The San Francisco call., 1896-04-19


ment OF man to the final roundup. Some
men will have only prohibition. Each has
right to his creed.
Now. shall l tell you bluntly the cause
OF increasing intemperance among our
rich and poor people in America? Bluntly
our poor and rich people have caught
fatal disease from the gay and luxurious
french OF Paris--a disease that makes
them desperate-a disease that drives them
to drunkenness, death-often death by
their own hands, for ours is the land of
suicides.
And what is the fatal French disease
that is driving us to drunkenness-death
by our own hands?
High up on the portal walls of Paris and
over their temple doors the French once
emblazoned this mad lie: "There is no
God! Death is an eternal sleep" And
although this has been obliterated from
the walls and temple doors it still testers
cries out In the night: There is no God.
Death is an eternal sleep, and since death
ends all will eat, drink and be merry
for tomorrow | die"
This is the fatal disease the poor rich
people of America have caught from the
gay French of foolish Paris. Our rich and
travelled people will not be outdone by
Parisians, even in atheism. They, too, cry
out, "There is no God; death is an eternal
sleep: therefore l, too, will eat, drink and
be merry, for tomorrow die" But can
any law, prohibition or otherwise, reach
the poor rich in America? more than
10000 suicides and homicides last year."
said the Superintendent of Schools for
California last month at Los Angeles.
And did you ever hear of a suicide who
was Christian? Did you ever hear of
suicide who was true Mussulman Did
you ever hear of a suicide who was a true
Indian? never knew or heard of a Mus
sulman who committed suicide. l never
knew or heard of one who was not certain
of another and better world. Inever
knew of an Indian in all my intercourse
with them who committed suicide, and
never knew one who was not certain of i'm
mortality. He read it in the resurrection
of the little seeds that fell from the trees
into the hollow OF Gods hand. He read
it in the resurrection of the great, dead,
yellow year that had laid down in its
shroud of snow, awaiting the roaring
month of March to trumpet through the
pines and waKen it again and garment 1t
and garland it in foliage and in flames
And he never knew one doubt till the
white man came to put aside mis- book of
nature and try to teach him from another
book.
Go teach the rich man, whom no law
can reach, the truths of Immortality and
you will teach him temperance. l care
not, so far as results go, whether you teach
him the Immortality of the Turk, l care
not whether you teach him the immortal
ity of the Theosophist, the Indian or the
Christian, only teach him that he is not
Chinaman, to be blown out like candle,
and you will save him from dissipation
drunkenness, death.
And here is where and why woman
must be the savior of the world. Woman
by herself, alone, unwarped by man,
knows, knows as Socrates knew, that she
m p1n nrfal IG there nhpliayine.
woman to one hundred unbelieving men?
There is not one to a thousand if left to
her own finer senses unbiased by the
luxuries and the follies of man. She
knows, she knows!
True, there have been, there are, great
women, blinded by the books of men, who
willingly walk in darkness and doubt be-
cause-because it is counted brave, bright,
Partisan; and yet in their heart of hearts
they know better. They naturally, like
the Indian, read Immortality in the book
OF nature.
But how are you to reach the poor rich
yonng men of America? How can you
earnest women reach these young men,
who, as rule, are ashamed of their
fathers, who were hewers of wood and
drawers of water2 Each mans house is
his castle. May not each rich man make
his house wine cellar II he pleases2 You
may prohibit anu prohibit and yet your
70 vs. "oui0 O0 Ouly otLaWo Ah eAO WlAQ.
You have got to reach these men as Jesus
reached the hearts of men-by love, not by
legislation; by lessons from the lilies Of
| the field; by the continual lesson of i'm
mortality from the eternal book of nature.
Go to the rich drunkard or atheist, the
same thing in the end, with the Book in
your hand. If he is on his deathbed and
he knows he is on his deathbed, he may
listen to you; If he is not on his deathbed
he will politely laugh at you and ask you
how you know it is Gods book. Drop the
Book and take up leaf, a flower, blade
Of grass-for every blade of grass is a saber
waving in the wind, battling for God and
truth and immortali.y-say to him, "Here,
whatever that book may be, this is His
work. This, this little dusty downtrodden
blade of grass is Gods work. and all the
genius and wit and industry and learning
OF all the men that have ever lived never
dared dream of making even so much as
single blade of grass OF all the grasses that
carpet the earth for the feet OF unbelieving
man."
And behold how beautiful, how miracu-
lously, indescribably beautiful this one
little blade of grass, that has seen the
resurrection and has risen to testify to inn
mortality! I would point to the little
flowers on the fervid foothills, the sapphire,
the snow white, the poppies garmented in
gold; and on up, up to the chaparral sing
ing with busy brown bees, and on UP
to the pines, the tsmarack, the spruce,
the cedar, the juniper, the sequoia
On up, on up to the rock built
battlements of the Sierras; on, on up
to where the snow-clad pyramids prop the
porch of heaven with their icy helmets,
and on, and on. and on to where the ever
lasting stones burn incense perpetually on
GODS altar, lighting the way for souls to
the endless worlds beyond. Believe me,
the haven of the great ship of Temperance
is not in Law but Love; Faith and Hope
and Charity. These three are the Fortu-
nate Isles in our mad sea of doubt, dark
ness, death.
One variety of the cricket has its ears in