Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-08-12

Is destroyed; his self respect gone: he
says things he would not otherwise say;
ne does things he wolild not otherwise do .
When man Isl nipe-teGths gone with
strong drink, the first thing he wants to
do IS TO persuade You that he
can stop any time he wants to
He cannot. The Philistines have bound
him hand and foot ana shorn his locks
| and put out his eyes, and are making
him grind in the mill OF a great horror
He cannot stop. will prove Is. de
knows that his course is bringing disgrace
and ruin upon himself He loves him
self. If he could stop he would. He
knows his course is bringing rum upon
his family. He loves them. He would
stop if he could He cannot. Perhaps
he could three months or year ago; not
now. Just ask him TO stop for q month
He cannot; be knows he cannot, so he
does not try I had a friend who for fff-
teen years was going down under this
evil habit lie had large means. He
had gwen thousands of dollars TO
Bible societies and reformatory
institutions Of all sorts. He was
very genial and very generous and very
loYable, and whenever he talked about
this evil habit he would say: 81 can stop
any time, But he kept going on, GO
ing on, down, down, down His family
would say: CT wish you would stop -
tWhy, he would reply. 81 can stop
any time want to. - After awhile he
had delirium tremens: he had it twice;
and yet after that he said: 81 could stop
at any time if l wanted to. He is dead
now. What killed him? Rum! RUM
And yet among his last utterances was:
81 can stop at any time, He did not
stop it, because he could not stop it. Oh,
there is q point in inebriati0n beyond
which, if man goes, he cannot stop!
TIE TERRIBLE CRAVING FOR DRINK.
One of these victims said to a Christian
man, Sir, If 7 were told that couldn It
get drink until to- morrow night unless
I had all my fingers cut off, I would say,
Bring the hatcbet;t and Cit. them off
aow. 81 have.a dear tfrlenG in Phila-
delphia, whose nephew came to him one
day, ana when he was exhorted about
his evil habit, said, ''Unele, I can t give
it up. If there stood a cannon. and it
was loaded and a glass of wine set in the
mouth Of that cannon, and | knew that
you would fire it off just as l
came up and took the glass, =
I would start, for / must have it -
Oh, it is a sad thing for man to wake
up in this life and feel ne is q captive
He says:
81 could have got Tid of this once, but
1 can t now. 1 might have lived an hon
orable life and died a Christian death;
but there is no hope for me now; there is
no escape for me. Dead, but not buried.
l am walking corpse. am an appari-
ton of what I once was. am q Gagged
immortal, beating against the wires of
my cage in this direction and in that
direction; beating against the cage until
there is blood upon the wires and blood
upon my soul, yet not able to get out.
Destroyed without remedy!''
l go further and say that the inebriate
suffers from the loss of his usefulness
Do you not recognize the fact that many
of those who are now captives of strong
drink only little while ago were fore
most in the churches and in Peformatory
institutions? Do you not know that some
times 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 sacramental 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 a man as that,
when he thinks of his dishonOred vows
and the diShoRored sacrament; when he
thinks of what he might have been and
of what he is now? Do such men laugh
and seem very merry? Ali there is,
down in the depths of their soul, very
heavy weight. Do not wonder that they
sometimes see strange things ana 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
Fall i'm Ic No nj
He knows there is. He is there now!
THEIR HEALTH GOES TOO.
go GU, and say that the invbriate suf-
fers from the loss OF physical health.
The older men in the congregation may
remember that some years ago DR.. Seweil
went through this country ana electrified
the people by his lectures, in which he
showed the effects of alcohol on the
human stomach. He had seven OF eight
diagrams by which he showed the de-
vastatiOn OF strong drink upon the phYsi-
cal system There we're thousands OF
people that turned back from that ulcer
Gus sketch, swearing eternal abstinence
from everything that could intoAieate.
God only knows what the dTunkard suf-
fers. Pain files on every nerve, and
travels every muscle, ana gnaws every |
bone. and burns with every flame, and
StIugs with every poison, ana pulls AT
him with every torture. What reptiles
crawl over his creeping limbs! What |
fends stand by his midnight pillow! |
What groans tear his ear! What hor-
Tors shiver through his soull Talk of the |
rack, talk Of the Inquisition, talk of the |
funeral pyre, talk of the crushing
Juggernaut-he feels them ali at
once Have you ever been in the ward |
of the hospital where these inebriates |
are dying, the stencil OF their wounds |
driving 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 eGectual only for q moment, for as !
soon as the keeper is gone they begin +
again: "Oh, God! oh, God! Help! /
help! Rum! GIVE me rum! Help! |
Take them off me! Take them Off me! /
Oh, God!'' And then they shrek, and /
they rave, and they pluck out /
their haIr by handfuls, and bite |
their nails into the quick, and |
then they groan, and they shrek. |
and they blaspheme, and they ask the /
keepers to kill them: ''Stab me. /
Smother me- Strange me- Take the
devils off 1pei'' on IL is no fancy