The record-union., 1891-05-06
Word PAINTING.
Luther Benson Employs 1t in Fighting
lntemperance.
He Delivers Another Eloquent Lecture.
and Deals Hard Blows at
King Alcohol.

Luther Benson lectured for the third
time at the Sixth-street Methodist Church
last night to very large audience. In
speaking Of the effects of liquor on the
mind and body. he said: MEN come to
me and say that liquor is one of Gods
good creatures, made to be used and not
abused. God never made one drop OF
liquor! You may examine every struct-
ure and every fluid of that being whom
alone God has taught to laugh, or weep,
and all tribes of animated existence that
roam the woods, or wing the sky, or roll
along the flood, and you will not find one
drop of liquor.
''Then, go into the vegetable kingdom
-analyze the elementary grain, the nutri-
tious seed, the esculent roots and the
luscious fruits, and you will not find one
drop of liquor.
''Then go down into the mineral regions,
explore the depths Of old ocean herself,
and say to you that Nature-through-,
out all her domain of things animate and
inanimate-never produc2d one drop OF
alcohol!
whence comes it, then? Man, led on
by the solicitations of a depraved instinct,
produces it! Not by any process Of life
and growth, but by q process of death
and decay 1t is the child of death. and
not OF life, and growth, and development;
and 1t has no more place among mans
beverages than arsenic has among his
food.
There is no poison that ever went into
the human body so deadly as alcohol. If
you take arsenic, or any other poison,
doctor can take stOmach-pump and
pump it out: but LIQUOR goes into the
blood and with tho l,lpnI int ,n
brain and bakes and cooks and scalds and
haTdenS the brain, until reason topples,
trem1lcS, crumbleS and falls from her
throne.
1T is crime and sin that men should
make and drink their own destruction.
We touch very nigh Deity when we stand
on the summit of intellectual region In
a little hollow globe, bounded by a skull,
with dome no larger than q tortoise
shell, dwells that namelesS and immortal
power which we call mind Out from
underneath. this dome have gone in
gloomy or shining professions all
thoughts that men have ever thought
From this land-loclled harbor all ships
whose prOWs have searched for new lands
and undiscovered seas have first sailed
Here it is that poetry strings her tuneful
Tyre; and history, with Whitened locks,
labors at her accommodating scroll; here,
too, it is that all curious inventions are
wrought out; here, too, religion finds her
altar, and piety her place to kneel. But
best and grandest of all, there dwells
within these chambers, which the mind
calls home, imagination-she Of the dar-
ing eye and audaciOus foot-and gaZes
with unflinching eyes on the far-of'
realms where flesh has never entered.
and where men walk, as if by right di-
vine, the crystal pavement on the golden
street.
"Oh, what q history rum has made!
We find almost from the first of Genesis
to the close of Revelations the warnings,
pleadings and threatenings Of the Great
Jehovah against the awful sin Of drunk
enness. Science, history, and fearful eX-
perience have all shed their floods of
light Gpon this subject, and still this de-
stroyer marches on in his might, Staying
as with the sword of death. And yet, in
the face of and in spite of pleadings and
frightfGl examples, thousands and tens of
thousands of men are daily going to
drunkard's graves. The grandest spirits
that have ever rOamed this earth have
fallen, never 10 rise, and rivers Of tears
have flowed and seas Of agony rolled over
the heritage of humanity"
Mr.. Benson will deliver his last lecture
in this city at the Sixth-street Methodist
Church on Friday night. His subject
will be THE Temptations Of Appetite"