Mexico weekly ledger., 1891-11-12

Elder Samuel Magee, we'll known
in this section as a bright young
minister of the Christian church,
writes the following highly interest
ing letter from his home in Hale
City, Mo-, to the Centralia Guard,
Rev. Mr.. Magee having just return
ed from Dwight, where he was per-
manently cured of the use of liquor.
His many friends everywhere re-
joice with him in his great victory
over the accursed enemy of man.
kind.
Last Monday afternoon I left
Dwight after a four weeks sojourn.
On the morning Of the day of my
departure DR.. Blaine took me by
the hand and in bidding me fare
well and Godspeed, said: "Your
perils have passed, and you will
return to your duties strong, brave
and safe in the consciousness of
YOUR cure. Intelligent people will
not blame you for your past, be-
cause you could not help it. You
will never need stimulants again.
In the future you have nothing to
fear. Hereafter there can be no
temptation"
OF my cure-and it came swiftly
and certainly will not write fur
ther than to say that at the expira-
ton of the four weeks | was pro-
nounced cured. Of my life and
the years during which I struggled
to overcome the necessity for liquor
it is not my purpose to write at
length. They are years freighted
with sorrow and suffering, and the
history will unveil the wounds
in hearts too sacred, pure and gen.
tie to undergo publicity. 1t would
carry me back to hours when every
incentive to live and do right was
in my surroundings aud then it
would leave me to caverns of des-
pair, darker than Dante's blacklist
dream. Pursued by a thousand
recollections impossible to escape,
l have struggled from the Atlantic
to the Pacific oceans, through the
length and breadth Of this land,
fighting, fearing and inevitably sue
cumbing to a disease which never
r~elents and whose exquisite tortures
are only understood by its hapless
and helpless victims. In the
course Of my unhappy and pur-
poseless pilgrimage, l came to
Hale City, broken in spirit and in
body, with but a faint hope for the
future, and with a memory which
kept constantly before me the Bit
terness of an ~irretrievable past.
The brethren and friends in Hale
City welcomed me to their homes
and gave me every manifestation
of love and respect. But the final
crisis was near and when it came
the well-spring Of hope was ex-
hausted and refused longer to fur
nish its stimulant, and I, trembling
on the verge Of a terrible but GER
tam ending of the miseries which
| could no longer endure. Your
readers are aware Of the circum-
stances attending the crisis-the
"brother" and "sister" Christians
have generously and persistently
published the humiIiating details
and rendered their recapitulation
unnecessary.
When l lelt Dwight a large dele
CATION Of the "boys' accompanied
me to the railway station and
waited to see me off, and as l
gazed over the crowd at the depot
- several hundred | mentally
observed: at is a group of fine
looking men,"
While professional temperance
exhorters and political prohibition
lists criticise the gold cure because
it takes from them their avocation,
the number Of fallen men who seek
Dwight grows daily. They have
been tried before the bar of q
mothers love, of a wife's affection,
and of a child's respect, and have
been adjudged guilty. They have
no desire or time to quarrel now
with the w. c. T.. U. They en-
brace the gold cure as the only
avenue left to them whereby they
may regain their lost manhood; they
prefer to be sober men first and
Christians afterwards. If all per-
sons were so constituted that they
could set down the bottle and pick
up the Bible, DIR. Kelley would have
few if any patients, and moral sua-
sion, temperance arguments, legis-
~lation, and the entreaties of loved
ones would continue to be tie only
agents for the reclamation of fallen
humanity. But unfortunately che
grip of the liquor habit has too of
ten defeated such well-meant en-
deavon. Men leave the temperance
lecture and the prohibition meeting
with their duty toward themselv.s
clearly defined, but the appetite is
a.ta - - .A~- .~-So ~ knw~-