The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1888-09-21
the Baptis.s on temperance.

mittee on Temperance of the West New
Jersey Baptist Association, delivered at
their annual session in Bridgeton last
week.
To the West New Jersey Association of
Baptist Churches.
DEAR BRETHREN =
Your committee on the liquor traffic
would respectfully report that fermented
liquors were used to a limited extent in the
earliest ages of the world. Alcohol was
unknown until the Arabians. There is but
little evidence that distilled spirits were
used even as a medicine until the thir-
teenth century. During that period a ply
sician in the north of Europe believing that
he had discovered n universal remedy used
it freely; besides curing every i'll, it was
thought to prolong the vital powers; hence
it was called the water of life. Soon after
it was believed that alcohol would not only
cure diseases, but prevent them. From
that period the fatal evil continued to
spread among the various nations with the
rapidity of an eagle and the crushing step
of a tyrant. Upon all sexes and conditions
jim every age, land and cline its effects
have been the same whitening, blasting,
crushing, damning.
And to-day the great enemy of God and
man Is raging unclaimed in our land, drag
ging noble minds and immortal souls from
the church, the fireside, the farm and the
pulpit, robbing God and society of their
services, sending their bodies to untimely
graves, and their spirits to the perdition of
ungodly men. We have read of wars
which ave laid cities in ashes and king
doms in ruins. We nave heard of mighty
tornadoes, which have swept over the
earth and carried the plowshare of destruc-
ton to the fairest portions Of the land. We
have heard of volcanic eruptions, rolling
tides of burning lava far and wide. We
have felt the mighty earthquake shocks
which in one disastrous hour have swal-
lowed up thousands and tens of thousands
of our fellow men in one wide, yawning,
terrific grave, but the traffic in ardent
spirits is more ruinous to the best interests
of man than all these evils combined, with
famine and pestilence added. For, where
as other evils chiefly affect the body, this
reaches the soul, and whereas other evils
are confined to time and place, this extends
to eternity and covers the world as some
sirocco of the dessert, or blast from the
Dottomless pit.
Like death upon the pale horse it sends
q thrill of horror wherever it goes. 1t
curses men and it curses women; it ruins
body and it ruins soul; poverty and disease,
! strife, violence and murder are in it's train,
and death and hell wind up the fearful es-
cort. After a century of imbecile legisla-
ton in trying to charm this great enemy
into a harmless ally, we behold his grim
fortress still planted all over the land, sur
rounded by the skulls and bones of human
victims. Drunken husbands and fathers
are the living tcrrors of aifectionatc wives
and innocent children. Our poor houses
still groan with poverty; our prisons
shrek with crime; the gallows still rocks
on high with murderers doubly damned;
and annually eighty-one thousand human
beings are slain. Year after year about
eighty-one thousand immortal souls are
sent to an eternity over whose portal is
written in letters ofliving light, "Nodrunk-
ard shall inherit the kingdom of God"
And the greater part Of al this is done
under the sanction of the law. The traffic
is not only legalized but oflate very strenu-
GUS efforts are being made to throw around
it al air of patriotism, and even the garb
of piety, by offering solemn prayers, and
delivering ~eulogistic o~rations ct the I'M
yelling of costly monuments erected in
memory of extensive beer brewers.
During the last year there were seven
hundred million dollars spent for intoxi-
cants. And as the result, there is to-day a
voice of weeping in the land there is a wall
of woe in the wind; there is a fearful groan
of agony in the bowels Of the earth made
rich by the blood of the slain. Oar Ma
tional Congress still ignores the wish Of
the American people in refusing to appoint
a commission to inquire into the results of
this nefarious traffic, under the pretext
that it is a state, and not Il national ques-
ton.
And yet notwithstanding all this wreck
and ruin of past generations, we are not
without hope. In the State of Pennsyl-
vania, and perhaps some others, the ny
giene school bills, designed to teach the
young the deleterious results Of alcohol
upon the human system, has become a law;
from which the high hopes and ~sanguino
expectations of it's friends may, or may
not be realized in the distant future.
Some of the states are moving in the di-
rection of constitutional amendment. In
our W state five counties have exercised
the p%rerogauiyo v~ouchsafed by the recent
act of the Legislature in passing the
"IIigh License Local Option Law" and
by a very handsome majority, foul coun-
ties ont of the five, have declared by lopu-
lar vote that no intoxicants shall be sold
by license within their limits for the next
three years. This must be regarded as a
very signal victory for the cause Of God
and truth. It's Importance and far reach
ing influence are in no danger Of being over
estimated by the true friends of temper
anpp Tho caInnp ,nap O ra a W In apJ do