Dodge City times., 1889-08-29

them Of now.'' I have dear friend in
philadelphia, whose nephew came to
him one day, and when he was exhorted
about his evil habit, said, Uncle, can't
give it up. If there stood q cannon.
and it was loaded, and glass of wine
sat on the mouth of that cannon, and
knew that you would fire it of Just as I
came up and took the glass, I would
start. for must have it." Oh, it is sad
thing for man to wake up in this life
and feel that he is a captive. He says:
1 could have got rid of this once, but I
can't now. I might have lived an hon
orable life and died q Christian death;
but there is no hope now; there is no
escape for me. Dead, but not buried.
am walking corpse. I am an ap-
partition of what l once was. 1 am q
Gagged immortal, beating against the
wires of my cage in this direction and
in that direction; beating against the
and blood upon my soul, yet not able to
get out. Destroyed; without remedy!"
Il go further, and say that the in
ebriate suffers from the loss of his USE
fulness. Do you not recognize the fact
that many OF those who are now cap
tives of strong drink only little while
ago were foremost in the churches and
in reformatory institutions? Doyou not
know that sometimes they knelt in the
family circle? DO you not know that
they prayed in public, and some of them
carried around the holy wine on sacra-
mental days? Oh, yes. they stood in the
very front rank. but they gradually fell
away. And now what do you suppose is
the feeling of such q man as that, when
he thinks of his dishonored vows and
the dishonored sacrament-when he
thinks of what he might have been and
of what he is now? Do such men laugh
and seem very merry? All, there is,
down in the depths of their soul, very
heavy weight. Do not wonder that they
sometimes see strange things, and act
very roughly in the household. You
would not blame them at all if you
knew what they suffer. Do not tell such
as that there is no future punishment.
Do not tell him there is no such place
as hell. He knows there is. He is there
now!
go on, and say that the inebriate
suffers from the loss of physical health.
The older men in the congregation may
remember that some years ago DR.. Sewell
went through this country and electrified
the people by his lectures, in which he
showed the affects of alcohol ON the hu-
man stomach. He had seven or eight
diagrams by which he showed the devas-
tation of strong drink upon the physi-
cal system. There were thousands Of
people that turned back from that ulcer
Gus sketch swearing eternal abstinence
from everything that could intoxicate.
God only knows what the drunkard
suffers. Pain files on every nerve, and
t-a aIn Nd ~
bone, and burns with every flame, and
stings with every poison, and pulls at
him with every torture. What reptiles
crawl over his creeping limbs! What
fiends stand by his midnight pillow!
What groans tear his ear! What horrors
shiver through his soul! Talk of the
rack, talk of the lnquisitiOn, talk of the
funeral pyre, talk Of the crushing Jug
gernaut-he feels them all at once.
Have you ever been in the ward of the
hospital where these inebriates are
dying, the stencil of their wounds driv-
ing back the attendants, their voices
sounding through the night? The
keeper comes up and says, Hush. now,
be still. Stop making all this noise!"
But it is effectual only for amoment, for
as soon as the keeper is gone, they
begin again: "Oh, Godi oh, God! Help!
help! Rum! Give me rum! Help! Take
them off me! Take them off me! Take
them off me! Oh, God!" And then they
shrek, and they rave, and they pluck
out their hair by handsful, and bite their
nails into the quick, and then they
groan, and they shrek, and they BIAS
pheme, and they ask the keepers to kill
them. Stab me. Smother me. Strangle
me. Take the devils off mel" Oh, it is
no fancy sketch. That thing is going
on in hospitals, aye, it is going on in
some of the finest residences of every
neighborhood on this continent. 1t
went on last night while you slept, and
l tell you further that this is going to
be the death that some of you will die.
I know it. see it coming.
Again: the inebriate suffers through
the loss of his home. do not care how
much he loves his wife and children, it
this passion for strong drink has mas
tered him, he will do the most outra-
geous things, and if 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, no one but God knows.
Oh, is there anything that will SO de-
stroy man for this life and damn him
for the life that is to come? I hate that
strong drink. With all the concentrated
energies of my soul, hate it. Do you
tell me a man can be happy when he
knows he is breaking his wife's heart
and clothing his children with rags?
Why, there are on the streets of our
cities to-day little children, barefooted,
uncombed, and unkempt; want on every
patch of their faded dress and on every
wrinkle of their prematurely old coun-
who would have been in
churches day, and as well clad as you
are, but for the fact that rum destroyed
grave. Oh, rum! thou foe of God, thou
despoiler of homes, thou recruiting Off
Ger of the pit, abhor thee!
But my subject takes Q deeper tone
and that is, that the inebriate suffers
from the loss.of the soul. The Bible in
Inmates that in the future world, if We
are unforgiven here, our bad passions
and appetites, unrestrained, will go
along with us and make our torment
there. So that suppose when an in
ebriate wakes up in this lost 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 little while; but in eternity,
where is the rum to come from? Dives
could not get one drop of water. From
what chalice of eternal fires will the hot
lips of the drunkard drain his draught?
No one to brew it. No one to mix it.
No one to pour it. No one to fetch it.
Millions of worlds then for the dregs
which the young man Just now slung on
the saw busted floor of the restaurant.
Millions of worlds now for the rind
thrown out from the punch bowl of an
earthly banquet. Dives cried for water.
The inebriate cries for rum. Oh, the
deep, exhausting, exasperating.
everlasting thirst of the drunkard
in hell! Why, if a fiend came up to
earth for some internal work in a grog
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 it would make there.
Put that one drop from off the fends
wing on the tip of the tongue of the de-
stroyed inebriate; let the liquid bright
ness Just touch it, let the drop be very
L. -, of