The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1884-07-04
A sbury Park.

Asbury Park.
In the history of New Jersey, which VIII De
written from the standpoint of quarter OF
century to come, Asbury Park win stand among
the towns whose origin and progress mapped
the new era under which the state will live
The reign of alcohol is doomed and doomed
because of its own wickedness, as certainly as
ever was that of the Caesars, in ancient Rome,
the Stewards in modern England, or the Bour-
bons. in France. There are some sins when go
beforehand to judgment, and this is one For
years it has been problem whether God III his
anger did not intend to let our nation perish IN
its own corruption, rotting out its heart with
drunkenness and burying itself in the slime OF It's
own decomposition. Silently, slowly. yet GER
tainly. the nation sank downward, its fearful
danger concealed by the hectic flush of its terri
BILE fever and the unnatural strength OF its eX-
element and forgotten in the delirious imbe-
citv of its false hilarity. few years more
of this hypocritical security and alcohol, the
nations enemy, would have eaten into the core
of its heart and it would have lain corpse With
out a single blow. Its whole head was sick, its
whole heart faint and its whole body full of
wounds and bruises and purifying sores-only
unfelt and unseen because the poison which
was destroying drugged while it was doing the
deadly work whose end was destruction.
In no department of the nation was the danger
more apparent than among those whom provi-
dence had placed in more easy circumstances
than others. The men whose daily toll brought
daily bread drank largely, it is true, but the
hard work threw off the worst effects, and while
their constitutions were undermined by it, they
did not 60 down as did the children OF luxury
People who could afford to pass the heats OF the
summer amid the cool recesses of the mountains
or by the freshening waves of the ocean, and
whose money could supply them unmitedly
with what were termed the finer kinds OF the
poison, were those who gave themselves up more
unrestrictedly to its indulgence; while, at the
same time, their habits rendered them less
able to resist its effects, yet these people were
the leading forces of the land. Socially, their
example was followed as far as possible by
those below them. Morally, the masses accepted
their standard, and sought to rise no higher
Politically. they were the leaders, and openly
led legislatures through Red Seas Of rum in pur-
suit of the children of the people who were try
ing to pass over before them. Learning prosti-
tuted science to its foul embraces and the
churches drank it at the sacramental board.
Everywhere the leading classes of the people
were corrupted by it, and the people followed
the leaders into still deeper corruption. The
seven thousand who had not bowed and would
not bow the knee to Baal existed in the caves
and the mountains, but they made little progress
toward the demolition of traffic whose disti-
leries and breweries were fed from the fires of
hell which, in turn, were fed from the wrath of
the eternal God. whose flow knew no cessation
among the cycles of the ages. But the forces of
God were arrayed against it, nevertheless. Their
battle-cry was come out of her, my people.
and despite the persecution which branded them
as fanatics, they cried day and night among the
nation, and more or less of the people heard and
believed They announced warfare and in a
defensive way began battle They organized
in orders and bands, with banners and ribbons
and pledges, and became more aggressive and
defiant By and by, they began to select their
own spots of dwelling which they declared free
and independent of the-worse than idolatry-
national sin. Here and there an isolated town or
township, in isolated ways through local option
forms, prescribed the curse, and attacked it with
the weapons of penalty. But the evil powers
grew wary. He'll and destruction were too hum
CRY for victims to allow the escape of any, and
legislation was made drunken until it refused to
allow these forms of freedom any longer, and de-
cIined their possibility for the state. Then be-
gan new mode of attack from the true patriots
of the nation, the temperance people.
They formed themselves into communities
along the very avenues where wealth located its
recuperations-along the ocean shores-purchas-
ing the lands and putting them in inviting
FORMS making them attractive in all good ways,
and then. in all the forms of law which could