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

have concluded to buy their own horses
and furnish their own beautiful homes
and replenish finely the wardrobe of
their own wives and daughters instead
Of providing the distillers, the brewers
and liquor sellers with wardrobes and
mirrors and carriages. And the next
time that second tavern is opened it
will be a drug store, or a bakery, or 8
dry good establishment, or q school
Then there will be only one more Of
b three dissipating taverns left. I
don't nov in what country or city or
neighborhood it will be, but look at it,
for it is the very last. The last inebri-
ate will have staggered up to it's coun-
ter and put down his pennies for his
dram. Its last horrible adulteration
will be mixed and Quaffed to eat out
h vitals and inf1ame the brain. The
last drunkard will AVE stumbleddown
it's front steps. The asst spasm of delir-
ium tremens caused by it will be strug-
gled through. The old rookery will be
torn down, and with its demolition will
close the long and awful reign of the
mightiest Of earth's denominations. The
last of the dissipating three taverns OF
all b world will be as thoroughly
plotted out IS were the three taverns
of my text.
CHEER FOR REFORMERS.
WIFI THESE luOuSAlS 1 CHEER OUTl6-
tan reformers in their work, and what
rejoicing on earth and heaven there
will be v the cOnsummation! With
in a few days one of the greatest Of the
leaders in this cause went up to en-
thronement. The world never had but
one Neal Dow and may eve have an
other. He has been an Illumination to
the century. The stand he took has di-
rectly and indirectly saved hundreds Of
thousands from drunkards graves. See
ing the wharfs Of Portland, Me-. cov-
cred with casks of West Indian rum
nearly an acre Of it at n time, n
the city smoking with seven distiller-
les, he began the warfare against
drunkenness more than half a century
ago. The good he has done, the
homes he has kept inviolate, the high
moral sense with which he has infused
ten generations, are a story that neith-
er earth nor heaven can afford to let
die. Derided. belittled, car%icatured,
maligned for a quarter Of a century
as few men a been, he has lived IN
until at his decease universal news
paperdom speaks his praise, and the
eulogfums of his career on this side Of
the sea have been caught up by the ca
thedral organ sounding his requiem on
the other. His whole life having beer
for God and the worlds betterment,
when at half past 3 o'clock in the after
noon Of October 2 he left his home on
earth surrounded by loving ministries
and entered the gates Of his eternal
residence, I think there was a most
unusual welcome and s~alutation given
him. Multitudes enter heaven only be-
cause of what Christ has lone for
them, the welcome not at all intensi-
fled because of anything they had lone
for him. But all heaven knew the
story of that good mans life, and the
beauty Of his deathbed, where he said:
II long to be free" I think all the re-
formers of heaven came out to hail
made laws to restrain intemperance,
the consecrated platform orators who
thrilled the generations that are gone.
with Righteousness. temperance and
judgment to come" Albert Barnes
and John B.. Cough were there to greet
him, and golden tongued patriarch
Stephen H. Tying was there, and John
derided n glorously useful "Washing-
tonian movement" was there, and
John Stearns and Commodore Foote
and DR.. Marsh and Governor Briggs
and Eliphalet Mott, and my lovely
friend Alfred ColQuitt, the Christian
senator, and hundreds of those who la
bored for the overthrow of the drum
kenness that yet curses the earth were
there to meet him and escort him to
his throne and shout at his coronation.
THE DEPARTED NEAL DOW.
God let him live on for near a CEN
fury to show what good habits and
~cheerfulness and faith in the final tri-
umph Of all that is good do for a
number Of those who would be on the
other side to attend his entrance. But
he will come pack again. YES" say
some of you, with Martha, about Laza-
rus to Jesus, Il know he will rise at
the resurrection Of the last day" All, I
do not NEAR hat. Ministering spirits
are all the time coming and going be-
tween earth and heaven-the Bible
teaches it-and do you suppose the old
hero just assembled will not come down
and help us in the battle that still goes
on? He will. Into ~thehearts Of discour-
aged refQrmers he will come to speak
good cheer. When legislators are de-
Gliding how they can best stop the rum
traffic of America by legal enactment,
he will help them vote for the right
and rise u~ndismayed from temporary
defeat. In this battle will Neal o
be until the last victory is gained and
the smoke Of the last distillery has
curled on the air, n the last tear Of
despoiled homesteads shall be wiped
away. o departed nonagenarian! Az
ter you have taken good rest from your
struggle of 20 active a come down
again into the fight and bring with
you a host Of the old Christian war
riors who once mingled in the fray.
In this battle the visible roops are
not so mighty as the invisible. The gos-
pei campaign began with the super
natural-the midnight chant that woke
tho ~shenherds. the hushed sea tho eve.
sight given where the patient had been
without the optic nerve, the sun oblit-
Grated from the monday heavens, the
law OF gravitation dosing its grip as
Christ assembled, and as the gospel
began with the supernatural,
the winds and the waves and the
lightings and the earthquakes will
in on the right side and against
the wrong side, and our aScended
will return whether the
world sees them or does not zee them.