The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1884-08-22

In his sermon of july 2Hh. the ReS. L.
Dewitt Talmage alludes as follows 10 one
of the greatest evils of the day, and which
all grades OF people desire to see crushed.
.sAnother caldron of iniquity is the dram
shop. Surely there is death in the pot.
Anarcharsis said that the vine had three
grapes = pleasure drunkenness, misery.
Richard III. drowned his own brother
Clarence in butt Of wine-these two in
cidents quite typical Every saloon built
above ground or dug under ground lisa cen
ter Of evil 1t may be licensed and for some
time it may conduct its business in
elegant style: but after while the cover
will fall off and you can see the in
iquity in its right coloring. Plant a
grog-shop in the midst of the finest block
of houses in your city and the property will
depreeiate 5, 10, 20. 80, so per cent. Men
engaged in the ruinous traffic sometimes
say: You don't appreciate the fact that
the largest revenues paid TO the Govern
ment are by our business. - Then refneni-
Der what Mr. Gladstone the Prime Minis
ter of England, said to committee of men
engaged in that traffic when they came To
him to deplore that they were not treated
with more consideration: Gentlemen,
don't he uneasy about the revenue Give
me thirty million sober people and | will
pay all the revenue and have large surplus.
But, my friends. the ruin to property is
but a very small part of the evil 1t takes
hot T. t,,f far,
everything that is holy in religion, every
thing that is infinite in the soul. and tram
pies it into the mire The ma, riage day has
come. The happy pair are at the altar
The music sounds. The gas-lights fash.
The feet bound up and down in the draw
ing room. Started on a bright voyage of
life Sails all up. The wind abaft. You
prophesy everything beautiful. But the
scene changes. A dingy garnet. No fire.
On 4 broken chair sits sorrowing woman
Herlast hope gone. Poor, disgraeed. tired
den under foot. she knows the despair of
being drunkards wife. The gay bark
that danced off on the marriage morning
has become a battered hulk. dismasted aud
shipw rocked. sob. she says, she was as
good man as ever lived He was SO kind.
he was 80 generous-no one better did God
ever create than he; but the drink did it.
4 young man starts from the country
home for the city. Through the agency
of metropolitan friends he has obtained a
place in a store or a bank That morning
in the farmhouse the lights are kindled
very early and the boys trunk is on the
wagon. Il put Bible in your trunk, y
says the mother. as she wipes the tears
away with her apron. My dear, | want
you to read it when You get to town.
''Oh, he says. mother. don't you be
worried about me- know what am about
| am old enough to take care of myself
Don't you be worried about me. The
father says: BE a good boy, and write
from you Crack goes the whip, and away
over the hills goes the wagon. The
scene changes. Five years after. and there
is hearse coming up the old lane in front
Of the old farmhouse. Killed in a porter
house fight that son has come home tn dis
grace the sepulcher of his fathers. When
the old people lift up the coffin lid and see
the changed face and see the cash in the
temples where the life oozed out. they viii
wiring their withered hands and look up Ia
heaven and cry: Cursed be RAM cursed
be rum,' Lorenzo de Medici was sick
and his friends thought that if they could
dissolve in his cup some pearls and
then get him To swallow them he would be
cured. And SO these valuable pearls We're
dissolved in his cup, and he drank them.
What am expensive draught. But do you
know that drunkenness puts into its cup
the pearl OF physical health the pearl of do
nestle Happiness the pearl of earthly use
fulness the pearl of Christian hope, the
pearl of an everlasting heaven and then
presses it TO the lips? And. oh. what an
expensive draught. The dram-shop is the
gate of hell. There are some in the onter
circles of this terrible maelstrom. and in the
name of God I cry the alarm. Put back
now or never. You say you are kind and
genial and generous do not doubt it. but
SO much more the peril. Mean men never
drink unless some one else treats them. But
the men who are in the front rank of this
destructive habit are those who have fine
education, large hearts. genial natures and
splendid prospects. This sin chooses the
fattest lambs for sacrifice. What garlan,is
of victory this carbuncled hand of drunk
enness hath snatched from the brow of the
orator and poet? What cleaning lights of
generosity it has put out in midnight dark
ness? Come with me and look overcome
and hang overlook down into it while |
lift the cover and You may see the loathsome.
boiling. seething, grooming, agonizing, bias
pheming hell of the drunkard There is
everlasting death in the pot
According to the police reports there
were but about half a dozen taverns open
on Sunday; and, according to the same re-
ports, there Were somewhere in the neigh
borhood of four hundred arrests for drunk
That l..S, &c L.,