Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1891-03-02
PLAQUES OF THE CITIES.
THE SECOND SERMON IN Or. TALL
MAGE'S PRESENT SERIES.

Drunken"
NEW YORK, March /. - DR.. Talmage
continued today the series of sermons he
commenced Last Sunday ON the "Ten
Plaques of New York and the Adjacent
Cities" The plague which he places
second on the list is intemperance, aud 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
DR. Talmage went over to the Union
Square Theatre, where his son, Mr.. Frank
De Witt Talmage, was holding an over
flow meeting and briefly addressed the
crowded house. Both the New York SER
vices are under the auspices of The Chris
tian Herald, of which DR.. Talmage is editor.
The text of the doctors sermon was taken
from Genesis 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, He built an ark
against the deluge of water, but intro
duced deluge against which the human
race has ever since been trying to build an
ark-the deluge of drunkenness. lii my
text we hear his staggering steps. Shem
and Japhet tried to cover up the dis
grace 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.
lnebriation, having entered the world, has
not retreated. Abigail, the fair and heroic
wife, who saved the hocks of Nabal her.
husband, from confscation by invaders,
goes home at night and finds him so intox-
icated 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 despoliation of a 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 staggering and fall
ing motion of the inebriate that Isaiah,
when he comes to describe the final dislo-
cation of worlds, says, "The earth shall
reel to and fro like drunkard"
A WORLD WIDE TEMPTATION.
Ever since apples and grapes and wheat
grew the world has been tempted to I'M
heahhful stimulants. But the intoxicants
of the olden time were an innocent bever-
age, harmless orangeade, a quiet strip, a
peaceful soda water as compared with the
liquids of modern inebriation, into which
madness, and fury, and a gloom, and a fire,
and suicide, and a retribution have mixed
and mingled. Fermentation was always
known, but it was not until thousand
years after Christ that distillation was in
vented While 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 hundred fold
worse than the ancient drunk. Noah in
his intoxication became imbecile, but the
victims of modern alcoholism have to
struggle with whole menageries of wild
beasts, and jungles of kissing serpents, and
perditions of disappearing demons.
An arch fend arrived in our world, and
he built an invisible caldron of tempta-
ton. He built that caldron strong and
stout for all ages and all nations. First
he squeezed into the caldron the juices of
the forbidden fruit of Paradise Then he
gathered for it distillation from the har-
vest fields and the orchards of the hemis-
pheres Then he poured into this caldron
capsicum and copperas and logwood and
deadly nightshade and assault and battery
and vitriol and opium and rum and muir
der and sulphuric acid and theft and pot
ash and cochineal and red carrots and pow
erty and death and hops But it was dry
it must be liquefed, and so the arch fiend
poured into that caldron the tears of cent
uries of orphanage and widowhood, and
he poured in the blood of twenty thousand
assassnations.
And then the arch f1end took shovel
that he had brought up from the furnaces
beneath, and he put that shovel into this
great caldron and began to stir, and the
caldron began to heave and rock and boil
and sputter and hiss and smoke, and the
nations gathered 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 II
Who has done more than have for collins
and graveyards and prisons and insane
asylums, and the populating Of the lost
worldP And when this caldron is emp
tied Pll 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 for ever and ever.
drove fifty ships on the rocks of New
foundland, and the Skerries, and the |
Goodwins. | have ruined more senators |
than gather this winter in the national |
councils have ruined more lords |
than are now gathered in the house |
of peers. The cup out of which | |
ordinarily drink is a bleached human |
skull, and the upholstery of my palace is |
so rich crimson, because it is dyed in hui |
man 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 Te Deum or triumph !
al march-my favorite music is the cry of |
daughters turned out 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
was not himself when he put the
ship on the wrong course Champion fiend
am II | have kindled more fires, have
wrung out more agonies, have stretched
out more midnight shadows, have opened
more Golgothas, have rolled more Jug
gernauts, have damned more souls than
any other emissary of diabolsm. Cham
pion iend am lP'
THE NATIONS GREATEST EVIL.
Drunkenness is the greatest evil of this
nation, and it takes no logical process to
prove to this audience that drunken ma
ton cannot long be "A free nation. | call
your attention to the fact that drunken
ness is not subsiding, certainly that it is
not at stand3till, but that it is on an on
ward march, and it is a double quick.
There is more rum swallowed in this coun-
try, and of a 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 drunkards' graves.
1t is on the increase. Talk about crooked
which men mean the whisky
that does not pay the tax to government
tell you all strong drink is crooked.
Crooked Otard, crooked Cognac, crooked