Connecticut western news., 1897-05-27

Have you ever been in the ward of the hospital where these inebriates are dying, the stench of their wounds driving back the attendants, their voices sounding through the nightf The keep CT 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: 70 Godl O Godi Helpl Help! Drink Give me drink Helpl Take them off mel Take them off me! O Godl" And then they shriek, and they rave, and they pluck out their hair by handfuls and bite their nails into the quick, and then they groan, and they shriek. and they blaspheme, and they ask the keepers to kill them "stab mel Smother mel Strangle me! Take the devils off mep' Oh, it is no fancy sketch. That thing is going on now all up and down the land, and I tell you further that this is going to be the death that some of you will die. l know it. see it coming.
 A Destroyer of the Home.
 Again the inebriate suffers through the loss of home. I 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 no one but God knows. Oh, is there anything that will so destroy a 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 he 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 well 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 I speak suffers from the loss of the soul. The Bible intimates that in the future world, if we are unforgiven here, our bad passions and appetites, unrestrained, will go along with us and make our torment there. So that, SUD- pose, when an inebriate wakes up in that world he will feel an infinite thirst consuming him. Now, down in this world, although he may have been very poor, he could beg or he could steal 5 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 fiend came up to earth for some internal work in grog shop and should go back taking on it's wing just one drop of that for which the inebriate in the lost world longs, what excitement would it make therel Put that one drop from off the fiend'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 rump' And it would wake up the echoes of the damned: "Give me ruml Give me rum l Give me rump' In the future world do not believe that it will be the absence of God that will make the drunkard' 8 sorrow. do not believe it will be the it will be the absence of holiness. think it will be the absence of rum. Oh, Look not upon the wine when 1t is red, when it moveth itself aright in the cup, for at the last it biteth like a serpent, and it stingeth like an adder. 1"
 The Help of Gods Grace.
 While declared some time ago that 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 room in New York where there were many men who had been reclaimed from drunkenness I heard their testi- mony, and for the first time in my life there flashed out truth never under stood. They said: "We were victims of strong drink. We tried to give 1t up, but always failed, but somehow since we gave our hearts to Christ he has taken care of us." I believe that the time will soon come when the grace of God will show its power not only to save mans soul, but his body and re- construct, purify, elevate and redeem it. verify believe that although you feel graphing at the roots of your | tongues an almost omnipotent thirst, if | you will give your heart to God, he will help you by his grace to conquer. Try | it. It is your last chance. have look | ed oft upon the desolation. Sitting next | to you in our religious assemblages there are good many people in awful peril, and judging from ordinary cir. | cumstances there is not one chance in five l thousand that they will get clear of it. | There .are men in every congregation l from Sabbath to Sabbath of whom | must make the remark that if they dc | not change their course within ter | years they will, as to their bodies, lie | down in drunkards' graves, and as to their souls, lie down in drunkard's < perdition. I know that is an awful
 thing to say, but I cannot help saying 1t.
 | Darkness Forever.
 Oh, bewarel You have not yet beer captured. Bewarel Whether the bever. age be poured in golden chalice or pew. ter mug, in the foam at the top, ir white letters, let there be spelled out tc your soul, "Bewarel" When the books of judgnsnt are open, and 10000, 00C drunkards come up to get their doom, want you to bear witness that I, in the fear of God and in the love for youl l s0ul fold unu with all afoctinr ar,c