The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1884-09-13
Death in the Pot. -

Another caldron of iniquity isv the
dram-shOp. Surely there is death in the
pot. AnacharSis said that the vine had
three grapes pleasure, drunkenness,
misery. Richard III. drowned his own
brother Clarence in q butt of vine
these two incidents quite typical. Every
saloon built above ground or dug UNI
der ground is a center Of evil. 1t may
be licensed and for some time it may
conduct its business in elegant style;
but after awhile the cover will fall off,
and you will see the iniquity in its right
coloring. Plant a grog-Shop in the
midst Of the finest block OF houses in
your city and the property will depre-
ciate five, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty per
cent. Men engaged in the ruinous
traffic sometimes say: you don't APP
preciate the fact that the largestrev-
enues paid to the Government are by
our business" Then | remember what
Mr.. Gladstone, the Prime. Minister OF
England, said to u 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 be uneasy about the
revenue. Give me thirty million sober
people and | will pay all the revenue
and have q large surplus" But, my
friends, the ruin to property is very
small part of The evil 1t takes every
thing that is sacred in the family, every
thing that is holy in religion, every.
thing that is infinite in the soul, and
tramples it into the mire. The mar,
rage day has come. The happy paiI
are at the altar The music sounds
Thfgas-lights flash. The feet bound
up and down in the draWing-room
Started on bright voyage of life. Sails
all up. The wind is abaft. You pro
paccy everything beautiful. But the
scene changes. A dingy. garnet No
fire. On broken chair sits sorrow
ing woman. Her last hope gone. Poor,
disgraced, trodden under foot, she
knows the despair Of being a drunkard' 5
wife. The gay bark that danced of
on the marriage morning has become a
battered hulk, dismasted and ship
wrecked. cob" she says, "he was
rs good a man as ever lived. He was so
kind, he was so generous-no one bet
ter did God ever create than he; but
the drink, the drink did it,"
A 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 q Bible
in your trunk" says the mother as
she wipes the tears away with her
apron MY dear, l 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 you be worried about me" The
father says: "Be good boy and write
home often. Your mother will want to
hear from YOU" Crack goes the
whip and away over the hills goes
the wagon! The scene changes. Five
years after, and there is a hearse COM
ing up the old lane in front OF the farm
house. hilied in . porter house fight,
that son has come home to disgrace the
sepuicher of S fathers. When the old
people lift the coffin lid and see the
changed face and see the cash in the
temples where the life oozed out they
will wiring their withered hands and
look up to Heaven and cry: Cursed be
rum 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 were
dissolved in his cup, and he drank
them. What an expensive draught!
But do you know that drunkenness
puts into its cup the pearl of physical
health, the pearl of domestic happiness,
the pearl of earthly usefulness, the pearl
of Christian hope, the pearl of an ever
lasting 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 outer cir
cles of this terrible maelstrom, and in
the name of God 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 a
fine education, large hearts, genial
natures and splendid prospects DR..
IallHage, az u Recent Sermon.