The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1891-03-28

that everyt hing was closed up for the
night
Obi what change for that young man,
who we had hoped would do something in
or in craftsmanship or in Il pro-
fession that would do honor to the family
name. long after mothers wrinkled hands
are folded from the last toll All that ex
changed for startled look when the door
bell rings, lest something has happened;
and the wish that the scarlet fever twenty
years ago had been fatal, for then he would
have gone directly to the bosom of his
Saviour. But alasl poor old soul, she has
lived to experience what Solomon said, "a
foolish son is a heaviness to his mother"
OhI what funeral it will be when that
boy is brought home deadl And how moth
er will sit there and say: ''Is this my boy
that used to fondle, and that walked the
floor with in the night when he was sicks
Is this the boy that 1 held to the baptisinal
font for baptism? Is this the boy for
whom l toiied until the blood burst from
the tips of my fingers, that he might have
a good start and a good home? Lord. why
hast thou let me live to see this? Can il
be that these swollen hands are the ones
that used to wander over my face when
rocking him to sleep? Can it be that this
swollen brow is that once so rapturously
kissed? Poor boy! how tired he does look.
wonder who struck him that blow across
the temples? Iwonder if he uttered diving
prayer? Wake up, my son: don't you hear
me? wake upi Oil he can't hear me!
Deadi deadi deadi 'Oh, Absalom, my son,
my son, would God that had died for thee,
oh, Absalom, my son, sonp"
THE WORDS OF THE Rum FIEND.
l am not much of a mathematician and
cannot estimate it, but is there any one
here quick enough at figures to estimate
how many mothers there are waiting for
something to be done? Ay, there are many
wives waiting for domestic rescue. He
promised something different from that
when, after the long acquaintance and the
careful scrutiny of character, the hand and
the heart were offered and accepted What
hell on earth a woman lives in who has
drunken husband o death, how lovely
thou art to her, and how soft and warm
thy skeleton handl The sepulcher at mid
night In winter is a kings drawing room
compared with that womans home. 1t is
not so much the blow on the head that
hurts as the blow on the heart
The rum fiend came to the door of that
beautiful home, and opened the door and
stood there and said: 81 curse this dwelling
with an unrelenting curse. I curse that
father into Il maniac, curse that mother
into a pauper. | curse those Sons into
vagabonds. l curse those daughters into
profigacy. Cursed be bread tray and
cradle. Cursed be couch and chair, and
family Bible with record of marriages and
births and deaths. Curse upon curse"
Oh, how many wives are there waiting
to see if something cannot be done to
shake these frosts of the second death off
the orange blossomsl Yea, God is waiting,
the God who works through human in
strumentalities, waiting to see whether
this nation is going to overthrow this evil
and if it refuse to do SO God will wipe out
the nation he did Phenicia, as he did
Rome, as he did Thebes, as he did Babylon
Ay, he is waiting to see what the church
of God will do. If the church does not do
it's work, then he will wipe it out as he did
the church of Ephesus, church of Thya
tira, church of Sardis. The Protestant and
Roman Catholic churches today stand side
by side, with an impotent look, gazing on
this evil, which costs this country more
than a billion dollars a year to take care of
the 1000 paupers, and the Bis, 600 crimi
mails, and the 30,OOO idiots, and to bury the
rs, 600 drunkards Protagoras boasted that
out of the sixty years of his life forty years
he had spent in running youth; but this
evil may make the more infamous boast
that all it's life it has been running the
bodies, minds and souls of the human race
THE POLITICIANS ARE DOING NOTHING.
Put on your spectacles and take candle
and examine the platforms of the two lead
ing political parties of this country and
see what they are doing for the arrest of
this evil and for the overthrow of this
abomination. Resolutions-ohl yes, reso-
lutions about Mormonisml 1t is safe to
attack that organized nastiness two thou
sand miles away. But not one resolution
against drunkenness, which would turn
this entire nation into one bestial Salt Lake
City. Resolutions against political cor
ruption, but not one word about drunken
ness, which would rot this nation from
scalp to heel. Resolutions about protec-
tion against competition with foreign in
dustries, but not one word about protec-
ton of family and church and nation
against the scalding, blasting, all consum
ing, 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 assem-
bled in New York, and resolutions arraign-
ing strong drink were offered, and clergy
men with strong drink on their tables 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 today
not in the millennium, but today-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 purity
and to be the sworn enemies of all unclean-
ness and debauchery and sin-if all such
would march side by side and shoulder to
shoulder, this evil would soon be over
thrown. Think of three hundred thou
sand churches and Sunday schools in
Christendom marching shoulder to shoul
deri How very short time it would take
them to put down this evil, if all the
churches of God, transatlantic and cisat
lantic, were armed on this subject?
XcI1racr of s Arnarira int