The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1890-06-18
DP TALNAGE'S IDEA.

At the twenty-fifth anniversary Of the
National Temperance Society in New York
Rev. DR.. Talmage, in the course Of an adj
dress, said: -
''The present attitude Of the temperance;
cause is a bewilderment in many minds
What nexts is the question being asludd
with moist eyes. and trembling voice and
from all parts of this land there are multi
tudes looking to this hour and to this spot
and to this society to declare the latitude ann
longitude in which the temperance cause -
now sailing, to strike the keynote to give
some decisive utterance, to Lay out some newt
with q fifth and a yehemence which j
shall bring the omnipotence of heaven and
the might of public opinion to bear upon this
tremendous e1igency There has been pro-
gression and retrogression. While we have:
been discussing such important questions as
Shall we have third political party for
temperance purposes? Does prohibition
prohibit? What about Atlanta and Rhode
Island and Iowa and Kansas? Are sump-.
tuary laws constitutional? viii high license
help? and fifty other important questions
for the last fifteen years, there has been,
with few exceptions, an entire silence ~.
pulpit and Oh platform, in hall and in churchi
on question which overarches and under,
girds aud encompasses like periphery and
oenetrates like q diameter all other questions
ths question: How shall we induce men and
women, old and young, black and white
native and foreign, to stop drinking rumrs
Great applause.)
.tThe stronces prohibition law that I ever
-ead IS not too strong for my notions. butn
the Legislature of every State in the United;
States should pass the best prohibitory Law
aver contrived, and if the Congress OF the
United States should thunder from Wash
ngton national prohibition, and at the same !;
lime the public mind were not educated ON !
This subject and toned up, and the vast ma
iority of our people thought il best to take
intoxicating liquors, such laws would not be I
executed, or they would be reversed at the
next election, or judges of tue Supreme
Court would pronounce them unconstituo
tional. We cannot afford to let a whole gen.
.raticn of drunkards 60 down while we arc
waiting for legislators, and governors and
mayors and shari0s and police officers TO 90
their duty. What then shall we do? /;
THE path to me is as plain as the sunllght.
Go back to first principles. Open In every
hall that you can rent and every church ~
ian secure, in every city, town' ana Vihage
and neighborhood Of the United States, old
fashioned temperance meetings. (Applause.)
Open them with prayer, followed by glee-1
clubs and great organs playing the Haileiu-
iah chorus, and have on your platforms the
best ministers. the best lawyers the best
PHYSICIANS the best merchants, the best me-
chanics the best farmers, the best mon, and
the best women. You know as we'll as do
that the old-fashioned temperance. meeting
is dead. 1t is as dead as door nail. Who
killed cock-robiu?- u?-daughter)-is question
which the nurseries have been discussing for
many years and many different answers
have Eeen given. But who killed the Old
fashioned temperance meetingF can evoke
only the one answer: the unprincipled, stroll
ing and unrcformed temperance lecturers
who kept sober only long enough to make
speech, and wens through the land disgust,
ing good people with their imperSonat tlons OF
into comedy tile ghastliest tragedy ever seen
on earth-a destroyed man."