The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1897-06-04

the loss of home. / 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 out.
rageous 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 de-
stroy a man for this life, and damn him
for the life that is to comet Do not
tell me that a man can be happy
when he knows that he is break
ing his wife's heart and cRf thing his
children with rags. Why, there are on
the roads and streets of this land to-
day little children barefooted, un-
washed and unkempt-want on every
patch of their faded dress and on every
wrinkle of the prematurely old coun-
tenances, who would have been in
churches to-day, and as well clad as
you are, but for the fact that rum de-
stroyed their parents and drove them
into the grave. o, rum, thou foe of
God, thou despoiler of homes, thou re-
cruiting officer of the pit, l hate theei
But my subject takes a deeper tone,
and that is, that the unfortunate of
whom l 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,
l suppose, when an inebriate wakes up
in that world, he will feel infinite
thirst consuming him. Now, down in
this world, although he may have
been very poor, he could beg or he
could steal five 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, eXhauStlng, cXaSperat-
ing, everlasting thirst of the drunkard
in hell! Why, if a fend came up to
earth for some internal work in grOg-
shop, and should go back taking on his
wing just one drop of that for which
the inebriate in the lost world longs,
what excitement it would make there!
Put that one drop from off the fiend's
wing on the tip of the tongue of the
destroyed inebriate; let the liquid
brightness 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, aha!
That is rumI' And it would wake up
the echoes of the damned-"Give me
rum! Give me rum! Give me rum~ In
the future world do not believe that
it will be the absence of God that will
make the drunkard's sorrow. l do not
believe that it will be the absence of
light. l do not believe that it will be
the absence of holiness. / think it will
be the absence of rum. Oh: Look not
upon the wine when it is red, when it
moveth itself aright-in the cup, for at
the last it biteth like serpent and it
stingeth like an adder"
While | declared some time ago that
there was point beyond which man
could not stop, 1 want to tell you
that, while a man can not stop in his
own strength, the Lord God, by His
grace, can help him to stop at any
time. l was in a room in New York
where there were many happy men
who had been reclaimed from drunken
ness. | heard their testimony, and
for the first time in my life there
flashed out a truth l never under
stood. They said Eve were victims
of strong drink. We tried to give it
up, but always failed; but somehow
since we gave our hearts to Christ He
has taken care of u.s." l 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 reconstruct, purify, elevate and re-
deem it.
l 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. 1t is your last chance. l have
looked off 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
5000 that they will get clear of it.
There are men in every congregation
from Sabbath to Sabbath of whom /
must make the remark, that if they do
not change their course, within ten
years they will, as to their bodies, lie
down in drunkards' graves, and as to
their souls, lie down in a drunkard's
perdition. | know that is an awful
thing to say, but l can not help say
ing it.
Oh, beware! You have not yet been
captured. Beware! Whether the
beverage be poured in golden chalice
or pewter mug. in the foam at the top,
in white letters, let there be spelled
out to your soul: ''Bewarer When
the books of judgment are open, and
10, O0O,O 600 drunkarGs come up to get
their doom, | want you to bear wit
ness that 1, in the fear of God and in
the love for your soul, told you, with
all affection and with all kindness, to
beware of that which has already ex-
erted its influence upon your family,
blowing out some of its lightS-a pre-
monition of the blackness of darkness
forever.
Oh, if you could only hear intem-
perance with drunkard's bones drum
ming ON the head of the liquor cask
the dead march of immortal souls,
methinks the very glance of wine cup
would make You shudder. and the color
of the liquor would make you think
of the blood of the soul, and the foam
on the top of the cup would remind
you Of the froth on the maniac's lip:
and you would kneel down and pray
God, that, rather than your children
should become ca.otives of this evil
habit, you would like to carry them
out some bright spring day to the
cemetery, and put them away to the
last sleep, until at the call of the south
wind the flowers would come up all
over the grave-~sweet prophecies of