The Fremont County record., 1882-12-30
TEMPERANCE WORK.
A Word From One Who Has Been
Under the shadow.

We are glad to note the rapid strides now
being made all over our country by the
temperance reform movement, and it is
with full heart and willing hand that
we add our mite to swell the onward march
toward the goal of honor. While we, gen.
orally speaking, heartily endorse the senti-
ments promulgated by the advance REFORM
ers, we feel that one who has "tarried long
at the wine;" one who has basked in the
smiles of young Bacchus one who has en-
joyed the splendor and revelled amid the
delights of his gorgeous court who, too, as
all his votaries inevitably will, has tasted
the wormwood and the gall that lie ut the
bottom of every quaffed chalice of the de-
mon who hides behind the throne of the
jolly god of wine; can more effectually
portray the miseries, sorrows anguish, and
pitiable ruin that border the pathway of
the drunkard. Reasoning fTom theory and
| outward, visible knowledge may be ever so
correct; but when one whose life has been
wasted; whose nobler impulses have been
stihed; whose bosom has been wrung with
bitterness, and whose brain has been almost
consumed, by the damning fire-rum-
awakens to a realization of his condition,
and speaks the convictions of true and
honest heart, his voice is as that of one
from the dead, and its warning notes de-
serve the careful attention of all who are
rushing madly down the road to sure and
certain ruin. We speak whereof we know;
therefore, with confidence, knowledge and
truth. The life of an inordinate drinker
cannot be painted in characters too glaring,
nor his miseries shrouied in colorings too
dark.
Young man, your mother, no doubt, was
or is pious woman; she taught You, in
the years agone, when you, prattling in
nocent child beside her knee, felt that
every word was gold, to live soberly and
righteously; to shun evil companions:
avoid the gilded palaces OF sin, where souls
are nightly bought and sold for the devil ;
to abstain from the poisonous beverage that
makes maniaes of men and fiends of human
beings. You listened then. You needed
for time; but
Vice is a monster with such hideous mieu,
That to be hated needs but to be seen;
But, seen to OFT, familiar with his face,
We FIRST endure, then pity, then embrace
And, when the restraints of home and
mothers pleading face and gentle voice are
removed, how prone you are TO court this
monst IT, clothed, as you at first find him, in
all the glitter and tempting allurementS
the widest fancy can invent, until he has,
you in his thralldom. Then behold his
hideousness Alas, too late he reveals hls
horrid face. You are in his Briaresn N clutch,
and when you would fly from its irou
grasp you find yourself powerless. You
ars chaiaed to the jusgernaut, and nothing
but 4 Herculean effort on your part, aidec
by an implicit faith in your God and the
intercession of a crucifed Redeemer, will
bring you out from under the shadow OF
the deadly Uras; lif. you from the slime
and degradation Of imtcmperance, and
plant your fest upon the rock of safety and
reform. While we believe the mission OF
temperance reformers is to do all the good
possible to all ages and conditions of man
kind, we hold that their primary duty is
TO warn, teach and admonish the young
Let us lend a helping hand to lift the con-
fi-med inebriate from his low estate, and
hold the beso.ted wreck, whom neither
love nor encouragement can save, up before
the gaze of the young, rs frightful exam
pie of runs horrid work. Into the young
and plant mind, by precept and example,
instill the virtues and beauties of temper
ance- Let them have an object lesson, if
- - al. :,
mons who mock the shape of men dwell,
and carry on their deeds of darkness and
of sin. Show them the inevitable results
of oyer-indulgence. Nay, the results of
Indulgence at all for no man ever becomes
a drunkard without graduating at the
school of the moderate. social drinkern
Let us so educate our children that, when
they take our places in the arena of life,
they will be ripe for the enactment of such
laws as will lead to the banishment of the
vile drug from our fair land, and insure
the smiles of pcoce, happiness and plenty
upon country redeemed from the thr,.ll-
dom of monster who feeds only on i'm
mortal souls.
We need but point to the poor, palsied
pauper, who, in rags, tottcrs from one
dramshop to another, begging the fire that
is eating out his vitals-a picture to be
seen i'll every city, town, village and ham
let in this country-to show to what depths
drink will bring men. 1t seems that one
such sight would cure almost any "modcr-
ate drinker.' But no. There is fascina-
tion about this vice that holds men, as if
bound by an incubus, and they cannot
shake it of without too great an exertion.
They feel secure. They "hatc adrunkard,"
and are sure they will never get thst far
All, fatal mistake. We thought so once,
and yet. with all our boasted strength, we
sank into the same Shiny slough we had
30 hravely meant to avoid. There is no
safety, save in total abstinence, and, as one
whose hair has grown gray in the service
of sin; whose face has been firrowed by