The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1891-03-05
THE WOE OF THE NATION
,NTEMPERANCE MAY SWEEP ITS
FREEDOM AWAY.

he cOfQnleDceu idct Euiiotiy oA shC ASA
Plaques of New York and the Adjacent
Cities The plague which he places
second OH the list Is intemperance, and
on that subject he discoursed this
morning in the Academy Of Music,
Brooklyn. and this evening in New
York. At the close of the service in
the New York Academy of Music, DIR.
Talrnage went over to the Union Square
theatre, where his son, Mr.. Frank De
Witt Talrnage, was holding an overflow
meeting, and briefly addressed the
crowded house. Both the New York
services are under the auspices of The
Christian Herald, of which DR.. Talmage
is editor. The text of the doctors ser
mon was taken from Gen. TX. 20 81:
Noah planted a vineyard, and he
drank of the wine and was drunken"
This Noah did the best and the worst
thing for the world. lie built an ark
against the deluge Of water, but intro
duced deluge against winch the
human race has ever since been trying
to build an ark-the deluge of drunken
ness. In my text we hear his stagger-
ing steps Shem and Japhet tried to
cover up the disgrace, but there he is,
drunk on wine at time In the history
of the world when, to say the least,
there was no lack of water. lnebria-
ton, having entered the world, has not
retreated. Abigail. the fair and heroic
wife, who saved the flOcks Of Nabal,
her husband, from conflscation by in
vaders, goes home at night and finds
him so intoxicated she cannot tell him
the story of his narrow escape. Uriah
came to see David. and David got him
drunk, and paved the way for the des-
poliation of a household. Even the
church bishops needed to be charged to
be sober and not given to too much
wine, and 50 familiar were people of
Bible times with the staggering and
falling motion of the inebriate that
Isaiah, when he comes to describe the
final dislocation of worlds, says, 'The
earth shall reel to and fro like a drunk
ard
THK WATERS OF MADNESS.
Ever since apples and grapes and
wheat grew the world has been tempt
ed to unhealthful stilnulants. But the
intoxicants OF the olden time were an
innocent beverage, a harmless orange
ade, quiet sirup, peaceful soda
water, as compared with the liquids of
modern inebriation, into which mad
ness, and fury, and a gloom. and a
fire, and suicide, and a retribution
have mixed and mingled. Fertnenta-
ton was always known, but it was not
until thousand years after Christ that
distillation was invented. While we
must confess that some of the ancient
arts have been lost, the Christian era
is superior to all others In the bad ezni
hence OF whisky and rum and gin.
The modern drunk is hundredfold
worse than the ancient drunk. NOAH
in his intoxication became imbecile
but the victims of modern alcoholism
have to struggle with whole menage
ries of wild beasts and jungles of hiss
ing serpents and perditions of bias
pheming demons.
An arch fiend arrived in our world
and he built an invisible caldron O
temptation He built that caldrof
strong and stout for all ages and al
nations. First he squeezed into tn;
caldron the juices of the forbidden
fruit of Paradise. Then he gathered
for it a distillation from the harves
fields and the orchards of the hemis
pheres. Then he poured into this cal
dron capsicum and copperas and log
wood and deadly nightshade and as
sault and battery and vitriol and OPT
um and rum and murder and sulphur
acid and theft and potash and cochi
neal and red carrots and poverty ant
death and hops, but it was a dry com
pound, and 1t must be moistened, an,
it must be liquefed, and SO the arcl
fiend poured into that caldron tn
tears of centuries of orphanage an,
widowhood, and he poured in the bloc
of twenty thousand assassinations.
And then the arch fiend took shove
that he had brought up from the ful
naces beneath, and he put that shove
into this great caldron and began t
stir, and the caldron began to heav
and rock and boil and sputter and his
and smoke, and the nations gathere
around it with cups and tankards an
deani5ohns and kegs, and there wa
enough for all, and the arch fiend cried
"Aha4 champion fiend am /. Who hs
done more than I have for collins an
graveyards and prisons and insar
asylums and the populating of the To-
worldf And when this caldron
emptied Ill fill it again, and I'll stir
again, and it will smoke again, an
+. that smoke will Join another smoke
D the smoke of a torment that ascendet
! for ever and ever. l drove fifty shil
l.. on the rocks of Newfoundland, an
the Skerries, and the Goodwins.
/, have ruined more senators than gait
: er this winter in the national cou
ellis / have ruined more lords tina
are now gathered in the house
peers The cup out of which
4 ordinarily drink is bleached huma
skull, and the upholstery of my paia.
Is 30 rich a crimson because ii Is dye
In human gore, and the mosaic of n
floors Is made up Of the bones of CHI
dren dashed to death by drunken pa
ents, and my favorfse musio-sweet
than TIE Deum or triumphal march
I my favoPite music is the cry of daug
tiers turned out at midnight on Il
/. street because father has come hon
from the carousaa, and the seven ha
dred voiced shrek of the sinkil
steamer, because the captain was n
himself when be put the ship on t
wrong course. Champion ffend am
, have kindled more fires, have wrul
out more agonies, have stretched O
. more midnight shadows, have open
more Golgothas, I have rolled INC
Jugpernaufs T hava .da,ppoI ror