The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1892-08-24
SLAVES OF THE CUP.
Men Whose Bright Minds Were Ruined
by Drink.


by Drink.
II Is a common observation that it is
often the most gifted of men that be-
come the slaves of drink. 1t is often
the cleverest workman, the ablest at his
business, the man of strongest muscle
and best brain, that becomes at last the
helpless sot. The fine scholar, the
bright, genial companion, the hand
some boy, the favorite brother or son,
seem, alas. peculiarly susceptible to
the fascination of the siren sisters.
And often the finer the gifts the greater
the degradation. Men endowed with
''the vision of the faculty divine
poets sown by nature, with an eye for
all that is beautiful in the world, and
lips from which pearls and diamonds
seem to drop, are sometimes the very
men that are dragged into the pigstye.
If Bacchus does not refuse your
coarse. brutalized wretches, to whom
the gutter seems Il natural home, he
certainly will not be content with this
scum; the refined lady, the cultured
scholar, the artist, the singer, even the
philosopher must contribute their con-
tingent to the list of his worshipers.
How many tears have been shed over
Robert Burns How many pangs have
shot through hearts that have been
melted by his love and tenderness, his
deep sympathy and intense humanity,
his profound distress for all the sorrows
and sufferings of mankind. How strik-
ing it is to trace the resemblance be-
tween his natural gifts and those of the
psalmist David, and then contrast the
issue of their lives. Both SO full Of
warm feeling, with bright and sunny
temperament, IA winsomeness Of nature
that draws all hearts to theYThe ssy a
spell. Both having the poetichf tgift in
singular profusion, and running, too,
in the same channel-lyrical song.
Both beginning life in similar way,
the one shepherd, the other plow-
man, tenderly loving the lower animals
and delighting in the beauties of crea-
ton In the nature of both a strong
sensual fiber; liable to be overcome by
bursts of passion, the fruits of which
afterward fill them with remorse. Here
the comparison ends. David yields
himself to God in way that, to say
the least, never became radically eff
fective with the other; and thereby
David's life is redeemed from vice and
frivolity, and becomes Il blessing to his
fellows. Poor Burns is overcome by
drink, and all that was so full of prom
Use in him is only like light twinkling
on a wreck, or gem half buried in a
ruin.
A less conspicuous member of the
frail brotherhood was John Logan, a
contemporary for a short time Of the
famous preacher Hugh Blair, but of
higher gifts than his. Logan was a
minister in the town of Leith, the sea-
port of Edinburgh, and was not only a
very effective preacher, but author of
some of the finest hymns in the lee
ton of ''paraphrases" long familiar to
the people of Scotland. He was indeed
a mixed character, ana had great am
bition to shine rs a dramatic writer
like his brother divine John Howe, the
author of Douglas. A play of which
he thought highly was brought out on
the stage but proved failure, which
so mortified him that, according to the
common rumor he took to drinking, in
consequence of which he resigned his
charge and gave himself to literary
work. Soon after he died, few years
older than Burns, but in the very flow
err of his life-only forty -four.
What shall we say of Charles Lamb:
Was there ever more delightful com
panion, more lively writer, man OF
finer clay? His essays ripple over with
delicate humor, he was the idol of his
| friends, hardly one of them but would
have done anything to save him. But
much though he tried to overcome, the
attractions of the bottle were too great
| for him. A self-shattered man, he was
a source of grief to those who loved
him best; made apparently to diffust
| Joy and sunshine. he too often diffusec
sadness and tears.
Hartley Coleridge, the gifted son of {
| gifted father, had still sadder history
| At Oxford he carried all before him
and there seemed to be no distinction
which he was not capable of attaining
In his early youth he became the bono
slave of drink. After much warning
and amid untold lamentations, he had I,
be expelled from the university. From
the darling of his friends he becam,
their despair. The degradation which
drink brought on him could not be told
In Grasmere churchyard, in the LAX,
district, is shown the tomb of one VIII,
might have been an angel, but wa.
more like a fallen spirit Yet his Re
mains" show what fine gifts of SOM
and scholarship were his, and what
bright and useful life he might hav,
led. but for the fell fascination tina
overwhelmed him.
Edgar Allen Poe. one of 'he mos
gifted youths the United States ha
produced, became the subject of lik'
degradation, and under the influenc