The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1884-08-27

Why need / tell you of the horrors of
drunkenness? Have you not seen them?
Do you not daily see them with your
own eyes? In your literary history
rises there not before you, with the
solemn agony not yet faded from his
noble features, the figure of him
"who walked in glory and in joy,
Following his plough upon the mountain side
to emphasize the warning of another
ceuntryman, that "this accursed vice
has changed into ashes the laurel crown
around the head of genius, and-the
wings of the poet scorched in its hell
FIRE fiames-he who once played in the
light of sunbeams has crawled basely in
the dust?" Do you not see in your
own streets the dranishops there most
abounding where the mdrimam of pow
erty leaves men with the miaimam of
force to resist temptation? Have you
not marked its ravages in fallen com
panions in deposed ministers, in fair
lives blighted as by a Fury's breath? :?
Have you not heard of mothers cursed
by their sons because of it? of husbands
and wives beating each other to death
because of it? OF parents sinking into
EIfC RfdNC OECduSO ia II : VI ChCI3
tity of life made-because of it-bank-
rupt of blessing and prolific Of bitter.
ness? Our jails choked to the door by
drink; our asylums crowded by drink
with the maniac and the idiot; our
churches emptied; our schools defeated
our missions rendered fruitless; our peo-
Die made poor, diseased, brutal, reckless,
wicked, BY this inexcusable scandal,
this horrible source of degradation
and pauperism. Is all this nothing?
is it nothing to you, all ye that pass
byT Unless you have purposely closed
your eyes, you knoac these things; and
if you know them, are you man? are
you q Christian? have you heart !?
have you any human pity? have you
one spark of nobleness left in you, if
you can look on them with Indifferent
acquiescence? And if you are not in
different, what can you do? Be tenn
perate. In this particular struggle, tenn
perance is worth nothing. Temperatel
Of course you are temperate, if you be
even gentlemen. No Christian, ! hope,
would feel a spark of pride in saying
that he did not know what intOxication
was. 1t Is no matter of pride for a man
to be able to sag that he has not by
greedy drinking reduced himself to
bestial degradation. mol / come to
ask yon for something much more.
come to plead with you for a perfect, a
certain, a final remedy. come to ask
you to take stronger part in that strug
gle, which even the calm, wise voice of
Richard Golden told us years age lies at
the basis Of all moral and social reform.
1T may not be Eve will suppose) your
individual duty to take part in this par
tieular effort. condemn no man. /
Judge no man. But this say, that, ex-
cept By total abstinence, you viii in this
crisis do no real abiding good. Il you
take Your wine or your whisky because
ron like il, or because you think you
need il, your people, your sons and daugh-
ters, the poor children whom you teachs
will do 50 likewise; and many Of them
by a natural, inevitable consequence, q
consequence which is purely physical as
well as moral in its awful character
will do 50 t0Sexcess, and say to you
aBut. good ny brother.
Do not, ss some unefacioas pastors Do,
Point Us the steep ana fhoFll ralh q heaven,
While, like pnfed and reckless liberlines
Himself the primrose path Of dallianee t18adsi
And reeks not his eWn reae ~
CkNoS r ~ FARA1R