Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1881-09-21
Our Brothers. Keeper.
BY LAURA BRIGHAM BoYCE.

| lHuINluudllA ISi1le all responsibility Wuen
matters 60 wrong. Somebody is, of
course, in fault, but it is never this parlic
ular individual. Old Father Adam began
it in the garden of Ellen, when called to
account for his disobedience-" The wom-
on thou gavest to be with me. she gave
me-" etc.
The wretched man had not true manli-
ness enough to obey God, or disobey Him
and abide the consequences, but must needs
shirk the responsibility upon The woman
Cain after he had slain his brother was
apparently very indignant at being called
to account for his absence" Am my
brothers keeperP"
And SO it has ever been. If things 90
wrong in our community we are extreme
ly sorry, but we do not see that zoe are
responsible; we cannot individually right
great moral wrongs; but each in person
can do something, and the aggregate of
Titles does the work. The trouble is not
so much our lack of ability as the ignor-
ing of responsibility.
We see our neighbor following in a
course Of dissipation that we know must
surely end in ruin, and we shake our heads
solemnly and say, "What Il plty!" and
thus the matter ends rs far as we are con-
cerned,
The rumseler says: "I am not respon-
sibe for his ruin; the drink he will have,
and if don't sell it some one else will.
Society ctsts him out and says: Its
pity he will so degrade himself; he has
sank too low for refined associations, but
ne are not responsible"
Yet it seems to me that when sixty
thousand fellow beings 90 down to
drunkard's graves every year in these
| United States that there is terrible
responsibility resting somewhere. Think
of it! Sixty thousand! What an army
that are marching with a steady tramp,
tramp, not to victory and glory, but to
death Of niamy and shame.
We thought it an awful thing when in
some of the bloody battles of the rebellion
three or four thousand souls were sent to
the presence of God, and it was awful.
We deemed 1t IA terrible thing that more
than Il million lives should have been
sacrificed in the war of the rebellion. and
it mas terrible. 1t was the holocaust de-
manded by the Moloch of Slavery. 1t
was fearful price to pay for freedom,
and there We're many, many, aching,
bleeding hearts that down in the depths of
their dark desolation questioned with ago
nzing earnestness if the price was not too
great to pay. But the tears and groans of
thousands of slave mothers bereaved of
their children, of wives parted from their
husbands, that had gone up to God for
years and years, with no response to their
pleading, answered back in thunder tones,
the price is not too great.
But if these sacrifices were so terrible,
even when offered on the altar of liberty,
what shall we say of this drunkard army?
Who can guess how many thousand strong,
since sixty thousand drop out of the
ranks INTO Infamous graves every yearP
yet slil the army keeps mp its strength
and numbers.
There are new recruits every day.
Where do they come from? Ask that
mother. as she clasps her fair haired boy
TO her heart. Her answer is IL shudder
and "a prayer, God save mY boy from the
drunkard army" Every saloon is re-
cruting office, and recruits are gathered
| from the fareSt homes in our land.
And for what purpose is all this fearful
sacrifice of human hearts and homesp Is
it any great and glorious end worth suffer-
ing for, worth dying forP No! 1t is
simply the qualification of an overmaser
ing appetite, and pandcred to by the rum
seller tor the gain it brings him. If there
was not money in it the netarious traffic
could be suppressed in less than six
months. There have been people in the
world who were so dsnterestcd that they
would continue losing business that
others might be benefited thereby, but it
was never the rumseller. The whole
thing, from beginning to end, is for the
purpose of gain. The distiller follows his
business to make money, and every hand
it passes through coins money out of it
except the consumer, and he pays for all.
1T is want and woe and misery for the
many that the few may be enriched.
And yet if money alone was involved
the record of this drunkard army would
not be so terrible us it is; for loss that
can be reckoned in dollars and cents is
not altogether irreparable. But who can
reckon the agony and woe and desoalion
of these sixty thousand homesp Who
shall picture the sor. ow of the mother
who sees her darling boy who has lain in
her bosom, who is dearer than her own
hearts blood, lying in dshonored gravel
Who shall portray the agony of the
wife who sees her once fond and devoted
husband turn from her embrace to follow
, he demon that allures him on to madness
misery and deathP Does earth hold any
compensation for losses like thisP Car
> we reckon the price of souP
The man who deals out temporal anC
/ spiritual death to his fellow men for gol,
may dsclam all responsibility and say
5 II am not my brothers keeper" but IA
sure as there is a just God that rules til,
universe, there shall come reckoning
day when this blood money, this price o
, souls, shall be to him an ntoerabe .ur
[ den crushing him down to despair.
But the weakness OF the drunkard ant
the guilt of the rumseler does not relieve
us of all responsibility. We are none o
! us 80 weak and insignificant that we can
not exert some influence somewhere. Gu
3 lips may be the ones to speak the - wore