The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1878-03-01

United Kingdom, it has been stated
from the scat of justice again and again,
that but for drunkenness there would
be in England one tenth of the existing
crime. 1t is getting TO be the hidcous
commonplace of judges.
DO you think they say such things
rashly? And If you will not listen 10
the reiterated warnings of judges in
their ermine, will you listen TO the
noble-hearted missionaries who tell us
what drink costs TO the glory of England
in the execration of her name over
whole continents, and tho ruin of her
efforts among whole populations9
Could | summon the Naoris of New
Zealand, once 50 healthy that you might
smite O man with broad-ax, and in
a few days he would be well, now,
in the language of high government
official, "almost as bad as the English,
polluted and contaminated by their
drink, what would they say2 If /
could summon the Indians of North
America, once not unhappy, now de-
graded, maddened, exterminated by
our accurscd firewater, what would
they say? They have said that because
of it they spit at the name of Christian.
If we ask the Mahometans, what do
they say? Is there Christian in Eng
land with conscience so dead, with
heart so rough, with cheek so brazcn.
as not to blush when he hears that, if
they see one of their number drunk,
they have been heard 10 say, ole has
left Mahomet and gone to Jesusw five
ask the Hindoos, what do they say?
They have said by the lips of their
eloquent representative, Keshub Chun-
der Sen, that all the splendid benefits of
our English rule in India have been null
lifted and counterbalanced by our teach
ing them the use of beer and brandy;
that the wailing of widows rends the
air of India with curses against the
British government for having intro
duced this thing. And again, from the
Southern Sea, the voice of yet another
missionary says to us, eff you dethrone
love missions, work, help-help to
before the heather, the blight of our
infant churches" And oh, sirs, when
you hear such things, are we ot,-we,
the sons of free, proud, glorious Eng
land,-are we not, to our burning in
fanny, what one has called us, the drum
ken IIelots of the world?
So much, then, for disease, and crime,
and colonization; and what does drink
cost in human misery? Have you
hearts? you have, might say:
"sit you down,
And will wiring your heart for so shall
1fit bc made of penetrable stuff:
If damned custom hath not brazed ii so,
That 1t is proof and bulwark against sense"
But, ahl 1 have no tongue to utter, OH
imagination to conceive, no calculus to
measure, the immensity of this national
curse, this national calamity. 1t would
require the vision of the Angels of Re
cord, if they can gaze OH it with eyes
unblinded by such tears as angels weep,
to tell of these miseries of millions for
centuries; "to pass, as it were, from
chamber to chamber of the prophets
vision of abomination, and to mark the
crime in every shape, the disease in
every aspect that can make disease
horrible" that has been caused by the
corrupted fruit of this Tree of the
knowledge of Evil. He alone, whose
ears are open to the lions roar and the
ravens cry, can catch the numberless
accents of that wall of incurable anguish
and uncomfortable despair, which has
streamed upwards for generations, till
the vault of heaven has become "one
vast whispering gallery, to prolong
and reverberate the groans Of those
who have slain their own peace by this
voluntary imprisonment" lie alone.
by whom the hairs of our head are all
numbered, can count the widows who
are widows because of drink; the mad
men who are mad because of it; the
gray heads that it has made gray; the
sad hearts that it has crushed with sad
ness; the ruined families that it has
ruined; the brilliant minds which it has
quenched; the unfolding promise which
it has cankercd; the bright and happy
boys and girls whom it has blasted into
shame and misery; the young and the
gifted which it has hurried along into
dishonored and nameless graves. Is it
not Shakespeare himself who says, by
the mouth of his disgraced and ruined
Cassie, 90, thou invisible spirit Divine,
if thou hast no name to be known by.
let us call thee-Devil"