The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1886-01-06
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
4 Discourse on Winter, and How
to Meet It."
The designations Incident to the Season
Forcibly Presented and Illustrated
A Plea for Abstinence On the
Natal Day OF the New Year.

Natal Day Of the New Year.
Rev. 7. Dewitt Talmage, on his recent
return to Brooklyn from his Western lee
ture tour, chose the above timely topic for
bis first Sunday evening discourse, taking
Tor his'text:
Pray we that your fight DO not In the win
ter-Mathew xxiv,2o I'D.
The inhabitants of the old cities were
here told that they would have to fly for
their lives. Such fight would be painful,
even in the flush o; spring time, but super
iatively aggravating il in cold weather;
therefore they were told to pray that their
flight be not in the winter. There is some
thing in the winter season that not only
tests our physical endurance but, especial
ly in the city, tries our moral character.
1t is the winter months that ruin morally
and forever many of our young men. We
sit in the house on a winters night, and
hear the storm raging on the outside and
imagine the helpless crafts driven ON the
coast, but II our ears were only good
enough, we could on any winter night
hear the crash of 700 moral shipwrecks.
Many who came last September to town,
by the first Of March will bave been blast
ed. 1t only takes one winter to ruin q
young man. When the long winter even.
ings have come many of our young men
will improve them in forming more init.
mate acquaintance with books, contract.
ing higher social friendships and strength
ening and enrolling characters. But not
so with all. will show you before get
through that at this season of the year
temptations are especially rampant, and
my counsel is, look out how you spend your
winter nights!
remark, first, that there is no season of
the year in which vicious allurements are
so active. In warm weather places of dis
sipation win their tamest triumphs. Peo-
pie do not feel like going in the hot nights
OF summer among the blazing gaslights or
breathing the fetid air of assemblages.
The receipts Of most grog shops in De-
cember night are three times what they
are in any night in July or August.
doubt not there are larger audiences in the
>HSAhcc ia Vuuhl iu vuO ouAulAOA
weather. Iniguity plies more profitable
trade. December, January and February
are harvest months for the devil. The
playbills of the low entertainments then
are more charming, the acting is more ex-
quisite, the enthusiasm of the spectators
more bewitching. Many a young man
who makes out to keep right the rest Of the
ho -
town in the autumn his eye was bright,
his check rosy, his step elastic; but before
spring, as you pass him you will say to
your friend: "What is the matter with
that young mann" The fact Is that one
winter of dissipation has done the work of
ruin.
This is the season for parties. and II they
are of the right kind, our aoCisl nature Is
improved and our spirits aie cheered up.
But many of them are not Of the right
kind, and our young people night after
night ore kept in the whirl of unhealthy OF.
element, until their strength fails, and
their spirits are broken down, and their
taste for ordinary life corrupted; and by
the time the spring weather comes they are
in the doctors hands or sleeping in the
cemetery. The certificate of their death 10
made out, and the physician, out of regard
for the family, calls tn disease by some
Latin name, when the truth is that they
died of too many parties.
Away with these wine- drinking convivi-
alities. How dare you, the father of q
household, triAe with the appetites of our
young people? Perhaps out of regard fol
the minister or some other weak temper.
ance man, you have the decanter in side.
room, where, after refreshments, only a
select few are invited; and you come back
with glare In your eye and stencil in
your breath that show that you have been
out serving the devil.
The excuse which Christian men Otter
give for this is that 1t is necessary, after
such late eating, by some sort of stimulant
to help digestion. My plain opinion il
that if man have no more control over
his appetite than to stuff himself until his
he ought not to call himself man, but
rather to class himself among the beasts
that perish. take the words Of the Lord
Almighty, and cry: "Woe to him that
prtteth the bottle to his neighbours iipsp
Young men, take it as the counsel of q
friend when l bid you be cautious where
you spend your winter evenings. Thanh
God that you have lived to see the glad
winter days in which your childhood was
made cheerful by the faces of fathers ant
mothers brothers and sisters, some o.
whom, alas will never again wish you {
"Happy New Year" or merry. Christ
mas"
Let no one tempt you out Of your 60
briefly. have seen respectable younl
men of the best families drunk OF
New Years Day. The excuse the,
gave for the inebriation was that til,
ladies' in sisted on their taking it. There
have been instances where the delicat,
h md of woman hath kindled a yOuns
mans taste for strong drink, who, afte
many years, when the attractions of tina
holiday scene were all forgotten, crouchet
in her rags and her desolation and hel
woe. under the uplifted hand Of the drunk
en- monster who, on that Christmas morn
ing SO long ago, took the glass from hel
hand. And SO the woman stands ON tn
abutment of the bridge on the moonli
night wondering il down under the waite
there is not some quiet place for a broker
heart. She takes one wild leap-and all i
over! t...|s.
Oh, mingle not with the harmless bever
age of your festive scene this poison o
adders! Nix not with the sugar of til
cup the snow Of this awful leprosy! Ma
not the clatter of cutlery at the holida,
feast with the clink of a madman's chain