The state rights democrat. [volume] (Albany, Linn County, Oregon) 1865-1900, 1882-11-10
REsCuE TEE CHILDREN.
BY CANNON FARRAR.

Bt tANNOA fAhhAks
Tie late Cardinal Wiseman said,
"Giye me the children of England, and
in twenty years England shall be Cath.
lic" say, Give us the children Of
Eogland, and in twenty years England
shall not only be temperate, but"-and
the words seem to open q vista Of pre-
gress asd prosperity such as We can
hardly eonceive-"Englaad shall not
only be temperate. but shall be nation
Of total abstainers." Well, now, I
ask you, is it really an injury TO induce
children to take the pledge, or Is it an
injury, with beartless prejudice and
rcallous obstinacy, TO leave them expes-
ed without defence to- all the terrible
temptations and enormous evils Of
drink IL seems 10 me that If we can
succeed in saving them from that, We
may laugh to seorn the ridiculous nc
ton that we do them any bsrm by in
fducing them 20 give up that which they
do not need. which they naturally do
not Ike, and which can De nothing 70
them but a source Of peril and Of ruin.
Almost every book one takes Up COL
tains some dsmning evidence as to the
awful consequences of drink, and only
yesterday was reading a book by the
authoress of "John Halifax, Gentle
man." in which she describes her visit
to the East London Hospital for Chill
dren, and she tells how the nurse said
that numbers Of children from the dir
tIict, sull Of drink and ignorance, are
brought there with cancer, hip disease,
aud disease Of the bones, with ricketts,
and all kinds of constitutional corruP-
tion, so weakly from the constitution
which they have inherited from vicious
parents that, although they could only
!, be saved by surgery, they are too weak t0
undergo an operation, and her remark
upon it is this ''For such children
and in such places death itself seems to
be a better thing than life" Even
!. more than that, We find poor little hap
n less children, whom God made to live
e and be happy, dying in this Christian
l. England, in this very year, by some.
IS thing which bears sort of grotesqu'
RI and horrible resemblance to unconscious
,e suicide. At the very beginning of thii
n year, amidst the very sound of th'
$. blessed Christmas bells, amidst the re
m ioicings with which the new year wa
le introduced by Christian people, on
Sc little child of three in Glasgow gets al
10 in the night, takes the whiskey whicl
as its mother has been drinking, drinks
as and is found lying dead in its bed il
is the morning and that England ma
d, Inet be behind Scotland, another littl
w lid of four at Hudders6eld, sees tbs
&C. its mother has bought some spirits I
~ welcome friends, gets up in the sam
do way, drinks the spirits, and is foun
ne dead in the morning. Now, let us as
do whether there can be anything wor:
- than all this neglect and accident an
e cruelty and disease and death Yes
ok there is something worse than all this
he there is sin. Disease and accident az
D. cruelty and death may MAIN and to
r.. ture the body, murder and suicide ma
ror end the life, but sin blasts and co
ad rupts the soul, and many and many
drunkards childsin Eagland is beir
trained up deliberately in the habits
IS: sin.
as 1 believe that there are people wicl
bs ed enough and imbecils enough to SO
that the mention of these very paint
facts is what they call ''sensationalism.
Now, what have / been doing
- have merely been mentioning one {
TIVE facts out of hundreds and hundres
=. of similar facts, not drawn from displ
g. table sources, but simply from the col
daily, impartial records of justice. ar
only bearing upon one single fractis
of all the terrible evidence which eugI
to exert all the powers of every Chr
ade tian man in doing what little be can
Il resist the tyranny of drink There 9
md people who talk of "sensationalisn
ars. when we speak of facts like these.