The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1896-09-10
WHO is ON THE LORDS slDE2

mon in Westminster abbey on the above
text. We have not space to give the
whole sermon; a few passages bear
ing upon temperance we Gull for the
benefit of our readers.
IF there be one manifest besetting
public sin in this nineteenth century
civilization concerning which it is APP
propriate to sound the solemn chal-
| !enge: Who is ON the Lords side%
and as to which suspended judgment
and selfish inaction constitute a crime
against man and God, it is the treacher-
Gus, fascinating, degrading evil of in
temperance. This open cancer of our
national life is terrible in its virulence,
vest in it's qualifications. To the ruin it
engenders, all alike bear witness. From
the army, from the navy, from great
cities, from country villages, from the
police, from guardians of the poor.
| from manufacturers, merchants, en-
ployers of labor, from physicians,
judges, from clergy of every denomina-
ton, and most often, and most bitterly,
from the workingmen themselves, come
pouring in the accumulated testimonies
to the prevalence, the deadliuess of this
degrading sin.
"Fhysiogically total abstinence is
advantageous. Theologically it is
Christlike; philanthropically, it is
influential. The one destructive argu-
ment that can be urged against it is
that it is unconventional, and conven-
tiOnality is the god of society. But the
resistless logic of the Man of Nazareth
has proved that conventionality, social
custom, and even religious propriety
vanish into thin air before the pressure
Of necessity. Which of you,' He said,
when they accused Him of unconven-
tionality for healing on the Sabbath,
which of you shall have an OK or an
ass fallen into pit and will not straight
way lin spite of all conventionality,
law and custom, in spite of the whole
decalogue) pull him out on the Sabbath
day" Can language eXaggerate the
depth and horror of the national pit
Of intemperance from which the agony
OF thousands comes surging upward
like the melancholy wash of endless
wlJesY In the DAYS of the crusades
men of the bravest hearts and noblest
| blood in Europe bound themselves to-
gether in a Semi-religious, semi-milI-
tary order under the strongest vows,
one Of which, curiously enough, was
that they should drink only water. in
order to defend the Holy Sepulcher
against the infidel. To-day tens of
| thousands of men, women and children
are bound together by a solemn ohli-
! CATION of total abstinence from all in
toXicants, that they may wage a mod
ern crusade against this curse of ma
tons, and defend the human temples
of the Holy Spirit against a foe more
| bitter than Saracen or Turk. And when
from this pulpit [ appeal tonight for
new crusaders under the banner of total
abstinence, more of you, especially the
good and the religious, are held back
from joining us by the fear of singular
| lty, unconventionality, or fanaticism,
| than from any other motive. l answer,
. the OK and the ass, the strong and the
weak together, are in the pit Custom
or no custom, conventionality or no con-
ycntionality, they must be pulled out,
and the Lord calls you to His side to
| help in doing it.
| Though the habits of social life re-
volt against the custom of total absti-
nence, though glib theories of the lib
erty of the subject and the due enjoy
nsant of the gifts of God seem to be con-
tradicted by it's propaganda, though
| legallyIicensed vendors of profitable
| commodity cry out if men cease to pur-
chase from them madness by the bottle,
theurgentneedo of the community knows
no laws-not even the law of Sinai, with
all the rabbis of the temple to back it,
for the OK and the ass are in the pit. The
active side Of the Divine remedial energy
consists in personally seeking and saw
! ing the lost. 1t is a veritable descend
! ing into hadcs to preach to the spirits
i'll prison. The dignity and power Oh
! Gods workers consisGin their identifca-
ton in heart and method with the
Christ. When He, the purest being ever
born of woman, willingly enters into
the awful prison of disobedient spirits
that He might plumb the depth of their
misery and tell them of the pardoning
love of God, He taught us that there is
a point in human degradation at which
rescue becomes impossible unless the
rescuer will descend to the very depth
Of hades to seek and save the lost.
THE imagination of man is not able
to conceive any hell more foul than the
drinl-cursed slums of a densely-popu-
lated English town. You who are
| shielded by the purer surroundings of
your quiet homes imagine that we are
fanatical, and speak in terms of exag-
geration. 1t is because you do not know
what drunkenness is, and we do, be-
cause we have descended into hell.
Michael Angelo, before he painted the
altar-piece of the Conventual Church of
Florence, had the collins of the newly
buried opened and placed beside him,
that the hideous anatomy of death
might be burned into his soul, enabling
him to produce it with terrible effect.
In like manner the hideous anatomy of
drink-cursed men and women is burnt
into our minds, because again and again
we have descended into hell. But we re-
member those words of Whittier:
" Still ThV love q Christ arisen