, 1886-06-20

rt'tA aha Roh' -" a'a. 49,
What reptiles crawl over his creeping limbsl
What fends stand by his midnight pillow!
What groans tear his ear. WHAT horrors
shiver through his souli Talk of the rack,
ak OF the Inquisition, talk of the funeral
pyre. talk OF the crushing ju-gRernaut-he
feels them all at once. Have you
ever been In the ward of the
hospital where these inebriate, are
dying, the stencil of their wounds driv-
ing back the attendants, their voices sound
ing through ths night. The keeper comes
up and says: Hush. now, be still! Stop
making all this ~noise.ns But it Is effectual
only for n moment, for as soon as the Ike pr
is gone they begin again: 20 God o Goil
Helpl H-lpl Rumi Give me iumi Helpl
Take them off mel Take them off III o
God.i And then they shri-k and they rave,
and they pluck out their hair by handouts,
and bite their nails into the quick, and then
they groan. and they shrek, and they
%blaspheme, and they ask the keepers to kill
them: stab mel Smother mel Strangle
me-. Take the devils off me!' o, it is no
fancy sketchl That thing is going OH ro~
all up and down the land, and tell you fur
Their that this is going to be the death that
some OF you will die. / know it / see 1t
coming.
Again, the inebriate suffers through the
loss oil his home. | do not care how much
he loves his wife and children, il this passion
for strong drink has mastered him he will
do the most outrageous things, and IL he
could not get drink in any other way. he
would sell his family into eternal Bondage.
How many homes have been broken up in
that way M one but God knows On, is
there anything that will SO destroy a man
for this life and damn him for the life
that is to comet | haze that strong
drink. With all the concentrated energies
Of my soul | hate it. Do not tell me tuat n
man can be happy when he knows that he
is breaking his wife's heart and clothing his
children witt rags. Why, there are on the
roads an streets of this land to-day little
children, barefooted. uncombed and UNI
~kempt-want on every patch of their faded
DIRE 5 and on every wrinkle of their prema-
turely old countenances. who would have
ben in churches to-day and as we'll clad MS
you nre. but for the fact that rum destroyed
their parents and drove them into the grave.
o rum, thou foe OF God, thou despoi.er Of
homes, thou recruiting officer Of the pit, /
hate thee !
But m subj ,ct takes a deeper tone, and
that is that the unfortunate of whom
speak suffers from the loss of the soul. Tine
Biolc in.imates that in the future world. il
we are forgiven here, our bad passions and
appeti,es, unrestrained, will go along with
US ana make our torment tnere- 30 tnut, L
suppose, when an inebriate wakes up in the
last world he will feel an infinite thirst
clawing on him. Now. down in the world,
although he may have been very poor, he
could beg or he could steal five cents with
which to get that which would slake his
thirst for a little while; but in
eternity where is the rum 10 come
from ID VS. could not get one
drop of water. From what chalice
o. fire will the hot lips of the drunkard drain
his draughti No one to brow it No one to
mix It No one to pour 1t. No one to fetch
il Millions of worlds then for the dregs
which the young man just now slung on the
sawdusted floor of the restaurant. Millions
OF worlds now for the rind thrown out from
the puach bowl of an earthly banquet
Dives cried for water. The inc briate cries
for rum. Oh, The deep, ~e1hausting, exas-
perating, everlasting thirst Of the
drunkarl in hell! Why, If a fiend
came up TO earth for some Internal
work in a groy shop and should go back
taking on its wing just one drop of that for
which the inebriate in the lost world longs,
what excitement would it make therel Put
that one drop from off the fsnl's wing on
the tip of the tongue of the destroyed inebri-
ate; let the liquid brightness just touch it;
let the drop be very small, if it only have in
it the smack of alcoholic drink; let that drop
just touch the lost inebriate in the lost world,
and he would spring to his feet and or Y:
"That Is rum, ahal That is runl' And il
would wake up the echoes of the damned:
"Give me ruml give me ruml give me rumi'
In the future world | do not believe that il
will be the absence of God that will make
the drunknrd's sorrow. lido no. believe that
it will be the absence OF holiness. 1 think it
will be the abselcs of rum. o, @Look not
..-,. IL. ..f.n t.l,., kt L., ~-l .L.. IL
moveth itself Alright in the cup, for at tho
last it biteth like a serpent AMI it stingeth
like an adder"
II is about tim, that we nave another
woman's crusade like that which swept
through Ohio ten or twelve years ago. With
prayer and song the women went in.o the
grog geries, and whole neighborhoods. towns,
and cities were redeemed by their Christian
heroics. Thirty women cleared out tine rum
traffic from a village Of one thousand inhabi-
tants. II thirty women surcharged of the
Holy Ghost coull renovate n town of a
thousand three thousand consecra,el women,
resolved to give themselves no peace until
this crime was extirpated from this city,
coul in SIX months clear out three-fourths
of ths grog shops of Brooklyn. II there b,
three thousand women now in this city who
will put their hands and their hearts to the
work, | will take the contract for driving
out all these moral n%uisances from the city
at any rate three-fourths of them-in three
months. II, when that host OF three thou
sand consecrated WON IN is marshale1, til sre
be no one to lead them, then, as n minister
Of the Most High Col | will offer to take my
position at the front of tho host and | will
cry to them; Come on, ye women OF Cnrist,
with your songs and your prayersi Some
of you take the enemy's right wing and some
tha aft xyinO Erx trif Tina Tnr nf
Hosts is with us; the God OF Jacob is our
refugei Down with the dram shops!'
But not waiting for those mouths of hell to
close, let me advise the working and the
business classes, and all classes, to stop
siren , drink. While l declared some tim /,
ago that there wal a point b,yoil whi-h a
man could not stop, | want to tell you that
while a man cannot stop in his own s,reng ii.
the Lord God by His grace can help him 10
stop at any time. | was in a room in NV
York where there were many men
who had been reclaimed from drunk
ennesS heard their testimony, and
for the first time in my lif, ihers
flashed out a truth | never understoJ III TneJ
said: ave were victims OF strong drink. We
tried to give 1t up, but always Jailed; but
somehow, since we gave our hearts to
Christ, he has taken care OF u.s." l DO 10 .c
that the time will soon come when the grace
OF God will show its power not only to saws
mans soul, but his body, AMI reconstruct,
purify, elevate and redeem it
l verify believe that, although you feel
graphing at the roots of your tongues an
almost omnipotent thirst, IL you will give
your heart to God He will help you by His
grace to conquer. Try 1t. 1t is your last
chance. | have looked oft upon the desola.
ton. Sitting in our religious ass smblages
there are "A good many people in awful
peril, and judging from ordinary circum.
stances there is not one chance in five