Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1895-08-21

i 01ncent.
There are those who are kept in povert.
l because OF their own fault. They might hav'
! been well of, but they smoked or chewed VI
| their earnings, or they lived beyond theil
| means, while others on the same wages ant
| on the same salaries went on to competency
l know a man who was all the time com
planning Of his poverty and crying ou
dogs. and chews and smokes. and Is full tt
the chin with whisky and beer. Wilkins MI
cawber said to David Copperaeld, cooper
field, my boy. one pound income, expenses
twenty shillings and six pence; result
misery. But. Copperfleld, my boy, ono pound
pence; result, happiness" But, o working
man Of America. take your morning dram
| and your noon dram, and your evening dram
and spend everything you have over for to.
/ srty for yourself and your children forever
II by some generous fiat OF the capitalist.
of this country, or by n new law Of the Gov
| srnment of the United States, twenty-five
per cent, or fifty per cent, or one hundred
per cent. were added to the wages of the
working classes of America, IL would be nc
| advantage to hundreds Of thousands Of them
| unless they stopped strong drink. Aye, un.
IL they quit that evil habit, the more money
| :hs more ruin, the more wages, the NOR
| lOles in the bag.
My plea this morning is to those working
] people who are in a dsctpleship to whisky
bottle, the beer-mug, and the wine-fask.
And what I say to them will not be more ap-
propriate to the working classes than to the
business classes, and the literary classes, and
| the pre- fessional classes. and ali classes, and
| not with the people Of one age more than
I of all ages. Take one good square look at
the suffering of the man whom strong drink
has enthralled, and remember that toward
that goal multitudes are running. The dis
,iple of alcoholism suffers the loss Of self
respect.
Just as soon as n man wakes up and finds
hat he is the captive Of strong drink, he feels
1emeansd. I do not care how reckless he
acts. He may say, II don't care;" he does
care. He cannot look pure man in the eye
unless it Is with positive force of resolution.
Three-fourthS OF his nature is destroyed:
his self-respect is gone; he says things he
| would not otherwise say; he does things
he would not otherwise do. When a
man is nine-tenths gone with strong
drink, the fint thing he wants to do is to
persuade you that he can stop any time he
wants to. He cannot. The Philistine5 have
bound him hand and foot, and shorn his
him grind In the mill Of great horror. He
cannot stop. will proveit. HeknOws that
his course Is bringing ruin upon himself.
He loves himself. If he could stop he would.
He knows his course is bringing ruin upon
his family. He loves them. He would stop
If he could. He cannot. Perhaps he could
:hree months or a year ago. not now. Just
iss him to stop for month. He cannot; he
knows he cannot, so he does not try.
1 had a friend who was for fifteen years
going down under this evil habit. He had
large means. He had given thousands of
dollars to Bible societies and reformatory
institutions of all sorts. He was very
genial, very generous. and very lovable, and
whenever he talked about this evil habit he
would say, Il can stop any time" But he
kept going on, going On, down, down,
1own. His family would say. 81 wish you
ran stop any time i'll want to-" After
while he hal delirium tremens: he had it
twict; and yet. after that. he said. 81 could
stop at any time IL wanted to-" He is dead
now. What killed him? Rum! Rum! And
yet among his last utterances was, 'I can
stop at any time" He did not stop it, be-
cause he could not stop it. Oh, there is a
point in inebriation beyond which If a man
goes he cannot stopi
One OF these victims said to Christian
nan. 'Sir. if were told that 1 couldn't get
a drink until tomorrow night unless had
all my fingers cut off. would say. Bring
the hatchet and cut them Off now.'" Ihave
dear friend In Philadelphia whose nephew
came to him one day, and, when he was eX-
horted about his evil habit, said, ''Uncle,
SAINT give it up. II there stood a cannon
and it was loaded, and glass Of wine were
L
hat you would fire it of as came up and
look the glass, L would start, for must
lave it."
Oh, it is sa thing for a man to wake mp
n this life and feel that he is a captive! He
says. 81 could have got rid OF this at once,
out can't now. might have lived an hon
orable life and died a Christian death; but
here is no hope for me now; there is no
sscape for me. Dead, but not buried. am
walking corpse, am an apparitiOn OF what
[ once Was. l am u Gagged i'm Mortal beating
against the wires OF my cage in this direc-
blood on the wires and blood upon nv soul.
yet not able to get out. Destroyed without
emedy!"
go on, and say that the disciple Of run
uffers from the loss OF health.
The older men in the congregation may re-
through this country and electrified the peo-
pie by his lectures, in which he showed the
effects Of alcoholism on the human stomach.
He had seven or eight diagrams by which he
showed the devastation Of strong drink upon
The physical system. There were thousands
of people that turned back from that ulcer
ous sketch, swearing eternal abstinence from
everything that could intoxicate.
God only knows what the drunkari suf-
fers. Pain files on every nerve, and travels
every muscle, and gnaws every bone, and
burns with every flame, and stings with
torture. What reptiles crawl over his Creep
ing limbs! What fiends stand by his mid
night pillow! What groans tear his ear!
What horrors shiver through his soul! Talk
Of the rack. talk Of the Inquisition, talk OF
the funeral pyre talk Of the crushing Jug.
gernaut-he feels them all at once. Have you
ever been in the ward Of the hospital where
:hese inebriates are dying, the stencil Of theii
wounds driving back the attendants, their
voices sounding thr n the night? The
Keeper comes up and SAYS, "Hush, now, be
still! Stop making all this noiser' But it
S effectual only for moment. for rs soon
As the keeper is yor' they begin again,
"Oh, God! Oh, God! Help. Help! Rum!
Give me rum! Help! Take them Off me!
Take them off me! On, God"' And then they
shrek, and they rave, and they pluck out
heir hair by handfuls. and bite their nails
into the quick, and then they groan, and
they shrek, and they blaspheme, and they
ask the keeper to kill them-''Stab me!
smother mel Strangle me. Take the devils
off mel Oh, 1t Is no fancy sketch! That
thing Is going on now all up and down the
and. and 1 tell you further that this Is GO
ng to be- the death that some of you will
lie. l know 1t. l see 1t coming.
Again, the inebriate suffers through the
oss of home.
do not care how much he loves his wife
and children, If his passion for strong drink
has mastered him, he will do the most out
rink in any other way. he would sell his
family into eternal bondage. How many
homes have been broken up in that way no
one but God knows. Oh, is there anything
that will so destroy man for this life and
damn him for the life that is to come? hate
that strong drink. With all the concentrated
energies of my soul 1 hate IT. Do not
tell me that man can be happy when he
knows that he is breaking his wife's heart and
clothing his children with rags. Why. there
are on the roaIs and streets OF this land to-
day little children, barefooted, unwashed.
and unkempt-want on every pate OF their
faded dress and on every wrinkle OF their
prematurely old countenances, who would
have been In churches to-day. and as well
clad as you are. but for the fact that rum de
stroyed their parents and drove them into
the grave. o rum, thou toe OF God, thou
despoiler Of homes. thou recruiting officer
Of the pit, hate thee.
But my subject takes deeper tone, an4
that is. that the unfortunate Of whom l
speak suffers from the loss Of the soul.