The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1891-03-12

race.
Put on your spectacless and take a
candle, and examine the platforms Of
the two leading political parties of this
country, and see what they are doing
for the arrest of this evil and for the
overthrow of this abomination. Reso-
lutions-oh, yes, resolutions about Nor.
monism! 1t is safe to attack that or
ganized nastiness two thousand miles
away. But not one resolution against
drunkenness, which would turn thiA
entire nation into one bestial Salt Laks
City. Resolutions against political cor:
ruption, but not one word about drunk
enness, which would rot this nation
from scalp to heel Resolutions about
protection against competition with
foreign industries, but not one word
about protection of family and church
and nation against the scalding, blast
ing, all-consuming, damning tariff Of
strong drink put upon every financial.
individual, spiritual, moral, national
interest.
look in another direction. The
church of God is the grandest and most
glorious institution on earth. What has
it in solid phalanx accomplished for the
overthrow of drunkenness? Have its
forces ever been marshaled? No, not
in this direction. Not long ago great
ecclesiastical court assembled in New
York, and resolutions arraigning
strong drink were offered, and cler-
gymen with strong drink on their ta-
bles and strong drink in their cellars
defeated the resolutions by threatening
speeches. They could not bear to give
up their own lusts. tell this audience
what many of you may never have
thought of, that to-day-not in the mill
lennium, but to-day-the church holds
the balance of power in America;
and if Christian people-the men
and the women who profess to love
the Lord Jesus Christ and to love puri-
ty and to be sworn enemies of all un-
cleanness and debauchery and sin-if all
such would march side by side and
shoulder to shoulder, this evil would
soon be overthrown. Think of threo
hundred thousand churches and Sunday.
schools in christendom marching shoul-
der to shoulder! How very short a time
it would take them to put down this evil
if all the churches of God, transatlantic
and cisatlantic, were armed on this sub
iect!
Young men of America, pass over into
the army of teetotalism. Whisky, good
to preserve corpses, ought never to turn
you into corpse. Tens of thousands
of young men have been dragged out of
respectability, and out of purity, and
out of good character, and into dark.
ness, by this internal stuff called strong
drink. Do not touch it! Do not touch it!
In the front door of our church in
Brooklyn, a few summers ago, this
scene occurred: Sabbath morning
young man was entering for Divine wor-
ship. A friend passing along the street
said; Joe, come along with me; l am
going down to Coney Island, and we'll
have a gay Sunday" NO" replied
Joe; Il have started to go here to church
and am going to attend service here"
so, Joe" his friend said, you can go
to church any time! The day is bright,
and we'll go to Coney Island, and we'll
have splendid time" The tempta-
ton was too great and the twain went
to the beach, spent the day in drunken
dess and riot. The evening train start
ed up from Brighton. The young men
were on it. Joe, in his intoxicatioD,
when the train was in full speed, tried
to pass around from one side to an
other and fell and was crushed. Under
the lantern, as Joe lay bleeding his life
away on the grass, he said to his COM
panion: John, that was bad business,
your taking me away from church; it was
a very bad business. You ought not to
have done that, j ohm. Iwant you to tell
the boys tomorrow when you see them
that rum and Sabbath-breaking did
this for me. And, John, while you are
telling them, will be in hell, and it
will be your fault" Is it not time for
me to pull out from the great organ of
Gods word, with many banks of keys,
the tremolo stop? Look not upon the
wine when it is red, when it moveth it.
self Alright in the cup, for at last it biteth
like serpent and stingeth like an ad-
der"
But this evil will be arrested. Blu
cher came up just before night and
saved the day at Waterloo. At four
o'clock in the afternoon it looked very
bad for the English. Gems. Ponsonby
and Picton fallen. Sabers broken, flags
Scots Grays annihilated.
Only forty-two men left out of the Ger
man brigade. The English army fall
ing back and falling back. Napoleon
rubbed his hands together and said:
"Aha! aha! We'll teach that little
lesson. Ninety chances
out of a hundred are in our favor.
magnificentp He even
sent messages to Paris to say he had
won the day. But before sundown
came up, and he who had been
the conqueror of Austerlitz became the
victim of Waterloo. That name which
had shaken all Europe and filed even
America with apprehension-that name
went down, and Napoleon, muddy and
hatless, and crazed with his disasters,
was found feeling for the stirrup of a
horse, that he might mount and resume
the conflict.
Well, my friends, alcoholism is inn
perial, and it is conqueror, and there
are good people who say the night of
national overthrow is coming, and that
it is almost night. But before sundown
the conquror of earth and Heaven will
ride it on white horse, and alcoholism,
which has had its Austerlitz of triumph,
shall have its Waterloo of defeat. Al
coholism having lost its crown, the
grizzly and cruel breaker of human