The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-10-18

possibly by this time these figures may
be truthfully doubled. The fact is that
these establishments are innumerable,
and the discussion is always dishearten-
ing, and the impression is abroad that the
plague is so mighty and universal. it can
never be cured and the most of sermons
on this subject close with the Book of La
mentations, and not with the Book of Rev
elation. Excuse me from adopting any
such infdel theory. The Bible reiterates 1t
until there is no more power In inspiration
to make il palmer; that the earth is to
be- not half or three-quarters, but wholly
redeemed. On that rock l take my tri-
umphant stand, and join in the chorus
of Hosannahs.
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 lasses of
ten and twelve and fifteen years of age,
what are the physiological effects of strong
drink, what il does with the tissue OF the
liver and the VentriceS of the brain; ana
whereas other generations did not reallze
the evil until their own bodies were blast
ed we are to have a generation taught
what the viper Is before 1t stings them,
what the hyena is before 1t rends them,
how deep is the abyss before it swallows
them. Oh! boards of education, teachers
in schools, professors in colleges, legls-
latures and congresses widen and aug
ment that work, and you hasten the COM
plete overthrow of this evil. 1t viii go
down. l have the word of Almighty
God for that in the assured extirpation
of all sin. But shall we have a share In
the universal victory? The liquor saloons
will drop from the hundreds of thousands
into the score of thousands, and then
from the thousands into the hundreds,
and then from the hundreds into the tens,
and from the tens to Three. The first of
these last Three Taverns will be where
the educated and philosophic and the high
up viii take their dram, but that class,
aware of the power of the example they
have been setting, will turn their back
upon the evil custom and be satisfied with
the two natural beverages that God in
tended for the stimulus of the race-the
Java coffee plantations, furnishing the
best of the one, and the Chinese tea-fields
the best of the other. And some day the
barroom will be crowded with people at
the vendue, and the auctioneer's mallet
will pound al the sale of all the appur-
tenances. The second of these last Three
TaVerns will take down its flaming sign
and extinguish it's red light and close it's
doors, for the working classes will 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
ers with wardrobes and mirrors and car
riages And the next time that Second
Tavern Is opened it will be a drugstore,
or a bakery, or a dry goods establish
ment, or a school. Then there will be
only one more of the Three dissipating
Taverns left. / don't know in what coun-
try or city or neighborhood it will be, but
look at it, for it is the very last. The last
inebriate will have staggered up to its
counter and put down his pennies for his
dram. Its last horrible adulteration will
be mixed and quaffed to eat out the vi
tails and inflame the brain. The last
drunkard will have stumbled down its
front steps. The last spasm of
delirium tremens caused by 1t
will be struggled through. The old
rookery will be torn down, and with its
demolition will close the long and awful
reign of The mightest of earths abomina-
tons. The last of the dissipating Three
Taverns of all the world will be as thor
oughly blotted out as were the Three
Taverns of my text.
With these thoughts I cheer Christian
reformers in their work, and what rejoic-
ing on earth and heaven there will be over
the contamination Within a few DAYS
one of the greatest of the leaders in this
cause went up to enforcement. The
world never had but one Neal Dow, and
may never have another. He has been
an illumination to the century. The stand
he took has directly and Indirectly saved
hundreds of thousands from drunkards'
graves. Seeing the wharves of Portland
Me, covered with casks of West Indian
rum (nearly an acre of it at one time),
and the city smoking with seven distil-
leries, 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 genera
lions, IS a story that neither earth nor
| heaven can afford to let die Derded be-
Titled, caricatured, malgned, for quar-
ter OF century as few men
have been he has lived on untn
at his decease universal newspaperdom
speaks his praise, and the eulogiums of
his career on this side of the sea have
| been caught up by the cathedral organ
sounding his requiem on the other. His
! whole life having been for God and the
worlds betterment, when at half-past
three o'clock in the afternoon of October
second he left his home on earth surround
ed by loving ministries, and entered the
gates of his eternal residence, / think
there was a most unusual welcome and
salutatlon given him. Multitudes enter
heaven only because of what Christ has
done for them, the welcome not at all in
tensihed because of anything they had
done for him. But all heaven knew the
story of that good mans life, and the
beauty of his death-bed, where he said, II
long to be free" think all the reformers
of heaven came out to hail him in the de-
parted legislators who made laws to re-
strain intemperance, the consecrated plat
form orators who thrilled the generations
that are gone, with righteousness, tenn
perance, and judgment to come"-Albert
Barnes and John b. Cough were there to
greet him, and golden-tongued patriarch
stephen II. Tying was there and John w.
Hawkins, the founder of the much derded
and gloriously useful "Washingtonian
Movement was there, and John Stearns
and Commodore Foote aud Dr. Marsh and
Gov. 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 drunken
ness that yet curses the earth, were there
to meet him and escort him to his throne
and shout at his coronation.
God let him live on for near century.
to show what good habits and cheerful
ness and faith in the final triumph of all
that is good, can do for man in this