The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1899-11-01

Ihe useless visiting, the worthless
reading, the neglect Of the sacred
Scriptures, the worldly business that
intrude themselves on that sacred day
plainly declare the low estimate which
we place upon it. And shall not God
visit the land for these things. 1t
God punished his ancient people be-
cause they trangressed his Sabbath by
bringing in burdens on the Sabbath, can
we expect less severity for our sin in
this respect? Sabbath breaking was
. regarded one Of our great national sins
before the war, is it less so now? Let
us teach our children to hallow it-let
us set them the examrle-then shall
our peace be as river and our right
eousness as the waves Of the sea!
II. Again as people we hsve not
cleansed ourselves from the sin of
drunkenness. It were useless to enter
into an elaborate condemnation of that
which every mans conscience tells
him is violation Of decency and self
respect as we'll as of Gods law. There
is no better temperance lecture in the
world than the sight Of a man possess
ed of all the features ofomanhood, yet
robbed of all these in beastly intoxi
cation. Every trace Of a divine and
heavenly origin is lost in the degrade
tion. There can be no exaggeration
/ of the evil of drunkenness. The
amount Of intoxicants Of ,one sort or
another drank in this: :'conntry is ap-
t palling. It would pay all our school
taxes, all our gifts to the Church, to
pastors salaries, to home and foreign
missions. It would support all our
jails and penitcntiaries and then have
a large balance. There are thousands
who are thus doubling the calamities
of our civil war, and adding to the
misfortune which broke their spirits
and paralyzed their energies. 1t is
painful to see men of age and infu-
ence yielding to this ruinous habit,
but it is still more distressing when
we see tlat it is robbing US Of
the very hope Of the land, SO
many Of its young men. There is
some sort of a poor plea, nc: an ex-
cuse, mird you, for man who is left
without bodily or mental vigor in his
declining years to struggle with pow
erty, with the burden of household,
but one who has health aud strength,
who has all the promise Of years to
come, who has no lost fortunes to
mourn over, no bitter memories to vex
him, such one is left without even a
miserable plea when he seeks his COM
fort in a saloon. He is wasting a life
which might be useful-hc is squan-
dcring earnings which might bless
others, and worse than all this he is
bringing sorrow and disgrace to a
home Of which he is the Joy and
pride. All over our land we see abun-
dant evidences Of the waste and ruin
! Of drink among our youth. But now
while we say this we thankfully ac-
knowledge that Christian sentiment
is asserting itself in our country, par
ticularly in our moral districts. We
rejoice to believe that right here in
our own immediate section and neigh
borhood there is less drunkenness nov
than there was fifty years ago. By
constant discussion and agitation q
quiet temperance reform has been at
work and drinking practices and Gus
toms that were largely patronized by
respectable church people have been
seen to be harmful and have been
abandoned. And there is an obliga-
tion laid upon every lover OF the
church, and every lover Of his country
to exert himself by precept and ex-
ample in checking and abolishing an
evil more disastrous than war. If
ever there was time when we stood
in need of the virtues of sobriety
with it's plain, honest, homely clad sun
Drowned industry it is now. And this
suggests:
III. That we have not cleansed our
selves from the sin of an ungodly
worldliness. This is the eating can
ker of our time. Men make haste to
be rich. There is deep-seated aver
sion to the slow accumulations Of or
dinary industry. An observant
preacher says, There is swarm Of
men bred in the heat Of adventurous
times, who scern to speak Of dollars
and hundreds and thousands
are their words. "Everythingis done
at driving rate. They wish to reap
before they have ploughed and sown.
Fortunes are to be made in day."