Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1897-10-29
TALMAGES SERMON.
INTERESTING THEME BY The WASH
INCToN PREACHER.
story Of the Three TaNsrns-rhe huin
Wrought by Liquor-Crimson Wave OF
Dissipation Has Destroyed Nor" SAIL
or Than the Ocran-Maukind's Curse.

Seventeen miles south ~ Rome, Italy,
there was q villUl ut unfortunate name
and bibulous suggestion. \ tavern Il
place Of entertainment aud, In our time,
part OF the entertainment Is provision
Of intoNirants. one such place you Wogll
think would have beru enough Tor that
Italian village. No, There were three ui
them. with doors open for entertainment
and obfuscation. The world has never
lacked stimulating drinks. You remember
the condition of Noah on ono occasion,
and Of Ahigails husband, Nabai, aud III"
story of Brlshuzzar~ feast, and Benhadad-
amt the new wine in old bottles, ana whole
paragraphs un prohibition enactment
thousands Of wears before Neal Dow was
born: and NJ doubt Their" were whole
shelves Of inlammatury liquid IN these h"-
tets which gave the name To- the village
where paul~ friends came to meet him,
namely the Thee Invrrns. In vain |
search ancient geography for some salts
fyiug account of that village. Two roads
came from the sea coast tp that place; the
one from Actum and the other from fut"-
oil, the last road being the one which Paul
travelled There were no doubt, In that
village houses of merchandise and me-
chunics shops aud professional offices. but
nothing is known of them. All we know of
that village is that il had a profusion Of
inns-the Three Taverns. Paul did not
choose any one OF these tHVerns rs the
place to meet his friends. lie certainly
was very abstemiOus, but they made the
selection He had enlarged about keeping
the body under, though once he prescribed
for young theological student a stimu-
lating cordial for stomachic hi sorder;
but he told him TO take only small dose
"a little wine for thy stomach's sake
One of the worst things about these
Three Taverns was that they had especial
temptation for those who had just come
ashore People who had just landed at
Actium or Puteoli We're soon tempted by
these three hotels which were only little
way up from the beach Those who are
disorlered of the sea ltor il is a physical
disorganizer). instead of waiting for the
gradual return Of physical cquipoise, are
apt To take artificial means To brace up.
OF the one million sailors now on the sea,
how few of them coming ashore will escape
the Three Taverns, After surviving hurri-
canes cyclones, iceherg-. collisions, many
of them are wrecked in harhOr. | warrant
that if n calculation Were made Of the com.
/ paratve number of sailors lost at sea and
lost ashore, those drowned by the crimson
wave of dissipation would far outnumber
those drowned by the salt water.
Alas! that the large majority of those who
go down to the sea in ships should have
twice to pass the Three Tayerns, namely:
/ Before they 20 out and after they come in.
/ That fact was what aroused Father Taylor,
/ the great sailors preacher, at the Sailors
/ Bethel. Boston. and at a public meeting at
/ Charlestown he said. "All the machinery OF
/ the drunkard- making, soul.destroying
/ business is in perfect running order, from
the low grog holes on the docks, kept open
to ruin my poor sailor boys, to the great
/ establishments in Still House Square. and
/ when we ask men what is to be done about
it. they say you cant help it. and vet
there is Bunker Hill, and You say Won can I
stop it, and up there are Lexington and
Concord We might answer Father Tav.
Tors remark by saying. The trouble is not
| that W. can't stop il. hnt that W. won
stop it We must have more generations
stain before the world will fully wake up e
the evil. That which tempted the travel.
erS Of old who came M from tn" ~paUOrtS
of Artium and Puteoli is now the ruin Of
seatarjng men AZ they come up from the
coasts Of all the continents, namely, the
Three Tayerns
There are streets in some of our cities
where there are three or four tayerns on
every block; aye where every other house
is a tavern. You can take the Arabic num-
eral of my text, tn" three, and put on the
right hand side Of il one cipher and two
ciphers, and four cipherS. and that rein,
fOrcement of numerals will not express the
statistics Of American rummerirS. Even If
l. were a good healthy business supplying
Il necessity, an article supcrhly nutritious
it is business nightly oyerdone, and
there are three taveruS where there ought
to be only one.
The fact is, there are in another sense,
Three Taverns now. the gorgeous tavern
for the a1iuent, the medium tavern for the
working classes, and the tavern Of the
slums, and they stand in line, and many
people, beginning with the first, come
down, through the second, and come on,
at the third, At the first Of the three tay.
ems, the wines are Of celebrated vintage
and the WHISTLES are said to be pure. and
they are quaTed from cut glass, at marble
sidc-tables, under pictures approaching
masterpieces The patrons pull of THEN
kid gloves and hand their silk hats to tn,
waiter, and push back their hair with "a
hand on one finger Of which is Il cameo.
But those patrons are aptto stop visiting
that place. It is not the money that man
pays for drinks, for what are few hundred
or few thousand dollars to a man Of large
income: but theiE brain gets touched, and
that unbalances their Judgment, and they
can see fortunes in enterprises Surcharerl
with disaster. In longer or shorter time
they change taverns and they come down
to tavern the second, where the pictures are
not quite SO Scrupul0uS OF suggestion and
the small table is rOugher and the castor
standing on it is of German silver and the
air has been kept over from the night he.
fore and that which they sip from the
pewter mug has larger percentage of ben.
zine ambGrgris. creO-Ote, henbane, ~trych.
nine. prussic acid, cOcuus indicus. plaster
of paris, copperas, and nightshade. The
patron may be seen almost every day
and perhaps many times the same dan
at this tavern the second. but he is pre-,
pairing to graduate. Brain, liver, heart
nerves, are rapidly giving way. That
tavern the second has its dismal echo in his
business destroyed and family scattered
and woes that choke ones vocabulary
Time passes on, and he enters tavern the
third; red light outside u hiccoughing
and besotted group inside He will b,
dragged out of doors about o'clock in the
morning and left on the sidewalk, because
the bartender wants to shut up. The BOO
victim has taken the regular course in tn,
college of degradation. He has his diploma
written on hisswollen, bruised and blOtchet
physiognOmy. He is regular graduate 0
the Three Taverns. As the police take hin
up and put him in the ambulance the wheel
seem to rumble with two rolls of thunder
one of which says, "LoOk not upon tn
wine when it is red, when it moyeth itsel
Alright in the cup, for at the last it btet
like serpent and stingeth like an adder
The other thunder roll says, "All drunkard
shall have their place in the lake tina
burnett with fire and with birthstone"
/ am glad to find in this scene Of tn
text that there is such thing as declining
successfully great Tavernian temptations
l can see from what Paul said and die
after he had Travelled the following seven
teen miles of his journey, that lie had re
ceiyed no damage at the Three Taverns
How much he was tempted 1 know not
Do not suppose that he was superior t
temptation. That particular temptation
has destroyed many of the grandest
mightiest, noblest statesmen, philosophers
= heroes, clergymen, apostles of law an
medicine and government and religion
Paul was not physically well under any cir
cumstances; it was not in mock deprecia
| tiAn that he snil Ln OR, Ealil,r q