The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1878-02-22
Woman's Temperance Column.
"IHe Lord of Hosts as with as, the God
ofJocob is or refuge"


ncre put III on record Tor the benefit of
all whom it may concern. Be IL under
stood, then, that man is q strange crca-
ture.
There are innumerable ways in
which man acts strangely, but there is
none in which this strangeness is so
clearly exhibited rs by the fatal per-
sistency with which he often opposes
his own best interests. For instance.
1t seems almost an impossibility, now
a-days, to convince men that il is for
their interest to abstain from the use of
intoxicating liquors, although better
reasons for any human course of action
could not be given. All argument is
seemingly exhausted; there Is nothing
new to be said OIL the subject. Nothing
can now be done but to repeat old ar
guments in new forms, but whether il
is worth while to do even this some
times seems doubtful. 1t is discour-
aging business talking without hope
of success, yet this is the prospect
which stares every temperance agitator
blankly in the face. TO be sure few
reforms are effected, but they are only
a few. Great results, indeed, often ap-
pear on the surface, but after while il
proves that they are not lasting. Re-
form clubs spring up and flourish for a
time, but when the agitation is over
their members one by one drop away
and sink hopelessly back into the old
paths, just as the sea regains its level
when the storm is over. And, what is
worse, the young men who are grow
ing up around us will not listen to the
voice of warning, but are continually
taking their places in the ranks of the
drunkards.
Yet 1t has often enough been proven
that they will find it better on all ac-
counts to let liquor alone. 1t is dan
gerous habit generally to make use OF
strong drink, but it is especially peril
ous for those young men whose brains
are their only capital. Every young
man of education and talents has hopes.
aspirations, ambition. Literature, pol
itics and the law are constantly ex-
tending to them chances for noble dis
tinction, for, though the lower places
are crowded, there is room enough at
the top. Fame and honor are well
worth fighting for, but those who ex-
pect to reach success must leave strong
drink alone. Neither is the sacrifice a
great one, but if it were, is it not worth
making? Pizarro, thirsting for gold
and fame, drew his line in the sands of
Peru, and with scarcely q corporal's
guard to follow him, plunged boldly
into an unknown land, facing unknown
hardships and unknown dangers, and
leaving behind all the comforts and
pleasures of civilized life. Ali these
sacrifices, rememberd, were made for
gold and fame. Pizarro conquered.
and the objects of his ambition were
realized. If his sacrifices had been
great his rewards were greater. But
what is the merely negative sacrifice of
abstaining from the use of intoxicating
liquors compared with those which
Pizarro made? Yet the recompense to
be sought is surely as grand. Suppose.
then, that young men of talents have
only to make the sacrifice of the doubt
full pleasures of indulgence in intoxi-
cants in order to win both fame and
fortune, should it not be cheerfully
done? The proof is full to overfowing
that in thousands of instances the sim
Pile fact of indulging in strong drink
has worked the destruction of men
who, had they let it alone, might have
been among the most eminent and
prosperous of the race.
Everywhere are the wrecks and ruins
of men of brains, wrought by rum.
The men who most need to have their
wits always about them seem to come
easiest under its influence. You can
not go into single large town in the
land without finding there scores of
broken down professional men, espec-
tally lawyers, who were once promi-
nent and respectable men and whose
downfall was the direct result of in
temperate habits. All the highways
and by-ways of history are sprinkled.
not here and there, but everywhere,
with runs ghastly wrecks. Hosts OF
men of talent and men of genius who
for time had been surely and steadily
climbing up the lofty bills of fame, but
who before reaching the top had come
under the influence of rum, have pitch
ed headlong down to the bottom again
down, down, down, into fathomlcss
abyss of disgrace and shame. From
Alexander the Great, who, after con-
quering the world, died in drunken
debauch, down to our own present
time, the line of human wrecks pro-
duced by the agency of rum has been
long and unbroken. Wherever brains
and genius have appeared, there liquor
has done its work. You know all
about the lives of Sheridan and Poe.
Two of the most brilliant-brained men
whom God ever gave to the world,
they were yet the slaves of mans great
despot, and both of them died in shame
and misery. Burns was another of the
tyrant's slaves. Senator McDougal
was another. And then there was
Of
who was one out of millions, who, dur
ing the nations deadly peril had been
the great governor of great state.
whose bright prospects were not sur
passed by those of any American poll
tician of his time-this man, when rep
resenting Illinois in the Senate, died
drunk in the bitches of Washington.
There is another man in Washington,
of great abilities, who, four years ago
this winter, was hurrying fast to a
grave. But seeing in time
that this was the fate which inevitably
awaited him if he continued on in the
course which he was going, he made
great effort and broke from his chains.
Instead of filling the drunkard's grave
he now holds the second most honora-
BILE position in the government of the
nation. That man is Samuel j. Ran
dali, Speaker of the United States House
of Representatives. And thus it is
All the lessons of the past
and all the examples of the present
teach us that strong drink is the enemy
of honor and the foe Of fame.
Why, then, will young men drink!
Why will they not see, what is indeed
so plain, that indulgence in intoxicants
is almost certain to prove destructive
of every ambitious design and every
noble aim which they cherish in life?
Every drink is draft upon the treas
ure house of the brain, and repeated
drafts can have but one result. II is
folly to say that you will not LET liquor
become your master. Probaly ey-
cry man who has ever fallen by it has
said that same thing, and yet IL is rum
which peoples nine-tenths oe the pris-