Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1891-03-21
REV. DIR. TALMAGE
The Brooklyn Divine's
Sunday Sermon.

Genesis tx, 20, u.
This Noah did the best and the worei
ching for the world. He built an arb
against the deluge Of water, but intro
duced a deluge against which the human
race has ever since been trying To build al
ark-the deluge Of drunkenness. In my text
We hear has staggering steps. Shein and
'Japhet tried 10 cover up the disgrace, but
there be is, drunk GA wine at a tune IN the
history Of the world when, to say the least,
there was no lack Of water. Inebriation.
having entered the world, has not retreated
Abigail, the fair and heroic wife, who saved
the focks Of Nabal. her husband. from con
fscation by invaders, goes home at night
and finds hin 50 intoxicated she cannot tell
him the story Of his narrow escape. Uriah
came to see David, and David got him
drunk aud paved the way for the despolia-
ton 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 stagger
ing and falling motion OF the iuebriate that
Isaiah, when he comes To describe the final
dIslocatiOn or the worlds, saws, THE earth
shall reel to and fro like a drunkart."
Ever since apples and grapes and wheat grew
the world has been tempted to unhealthful
stimulants. But the Intoxicants Of the olden
time Were an innocent beverage, a harmless
orangeade, a quiet syrup, u peaceful soda
water as compared with the liquids Of mod
ern inebrIatlon, into which a madness and
a fury, and q gloom, and a fire, and a suicide,
and a retrlbutlon have mixed and mingled.
Fermentation was always known. but it was
not until a Thousand years after Christ
that dlatlllation was invented. While
we must confess that some Of the
ancient arts have been lost, the
Christian era is superior to al others in
the bad emlnence Of whisky ard rum and
gin. The modern drunk is a bundredfold
worse than the ancient drunk. Noah in his
intoxication became imbeclle, but the vic
tins Of modern alcoholism have to struggle
with whole menagerics Of wild beasts, and
lungles Of kissing serpents, and perditions OF
OF disappearing demons.
An arch fieud arrived in our world, and
he built an invisible caldron of temptation.
de built that caldron strong and stout for
all ages and nations. First he squeezed into
the caldron the juices of the forbidden fruit
of Paradise. Then he gathered for it a dis
tllation from the harvest fields and the
orchards of the hetnispheres. Then he poured
into this caltrOn capsicum and copperas and
iogwood and deadly nightshade and assault
and battery and vitrlol and opium and rum
and murder and sulphuric acid and theft and
potash and cochineal and red carrots and
poverty and death and hops. But it was n
dry compound and it must be moistened, and
1t must DO liquefied, and SO the arch fiend
poured into that caldren the tears of ceEtu-
rleS OF Orphanage and ~wldOwhOod, and he
poured in the blood Of twenty thousand as
destinations.
And then the arch fiend took shovel that
be had brought up from the furnace be
meath, and he put that shovel into this great
caldron and began to stir, and the caldron
began to heave and rock and boil and sput-
ter and hiss and smoke, and the nations gath
BRED around it with cups and tankards and
demijohns and kegs, and there was enough
for all, and the arch fiend cried: AHA
champion fiend am |! Who has done more
than | have for collins and grayeyards and
prisons and insane asylums, and the populat-
ing of the lost world? And when this caldron
Is Amptied I'll fill it again and pl stir it
lgain. and it will smoke again, and that
smoke will join another smoke, the smoke Of
etorment that ascendeth for ever and ever.
~foundland, and the Skerries. and the Good
wins. | have ruined more senators
than gather this winter in the ma
honal councils. / have ruined more lords
than are now gathered in the house
Df peers. The cup out Of which I ordinarily
arink is a bleached human skull, and the
upholstery of my palace is SO rich 8 crimson,
because it is dyed in human gore, and the
mosaic of my floors is made up of the bones
Df children dashed to death by drunken
parents, and my ~favorite music -sweeter
han TIE Deum or %triumphal march-my
favorite music is the cry of daughters turned
put at midnight on the street because father
has come home from the carousal, and the
seven hundred voiced shrek of the sinking
steamer, because the captain was not him
self when he put the ship on the wrong
course. Champion tiend am |! | have
kindled more fires, nave wruPg out more
agonieS, | have stretched out more mid
night shadows, / have opened more Col
gothas, | have rolled more .Juggernauts, |
have damned more souls than any other
emissary Of diabolism. Champion fienl
am I'
Drunkenness is the greatest evil of this
nation, and 1t takes no logical process to
prove to this audience that a drunken nation
cannot long be a free nation. | cal your at
tention to the fact that drunkenness is net
subsiding, certainly that it is not at q stand
still, but that It is on an onward march, and
1t is a double quick. There is more rum
swallowed III this country, and OF a worse
kind than was ever swallowed since the first
distillery began It's work of death Where
there was one drunken home there are ten
drunken homes. Where there vas one
drunkard's grave there are twenty drunk
ards graves. 1t is on the increase. Talk
about crooked w~hisky-by which men mean
the whisky that does not pay the tax to gov
ernment-I tell YOU all strong drink is
crooked. Crooked Otard, crooked Cognac.
crooked schnapps, crooked beer, crookeI
wine, crooked whisky-hecause it makes &
mans path crooked, and his life crooked, anl
his death crooked and his eternity crooked.
If could gather all the armies of the deaC
,hrunkardS and have them come to resurrec-
ton, and then add to that host all the armie,
of living drunhards, five and ten abreast,
and then if i could have'you mount a hors.
and ride along that line TOR review, yol
would ride that horse till he dropped frou
exhaustion. and YOU would mount another
horse and ride until he fell from exhaustion
and you would take another and another
and you would ride along hour after houl
and day after day. Great host, IN regiments
in brigades. Great armies OF them. An,
then II you had voice stentorian, enough I
make them ali hcar, AMI yuu could give tn
command. "F2rward. march their frs
tramp would make tie earth tremble l 4
not care which way vou look in the commul
ltY today the evil i increasing.
l call attention u the fact that there az
thousands oi people born with a thirst Il
strong drink "a fact to- often ignore.
Along some ancestral lines there RUS tn
river Of temptation. There are chlldre
whose swaddling c!otAes are torn off Il
shroud OF ueats. MANY a rather has mac
a will OF this sort; In Ill, nam, OF Go,
amen. | bequcath tony children my hous
and and audc ltc>. snare aHd Snare sha
they ahke. tt 'a | a.tx my uaufi and Sc