The Portland daily press., 1871-06-09

THE VOICE OF PARK STREET ON MoDER-
ATE DRINKING.-The Rev. William FL. H.
Murray preached on Sunday morning last
from the text: Submit yourself, therefore,
to God. Resist the devil aud he will fee
fiom you,"-James iy. Z. He illustrated the
wisdom OF this injunction by the reflection
that in resistance alone is safety; you must
fight or die. Satan does not want followers,
he wants slaves. Take the drunkard as
an Illustration. Consider by what easy
stages Satan posted him TO his rum.
Was not the first glass sweet, and the taste
pleasant? Did it not give play to fancy, and
delightful fiuency to the tongue? Did it not
warm the blood ard thrill the nerves? Pow
erty, dishonor, disease and loathsome death,
were not revealed to his eye as he drained the
glass. prOtfered perhaps, by beautys hand.
Would to God they had been! Would that
he might then have been standing there, glass
in hand, amid the gayety that rippled around
him, rising in vivid vision out OF thatibeaded
glass, the woes that Were to come in long and
ehastly procession! Would that he could
have seen the rags and tears, and heard the
walls aId the swift-smiting curses, THAT were
to be for him and his! Then would the
coiled serpent have seen revealed; and, with
one quick, nervous resolution, he would then
and there have casa the horrid peril from him.
My people did you ever think of the num-.
Der OF graves where drunkards sleep? How
heavily levolves the earth under the burden
of these Heavily say; for every grave Is
weighted, not with iron or lead, but that
which is far heavier than these in the
balance OF God, = despair "Write on
my tombstone" screamed dying
drunkard once,."writs on my tomb
stone, and make the letters large, and bew
them deep; write but one word, Despair = +"
There is not person ;bere, l presume, who
would stab man yet there are men here in
to whose side you had better drive a knife,
and let life out forever, than to offer a glass
OF wine; Ior, should they drink, out Of them
would go what lis sweeter and nobler than
life,-hope and love, and fealty to virtue. Yet
are there women who forget not to pray at
night; who in their ignorance or kthoughtless-
ness, have caused men to become drunkards.
Alas for the men who rot out OF existence;
who are like trees when sap and lite are gone,
-unsightly formations Of exhaustion and
decay.
But Satan is cunning; and as the strokes
man pats the neck of the silly beeye until he
has noosed it for the slaughter, SO he beguiles
| man until he has been fully in his power. No
| moderate dr:nker but that laughs at the idea
l OF ever being drunkard; and yet every
| drunkard of 10. day is from the ranks OF the
moderate drinkers of twenty years back, and
| every drunkard Of twenty years ahead Will
come from the ranks of the moderate drinkers
OF to day. Thus is it with all its doings. He'll
is patient; but it is the patience which springs
from the knowledge that certain causes inevi-
tably lead to certain results. Young men, by
gradual processes, are brought to be drunk
ards. by the same devilsh gradations, young
girls, spotless and white, are made TO i'll
brotheIs. And thus, converging iIom every
village and city in the land, from houses and
| cradles widely apart, the vast throng, a
| mighty caravan of lost souls, moves to the
gates Of he'll with jest and mirth, the clash OF
| cymbals, and the uplifting Of insanely-jubilant
| feet.