The Middleburgh post. [volume] (Middleburgh, Snyder Co., Pa.) 1883-1916, 1889-08-15

and glass OF wine sat on the mouth OF
that cannon, and ! knew that you would
iire 10 OH just as | came up and took
tho glass, | would start, for / must have
IT." Oh, il is sad thing for a man 10
/ wake up In this life and feel that he
Is captive He says: 81 could have got rid
Of this once, but can't now. might have
lived an honorable life and died a
Christian death; but there is no hope for me
now; there Is no escape for me- Dead, but
| not buried. am walking corpse. I am
| an appsration of what l once was. am n
Gagged immortal, beating against the wires OF
| my cnge In this direction and in that drec.
| ton; beating against the cage until there is
blood on the wires and blood upon my soul
remedyr
l go further and say that the inebriat.
suffers from tho loss OF his usefulness Do
you not recognize the fact that many Of those
who are now captives Of strong drink only q
little while ago were foremost in the churches
and in reformatory institutions Do you
not know that sometimes they knelt in the
| family circlef Do you not know that they
| prayed In public, and some Of them carried
around the holy wine on sacramental dsysi
| Oh, yes, they stood in the very front rank,
but they gradually fell away. And
now what do you suppose is the feeling
he thinks of his dishonored vows and ths
| dishonored accommodation he thinks OF
| what he might have been and Of what he IL
now' Do such men laugh and seem very
nerryp All, there is, down in the depths Of
| their soul, very heavy weight. Do not
wonder that they sometimes sec strange
| things, and act very roughly In the house
| hold. You would not blame them at all II
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
| Heknows there Is. He is there nowl
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 lee.
| lures, in which he showed the effects Of alco-
I hol on the human stomach. He had seven
| or eight diagrams by which he showed the
devastation OF strong drink upon the physi-
| cal system. There were thousands of people
that turned back from that ulcerous sketch
swearing eternal abstinence from everything
| that could intoxicate.
God only knows what the drunkard suf
fors. Pain files on every nerve, and travels
every muscle, and gnaws every bone, and
| burns with every fame, and stings with
every poison, and pulls at him with every
! torture What reptiles crawl over his creep.
| ing limbs What fends stand by his mid
night pillow What grosns tear his car
| What horrors shiver through his soul Talk
of the rack, talk OF the Inquisiton 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 hos,
pital where these inebriates are dying,
the stencil of their wounds driving
back the attendants, their voices sounding
through the nighty The keeper comes up
and says: "Hush, now, be stip. Stop max
ing all this noisel" But IL is effectual only for
a moment, for as soon as the keeper is gone.
they begin again; "Oh, God oh, Godl Helpl
help! Rumi Give me rum! Helpl Take
them of mel Take them OF mel Take them
Off me- Oh. Cody 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 blaspneme, and they ask the keepers
TO kill them. Stab me. Smother me.
Strange me. Take the devils of mer oh,
IL is no fancy sketch. That thing is going ON
in hospitals, aye, IL is going on in some Of the
finest residences OF every neighborhood on
this continent. Invent on last night while you
slept, and tell you further that this is going
to be the death that some Of you will die, L
know IL. 1 sec IL coming.
Again: the inebriate suffers through the
loss of his home do not care how much he
loves bis wife and children, IL this passion
Tor strong drink has mastered him, he will
do the most outrageous things, and il 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 Dut God knows,
Oh, is there anything that will so destroy
n man for this life and damn him for the life
that is to conner / hate that strong drink
With all the concentrated energies Of my
soul, hate 1t. Do You tell me that a man
can be happy when he knows that he Is
breaking his wife's heart and clothing
hre on the streets Of our cities
to-day little children, barefooted, un-
combed and unkempt; 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. oh, rum! thou foe of God,
thou destroyer of homes thou recruiting
officer of the pit, l sbhor thee
But my subject takes n deeper tone,
and that is, that the inebriate suffers
from the loss of the soul The Biblq
intimates that in the future world, if
we are unforgiven here, our Bad passions
and appettes, unrestrained, will go along
with us and make our torment there. So
that i suppose when an inebriate wakes up
in this lost world he will feel an in.
finite thirst clawing on him. Now, down
i'm the world, although he may have been
very poor, he could beg or he could steal
live cents with which to get that which
would slake his thirst for u little while; but
in eternity, where is the rum to come fromg
Dives could not get one drop of water. From
what chalice Of eternal fires will the hot lips
of the drunkard drain his draught2 No ono
TO brew it. No one to mix it, No one TO pour
then for the dregs which the young man
just now sung on the saw-dusted
tioor 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, il fiend
came up TO earth for some Internal work in u
grog shop, and should so back taking on its
wing just one drop OF that for which tha
inebriate in the lost world longs what ex.
citement ii would make there. Put that one
drop from OFF the fiend's wing on tho tip OF
the tongue of the destroyed inebriate; let
the liquid brightness Just touch IL,
let the drop be veiy small II
II only have in 10 the smack If alcoholic
drink, let that drop just touch the lost inc.
briate in the lost world, and he would spring
to his feet and cry: ''rhat is rum! aha thai
is rum" and 1t would wake up the echoes OF
the damned: "Give me ruml Give me rum
Give me rumn In the future world, d1
not believe that il will be the absence of God
that will make the drunkard's SORROW do
not believe that IL will be tho absence of
light; do not believe that il will be the alb.
sence of holiness; think il will be the alb.
sanca NJ strong drink OhI 1tlook NOT unnn