhere found
in Nature God never created them.
They are the artificial product of fer.
mented or decayed vegetable articles.
Corn meal when baked in loaf of bread
nourishes the same meal when r0tted in
the vat of distillery poisons and kills.
| (2) Alcohol is not true food. 1t
neither warns nor sustains the human
| body. A man in the Arctic regions who
should drink freely of brandy would freeze
to death sooner than if he drank coffee or
even water. Alcohol is never transformed
in the human system, and it does not in
crease the production of animal heat by its
own chemical action. 1t nteUsres ,ciM ali
meatation. 1t deranges and destroys the
| digestive organs. Yet thousands of de-
luded people are swallowing doses of gin,
whisky and wine every day under the hon
est but ignorant supposition that these
stimulating draughts help them to digest
their dinners Men will even cling to
this destructive lie long after their stom-
achs have become burnt out by their fiery
potations.
g. Alcoholic drinks do not increase
permanently the muscular tone ard power
| OF the drinker. They lessen the muscular
power. When Tom Saycrs, the famous
pugilist, was asked if he did not use plenty
of ale and porter while in training for his
prize fights, he replied: II am no teeto-
talar but, lchen l hare business on hand,
there is nothing like cold water and the
dumb bells" After his last prize fight he
| took to hard drinking, in spite of his own
convictions of the bad effects of alcohol,
| and became powerless sot! Weston, the
pedestrian, once told me that nothing was
so fatal to his success when walking for a
wager as even the moderate use of wine or
whisky. Strong drink produces tempo.
Eary eX Sit ea,ifitss'tef tAe brain and the ner-
vous system, and for this reason People
love it. But the soundest medical science
has conclusively proved that it does not in.
crease nervous influence. On the contrary,
II disturbs and aoastes the vital forces. No
life insurance company will take a risk on
an habitual hard drinkcr.
(4) Finally, alcohol is an irri,ant mar.
cotic. Every healthy human frame recog.
nizes it as a deadly enemy, and endeavorrs
to throw it off. Instead Of warming us, It
simply scorches; instead of building us
up, it pulls us down. 1t poisons the blood.
1t poisoDs the brain. 1t strikes through,
and by its horrid sorcery it poisons the
very soul! Yet, like all other narcotics,
1t has the subtle power to deceive and en-.
slave the man who insanely swallows it
The blessed Creator of the human organism
never made alcohol. 1t is the master piece
of the Decil, who taught men how to brew
it from the golden grain. At the last great
day of reckoning, we firmly believe that il
will be discovered that alcoholic drinks
have destroyed more bodies and damned
more souls than all the other tempters to
sin in the universe! Before that Just tri.
bunal of God, 'oho 'oM ency the liquor seller !
The pressing want of to day is the en-
lightenment of the public mind and the
awakening of the public conscience as tc
the real nature of Intoxicating drinks. On
this great vital point hundreds of pulpts
are strangely and criminally silent. II
strong drink is filling hell with its victims
how can any minister of God hold his
peace?
And when the pulpit speaks, or the plat
form speaks, the strongest argument against
the bottle is the argument from science
We do not underrate the moral argument
We do not esteem lightly the tremendou.
utterances of Gods Word against the cur
that "bitcth like the adder" But there il
no argument against alcoholic drinks NOR
unanswerable than that law of God writer
4, ~, r,.l IL -,