The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1886-10-15

Do not think that because God has been
sifefft in your case, o, profane swearer! I!
that he is dead Is there nothing now in
the peculiar feeling Of your tongue. or
nothing in the numbness OF your brain that
indicates that God may come to avenge
your blasphemies, or is already aveng-
ing them? But these cases l have
rlotfced; believe, are only a
fe@ cases where there are
hundreds. Families keep them still to
avoid the horrible conspihufty. Physi-
clans suppress them through profsss1 oraI
confidence. 1t is very, very, very long
roll that contains the names of those who
died with bfasphemies on their lips;
af!a thS crime rolls on, up through parlors,
up through Chandeliers with lights all
ablaze, and through Che pictured corridors
of club rooms, etc, out through busy eX-
changes where oath meets oath, and down
through all the haunts of sin, mingli1ig
with the rafting dice and cracking bill
lard balls, and the laughter of her who
has forgotten the covenant of her God;
and Found the city, and round the earth a
seething, boiling surge filings its hot spray
into the face of a 1ong-suffering God.
And the ship captain damus his crew,
and the merchant damns his clerks, and
the master builder damns his men, and
the hack driver damns his horses; and
the traveller damus the stone that bruises
his foot, or the mud that soils his Shoes
or tho defective time piece that gets him
too late to the railroad train. I arrange
profane swearing and hasphemY, two
names for the same thing, as being ono of
the gigantic crimes of this land, and for
its extirpation it does seem as if it were
about time for God to arise.
Then look a moment at the evil of
drunkenness. Whether you live in Brook
Iyn, or New York, or Chicago, or Cincin-
natl, or Savannah, or Boston, or in any
of the cities of the land, count up the
saloons on that street as compared with
the saloons five years ago, and see they
are growing far out of proportion. You
people who are so precise and particular
lest there should be some imprudence or
rashness in attacking the rum traffic, Will
have your son some night pitched into
your front door dead drunk, or your
daughter will come home with her children
because her husband has by strong drink
been turned into a demoniac. The rum
fend has despoiled whole streets of good
! homes in our cities. Fathers, brothers,
sons, on the funeral pyre of strong drink !
Fasten tighter the victimsl Stir up the
flames! Pile on the corpses! More men,
women and children for the sacrifice! Let
US have whole generations on the fire of
evil habit; and at the sound of the cornet,
flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery and dulcimer
let all the people fall down and worship
| King Alcohol, or you shall be cast into the
fiery furnace under some political plat
forml
indict this evil as the fratricide, the
/ parricide, the matricide, the uxorcide, the
regicide of the cen tury. Yet under what
! INDECENT and delusive and mirthful names
! alcoholism deceives the people. 1t is a
''cordial." 1t is 'tbitters." 1t is an "eye-
| opener" 1t is an 'tappetizer." 1t is a
| ''digester." It is an ''invigorator." It is
! a ''settler." 1t is a "uight-cap." Why
| don't they put on the right labels-"Es-
sence of Perdition," "Conscience Stupe-
fer" "Five Drachms OF Heartache,' -
clears of Orphanage," "Blood of Souls"
"Scab of an Eternal Leprosy," "Venom of
a Worm That Never Dies" Only once in
awhile is there any thing in the title of
liquors to even hint their atrocity, as in
the case of sour mash. That I see adver-
tised all over. 1t is an honest name and
any one can understand it. Sour mashi
That is, it makes a mans disposition sour,
and his associations sour, and his pros
poets sour; and then it is good to mash his
body, and mash his soul, and mash his
business, and mash his family. Sour
mashi One honest me at last for an in
toxicant! But through lying labels of
many of the apothecaTies' shops good
people, who are only a little undertone in
health and wanting of some invigoration,
have unwittingly got on their tongue the
faugs of this cobra that stings to death so
large a ratio Of the human race.
Others are ruined by the common and
all-destructive habit of treating CUSTOM
ers. And it is treat on their coming to
town, and-a treat while the bargaining
progresses, and a treat when the pur-
chase is made, and a treat as he leaves
town. Others, to drown their troubles,
submerge themselves with this worse
trouble. Oh, the world is battered, anil
bruised, and blasted with this growing
evill 1t is more and more entranced and
fortified. They have millions of dollars
subscribed to marshal and advance the
| alcoholic forces. They nominate, and
elect, and govern the vast mai GRITTY of
the office-holders of this country. On
their side they have enlisted the mi ghti
est political power Of the centuries. And
| behind them stand all the myrmidons OF
/
| ic, and diabolic. 1t beyond all huma n
| effort to throw this bastile of decan ters or
! capture this Gibralter of rum jugs. And
while / approve of all human agencies Of
reform, / would utterly despair il we had
nothing else. But what cheers me is that
our best troops are yet to come. Our chief
artillery is in reserve. Our greatest Com
mander has not yet fully taken the field.
If all hell is on their side, all Heaven is on
our side. Now
Let God arise, and let His enemies be scat.
tered
Then look at the impurities Of these
| great cities. Ever and anon there are In
the newspapers explosions of social life
that make the story Of Sodom quite re-
| Specialize; for such things, Christ says,
were more tolerable for SDdom ami Co
morrah than for the Chorazins and Beth
saidas of greater light. 1t is no unusual
/ thing in our cities to see men in high posi-
/ tion with two or three families, or refined
ladies willing solemnly to marry the very
| swine OF society if they be wealthy.
Brooklyn, whose streets fifteen years ago
were almost free from all sign of the social
evil, now night by night rivals upper
Broadway in its hamboyant wickedness.
/ The Bible all ahame with denunciation
| against impure life, but many of the
/ American ministry uttering not one point
| blank word against this inquitY, lest some
old libertine throw up his church pew.
Machinery organized in adl the cities OF
the United States and Canada by which
to put yearly in the grinding mill Of this
iniquity thousands Of the unsuspecling
| Of the country farm-houses, one
procuress con Tossing last week ia
the courts that she had supplied the in
/ fernal market with 80 souls in six months.
| On, for five hundred PaH Nun Gazettes in
America TO swing open the door Of this
lazar-house OF social corruption. Exp os-