The enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 188?-1899, 1898-09-21

tacks on humanlty-that is an attack
on God.
This country is as prominently for
blasphemy. A man travelling in Rus
sia was supposed to be a clergyp plan.
why do you take me to be clergy
man?" said the man. "Oh," said the
Russian, "all other Americans swear"
The crime is multiplying in intensity.
God very often shows what he thinks
of it, but for the most part the fatality
is hushed up. Among the Adirondacks
| met the funeral procession of man
who two days before had fallen under
a flash of lightning, while boasting,
after Sunday of work in the fields,
that he had cheated God out of one
day anyhow, and the man who worked
with him on the same Sabbath is still
living, but helpless invalid, under the
same flash.
Years ago, in Pittsburg prison, two
men were talking about the Bible and
Christianity, and one of them, Thomp-
son by name, applied to Jesus Christ
very low and villainous epithet, and,
as he was uttering it, he fell. A physi-
clan was called, but no help could be
given. After day lying with distend-
ed pupils and palsied tongue, he passed
out of this world. In a cemetery in
Sullivan county, New York state, are
eight headstones in line and all alike,
and these are the facts: In 1861
diphtheria ragged in the village, and a
physician was remarkably successful
in curing his patients. So confident
did he become that he boasted that no
case of diphtheria could stand before
him, and finally defed Almighty God
to produce a case of diphtheria that he
could not cure. His youngest child
soon after took the disease and died,
and one child after another, until all
the eight had died of diphtheria. The
blasphemer challenged Almighty God,
and God accepted the challenge.
Do you think that because God has
been silent in your case, 0 profane
swearer! that he is dead. Is there
nothing now in the peculiar feeling of
your tongue, or nothing in the numb
ness of your brain, that indicates that
God may come to avenge your bias
phemies, or is already avenging them?
But these cases I have noticed, be-
lieve, are only few cases where there
are hundreds. Families keep them
quiet to avoid the horrible conspicuity
Still the crime rolls on, up through
parlors, up through chandeliers with
| 4e oil -
tured corridors of club-rooms, out
through busy exchanges where oath
meets oath, and down through all the
haunts of sin, mingling with the rat
Ting dice and cracking billiard balls,
and the laughter of her who hath for
| gotten the covenant of her God; and
round the city, and round the conti-
nent, and round the earth seething,
boiling surge fiings its hot spray into
the face of long-suffering God. And
the ship captain curses his crew, and
the master builder his men, and the
hack-driver his horse; and the traveller
the stone that bruises his foot, or the
mud that soils his shoes, or the defect
i've time-piece that gets him too late to
the railtrain. / arraign profane swear
ing and blasphemy, two names for the
same thing, as being one of the gigan-
tic crimes of this land, and for its eX-
tirpation it does seem as if it were
about time for God to arise.
Then look for a moment at the evil
of drunkenness. Whether you live in
Washington, or New York, or Chicago,
or Cincinnati, or Savannah, or Boston,
or in any of the cities of this land,
count up the saloons on that street as
compared with the saloons five years
ago, and see they are growing far out
of proportion to the increase of the
population. You people who are so
precise and particular lest there should
be some imprudence and rashness in
attacking the, rum traffic will have
your son some night pitched into your
front door dead drunk, or your daugh-
ter will come home with her children
because her husband has, by strong
drink, been turned into a demoniac.
The drink fend has despoiled whole
streets of good homes in all our cities.
Fathers, brothers, sons on the funeral
pyre ofstrong drink! Fasten tighter the
victims! Stir up the flames! Pile on the
corpses! More men, women, and chill
dren for the sacrifice! Let us have
whole generations on fire of evil habit;
and to the sound of the cornet, flute,
harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer
let all the people fall down and
worship King Alcohol, or you shall be
cast into the fiery furnace under some
political platform.
/ indict this evil as the regicide, the
fratricide, the patricide, the matricide,
the uXorcide of the century. Yet under
what innocent and delusive and mirth-
full names alcoholism deceives the peo-
pie! 1t is cordial" 1t is "bitters."
1t is an "eye-opener." 1t is an "appe-
tizer." 1t isa 'digester." 1t is an Sin
vigorator." 1t is a settler" 1t is a
"night-cap." Why don't they put on
the right labels-"Essence of Perdi-
tion," Conscience Stupefer," "Five
Drachms of Heart-ache," "Tears of Or
phanage," "Blood of Souls" "Scabs of
an Eternal Leprosy," 'Venom of the
Worm that Never Dies?" Only once in
a while is there anything in the title
of liquors to even hint their atrocity,
as in the case of "sour mash" That
see advertised all over. 1t is an honest
name, and anyone can understand it.
Sour mash!" That is, it makes mans
disposition sour, and his associ-
ations sour and his prospects sour;
and then it is good to mash his body,
and mash his soul, and mash his busi-
ness, and mash his family. "Sour