The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1882-02-15
For the Central Presbyterian.
An Extract from a Sermon to
Young Men.
BY REV. W. NJ. McELwEE.

nave many among us VINO are Just
starting out in life-young men, perhaps,
who are Just beginning career of dissi-
patton" sowing their wild oats, as they
are pleased to call it. And it strikes me
that it would be good service to them,
and might be the means of saving them
a great deal of distress, and bitterness of
soul, and shame, and elf-condemnation.
to advertise them beforehand of the con-
sequences which are sure to follow from
a career of vice and dissipation Young
men, your course is indeed fruitful one,
but it is fruitful only of evil. Regret,
remorse, shame, vexation, disappoint-
ment misery, and dishonor in this world,
and the final undoing of your immortal
soul; these are the bitter fruits which
you are to gather from course of dissi-
patton. This, the dreadful harvest you
are to reap as the result of sowing to
the flesh" 1.-The harvest will be heap
in the day of grief and of desperate sor-
row." Isa. xvii: IL.
God himself solemnly tells you, For
the end of these things is death" And
death here is very large word, and COM
prehensive of all evil. The idea is, that
the consequences of a life spent in sinful
indulgence are misery, disgrace, and ruin
in this life, and everlasting condemnation
and destruction hereafter in hell.
You may think it sweet now, and will
afford you very exquisite enjoyment to
yield to the seduction of sinful pleasure;
but it will be bitter in the end. Such is
the verdict of one who is called the wisest
of men, and who had very large expe-
rience in all forms of sinful pleasures and
4
biteth like serpent, and stingeth like
an adder" Solomon was here speaking
particularly of wine bibbing, and the dis
graceful revelry often flowing from it.
WHO hath woe2 Who hath sorrow?
Who hath contentious? Who hath red
ness of eyes? Who hath babbling? Who
hath wounds without cause? They that
tarry long at the wine-they that go to
seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon
the wine when it is red, when it giveth
his color in the cup, when it moveth itself
Alright. At the last, etc. Prov. xiii
1896.
And if such were the consequences in
those days, resulting from the excessive
use of wine, when the wine used was the
"pure juice of the grape" what shall we
say of the consequences resulting from
the excessive use of whiskey and other
intoxicants in our day, when it is known
that for large part all these intoxicants
are adulterated with poisonous and dele
ferrous drugs, and thereby well-ftted to
madden the brain, and to develope and
call forth all the devilish passions of the
human heart Indeed, the evils of in
temperance cannot be exaggerated or
overstated. have seen a careful state
ment to the effect that not less than four
ffths (some good authorities saw not less
than nine-tenths) of all the crime perpe-
trated IN our land and very large part
OF all the pauperism found in our large
cities, and also great majority of all the
cases OF insanity found in our mad houses,
are traceable to this maddening beverage,
which IS doing more to ruin the young
men OF our country than all other evils
combined.
Young man If you have gotten into
the habit of tipping and dram drinking,
II you have formed associations with those
given to drink, then you are already in
the suck of that mighty maelstroom,
which threatens to engulph YOU forever,
and your only safety is at once to stop
and throw away the inebriating cup. and
" SO4SAA1 WV OldGj ny The Q6lO
OF Gods grace, you will never return to
that cup again. One more drunken revel.
one more act Of indulgence, and you may
have crossed "the dead hae," and there
is no alternative but you must become a
helpless victim to a remorseless tyrant.
If, IN the wondrous grace of God, it should
happen that you should become a con-
verified man, and become thoroughly re-
formed, your present sinful excuses will
be source of distress and self-mortihca-
ton to you as long as you live. You will
be ready to say Christ may have for
given me, but 1 can never forgive myself.
But the probabilities are, that having
entered upon career of vice and dissi9
patton, you will go on with accelerated
velocity, a morbid and Unsuitable thirst for
the deadly beverage will come, with the
loss Of your manhood, and of all power of
resistance; and blasted, blighted home.
from which the light of Joy is forever
banished. And then, to end this sad and
disgraceful history, death, in his most
terrific form, will come. And then, final
ly, the plunge into the everlasting fires Of
hell.
There is another kind of intemperance
against which it is very difficult to speak.