The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1886-04-08

on drink. Amongst other particulars he
says that scores Of healthy men every
year perish, simply poisoned by the viru-
lent poisons with which drink is adliter.
ated in the bush, and that they are sim
ply made the victims of what they meet
with in what he calls "the internal dens
of the liquor. .shautics." His object is
not so much the suppression of drink as
the prevention of murder, and he makes
the sad but significant remark that the
almost universal custom of the whiskey
classes in Queensand-.he miners, the
fencers, the sawyers, the carpenters, the
shepherds, and the stockmen-is to speud
the whole of their wages in drink. This
miserable cry comes up from every re.
gion of the world, and yet the curse Of
drink is a curse which men might more
easily put down, which men might alto
gether remove, curse which is prevent
able to Il greater extent than any other
which afilicts mankind.
| do not know how we can possibly
look with acquiescence on the terrible
evidence as to the evil which are so
overwhelming and so patent. We can
not possibly disband either our peaceful
organizations or ease our moral efforts.
They must in course of time produce
some good. Like the accumulated snow
flakes upon the mountain, they must rush
down III avalanche upon this system but
we can not rely on these appeals alone
we must try to enlist the forces of the
country in more fervent efforts and in
more drastic remedies. Luther said that
what was quickly handled was quickly
forgotten, and Milton said that ''in times
of opposition, when old corruption has
to be reformed, the calm, unimpassionate
miduess of positive wisdom is not encug h
to damp the proud resistance Of carnal
teachers. Then zeal, whose substance is
ethereal, arming in complete diamond:
leaps into the fiery chariot, and, shaking
loosely the slack reins, drives over the
heads of insolent maintainers of evil,
bruising their stiff necks under his burn
ing wheels" Now, we have had zeal in
the. cause of temperance, aud yet top
often the white ashes ofindiferance have
settled over these sacred fires, and again
and again we have tried persuasion and
argument, but interest, luxury, and sell
6shness have turned deaf ear to all our
appeals. We can only hope that such
efforts will never be relaxed until at last
they have been successful, and ne must
never despair but that in due time they
will be successful The issue is now, and
has been year after year, placed clearly
before the eyes of Parliament and of the
whole nation. If, indeed, the nation
choose TO prefer death and prefer evil, l
see nothing that can avert its ruin, but l
hope for better things. The people often
is patient for long course Of time with
great wrongs; but at last it rises in its
might, and it takes away those wrongs as
the lion shakes the dcwdrop from its
name. There never was period in Eng.
lish history in which the masses had
more power than now and l should in
deed despair altogether of England if 1
did not believe the workingmen in this
very Parliament will make their voices
heard and will make them heard Oh the
side of right think time of crisis
on this subject has come.
Z" Once to every man and nation comes the mo-
mcnt to decide
In the strife of geod and evil, on the good and
evil side;
Some great cause, Gods new Messiah, proffer.
ing the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand and the sheep
upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever twixt the dark
ness and the light.
Hast thou chosen, oh ! my people. in which party
thou shalt stand,
Ere the doom from its worn sandals shakes the
dust against thy land :"