Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1897-11-03
REV. DR. TALMAGE.
The Eminent Divine's Sunday
Disc urse.

Story of the Three Taverns-The Ruin
Wrought by LiquOr-Crimson Wave Oi
Dissipation Has Destroyed More Sail
Ors Than the Ocean.-Mankind'sC Curse
TEXT: "They came to meet US as far o.
Avpii Forum and the Three Taverns."--
It's xviii, Is.
Seventeen miles south of Rome, Italy
there was village of unfortunate name
and bibulous suggestion. A tavern Is a
place of entertainment, and, in our time,
part OF the entertainment is a provision
of intoxcants. One such place you would
think would have been enough for that
Italian village. No! There were three of
them, with doors open for entertainment
and obfuscation. The world has never
lacked stimulating drinks. You remember
the condition of Noah on one occasion,
and OF Abigaiis husband, Nabal and the
story of Belshazzar's feast, and Benhadad
and the new wine in old bottles, and whole
paragraphs on prohibition enactment
thousands of years before Neal Dow was
born; and no doubt there were whole
shelves of infiammatory liquid in these ho-
tells which gave the name to the village
where Paul's friends came to meet him:
namely, the Three Taverns. In vain
search ancient geography for some salts
came from the sea coast to that place; the
one from Actium and the other from Pute-
oil, the last road being the one which Paul
Travelled. There were, no doubt, in that
village houses of merchandise and me-
chanics' shops and professional, offices, but
nothing is known of them. All we know of
that village is that it had a profusion of
inns-the Three Taverns. Paul did not
choose any one of these taverns as the
place to meet his friends. He 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-
latiug cordial for stomachic di sorder;
hut 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 were soon tempted by
these three hotels, which were only a little
way up from the beach. Those who are
disoriered of the sea (fOr it is a physical
disorganiZer), instead of waiting for the
gradual return OF physical equipoise. 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 Tavernsi After surviving hurri-
canes. cyclones, icebergs, collisions, many
of them are wrecked in harbor. / warrant
parative 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 maj ority of those who
go down to the sea in ships should have
I twice to pass the Three Taverns. namely:
Before they &C out and after they come in.
That fact was what aroused Father Taylor
the great sailors preacher, at the Sailors
Bethel, Boston, and mt public meeting al
Charlestown he said, "All the machinery OF
the drunkard- making soul-destroyine
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
-IGen we ask men what is to be done about
siey say you can't help it, and vet
4....- is Rrr-c- uni p-s --a,s-riy roS, caI, b.
stop it: and up there are Lexington anG
Concord We might answer Father Tay.
lor's remark by saying, THE trouble is not
that We can't stop it, but that we won'i
stop it," We must have more generations
slain before the world will fully wake up tC
the evil. That which tempted the travel.
ers of old who came up from the seaport.
of Actium and Puteoli is now the ruin o
seafaring men as they come up from tn,
coasts of all the continents namely, the
Three Taverns.
There are streets in some of our cities
where there are three or four taverns or
is Il tavern. You can take the Arabic mum
eral OF my text, the three, and put on the
right hand side of it one cipher and two
ciphers, and four ciphers, and that rein
forcement of numerals will not express ths
statistics of American rummeries Even Il
IL were good, healthy business. supplying
necessity, an article superbly nutritious
it is business nightly Overdone, anC
there are three taverns where there ought
to be only one.
The fact is. there are in another sense
Three Taverns now; the gorgeous taverr
for the affiuent, 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 out
at the third. At the first of the three tav
erns. the wines are Of celebrated vintage
and the WHISTLES are said to be pure, and
they are quaffed from cut glass, at marble
side-tables, under pictures approaching
master pieces. The patrons pull of theil
kid gloves, and Land their silk hats to tn,
waiter, and push bacS their hair with
ha- | on one finger of which is a cameo.
out those patrons are apt to stop visiting
that place. 1t is not the money that mar
pays for drinks, for what are few hundred
| or II few thousand dollars to a man of iarg,
income; but their brain gets touched, ant
that unbalances their judgment, and they
| can see fortunes in enterprises surchargeC
they cnange taverns, and they come dowI
to tavern the second, where the pictures ar
not quite SO scrupulOus of suggestion anC
| the small table is rougher and the castor
standing on it is of German silver and tn.
| air has been kept over from the night be
! fore aud that which they sip from tn,
| pewter mug has a larger percentage of ben
| zine, ambergr s. or. o -ote, benbane, strych
nine prussic acid. coculus indicus, plaste
| of paris, copperas, ap4 nightshade. Tn,
patron may be seen almost every day
| and perhaps many times the same da,
at this tavern the second, but he is pre-
pairing to graduate. Brain, liver, heart
| nerves, are rapidly giving way. Tha
| tavern the second has its dismal echo in hi
business destroyed and family scattered
and woes that choke ones vocabulary
| Time passes on. and he enters tavern th'
| third; red light outside, a hiccoughinl
and besotted group inside. He will b'
dragged out of doors about O'Clock in tn,
morning and left on the sidewalk, becaus
the bartender wants to shut up. The poo
| victim has taken the regular course in tn
| college of degradation. He has his diplomi
written on his isswollen bruised and blot :he,
| physiognomy. He is regular graduate o
| the Three Taverns. As the police take hir
| 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 moveth itsel
| arlShl III tue cup, lor Ut lHe lhSl IL bllel
like serpent and stingeth like an adder.
The other thunder roll says, "All drunkard
| shall have their place in the lake tina
bnrneth with fire and with birthstone"
L am glad to find in this scene Of tn
text that there is such n thing as declinin
successfully great Tavernian temptations
l can see from what Paul said and di
after he had travelled the following sever
teen miles OF his journey, that he had ri
ceived no damage at the Three Tavern,
How much he was tempted | know no
Do not suppose that he was superior {
| temptation. That particular temptatio
has destroyed many OF the grandes
mightiest. Doblest statesmen, philosopher
hervss. ci,.rgymen. apostles Of law an