Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1889-08-22


stop it, because he could not stop it o,
there is a point in inebriation beyond
which. if a man goes. he can not stopl
One of these victims said to Christian
man: ''Sir, if l Were told that couldn't
get a drink until to morrow night unless 1
had all nv fngsL.i cut off would say,
bring the hatchet and cut them eff now"
have dear friend in Philadelphia whose
nephew came to him one day. and when
he was exhorted about his evil habit said:
Uncle, l can't give it up. If there stood
a cannon and it was loaded, and a glass
of wine sat on the mouth of that cannon,
and knew that you would fire it off just
as came up and took the glass, / would
start for l must have it." o, it is a sad
thing for a man to wake up in this life and
feel he is a captive. He says: II could
have got rid of this once, but l can't now.
/ might have lived an honorable life and
died Christian death; but there is no
hope for me now; there is no escape for
me. Dead, but not buried am walk
ing corpse. l am an apparition of what
once was. l am a Gagged immortal, beat
ing against the cage until there is blood
on 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 a little while ago we're fore
most in the churches and in reformatory
institutions Do you not know that some
times they knelt in the family circle? Do
you not know that they prayed in pu blic
and some of them carried around the holy
wine on sacramental days? o, 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 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,
n 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 nc future punishment.
Do not tell him there is no such place as
hell. He knows there is. He is there now.
l go on and say that the inebriate suf-
fers from the loss of physical strength.
The older men in the congregation may
remember that some years ago DR.. Sewell
went through this country and electrified
the people with his lectures in which he
showed the effect of alcohol ON the hum an
stomach. He had seven or eight diagrams
by which he showed the devastation of
strong drink upon the physical system.
There were thousands of people who
turned back from that ulcerous sketch
swearing eternal abstinence from every
thing that could intoxicate.
God only knows what the drunkard suf-
fers. Pain fl es on every nerve, and
travels every muscle, and gnaws every
bone, and burns with every flame, and
stings with every poison, and pulls at him
with every torture. What fiends stand
by his midnight pillow! What groans
tear his ear! What horrors thrill through
his soul! Talk of the rack. talk of the in
QUESTION. talk of the funeral pyre. talk of
the crushing Juggernaut-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 driving back their
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
moment. for as soon as the keeper is gone.
they begin again: 20, God! o, God!
Help! help! Rum! Give me rum! Help!
Take them off me! Take them off me!
Take them off me! o Godw
And they shrek. and they rave. and
they pluck out their hair by handfuls,
and they bite their nails into the quick,
and then they groan, and they shrek,
and they blaspheme, and thev ask the
keepers to kill them. ''Stab mel Smother
me-! Strangle me! Take the devils off
mew o. it is no fancy sketch. That thing
is going on il 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 1
tell you further that this is going to be
the death that some of you will die. l
know it / see it coming.
o, is there any thing that will so destroy
a man for this life and damn him for the
life that is to come? 1 hate that strong
drink. With all the concentrated energies
a man can be happy when he knows that
he is breaking his wife's heart and cloth
ing his children with rags? Why, there
children barefooted, uncombed and un-
kempt; want on every patch of their
faded dress and on every wrinkle of their
prematurely old countenances, who would
have been in churches to-day. and as well
clad as you are, but for the fact that rum
destroyed their parents and drove them
into the grave. o, rum! thou foe of Col,
thou despoiler of homes, thou recruiting
off = ha T obi
But my subject takes deeper tone, and
that is that the inebriate suffers from the
loss of the soul The Bible intimates that
in the future world. if we are unforgiven
here, our bad passions and appetites. un-
restrained, will go along with US and make
our torment there. So that l suppose
when an inebriate wakes up in this lost
world he will feel an infinite thirst claw
ing 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 chaiice of eternal fires will the hor
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 VIII ich 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 BAN
quet.
Dives cried for water. The inebriate
cries for rum o, the deep, exhausting,
exasperating, everlasting thirst of the
drunkarl in hell Why, if a fend came
up to the earth for some internal work in