Connecticut western news., 1898-01-27

that will yet either make her the chief attraction of good mans home or give her an independence of character that will qualify her to build her own home and maintain it in happiness that re- quires no augmentation from any of our rougher sex. That young man or young woman can by the right literary aud Doral improvement of the spare ten minutes here or there every day rise head and shoulders in prosperity and character and influence above the 1oun- gers who read nothing or read that which backwards. See all the forests of good American literature dripping with honey. Why pick up the honeycombs
 that have in them the fiery bees which will sting you with an eternal poison while you taste itS One book may for
 you or me decide everything for this
 word and the next. It was turning
 point with me when in bookstore in
 Syracuse one day l picked up book
 called "The Beauties of Ruskin." 1t
 was only book of extracts, but it was
 all pure honey, and I was not satisfied
 until had purchased all his works, at blDuo SADEboAFO pCy Oho hb Dh0y Np
 pacity to own them, and with what de- light went through reading his "Sev- en Lamps of Architecture" and his "Stones of Venice" it is impossible for me to describe except by saying that it
 gave me rapture for good books and an everlasting disgust for decrepit or immoral books that will last me while my life lasts. All around the church and the world today there are busy hives of intelligence occupied by authors and authoresses from whose pens drip dis tillation which is the very nectar of heaven, and why will you thrust your rod of inquisitiveness into the deathful saccharine of perdition?
 Beware of Strong Drink.
 Stimulating liquids also come into the category of temptation delicious but deathful. You say, "I cannot bear the taste of intoxicating liquor, and how any man can like it is to me an amaze ment. :" Well, then, it is no credit to you that you do not take it. Do not brag about your total abstinence, because it is not from any principle that you re- ject alcoholism, but for the reason that you reject certain styles of food you simply don't like the taste of them. But multitudes of people have natural fondness for all kinds of intoxicants. They like 1t so much that it makes them smack their lips to look at it. They are dyspeptic. and they like to aid or they are annoyed by in- somnia, and they take it to produce sleep; or they are troubled, and they take it to make them oblivious; or they feel happy, and they must celebrate their hilarity. They begin with mint julep sucked through two straws on the Long Branch piazza and end in the ditch, taking from jug liquid half kerosene and half whisky. They not only like it, but it is an all consuming passion of body, mind and soul, and aft CT awhile have it they will, though one wineglass of it should cost the temporal and eternal destruction of themselves and all their families and the whole hu- man race. They would say, 1T am sorry it is going to cost me and my family and all the worlds population so very much, but here 1t goes to my lips, and now let 1t roll over my parched tongue and down my heated throat, the sweet est, the most inspiring, the most deli cious draft that ever thrilled human frame' To cure the habit before it comes to its last stages, various plans were tried in olden times. This plan was recommended in the books: When a man wanted to reform, he put shot or bullets into the cup or glass of strong additional shot or bullet each day, that displaced so much liquor. Bullet after bullet added day by day, of course the liquor became less and less until the bullets would entirely fill up the glass and there was no room for the liquid, and by that time 1t was said the inebriate would be cured. Whether any one ever was cured in that way know not, but by long experiment 1t is found that the only way is to stop short off, and when man does that he needs God to help him, and there have been more cases than you can count when God has 30 helped the man that he left off the drink forever, and could count score of them, some of them pillars in the house of God.
 Moral Death.
 Ono would suppose that men would take warning from some of the ominous names given to the intoxicants and stand off from the devastating inf1u- ence. You have noticed, for instance, that some of the restaurants are called ''The Shades, typical of the fact that it puts man s reputation in the shade, and his morals in the shade, and his in the shade, and his wife and children in the shade, and his inn mtrtal destiny in the shade. Now. find on some of the liquor signs in all our cities the words "Old Crow" nightly suggestive of the carcass and the filthy raven that swoops upon it. 'Old Crowi" Men and women without numbers slain of rum, but unburied, and this evil is pecking at their glazed eyes, and pecking at their bloated cheek, and pecking at their destroyed manhood and womanhood, thrusting beak and claw into the mortal remains of what was once gloriously alive, but now morally dead. "Old Crow" But alas, how many take no warning! They make me think of Caesar on his way to fearing nothing, though his statue in the hall crashed into frag- ments at his feet and scroll contain ing the names of the conspirators was thrust into his hands, yet walking right on to meet the dagger that was to take his life. This infatuation of strong drink is so mighty in many man that. though his fortunes are crashing, and bis health is crashing, and his domestic interests are crashing, and we hand him 3 long scroll containing the names of perils that await him, he goes straight on to physical and mental and moral In proportion as any style of alcoholism is pleasant to your taste and stimulating to your nerves, and for 3 time delightful to all your physical and mental constitution, is the peril awful. Remember Jonathan and the honey in the woods at Beth