The Monitor-register., 1897-05-28
Though the heavens fall, we must have
a sealskin coat"

hASJ SO Ooo "a VAN |
barrassed if the doorbell rings before
they have the hall lighted. They apollo
gize for the plain meal, if you surprise
them at the table. Well, it is mean II
it is only to pile up a misery hoard.
/ But if it be to educate your children, II
it be to give more help to your wife
when she does not feel strong, if it be
to keep your funeral day from being
horrible beyond all endurance, because
it is to be the disruption and annihlla-
ton of the domestic circle-if 1t be for
that, then it is magnificent. !
There are those who are kept in pow
erty because of their own fault. They
might have been well off, but they
smoked Or chewed up their earnings,
or they lived beyond their means, while
others on the same wages and on the
same salaries went On to competency. l
know a man who is all the time COM
planning of his poverty and crying out
against rich men while he himself
keeps two dogs and chews and smokes
and is full to the chin with whisky and
beer. Wilkins Micawber said to David
Copperfield: "Copperfield, nay boy, Ell
income, expenses 20s. 3d.; result, mis-
cry. But, Copperfeld, my boy, 81 in
come; expenses, 19s. 3D.; result, hap
piness." But, o workingman, take
your morning dram, and your noon
dram, and your evening dram, and
spend everything you have over for to-
bacco and excursions, and you insure
poverty for yourself and your children
foreverl
More Holes In the Bag.
If by some generous fiat of the CAPT
talists of this country or by a new law
of the government of the United States
25 per cent or so per cent or 100 per
| cent were added to the wages of the
working classes of America, it would
be no advantage to hundreds of thou
sands of them unless they stopped strong
drink. Aye, until they quit that evil
habit the more money the more ruin,
the more wages the more holes in the
bag.
My plea is to those working people
who are in a discipleship to the whisky
bottle, the beer jug and the wine flask.
And what 1 say to them will not be
more appropriate to the working classes
than to the business classes and the lit
erary classes and the professional classes
and all classes, and not with the people
of one age more than of all ages. Take
one good square look at the suffering of
the man whom strong drink has en-
thralled and remember that toward that
goal multitudes are running. The dis
ciple of alcoholism suffers the loss of
self respect. Just as soon as q man
wakes up and finds that he is the cap
tive of strong drink, he feels demeaned.
I do not care how recklessly he acts. He
may say, 81 don't care;" he does care.
He cannot look a pure man in the eye
unless it is with positive force of rese-
luton. Three-fourths of his nature is
destroyed; his self respect is gone; he
says things he would not otherwise say;
he does things he would not otherwise
do. When a man is nine-tenths gone
with strong drink, the first thing he
wants to do is to persuade you that he
can stop any time he wants to. He can
not. The Philistines have bound him
hand and foot, and shorn his locks, and
put out his eyes, and are making him
grind in the mill of a great horror. He
cannot stop. I will prove it. He knows
that his course is bringing ruin upon
himself. He loves himself. If he could
stop, he would. He knows his course is
bringing ruin upon his family. He loves
them. He would stop if be could. He
cannot. Perhaps he could three months
Or a year ago; not now. Just ask him
to stop for a month. He cannot-he
knows he cannot, SO he does not try.
Killed by Drink.
I had a friend who was for Is years
going down under this evil habit. He
had large means. He had given thou
sands of dollars to Bible societies and
~reformatory institutions of all sorts. He
was very genial, very generous and very
lovabIe, and whenever he talked about
this evil habit he would say, 81 can
stop any time" But he kept going on,
going on, down, down. down. His family
would say, 81 wish you would STOP"
"Why," he would reply, 81 can stop
any time, if 1 want to-" After awhile
he had delirium tremens-he had it
twice, and yet after that he said, ~
could stop at any time, if I wanted TO-"
He is dead now. What killed himp
Drink Drink And yet among his last
utterances was, 81 can stop at any
time" He did not stop it because he
could not stop it. Oh, there is a point
in inebriation beyond which if a man
goes he cannot stopl One of these vic,
Tins said to a Christian man, "Sir, if
I were told that ! couldn't get a
1Tinl1 17nfi1 &o,oorrOxv r;ob% .-r1oea
had all my fingers cut off, 1 would say,
Bring the Ratchet and cut them off
now" l have a dear friend in Phila-
delphia whose nephew came to him one
day, and when he was exhorted about
his evil habit said: "Uncle, 1 can't
give it up. If there stood a cannon and
it was loaded, and a glass of wine were
set on the mouth of that cannon, and I
knew that you would fire it off just as I
came up and took the glass, I would
start, for I must have it." Oh, it is a
sad thing for a man to wake up in this
life and feel that he is a captivel He
says: 81 could have got rid of this once,
but I can't now. I might have lived an
honorable life and died a Christian
death, but there is NJ hope for me now.
There is no escape for me. Dead, but
not buried. am a walking corpse. 1
am an apparition of what I once was. 1
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 remedy!"
The Drunkard's Suffering,
I go on 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 he showed the effects
of alcoholism on the human stomach.
He had seven or 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
fiends stand by his midnight pillow.
What groans tear his ear. What hor-
rors shiver 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