Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1871-01-06
What Will You Drink ?
BY REV. THEo. L. cuYLER.

BY REV THEo. l.. CUYLER.
"WHAT will you drink ?" This is the es-
tablished formula DOW in divers places
from the genteman's dining g-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 sick-rooms 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 a 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
grODtag trighJulyi 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 swine is a mocker,
strong drink is raging; whosoever is de-
ceiDed thereby is not wise" there are mil
lions who insist that strong drink strength
ems them, and that whisky is nourlsher
as well as pleasant stimulant. Within
three years a plausible little volume has
been published by a 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 reeling at
MONDAY in the open streets
To this current delusion that alcoholic
drinks d" do more good than evil y we re-
ply in plain, blunt Saxon, IT Is A LIE.
Not only daily observation of the fearful
effects Of strong drink, but the most accu.
rate modern science, pronounces 1t a lie. Ii
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 decdyed vegetable articles.
Corn meal when baked in loaf of bread
nourishes; the same meal when rotted 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 inte1Jeres acth all
mentdtioR. 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.
(3.) Alcoholic drinks do not increase
permanently the muscular tone and power
of the drinker They lessen the muscular
power When Tom Sayers, the famous
pugilist, was asked if he did not use plenty
of ale and porter while in training for his
prize fights, he replied: Il am no teeto-
talar but, ache1l 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
rary excitement of the 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,
it disturbs and odSteS the vital forces. No
life insurance company will take risk on
an habitual hard drinker.
a. Finally, alcohol is an frrttdm mar
cOtic. Every healthy human frame recog'
nizes it as deadly enen'y, and endeavors
to throw it off. Instead of warming us, ii
simply scorches; instead of building us
up, it pulls us down. 1t poisons the blood
1t poisons the brain. 1t strikes through,
and by its horrid sorcery it poisons the
very soul! Yet, like all other narcotics,
it has the subtle power to deceive and en-
slave the man who insanely swallows 1t
| The blessed Creator of the human organism
never made alcohol. 1t is the mdster-pIect
of the DeUH 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, qobO aoW ency the liquor seller
The pressing want of oday is the en-
| lightenment of the public mind and the
awakening of the public conscience as tC
the real nature of Intoxicating drinks. Or
this great vital point hundreds of pulpit'
are strangely and criminally silent. L
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 ngestargument agains
the bottle is the argument from science
We do not underrate the moral argument
We do not esteem lightly the tremendous
utterances of Gods Word against the cul
that "biteth like the adder" But there ii
no argument against alcoholic drinks mor'
unanswerable than that law of God writer
ON our bodies which forbids us to toucl
the fatal poison. AT every Temperance
meeting'thi argument should be brough
into the foreground.
AS we close, we are'reminded that New
Years Day is approaching. In thousand
of houses the formula of hospitality vii
be, "What will you drink" Before thi
question is asked, we beg leave to sugges
another one: "What will you offer?"
you will persist in offering poison, the
pin this text on your Tefreshment table
"Woe unto him who giveth his neighbo
drink, who putteth the bottle to him, an
maketh him drunken l"-Iadependent,
AN important decision was recently rer
dered by Judge McKenna, one OF the Gil
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