Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1880-09-15
Difficulties In the Way.


does not always appear 10 be the frightful
that 1t really Is. II IL should, GER
tainly all good men, and many not so good,
would lose their indifference and cowardice,
and unite to crush it out of existence Some.
times this dragon is so disguised that it
seems harmless creature Of gentle mien.
Sometimes its shining wings and glittering
eyes 30 fascinate that the kissing tongue and
fearful claws are forgotten.
The redfaced rumseller, whose saloon you
pass every day on the way to your office, is
a very repulsive object. You feel indignant
that such n wretch should have the protec-
tion of the law but in the next house to
your own lives man engaged in the same
traffic, in larger, more genteel way-a
genial man. You remember
when your wife had that long sickness, he
sent in baskets of fruit, paid for it came
over you strangely at the time--with the
wages of sin and that two or three years
ago there was baby-carriage that always
stood, during the summer months, on your
front veranda You remember that he never
passed the carriage without stopping to
speak to its prattling occupant; but there
came day when the carriage was empty,
and another was needed to bear the body to
its long home and when YOU looked your
last on your hearts idol, it held in its waxen
fingers white rosebuds from your neighbors
conservatory. So it is that, when you come
from the general to the particular features
Of the liquor question, all grateful feelings
and even those tiny fingers seem to hold you
back from what you know in your heart is
the straightforward, manly course of action.
Or, perchance, you delight in culture, and
are Of poetic mold. You have listened to
the arguments of some silver-tongued apostle
who contends that selfcontrol surpasses
abstinence, which is weakness in a great
nature, though perhaps well enough for the
lower orders of humanity. To be sure, st.
Paul did say: at is good neither to eat
flesh nor to drink wine, nor anything
whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is Of
Tended, or is made weak !" but then, he was
writing to people in a different age and
state of civilization than our own. Also,
though the poets have dealt marvelously
with water in the form of brooks and oceans,
concerning that dipped up in pitchers and
goblets even the most rigid teetotaler must
confess that the muse has bungled, and that
the sparkle of the ruby wine has inspired
her to sing ravishingly of sunny vineyard
slopes, beneath southern skies, where the
sunshine is dyeing to deeper shade the
purple clusters of the grapes.
Your Bacchus is the blonde.haired bene-
factor attended by ivy.crowned nymphs, not
the god in whose worship were employed
the terrible rites which called forth the de-
cree of the Roman senate.
Happy will it be for you, if at some time
when wit and wisdom are at their best you
do not behold with horror your toast-master
reeling from his seat, after the manner of
the vulgar crowd upon which you and he
have looked with contempt
We have not space to speak of the other
methods, less refined, perhaps not more
dangerous, by which the "god of this
world" blinds the eyes of men and uses
them to accomplish his work of ruin; nor
Of the difficulties, legislative aud other,
which meet the temperance worker on every
hand. He that runs may read at glance
but we can but wonder whether the genera
tions which come after us will not look
upon these difficulties as the green withes
that Sampson might break, as thread OF
tow. For true it is that the perplexities
which encompass any period are not appre.
ciated by those who only see them in the
light of the events which follow. There
are many to- day who, without doubt, would
have been the rankest of unbelievers in the
days of Christ's ministry, who are amazed
at the hardness of heart shown by the an.
cient Jews, forgetting that at that distant
day it was faith, not sight, that could be-
hold the stone cut out without hands, be-
coming great mountain and filling the
whole earth. The time is not far away
when superficial students of history will
marvel that it was possible for our nation tc
breathe freely while within it the evil Of
slavery reared its head; that it could have
gone on marrying and giving in marriage
and not have heard with horror in the
pauses of the feast the crack of the drivers
whip and the rattle of chains. All it wa:
the lightning of Gods wrath that startled
the Indifferent and made the dark way
plain before those cropping for the path Sc
now, tolerating, even cherishing, in oul
midst an enemy more terrible than slavery
more destructive than war, we are sowing
the wind. We must reap the whirlwind
Some are fettered by selfshness; some are
paralyzed by apprehension; some in blind
ness of heart are working in the wrong di
rection. Only few, with both wisdom
and singleness of heart, are toilng to aver
the peril; and these are but too conscious o
their weakness. The difficulties are great
The waste Of life and character is fearful
The doom is certain. Who, but omnipot
ence, is sufficient for these things 2--Signal