The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1898-12-02

have. very soon, a railroad bridge |
across Behring Strait, those thirty-siX
miles Of water, not deep, and they are
spotted with islands capable of holding
the piers of great bridge. And what
with America and Asia thus connected,
and Siberian railway, and railroad
now projected for the length of Afrl-
ca, and Palestine and Persia, and India
and China, and Burmah intersected
with railroad tracks, all of which will
be done before the new century Is
grown up, the way will be
open to the quick civilization
and evangelization Of the whole world.
The old map we used to study in our
boyhood days is dusty, and on the top
shelf, or amid the rubbish of the gar
ret; and so will the present map Of
the world, however gilded and beauti-
fully bound, be treated, and an entire
ly new map will be put into the infan-
tile hand of the coming century.
The work of this century has been
to get ready. All the earth is now
free to the gospel except two little
spots, one in Asia and one in Africa,
while at the beginning Of the century
there stood the Chinese wall, and there
famed the fires, and there glittered the
swords that forbade entrance to many
islands and large reaches of continent.
Bornesian cruelties and Fiji island
cannibalism have given away, and all
the gates of all the continents are
swung open with a clang that has been
positive and glorious invitation for
Christianity to enter. Telegraph, tele-
phone and photograph are to be conse-
Grated to gospel dissemination, and in
stead of the voice that gains the atten-
ton of few hundred or few thou
sand people within the church walls,
the telegraph will thrill the glad It'd
ings and the telephone will utter them
to many millions. Oh, the infinite adj
vantage that the twentieth century
has over what the nineteenth century
had at the starting!
do not believe there is in all this
house a temperance pledge, and you
would have to take out a torn letter
envelope or a loose scrap of paper for
the inebriates signature. l found out
afterward that there was one such
temperance pledge in the audience, but
only one that could hear of. Do not
leave to politics that which can be
done now in ten thousand reformatory
meetings all over the country. The
two great political parties, Republic
an and Democratic, will put prohib-
itory plank in the platform the same
day that Satan joins the church and
turns perdition into a camp meeting.
Both parties want the votes of the
trafiickers in liquid death, and if you
wait for the ballot box to do the work,
first you will have local option, and
then you will have high license, and
then tirst-rate law passed; to be re-
voked by the next legislature.
Oh, save the young man of today
and greet the coming century with a
tidal wave of national redemption! Do
not put upon the cradle of the TWEEN
tieth century a mountain of demijohns,
and beer barrels, and rum jugs. and
put to its infant lips wretchedness, dis
ease, murder, and abandonment in So
luton. Aye, reform that army of in
ebriates. "Ah," you say, cit cannot
be DONE" That shows that you will
be of no use in the work. 20, We OF
little faith" Away back in early
times, President Davies of Princeton
college, one day found a man in utter
despair because of the thrall of strong
drink. The president said to him:
"Sir, be of good cheer; you can be saw
ed. Sign the pledge" "Ah," said the
despairing victim, 81 have often sign
ed the pledge, but have always brok-
en- my pledge" But said the presi-
dent, 81 will be your strength to keep
the pledge. will be your friend, and
with loving arm around you, will
hold you up. When your appetite
burns, and you feel that you must
crafty it, come to my house; sit down
with me in the study, or with the fam
lily in the parlor, and | will be shield
to you. All that can do for you with
my books, my sympathy my expert
ence, my society, my love, my money,
I will do. You shall forget your appe-
tite and master it." A look of hope
glowed on the poor mans face, and he
replied: "Sir, will you do all that?"
Surely will" Then 1 will over
come" He signed the pledge and kept
it. That plan of President Davies, which
saved one man, tried on a large scale,
will save a million men.
Alexander the Great made an impe-
rial banquet at Babylon, and though
he had been drinking the health of
guests all one night and all next day,
the second night he had twenty guests
and he drank the health of each sep
arately. Then calling for the cup of
Hercules, the giant, a monster cup,
he filled and drained it twice, to show
his endurance; but, as he finished last
draught from the cup of Hercules, the
giant, he dropped in a fit, from which
he never recovered. Alexander, who
had conouered Sardis. and conuuered