The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1897-10-30


tion, and in a few years have been sac
rificed on the altar OF n Moloch, who
sits on throne of human carcasses. II
would not be wise. or kind, or Chris
tian, to call their names in public, but
you call them out of your own memory.
Oh! how many splendid men could not
get past the three taverns.
Notice that profound mystery 10
attached to these Italian hostelries.
No hotel register tells the names Of
those who stopped at those taverns;
there is no old account book as to how
many drank there; there is no broken
chalice or jug to suggest what was the
style of liquid which these customers
consumed. So an awful mystery hangs
about the bar rooms of the modern
taverns. Oh! if they would only keep
a book upon the counter, or n scroll
that could be unrolled from the-wall,
telling now many homesteads they
have desolated, and how many immor,
tai souls they have blasted. You say
that would spoil your business
Well, l suppose it would; but a
business that can not plainly
tell its effects upon its customers.
is business that ought to be spoiled.
All! you mysterious bar rooms, speak
out and tell how many suicides went
out from you to halter, or pistol, or
knife, or deadly leap from fourth-story
window; how many young men,
started well in life, were halted by
you and turned on the wrong road,
dragging after them bleeding parental
hearts; how many people who prom
ised at the marriage altar fidelity un
til death did them part, were brought
by you To an early and CHASTITY separa-
ton; how many mad houses have you
filed with maniacs; how many graves
have you dug and filled in the ceme-
teries; how many ragged and hun
cry children have you beg
CARED through the fathers whom
you destroyed. If the skeletons
of those whom you have slain
how high would the mountain be? If
the tears of all the orphanage and
widowhood that you have pres sed out
were gathered together how wide
would be the lake, or how long the
river? All. they make no answer. On
this sub ject the modern taverns are as
silent as the oriental three taverns, but
there are millions of hearts that throb
with most vehement condemnation,
and many of them would go as far as
the mother in Oxford, Mass,
whose son had been long
absent from home and was returning,
and at the tavern on the way he was
persuaded to drink, and that one drink
aroused Il former habit, and again and
again he drank, and he was found next
morning dead in the barn of the tavern.
The owner of the tavern, who gave
HIM the rum, helped carry his body
home, and his broken-hearted mother,
afterwards telling about it, said: 1T
was wrong, but cursed him; did it.
Heaven forgive him and me-"
But what IA glad time when the worlo
comes to its last three taverns for the
sale OF intoXicants, now, there are SO
many of them that statistics are only a
more or less accurate guess as to their
number. We sit with half-closed eyes
and undisturbed nerves and hear that
in 1872 in the United States there were
1904 breweries, 4,349 distilleries and
III, 600 retail dealers, and that possibly
by this time these figures may be truth
fully doubled. The fact is that
thes establishments are innumer-
able, and the discussion is al
ways dsheartening vand the inn
preston is abroad that the plague
is SO mighty and universal it can never
be cured, and the most of sermons on
this subject close with the book Of
lame taLions, and not with the Book of
Revelation. Excuse me from adopting
any such infdel theory. The Bible re.
iterates it until there is no more pow
er in inspiration to make it palmer,
that the earth is to be, not half, or
three-quarters, but wholly redeemed.
On that rock take my triumphant
stand, and join in the chorus of hosan.
nahs.
In this battle the visible troops are
not so mighty as the Invisible. The
Gospel campaign began with the super
natural-the midnight chant that
woke the shepherds, the hushed sea, the
eyesight given where the patient had
cSNa s'N oPs'S hSi VIC, Vic Gun
obliterated from the MONDAY heavens,
the law of gravitation looSing its grip
as Christ assembled, and as I he Gospel
campaign began with the supernatural,
it will close with the supernatural; and
the winds and the waves and the ligh r.
nings and the earthquakes will coma
in on the right side and against the
wrong side; and our assembled cham
pions will return, whether the world
sees them or does not see them. l do
not think that those great souls depart
ed are going to do nothing hearafter
but sing psalms, and play harps, and
breathe frankincense, and walk seas
of glass mingled with fire. The mis-
sion they fulfilled while in the body
will be eclipsed by their post-morteru
mission, with faculties quickened and
velocities multiplied; and it may have
been to that our dying reformer re-
ferred when he said: II long to be
free" There may be bigger worlds
than this to be- redeemed, and more
gigantic denominations to be over
q n, la.