The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1897-03-13


to use in his own defense, aud he has
intrenched himself behind such pow
erful organizations, that he seems to
defy his enemies.
When we survey the spiritual ruin
intemperance has wrought, the homes
it has wrecked and the lives it has
blasted, we can only stand in the
hush of silence and feel what human
speech has never told.
When we contemplate the social
side of mans organization, language
becomes inadequate to express our
feelings. When we think of the dark
shadows it has cast over our race,
words are but barren and empty
sounds. 1t is here in the sacred and
tender regions of mans moral nature
that its most deadly work is done. 1t
paralyzes the will and moral sense of
the individual and it overwhelms the
whole man into complete and al
most hopeless ruin. Through it's
influence the honest man becomes
dishonest, the prudent man becomes
reckless, the provident man becomes
improvident, the truthful man be-
comes liar, the thrifty becomes
shiftless, the virtuous becomes lech-
erous, the loving husband abandons
the partner of his bosom, the tender
and indulgent father becomes ty-
rant and his ears become deaf to the
starving appeals of his children. All
the noble and generous impulses of
his heart are cruelty trampled under
foot when this stage is reached.
Wherever this mocker of human hap
piness has gone, it has substituted
shame for honor, misery for happi
ness, weakness for strength, sickness
for health, poverty for wealth, death
for life and hunger for food. 1t is
indeed the sore spot Of our nation
and the high tower of disaster. 1t
retards our progress, both mental
and moral. 1t blockades our national
and personal prosperity. 1t stops
the enterprise of our merchants. 1t
quenches the aspirations of the stu
dent. 1t counteracts the influence of
the Gospel. 1t is filling our country
with paupers and giving us system
of "trusts" and monopolies by which
we are feeced on everything we eat
and drink.
The combined weight and infu
ence of these calamities falls upon
the shoulders of our common race
like an avalanche of disaster and ruin,
making picture worse than war,
worse than famine and worse than
pestilence, picture of sorrow which
utterly beggars description and baf-
f1es the power of human speech.
1t is true that no call has yet come
from the President of the United
States for three hundred thousand
men to take up arms against this or
ganized enemy of our country: but
there is call coming daily and
hourly from the dearest and the most
sacred interests of our land. That
call is being sounded forth from the
impressive tears of weeping wives and
broken hearted mothers. 1t is re-
peated in the silent prayers of neg
lected children and degraded fathers,
whose strength is paralyzed so that
they are powerless to resist the raw
ages of their destroyer. "How long,
Oh! Lord, how long," shall we refuse
to heed the dying appeals of our en-
shaved brothers and sisters? Shall
we continue to hang our harps on the
willows of Babylon and forget that
we are "our brothers keeper? Al
ready the Christian people of this ma
ton are beginning to feel the weight
of the task masters burden and, like
the children of Israel, they are call
ing for the deliverance of their bro
theirs from bondage.
Two years ago the Young Peoples
Society of Christian Endeavor met in
Boston. That mighty organization of
consecrated talent voted unanimously
in favor of a speedy overthrow of
King Alcohol. And l venture the
prediction that the brightest pages
in the future history of the world will
be the shining records of the tenn
perance men and women who are play
ing their heroic part in the greatest
drama that was ever enacted on the
stage of human life and among the
struggling races of mankind. And
this because, in the overthrow of this
gigantic evil, the progressive devel-
opment of higher civilization is in
volved, and because the beauty, the
nobility and the glory of a we'll
perfected race of men and women is
involved.
| often fear that we fail to realize
what mighty debt of gratitude we
owe to the patriots and heroes, the