The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1890-08-07
TALMAGE'S SERMON.
A Discourse on the Fearful Evil OF
Intemperance.
The Monster that Devours All that En-
tiers His Domains, Leaving n Trail of
Wrecked Homes and Blasted
Lives Behind.

Academy of Music, taking for his text:
1t is my sons coat; an evil beast hath
devoured him.-Gen. xxxvii, 81
Joseph's brethren dipped their broth
er's coat in goats blood, and then
brought the dabbled garment to their
father, cheating him with the idea that
q ferocious animal had slain him, and
thus hiding their infamous behavior.
But there is no deception about that
which we hold up to your observation
to-day. A monster such as never
ranged African thicket or Hindostan
Jungle hath tracked this land, and with
bloody nav hath strewn tho continent
with the mangled carcasses of whole
generations; and there are tens of thou
sands of fathers and mothers who could
hold up tho garment Of their slain boy,
truthfully exclaiming. ut is my sons
coat; an evil beast hath devoured him"
There has, in all ages and chimes, been
tendency to the improper use of slim
ulants. Noah, as if disguised 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 Quincy. One hundred
millions are the victims OF the 5etel nut,
which has specially blasted the East
Indies. Three hundred millions chew
hasheesh, and Persia, Brazil and Africa
suffer the delirium. The Tartars en-
ploy murowa; the Mexicans, the agave;
the people at Guarapo an intoxicating
quality taken from surgar-cane; while
great multitude, that no man can
number, are the disciples of alcohol. To
it they how. Under it they are tram
pied. In its trenches they fall. On its
CHASTITY holocaust they burn. Could
the muster roll of this great army be
called, and they could come up from
the dead, what eye could endure the
reeking, fostering putrefaction and
beastliness? What heart could endure
the groan of agony?
Drunkenness: Docs it not jingle the
burglars key? Does it not whet the
assassin's knife? Does it not cock the
highwayman's pistol? Does it not wave
the incendiary's torch? Has it not sent
the physician Keeling 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 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 hospital? Tamerlane
asked for one hundred and sixty thou
sand skulls with which to build pyra-
mid to his own honor. He got the
the bones of all those who have fallen
as prey to dissipation could be piled
up, it would make vaster pyramid.
Who will grid himself for the jour
ney, and try with me to scale this
mountain of the dead-going up miles
high on human carcasses to find still
other peaks far above, mountain above
mountain, white with the bleached
bones of drunkards.
the rum traffic. To many of our people
the best day is the worst. Bakers must
keep their shops closed on the Sab
bath. 1t is dangerous to have loaves of
bread going out on Sunday. The shoe
store is closed; severe penalty will at
tack the man who sells boots on the
Sabbath. But down with the window
shutters of the grog-shop! Our laws
shall confer particular honor upon the
rum traffickers. All other trades must
stand aside for these. Let our citizens
who have displaced themselves by trad
ing in clothing, and hosiery, and hard
ware, and lumber, and coal, take off
their hats to the rum seller, elected to
particular honor. 1t is unsafe for any
other class of men to be allowed license
for Sunday work. But swing out your
signs, oh ye trafiickers in the peace of
families and in the souls of immortal
men! Let the corks fly, and the beer
foam, and the rum go tearing down the
half-consumed throat of the inebriate.
God does not see! Does he? Judgment
will never come? Will it.
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 determination of this municipal
crime. There is 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 tax on whisky. You may as
we'll try to regulate the Asiatic cholera
or the smallpox by taxation. The men
who distil liquors are, for the most
part, INSCRIPTIONS, and the higher the
tax, the more inducement to illicit dis
tillation.
Oh! 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
thousand dollars, it would not be
enough to pay for the tears it has
wrung from the eyes of widows and
orphans, nor for the blood it has dashed
on the Christian church nor for the
catastrophe of the millions it has de-
stroyed forever.
I sketch two houses in this street.
The first is bright as home can be. The
father comes at nightfall, and the chill
dren run out to meet him. Luxuriant
evening meal Graduation, and SYM
patty, and laughter. Music in the