Sword and shield. (Clinton, Miss.) 1885-1888, 1886-09-11
The DonmGtton Army.

{ Lie "a IuC GUUUtD0tDI0
Army is very complete. It has hundreds
of thousands Of recruiting officers and
drill-rooms. Its officers stand behind
the bar, well-fed ruddy-nosed, portly,
and self f-possessed. The rank and file
are in front of the bar, in every condi-
tion of preservation and dilapidation,
from the high-toned swell, the proud
aristocrat, the inheritor Of millions, and
4 the rising politician, down to the little
boy, the wan-faced girl, and the seedy-
looking tatterdemalions, poverty-strick-
en-, Wretched, helpless, noisy, abusive, un
reasonable, riotous, violent, criminal, de-
graded, diseased and insane
1t would be quite impossible for any
tongue to tell the woes and miseries
caused by and endured In this Damna-
tion Army, and yet it has seemed to at
tract comparatively very little notice or
attention. It gathers its recruits, young
bright, intelligent, gay witty and bril-
liant; and it turns out its veterans, bold,
brazen, degraded, debauched, diseased,
ruined and lest. It marches its solid
columns down the dark gorges Of intem-
perance and crime until they stream over
the awful precipices Of perdition. and
melt into the blackness Of darkness for
ever! The Damnation army brings its
recruits from the homes ofjoy and peace
and love; it sends its veterans away into
sorrow, misery and destruction, from
which they never return.
The Damnation Army has its barracks,
its camps, its outposts everywhere.
Every drinking saloon is recruiting Of
fee, every gambling den, every brothel,
every haunt of sinful pleasure is an out
post or a fortress Of this army.
The Damnation Army has its reserves
in every prison, and its inyalids in every
hospital, anxiously waiting till they can
rejoin their regiments while every aims
house is refuge for the disabled yeter-
ans. It has its foragers in the shape of
beggars or tramps at every back door
or front door in the land where there is
chance to get cold victuals or hot vict-
uals, old clothes, or new clothes This
army forages literally, and lives in the
country where it is quartercd You and
| temperate and industrious as We may be,
do many hard days work to feed and
clothe and protect this all-devouring
host.
What shall be done with the Damna-
ton Army? Suppose we turn our atten-
ton to it, investigate its origin, examine
its forces, scan its roster, see who is COM
mander-in- chief, and who are its aiders,
abettors, sympathizers, and supporters
inquire into its aims, scrutinize its re
cord. and inspect the work it does. Hay-
ing done this, perhaps we shall be pre-
pared to act.
The Damnation Army means rebellion
treason, murder, desolation and perdi-
ton. Itmakes war on home, happiness,
life, health and peace. Shall not every
man and every woman, rally to resist
the progress of this army, and to turn
back its myriads from the paths offs sin to
the ways of peace? Shall we not also
pray to God, the loving and mighty one,
whose arm alone can work deliverance
and bring salvation, to turn the feet of
the wayward and sinful into paths of righ
teousness, and gather the multitudes
who are away from God into the ranks
of those who are redeemed by blood and
saved by grace divine Christian Arm.