Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-08-15

ttOcS GIFTS. lie cannot look Il pure man III
the eye, unless it is with positive force of
resolution. Three-fourths Of his nature
is destroyed; his self respect gone; he
says things he would not otherwise say;
be does things he would not otherwise do.
When a man is nine-tenths gone with
strong drink, the first thing he wants to
do is 80 persuade you that he
can stop any time he wants to.
| lie cannot. The Philistines have bound
him hand and foot, and shorn his locks
| and put out his eyes, and are making
him grind in the mill of a great horror.
| He cannot stop. l will prove it. he
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 month.
He cannot; he knows he cannot, SO he
does not try. l had a friend who for fif-
teen years was going down under this
evil habit. He had large means. He
had given thousands Of dollars to
Bible societies and reformatory
institutions of all sorts. He was
very genial and very generous and very
this evil habit he would say: 50 can stop
any time. - But he kept going on, go
ing on, down, down, down His family
would say: 81 wish you would stop
why, - he would reply, u can stop
any time I 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! Ruml
And yet among his last utterances was:
81 can stop q any time. He did not
stop it, because he could not stop it. Oh,
there is q point in inebriation beyond
which, if man goes, he cannot stop!
TIE TERRIBLE CRAVING FOR DRINK.
One of these victims said 10 Christian
man. - Sir, if ! were told that l couldn It
get a drink until to- morrow night unless
l had all my fingers cut off, l would say,
Bring the Ratchet and cut them of
now > 1 have dear friend in Phila-
delphia whose nephew came to him one
day, an6 when he was eXhorted about
his evil habit, said, ''Cncle, ] can t give
il uD If there stood a cannon, and it
was loaded and a glass of wine set in the
mouth of that cannon, and I knew that
you would fire it off just as I
came up and took the glass,
Oh, it is a sad thing for a man to wake
up in this life and feel he is captive.
He says:
81 could have got rid of this once, but
! can 4 now. I might have lived an hon
CRADLE life and died a Christian death;
but there is 10 hope for me now; there is
no escape for me. Dead but not buried.
! ana walking corpse. / am an appari-
ton Of what I once was. / am a 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 remedyi''
l 90 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 d littie while ago were fore
most in the churches and il reformatOry
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
when he thinks Of his dishonored vows
and the dishonoTed sacrament; when he
thinks of what he might have been and
of what he is now? Do such men laugh
and seem very merry? An! there is,
down in the depths of their soul, a 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. lie is there now
THEIR HEALTH GOES TOO.
90 on, and say that the inebriate suf- |
feTs from the loss of physical health. |
The older men III the congregation may |
that some years ago Dr.. Sewell |
went through this country and electrified |
the people by his lectures, in which he |
showed the effects Of alcohol on the /
human stomach. lie had seven or eight /
diagrams by which he showed the de-
vastation OF strong drink upon the physi-
cal system There were thousands of I
people that turned back from that ulcer
Gus sketch swearing eternal abstinence |
from everything that could intoAicate.
God only knows what the drunkard suf-
travels every muscle, and gnaws every
bone. and burns with every hame, and
stings with every poison, and 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 SILVER through his soul! Talk of the
rack, talk of the Inquisition, 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 stench of their wounds
driving back the attendants, their voices
through the night? The keeper
comes up and says, ''Hush, now, be
still. Stop making all this noise. But
it is effectual only for a moment, for as
soon as the keeper is gone they begin
again: ''Oh, God! Oh, God! Help!
help! Rumi GIVE me rum Help!
Take them off me! Take them of me!
Oh, God!' And then they shrek, and
hey rave, and they pluck ont
heir HAIR by handouts, and bite
their nails into the quick, and
hen they groan. and they shrek,
md they blaspheme, and they ask the
keepers to Kill them: ''Stab me.