Connecticut western news., 1890-07-30
TABERNACLE PULPIT.
SERMON ON REMEMBRANCE BY
 DR. TAlMAGE.

''It Is My Sons Coat; Evil Beast Hath
 Devoured Him" the Text-vivid Shape
 of the Evil Beast of Drunkenness That
 Destroys Souls.
 BROOKLYN, July 27.-Dr. Talmage's sermon today was devoted to the curse of intemperance. With the hand of master he drew in vivid colors the ap- palling tragedies which this remorseless demon has perpetrated. His text was Gen. xxxvii, 33: ''It is my sons coat; an evil beast hath devoured him."
 Joseph's brethren dipped their broth CTS coat in goats blood, and then brought the dabbled garment to their father, cheating him with the idea that ferocious animal had slain him, and thus hiding their infamous behavior. which we hold up to your observation today. A monster such as never ranged African thicket or Hindostan jungle hath tracked this land, and with bloody maw hath strewn the continent with the mangled carcasses of whole genera HOns, and there are tens of thousands of fathers and mothers who could hold up the garment of their slain boy, truthfully exclaiming, 'It is my sons coat; an evil beast hath devoured him." There has in all ages and climes been a tendency to the improper use of stim- ulants Noah, as if disgusted with the prevalence of water in his time, took to strong drink. By this vice Alexander the Conqueror was conquered. The Romans at their feasts fell off their seats with intoxication Four hundred millions of our race are opium eaters. India, Turkey and China have groaned with the desOlation, and by it have been quenched such lights as Haley and De Quincey. One hundred mill ions are the victims of the betel nut, which has specially blasted the East Indies Three hundred millions chew hashish, and Persia, Brazil and Africa suffer the delirium. The Tartars em- ploy murowa, the Mexicans the agave, the people at Guarapo an intoxicating quality taken from sugar cane, while @ great multitude that no man can num- Der are the disciples of alcohol. To it they bow. Under it they are tranpled. In its trenches they fall. On its ghastly holocaust they burn. Could the mus ter roll of this great army be called, and they could come up from the dead, what eye could endure the reeking, fostering putrefaction and beastlinessi What heart could endure the groan of agony2
 THE EVIL DEEDS OF DRUNKENNESS.
 Drunkenness Does it not jingle the burglars key2 Does it not whet the assassin's knife2 Does it not cock the highwayman's pistol2 Does it not wave the incendiary's torch9 Has it not sent the physician reeling into the sick room, and the minister with his tongue thick into the pulpit? Did not an ex- quisite poet, from the very top of his fame, fall a gibbering sot into the gut ter on his way to be married to one of the fairest daughters of New England, and at the very hour the bride was decking herself for the altar, and did he not die of delirium tremens, almost unattended, in @ hospital2 TameTlane asked for one hundred and sixty thou sand skulls with which to build pyra- mid to his own honor He got the skulls and built the pyramid. But if the bones of all those who have fallen as a prey to dissipation could be piled up it would make a vaster pyramid. Who will gird himself for the jour- ney and try with me to scale this noun tain of the going up miles high on human carcasses to find still other peaks far above, mountain above noun | drunkards.
 The Sabbath has been sacrificed to l the rum traffic. To many of our peo- | pie the best day of the week is the worst. Bakers must keep their shops I closed on the Sabbath It is danger ous to have loaves of bread going out ! on Sunday. The shoe store Is closed :; severe penalty will attack the man who sells boots on the Sabbath. But down | with the window shutters of the grog- shops! Our laws shall confer particu- lar honor upon the rum traffickers All 1 other trades must stand aside for these. l Let our citizens who have disgraced themselves by trading in clothing and hosiery and hardware and lumber and coal take off their hats to the rum seller elected to particular honor. It is unsafe for any other class of men to be allowed license for Sunday work. But swing out your signs, oh ye tramck- CTS in the peace of families and in the souls of immortal men! Let the corks 1 fly, and the beer foam, and the rum go tearing down the half consumed throat l of the inebriate God does not see !! Does he? Judgment will never come | Will it?
 YOU CANNOT REGULATE WHISKY. | do not know but that God is deter mined to let drunkenness triumph, and the husbands and sons of thousands of our best families be destroyed by this vice, in order that our people, amazed and indignant, may rise up and demand the extermination of this municipal crime. There is a way of driving down the hoops of barrel so tight that they
 break. We have in this country at
 various times tried to regulate this evil
 by a tax on whisky. You might as
 we'll try to regulate the Asiatic. cholera
 or the smallpox by taxation. The men
 who distil liquors are for the most part
 interruptions, and the higher the tax the more inducement to illicit distilla- ton.
 Ohl the folly of trying to restrain an
 evil by government tariff! If every
 gallon of whisky made, if every flask of wine produced, should be taxed a thousand dollars it would not be enough to pay for the tears it has wrung from