The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-02-20
The Nations Curse.

It is not in the thunder, it is by the
still small voice of history and experience,
that God speaks to the reason and to the
conscience. 1t is not by the lightning
fash that he would have us read his will,
but by the quiet light that shows all things
in the slow history of their ripening.
When he speaks in the thunder and the
lightning, by the tornado and the earth
quake, he speaks in retribution then.
And what is retribution but the eternal
law of consequences If you cannot see
Gods warnings against drink if you can
not read, in the existing condition of
things, his displeasure and our shame if
you cannot see it it the marriage tie
broken and dishonored, in sons and daugh.
tiers ruined, in the peace of families laid
waste, in the work of the church hindered,
in whole districts blighted, in thousands
and tens of thousands of souls destroyed
if you cannot see it in the records of
crime, and murder, and madness, and
suicide in the fathers who, in their very
mouths, through drink, have slain their
sons, and the sons who, through drink,
have slain their fathers, and the mothers
who, for drink, have sacrificed the lives
of their little ones upon the breast--men
of England, if these things do not wiring
your heart and fire your zeal, what do you
expect Can the letters glare more plainly
on the palace wall of your power2 Are
you waiting till there falls on England
the same fate which, for their sins, has
fallen in turn on Assyria, and Greece, and
Rome, and Egypt, and Carthage, and
Jerusalem, and Tyre ? They persisted
sooner or later all guilty nations perish by
sudden catastrophe, or by slow decay.
"The sword of heaven is not in haste to
smite, nor yet doth linger ," but when it
does smite, it is apt to smite once and
smite no more; will you be so complacent
over your epigrams, and your vested in.
terests, and your Biblical criticisms, when
vengeance leaps at last upon the stage,
and strikes sore strokes, and pity shall no
longer avert the blow =? You are Chris
tians; yes, but see that you have not been
admitted into holier Sanctuary only to
commit deeper sacrilege Why, had
you been Pagans, these very same argu-
ments ought to be irresistible to you To
millions of Pagans they have been SO.
The sobriety of China was due to Con-
fucius. The sobriety of India and of
Burmah are due to Buddhs. am hor-
rifed to read that in contact with us in
the last three years the sale of drink in
India has increased thirty-six per cent, in
Burmah seventyfour per cent. The So
briefly of vast regions of Asia and Africa
was due to Mahomet. In the day of judg-
ment shall not Confucians, shall not
Buddhists, shall not Mahomedans, rise up
in judgment against this generation and
condemn it, for they abstained from strong
drink at the bidding of Confucius,
Buddha and Mahomet, and behold
Greater than these is here? All, if the
voice of all these tempted, suffering, per-
ishing, miserable souls be nothing to you
if the voice of your country be moth
ing to you-yet, if you be Christians, listen
to the voice of Christ, pleading with you in
the pathetic accents of myriads of the
little ones that it is not his will, that it is
utterly against his will that his cross and
passion be thus rendered of none effect
for multitudes for the very least of whom
Christ died. off thou forbear to deliver
them that are drawn unto death, and
those who are ready to be slain; if thou
sayest, behold, we knew it not (when
now, at any rate, you have no excuse for
not knowing iD, "doth not he that pom
dereth the heart consider it =? And he
that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know
it Aud shall not he render to every man
according to his work ?'-SermOn by
Archdeacon Fdrrar, preached in WeStminS-
ter Abbey