Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1897-05-28

Dut L can I low. L mlBlJ nave llNcu an
honorable life and died u Christian
death, but there is no hope for me now.
There is no escape for me. Dead, but
not buried am walking corpse. l
am an apparition of what l once was.
am a Gagged immortal beating against
the wires Of my cage in this direction
beating against the cage until there is
blood on the wires and blood upon my
soul, yet not able to get out. Destroyed
without remedyp'
The Drunkard's Suffering.
go Oh and say that the disciple Of
rum suffers from the loss Of health. The
older men may remember that some
years ago DR.. Sewell went through this
country and electrified the people by his
| lectures in which be showed the effects
Of alcoholism on the human stomach.
He had seven cr eight diagrams by
which he showed the devastation Of
strong drink upon the physical system.
There were thousands Of people who
turned back from that ulcerous sketch,
swearing eternal abstinence from every
thing that could intoxicate.
God only knows what the drunkard
suffers Pain files on every nerve, and
travels every muscle, and gnaws every
bone, and burns with every flame, and
stings with every poison, and pulls at
him with every torture. What reptiles
crawl over his sleeping limbs. What
fends stand by his midnight pillow.
What gToans tear his ear. What hor-
rOrs shiyer through his soul. Talk Of the
rack, talk of the inquisition, talk of the
funeral pyre, talk Of the crushing Jug
gernaut-he feels them all at once.
Have you ever been in the ward Of the
hospital where these inebriates are
dying, the stencil of their wounds
driving back the attendants, their voices
sounding through the night; The keep
er comes up and says: Hush, now be
still. Stop making all this noise" But
it is effectual only for moment, for as
soon as the keeper is gone they begin
again. 80 God o God Help
Help Drink Give me drink! Help!
Take them oft mel Take them off mel
o God" And then they shrek, and
they rave, and they pluck out their hair
by handfuls and bite their nails into
the quick, and then they groan, and
they shrek. and they blaspheme, and
they ask the keepers to kill them
"Stab me- Smother me! Strangle mel
Take the devils off mew Oh, it is no
fancy sketch That thing is going on
now all up and down the land, and |
tell you further that this is going TO be
the death that some Of you will die. I
know it. see it coming.
A Destroyer of the Home.
Again the inebriate suffers through
the loss Of home l do not care how
much he loves his wife and children, if
this passion for strong drink has mas
tered him he will do the most outra-
geous things, and if he could not get
drink in any other way he would sell
his family into eternal bondage. How
many homes have been broken up in
that way 10 one hut God knows. Oh,
is there anything that will so destroy
man for this life and damn him for the
life that is to come: Do not tell me that
man can be happy when he knows
that be is breaking his wife's heart and
clothing his children with rags. Why,
there are on the roads and streets Of this
land today little children, barefooted,
unwashed and unkempt, want on every
patch of their faded dress and on every
wrinkle of their prematurely old coun-
tenances, who would have been in
churches today and as we'll clad as you
are but for the fact that rum destroyed
their parents and drove them into the
grave. Oh, rum, thou foe Of God, thou
despoiler of homes, thou recruiting Off
Ger Of the pit, hate thee.
But my subject takes a deeper tone,
and that is that the unfortunate Of
whom | speak suffers from the loss Of
the soul. The Bible intimates that in
the future world, if we are unforgiyen
here, our bad passions and appetites,
unrestrained, will 90 along with us and
make our torment there. So that, sup
pose, when an inebriate wakes up in
that world he will feel an infinite thirst
consuming him. Now, down in this
world, although be may have been very
poor, he could beg or he could steal .
cents with which TO get that which
would slake his thirst for little while,
but in eternity where is the rum to
come from?
Oh, the deep. exhausting, exasperat-
ing, everlasting thirst Of the drunkard
in hell Why, if iend came up to
earth for some internal work in grog-
shop and should 90 back taking on its
wing just one drop Of that for which
the inebriate in the lost world longs,
what excitement would it make there!
Put that one drop from off the hend's
wing on the tip Of the tongue Of the de-
stroyed inebriate, let the liquid bright
ness Just touch it, let the drop be very
small, if it only have in it the smack Of
alcoholic drink; let that drop just touch
the lost inebriate in the lost world, and
he would spring TO his feet and cry:
That is rum, ahal That is rumV And
it would wake up the echoes Of the
damned: "Giye me ruml Give me ruml
Give me rumr' In the future world
10 not believe that IL VIII oe the ahsence
If God that will make the drunkard's
sorrow. do not believe twill be the
absence Of light. do not believe that
il will be the absence Of holiness.
think it will be the absence Of rum.
Oh, Look not upon the wine when it
is red, when it moyeth itself Alright in
the cup, for at the last it biteth like
serpent, and it stingeth like an adder. "
The Help Of Gods Grace.
While declared some time ago that
there was a point beyond which man
could not stop, want to tell you that,
while a man cannot stop in his own
strength, the Lord God by his grace can
help him TO stop at any time. was
in a room in New York where there
were many men who had been reclaimed
from drunkenness. heard their testi-
mony, and for the first time in my life
there flashed out a truth never under
stood. They said: ave were victims OF