The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1885-12-31
Rev. MIN. Lone on Probibition.

uOu I'll
tion, closing as follows:
3. But worse thar either of these
two results, intemperance desolates
the moral character. 1t is almost
a waste of time to argue for this
proposition. Who does not know
it? Who has not seen it almost ev
cry day? Who can be ignorant of
the fact that immortality, hydra
headed, harpy winged, and devil
handed, incarnates itself through
intemperance, and walks the streets
of everp city and every town and
neighborhood in all the land, belch
ing blood curdling oaths, seeking
conflicts, reeking with obsceneness,
tramping on and stamping social
rights, dong deeds of cruelty and
murder that well might blanch the
cheek of hell with horror and make
perdition blush with shame 1t
even thrusts itself into our public
carriages, and makes travelling pain
full as we'll as dangerous to all de-
cency and decent people. | entered
a railway coach ten days ago in
which l found set of drunken men
who looked as if they might have
been well raised. They were ours
ing threats against somebody, real
or i'm aginary. Though there were
women in the car, the air was black
with wild profanity, and reeking
with obscenity that would disgrace
the foulest den of wickedness on
the globe. o We stars of heaven
well may We weep with shame and
pity as in your nightly vigils ye be-
hold how men, who bear upon their
souls the image of your God, be
come ihfernalized beneath the iDfu
ence of this pandemoniac drug! As
We see the husband, transformed
into a worse than cloven footed dew
il. stamp upon the pleading face
Of the unofending wife; the father
throttle with murderOus clutch the
very offspring of his body; the citi-
zen turned into a desolator, shoot
and stab his unprovoking neigh
Dor to the death, well may ye
shrink in horror back behind the
rushing of indignant clouds. In
my youth / knew a man who had
been reared in the home of wealth
and christian influence. He had
graduated with high honors at a
foremost college. He owned large
estates of land and money. His
prospects were altogether brilliant.
He married his cousin, beautiful,
accomplished, wealthy woman. 1t
was said to be the wedding of two
lives that had been joined in ardent
love from childhood. But before a
year had passed the community was
startled by the news that this wo
man had fed for refuge to her ia
Their sshouse-that her gallant hus !
band had cruelty beaten her, and
threatened to kill her. He came as
soon as he was sobered,go down in |
penitence upon his very knees, |
vowed every holy VOW, and made
every sacred promise that a man
could make. Yielding to his plead
ings, she returned only to be beat
en- again and driven from her home
by fear of murder. For twelve sue
cessive years these darkening scenes
were acted in that dreadful drama
of a real life. Each scene was
streaked with stripes OF cruelty,
and lines of blood, and tears of pen
itence, and lurId with the fires of
unspeakable anguish until the cur
tain lifted upon the final scene at
midnight. Sitting before her FIRE,
gazing doubtless in mute horror on
swiftly formulating shadows of
future, she was startled ny
stealthy steps behind her. Throw
ing back her head, the pistol
flashed, the powder burned itself in
20 her face, the bullet grazed and
cut her brow. Rushing terror
stricken from the room, she leaped
from the high piazza to the ground
and fed through the darkness. In
his mad pursuit, as he leaped from
the piazza, his weapon was dis
charged by accident, or on pur-
pose, the bullet penetrated mis- own
brain, and few minutes afterward
be WAS lifted from the ground a
corpse. That dreadful tragedy was J
played within two miles of my own
house, and both the man and the =.
were my cousins. You need
not tell me what whisky does with
human nature. / know too well. :
1t turns the very soul of man into a !
Oandemonium where heaven is de- =
led, the light and authority of God
1104NA1 =. hnrn 10 AfI q
nature are no longer recognized; y
where every fiend known in the cal a
ndar of superstition is transformed 7
nto a tangible reality and sent =
orth incarnate with living power to g
make destruction and do the work :.
# hell. 1t is the mother or the fos- =
er-mother of every crime known -
n the statute books. OF the one =
undred thousand criminals in the -
Jew York jails and penitentiaries a u u
ew wears ago, it was stated on II
God authority that eighty two y
thousand were known to have com
litted the crimes of which they
-ere convicted under the influence o.
Intoxicating drink. That propo- Il
ition will hold good, no doubt, in II
II jails and penitentiaries and in e,
very census. Is it therefore, strange e,
at the humane, the patriotic, and 81
le benevolent should be rising up W
/, war against this, the fellest of all n,
to humanity God speed
lie temperance work! God speed W
he agitation of the prohibition hi
lestion! 1t is founded upon the
principles of humanity, hi
the rights and happiness of the
ependent end defenseless, and Y
,mes as clearly as anything can
,me within the province OF con- co
itutional legislation. We
" omen of the Temperance I'm II
n, take encouragement from both of
e signs of the times and more
an all, from the nobility of your no