The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-10-26

IL any manneeded stimulus Paulneeded
it, but with all his physical. exhaustion
he got past the three taverDs undam-
aged and stepped into Rome all ready
for the tremendous ordeal to which he
was subjected. Oh, how many mighty
men, feeling that they must brace up
after extraordinary service and pre-
pare themselves for other service, have
called on the spirit Of wine for inspi-
ration, and in afew years have been
sacrificed on the altar of a MOloch
who sits on a throne Of human carcas-
ses. It would not be wise or kline or
Christian to call their names in pub
lie, but you call them out Of your own
memory. Oh, how many splendid men
could not get past the three taverns!
Notice tina a profound mystery is at
tached to these Italian hostelries. No
hotel register tells the name 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
barrooms of the modern taverns. Oh,
If they would only keep a book upon
the counter or a scroll that could be
unrolled from the wall telling how
many homesteads they have desolated
and how many immortal souls they
have blasted! You say that would
spoil their business. Well, I suppose
it would, but a business that cannot
plainly tell it's effect upon it's custo-
mers is a business that ought to be
spoiled. All, you mysterious barrOOms
speak out and tell how many suicides
went out from you to halter or pis-
tol or knife or deadly leap from
fourth story window; how many young
men, started we'll in life, were halted
by you and turned on the wrong road
dragging after them bleeding parental
hearts; how many people who prom
Used at the marriage altar fidelity until
death did make them part were
brought by you to early and CHASTITY
separations: how many madhouses have
you filled with maniacs; how many
graves have you dug and filled in the
cemetery; how many beggered through
the fathers whom you destroyed. If
the skeletons Of those whom you have
slain were piled up on top OF each other
how high would the mountain be? If
the tears of all the orphanage and
widowhood that you have pressed out
were gathered together, how wide
would be the lax Or how long the riv-
er? All, the max no answer On this
subject the modern taverns are as ST.
lent 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, n at the tavern on the
way he vas persuaded to drink, and
hat one drink aroused a former habit,
and again and again he drank, and he
VS. found the next morning dead in the
barn of the tavern. The owner of the
tavern who gave him the run helped
carry his body home, and his broken
mother, afterward telling
about it, said: II was wrong, but I
cursed him. I did it. Heaven forgive
him and me-"
THE ROCK OF SAFETY.
But what a glad time when the world
comes to it's last three taverns for the
sale of intoxicants! Now there are SO
of them hat 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
1854 lbreweries, 4,349 distilleries and
III, $50 retail dealers, and that possibly
by this time these figures may be
these establishments are innumerable,
and the discussion is always dishearten
and the impression Is abroad that
the plague is so mighty and universal
it can never be cured, n h most of
on this subject close with the
book of Lamentations and not with the
book of Revelation. Excuse me from
adopting any such infidel theory. The
Bible reiterates it until there is no more
power in inspiration to make it palmer
that the earth is to b e not half or
n roo-Orrorfnr bat ryho11ry ~nloo-nA1
that rock I take my triumphant
stand and join in the chorus of ho-
One OF the most advantageous move
ments in the right direction is taking
this whole subject into the education of
the young. On the same school desk
with the grammer, the geography, the
arithmetic, are books telling the lads
and laEses Of 10 and IL and Is years of
age Wat are the physiological effects
Of strcig drink, what it does with the
tissue Of the liver and h ventricles of
the brain, and whereas other genera
tons did not realize the evil until their
w bodies were blasted we are to have
a generation taught what the viper is
before 1t stings them, what the hyena
is before it rends them, how deep is the
abyss before it swallows them. Oh,
boards of education, teachers in
schools, professors in colleges, legisla-
lures and congresses, widen and aug
that work, and you hasten the
complete overthrow of this evil! 1t
will go down. I have the word of AL
God for that in the assured ex-
tirpation Of all sin. But shall We have
share In b universal victory? The
saloons will drop from the hun
dreds OF thousands into the scare of
and then from the thou
sands into the hundreds, and then
from the hundreds into the tens, and
and from the n to three.
The first Of these last three taverns
will be where the educated and philo-
sophie and the high up viii AXE their
dream, but that class, aware Of the
power Of the example they have been
will turn their backs upon the
Evil custom and be satisfiedWith thetwo
natural beverages that God intended
for b stimulus Of the race-the Java
coffee plantations furnishing the best of