Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1876-01-12

him drunken" "Your hands are defled
with blood, aud your fingers with iuiquity."
" Your feet have run to evil, and have made
haste to shed innocent blood-wasting and
destruction are in your paths" depart ye
cursed aud ye that work iniquity." This is
no fancy picture, fgment Of the imagina-
ton; it has been realized in this life by too
many, and the cases are on record.
These men must be awakened from their
delusion, and saved from such fate. We
are. in measure, our brothers keeper.
Shall we shut him up in prison and put
chains upon him. But how will stand that
dark account between him aud his God, If
His obedience be an enforced one No, he
must stand guard over himself. But what
assurance have we that he will not relax
his vigilance, and either sleep upon his post
or desert it entirely? Suppose he signs the
pledge aud solemnly gives his word that he
will never touch another drop Of liquor
Does that pledge and that word make him
temperance man His passions remain, and
still camor for indulgence. Estimate that
mans passion for drink eighty, aud his
power to resist twenty, aud it does not
require much of prophet to predict the re-
suit when the collision comes. His nerves
are unstrung when deried their accustomed
stimulus-his appetite for food is gone, and
there is an aching void that must be filed
every fibre Of his being calls for rum, aud
rum will obey the call il nothing better Of
fers itself
This passion must be supplanted byhigher
passions. In many instances, revenge has
crushed out love, ayarice in miser over
comes every other passion, and in turn love
casts out fear faith expels doubt aud ambi-
ton conquers all indolent desires. Just so
in regard to this passion for rum-higher
aspirations must be awakened, new desires
must be called into being, or old ones revived
and arranged against this master passion.
have faith enough in human nature to
believe tina. ii the right motives be presented,
| if the right chords be struck, any man can
be reformed. But if the light in him be
quenchcd 10y rum, If his heart is so iugrained
| with alcohol rs to have become impervious TO
moral sensiblities there must be such rcyo-
luton in his nature as only the grace Of God
can effect. Fleshly might aud unassisted will
cant reform men the grace Of God has,
can and will reform them. In the struggle
for self-conquest, no one is sure of success
without such aid and when a mans body is
| burning up with the fires Of alcohol, he is
| foolish il he does not take all the help he
can pet TO extinguish them. Girt about
with the presence Of the Almighty, he is
. armed at all points, exactly cap-apie"
and inyunerable.
gentleman in New York city return
/ ing home one night half seas over found
instead Of his accustomed bottle, Bible,
which his pious wife had placed there.
! That marked the turning point OF his life.
He became temperate man, aud Chris
tian." That wife WAS Wise philosopher,
and temperance thinkers may well ponder
upon the circumstance. The temperance
cause is not mani 5 alone but Gods. Temper.
ance and Christianity ever 90 hand in hand ;
they cannot be divorced. Sometimes one is
in advance. and somstimes the other; but
one or the other is sure to follow. In Africa,
they called the missionaries the John the
Bapti.ts Of the temperance societies; aud on
board British man-of-war the reading of
Temperance tales paved the way for the read
ing Of Bibles, and the conversion Of the
whole ships crew. Reuan never said a truer
thing than when he declared Christ to be
an inexhaustible source of moral regenera-
ton" Christ and His church are the princi'
/ - ......, 49,. ,tf,L ,,-a ,,,,,st rol,