The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1895-12-20
TALMAGE's SERMON.
A Pointed Discourse Upon Winter
Night Temptations.
Beware OF the Evils OF Evening Resorts
5hun sthe Demon of Drink and
the Allurements Follow
Ing In Its Train.

Paul was not independent of the sea
sons He sent for his overcoat tc
Troas on a memorable occasion. And
now in the text he is making arrange.
ments for the approaching cold wealth.
er, and makes an appointment with
Titus to meet him at Nicopolis, saying;
81 have determined there TO winter, y
Well, this is the eighth day of Decem.
Der and the second Sabbath of the
winter. We have had a few shrill,
sharp blasts already, forerunners OF
whole regiments of storms and tenn
pests. No ono here needs to be told
that we are in the opening gates of the
winter. This season Is not only a test
OF ones physical endurance, but IN our
great cities is test of moral charac-
ter. A vast number of people have by
one winter of dissipation been
destroyed, and forever. Seated in
our homes on some stormy night,
the winds howling outside, we imagine
the shipping helplessly driven on the
coast, but any winter night, if our ears
were good enough, we could hear the
crash OF thousand moral shipwrecls.
There are many people who came to
the cities on the first of September
who will be blasted by the first of
March. At this season of the year
temptations are especially rampant.
Now that the long winter evenings
have come, there are many who will
employ them in high pursuits, in in
telligent socialities, in Christian work,
in the Strengthening and ennobling of
moral character, and this winter to
many of you will be the brightest and
the best of all your lives, and in antici-
patton L congratulate you. But to
others il may not have such effect, and
l charge you, my beloved, look out
where You spend your winter nights.
In the first place, have to remark
that at this season of the year evil
Rllurements are especially busy. There
is not very much temptation for a man
to plunge in on a hot night amid blaz-
ing gaslightS, and to breathe the fetid
air of an assemblage, but in the cold
nights Satan gathers great harvest.
AT such times the casinos are in full
blast. AT such times the grogshops in
one night make more than in four or
FIVE nights in summer. At such times
the play bills of low places of enter
tainment seem especially attractive,
and the acting is especially impressive,
and the applause especially bewitching.
Many a man who has kept right all the
rest of the year will be capsized now,
and, though last autumn he came
from the country and there was
luster in the eye and there
were roses in the cheek and elasticity
In the step, by the time the spring hour
has come you will pass him in the
street and say to your friend: whats
the matter with that man? How diE.
ferently he looks from what he looked
last September" Slain from one win
ter's dissipation. At this time of the
year there are many entertainments.
II we rightly employ them, and they
are of the right kind, they enlarge our
socialities, allow us TO make important
acquaintance, build us up in our NOR
ais, and help us in a thousand ways. /
can scarcely think of anything better
than good neighborhood. But there
are those entertainments from which
others will come bespoiled in charac-
ter. There are those who by the
springtime will be broken down in
health, and though at the opening of
the season their prospects were bright,
at the close of the season they will be in
the hands of the doctors, or sleeping in
the cemetery. The certificate of death
will be made out, and the physician, to
save the feelings of the family, will
call the disease by Latin name. But
the doctor knows, and everybody else
Away with all these wine-drinking
convivialities. How dare you, the ia
ther of family, tempt the appetites of
tho young people? Perhaps at the en-
tert1inment, to save the feelings of the
minister or some other weak temper
ance man, you leave the decanter in
side room, and only few people are
invited there to partaxe; but it is easy
enough to know when you come out,
the glare of your eye and the stencil of
your breath, that you have been serv-
ing the devil.
Men sometimes excuse themselves
and say, after late suppers it is neces-
sary to take some stimulant to aid di-
gestion- My plain opinion is that if
you have no more self-control than to
stun NOuAc cCAA uhbAA SOuA uAS SCcbANC Ut
gans refuse their Office, you had better
not call yourself man, but class your
self among the beasts that perish. At
this season of the year the Young
Mems Christian associations of the
land send out circulars asking the
pastors to speak a word on
this subject, and SO / sound in
your ear the words of the Lord
God Almighty: ''Woe unto him
that putteth the bottle to his neigh
hor's lips" Rejoice that you have
come to the glad winter months that
remind you of the times when in your
childhood you were shone on by the
face of father, mother. brothers, sis
ters, some of them, alas no more to
meet you with Happy New Year"
or a Merry Christmas. But again
and again have we seen on New Years
day the sons of some of the best fam
lilies drunk, and young men have ex-
cused themselves by the fact that
the wine-cup has been offered by
the ladies'; and again and again
Il has been found out that a :zdy's
hand mas kindled the young mans
thirst for strong drink, and long after
all the attractions OF the holiday have
passed that same woman crouches in
z L =