Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1891-03-07
REV. DR.. TALMAGE.
The Eminent Brooklyn Divine's Sun.
day Sermon.
subject, .Ths Evil. of Liquor Drinking. ;

subjsctI THE Evils of Liquor Drinking
TEXT: Noah planted vineyard, and he
drank Of the tcine and t1dS drunken. -
Genesis tx, 20, 81.
thing for the world. He built an ark
against the deluge Of water, but intro
duced a deluge against which the human
race has ever since been trying to build an
ark-the deluge of drunkenness. In my text
We hear his staggering steps Shem and
Japhet tried to cover up the disgrace, but
there he is, drunk on wine at a time 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 fiocks of Nabal her husband. from con-
hscation by invaders, goes home at night
and finds him 30 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 despolia-
ton of o household Even the church bishops
needed to be charged to be sober and not
given to too much wine and so familiar
were people OF Bible times with the stazger-
ing and falling motion of the inebriats that
Isaiah, when he comes to describe the final
dislocation OF the worlds, says, 1.-THE earth
shall reel to and fro like a drunkard"
Ever since apples and grapes and wheat grew
the world has been tempted to unhealthful
stimulants But the intoxicants of the oIden
time were an innocent beverage, harmless
orangeade, quiet syrup, a peaceful soda
water as compared with the liquids of mod
ern inebriation, into which madness and
fury, and gloom, and a fire, and a suicide,
and retribution have mixed and mingled.
Fermentation was always known, but it was
not until a thousand years after Christ
we must confess that some of the
ancient arts have been lost, the,
Christian era is superior to all others in
the bad eminence of whisky and rum and
gin. The modern drunk is a hundredfold
worse than the ancient drunk. Noah in his
intoxication became imbecile, but the vic
tins of modern alcoholism have to struggle
with whole menageries of wild beasts and
tungles of kissing serpents, and perditions of
Of disappearing demons.
An arch ffeud arrived in our world and
he built an invisible caldron of temptation.
He 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 dis
tillation from the harvest fields and the.
orchards of the hemispheres. Then he poured
into this caldron capsicum aud copperas and
logwood and deadly nightshade and assault
and battery and vitriol 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 a
dry compound and it must be moistened, and
1t must be hquefied, and so the arch fiend
poured into that caldron the tears OF ceLtu-
ries of orphanage and widowhood, and ne
poured in the blood of twenty thousand as
sassiDationS-
And then the arch fend took a shovel that
he had brought up from the furna ces 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
cred around it with cups and tankards and
demijohns and kegs, and there was enough
for all, and the arch fienl cried: AHA |
champion fiend am |! Who has done more
than l have for coffins and graveyards and
prisons and insane asylums, and the populat-
Ing of the lost worlds And when this caldron
is emptied I'll fill it again and I'll stir it
| again, and it will smoke again, and that
smoke will join another smoke, the smoke of
torment that ascendeth fer ever and ever.
| drove fifty ships on the rocks of New
| foundland, and the Skerries, and the Good
wins. l have ruined more senators
than gather this winter in the ma
tional councils. l have ruined more lords
LDdH arc no" RdJueftu III Un6 HOuS6l
Of peers. The cup out of which ordinarily
drink is bleached human skull, and the
upholstery of my palace is so rich a crimson,
because it is dyed in human gore, and the
mosaic of my floors is made up of the bones
of children dashed to death by drunken
parents, and my favorite music-sweeter
than TIE Deum or triumphal march-my
favorite music is the cry of daughters turned
out at midnight on the street because father
has come home from the carousa 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 fiend am l l have
kindled more fires, have wrung out more
ngonies, l have stretched out more mid
night shadows, l have opened more Col
gothas, have rolled more Juggernauts, [
have damned more souls than any other
emissary of diabolism. Champion flend
amir
Drunkenness is the greatest evil of this
nation, and it takes no logical process to
prove to this audience that drunken nation
cannot long be a free nation. l call your at
tention to the fact that drunkenness is not
subsiding, certainly that it is not at stand
still, but that it is on an onward march, and
it is a double quick. There is more rum
swallowed in this country, and of worse
kind than was ever swallowed since the first
distillery began its work of death. Where
there was one drunken home there are ten
drunken homes. Where there was one
drunkard's grave there are twenty drunk
ards graves. 1t is on the increase. Talk
about crooked whisky-by which men mean
the whisky that does not pay the tax to gov
ernment-l tell you all strong drink is
crooked. Crooked Otard crooked Cognac,
crooked schnapps, crooked beer, crooked
wine, crooked whisky-hecause it makes a
mans path crooked, and his lite crooked. and
his death crooked and his eternity crooked.
If / could gather all the armies OF the dead
drunkards and have them come to resurrec-
ton, and then add to that host all the armies
| of living drunkards, five and ten abreast,
/ and then If | could have you mount a horse
and ride along that line for review, you
| would ride that horse till he dropped from
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 hour
and day after day. Great host in regiments,
in brigades. Great armies OF them. Aud
| then if you had voice stentorian enough to
make them all hear, aud you could give the
command, Forward, march" their first
tramp would make the earth tremble. | do
not care which way you look in the commun-
| itY to day the evil is increasing
| call attention to the fact that there are
thousands of people born with a thirst for
strong drink-a fact too often ignored.
| Along some ancestral lines there runs the
! river of temptation. There are children
! whose swaddling clothes are torn off the
shroud Of death Many father has made
a will of this sort I'm the name of Col,
amen. bequeath to my children my houses
and lands and estates; share and share shall
they alike. Hereto l affix my hand and seal
In the presence of witnesses" And yet per-
haps that very man has made another will
that the people have never read, and that
has not been provos' in the courts That will
| put in writing would read something like
this: in the name of disease and appetite
and death, amen. bequeath to my children
I my evil habits, my tankarjs shall be theirs,
my wine cup shall be theirs my DESTROYED
reputation shall be theirs. Share and share
alike shall they in the infamy. Hereto l at
fix my hand and seal in the pres suce of all
the applauding harpies of hell
From the multitude of those who have
the evil habit born with them this army is he
ing augmented And am sorry to say that a
great many of the drug stores are abetting
this evil, AMI alcohol is sold under the name
of bitters. 1t is bitters for this and bitters
for that and bitters for some other thing,
and good men deceived, not knowing there
IS any thralldom of alcoholism coming from
tnat source, are going down, and some day
man sits with the bottle of black bitters on
ms table, and the cork flies out. and after II
MES mend and clutches the man by his
throat and SAYS: "Ahai have been after
you for ten years. l have got YOU now
Down with you, down with youg' Bitters /
an yes; They make mans family bitter
and his home bitter and his disposition bitter
and his death bitter AMI his hell bitter. Bit
tiers A vast army all the time increas-
ing.
1t seems to me it is about time for the Il,
0O0, 600 professors of religion in America to
take sides. 1t is going to be an ont and out