Northern tribune. [volume] (Cheboygan, Mich.) 1875-1885, 1881-02-05
Entemperance.
Secretary pro. tenn

For the ''Red Ribbon Club" Cheboygan, Mich,
from c. Il. Durfee, REFORMED DRUNKARD.
''Most other evils to this fOunt we trace,
Which blast our pleasures and destroy our race,
For this, the widow mOurns-her husband
dead;
For this, the starving children cry for bread;
For this, the wife sits waiting for her spouse,
At midnight hour. and pOnders Ger her woes
While he, poor wretch. all power of moving
fed,
Sleeps by the fence, or in yOn crazy shed.
In vain she goes and listens at the door,
The signing breeze, the torrents distant roar
Are all she hears. Now, where her children
sleep,
She casts one look, then lies down to weep.
Now. tell me, what on earth can comfort bring
Or from what source shall smiling pleasure
spring?
Pleasure tits what on earth she ne'er can
know,
Where every passing hour arguments her woe.
Oh, Danish grog shops and thus check this i'll,
Delay no longer, but your part fulfill,
Rescue the fallen, sinking age regard,
And Heavens best blessing will be your re-
ward"
No habit has fewer apologies than in
| temperance. The suffrage of the world
is against it; and yet there is no habit
so naked in its character, and whose
commencement and progress is indi-
Gated by so many signs, concerning
which there is among mankind such pro-
found ignorance. All reprObate drunk
enness; and yet, not one of the thousands
who fall into it dream of danger when
he enters the path that leads to it.
The soldier approaching the deadly
breach, and seeing rank after rank of
those who proceed him swept him away
heSitates sometimes, and recOils from
certain death. But men behold the eff
fects upon others of going in given
courses, they see them begin, advance
and end in confirmed intemperance, and
unappalled rush heedlessly upon the
same ruin.
Intemperance is the sin of our land
and, with our bOundless prosperity, is
coming in upon us like a flood; and if
anything shall defeat the hopes of the
world, which hang upon our experiment
of civil liberty, it is the use, as bever-
age, of ardent spirits.
God has made the human body to be
sustained by food and sleep, and the
mind to be invigOrated by effort and the
regular healthfulness of the modern
government. And whoever, to sustain
the body, applies habitually the stimu-
lus of ardent spirits, does violence to the
laws of his nature, puts the whole sys-
tenn into disorder, and is intemperate
long before the intellect falters or mus
Gle is unstrung.
The father, the son or the brother,
once proud and noble man, becomes
very Incorporate. See how soon nature
| brands him as an inebriate with infamy
and hangs labels all over him, to testify
her disgust at his existence, and to adj
mOnish others to beware of his example.
How she lOOsens all his joints, sends
tremOrs along his muscles. and bends
forward his form, as if to bring him on
all fOurs with kindred brutes, or to de-
grade him to the reptile crawling. How
she disfigures his cOuntenance, as if in
tent upon Obliterating all traces of her
own image, so that she may swear she
never made him. Brothers and sisters
think of the evils of intemperance, and
fight for the temperance cause. God will
aid you in your noble and humane efforts
to save the fallen, and crown you with
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