Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1899-05-04

What clerk can get a position with
such reputation? What store wants
him? What Church of God wants him
for member? What dying man
wants him for an executor? He
drinks!" stand before hundreds OF
young men-and say it not in fiat
tery-splendid young men who have
their reputation as their only capital.
Your father gave you good educa-
| ton, or as good an education as he
could afford to give you. He started
you in city life. He could furnish you
no means, but he has surrounded you
with Christian influences and good
memory Of the past. Now, young man.
under God you are with your own right
arm to achieve your fortune, and as
your reputation Is your only capital. do
not bring upon 1t suspicion by going in
and out of liquor establishments, or by
an odor of your breath, or by any glare
of your eye, or by any unnatural flush
on your cheeks. You lose your reputa-
ton and you lose your capital.
The inebriate suffers also in the fact
that he loses his self-respect. and when
you destroy mans self-respect there
is not much left of him. Then a man
will do things he would not do other
wise; he will say things he would not
say otherwise. The fact is that man
cannot stop, or Re would stop now
He is bound hand and foot by the
Philistines, and they have shorn his
locks and put his eyes out, and made
him grind in the mill of great horror
After he is three-fourths gone in this
slavery, the first thing he will be anx-
ious to impress you with is that he
can stop at any time he wants to.
His family become alarmed in regard
to him, and they say: Now do stop
this; after a while it will get the mas
terry of you" "Oh! no." he says, Il
can stop at any time; can stop now,
can stop tomorrow" His most con-
fdential friends say: why, I'm
afraid you are losing your balance with
that habit; you are going a little fur
Their than you can afford to go; you
had better stop" ooh! no." he says,
Il can stop at any time; l can stop
now" He goes on further and fur
Their. He cannot stop. l will prove it.
He loves himself, and he knows never
thelcss. that strong drink is depicting
him in body, mind and soul. He
knows he is going down, that he has
less self-control, less equipoise of tenn
per than he used to. Why does he not
stop? Because he cannot stop. l will
prove it by going still further. He
loves his wife and children. He sees
that his habits are bringing disgrace
upon his home. The probabilities are
they will ruin his wife and disgrace
his children. He sees all this, and he
loves them. Why does he not stop?
He cannot stop.
If fiend from a lost world should
come up on a mission to a grog shop,
and, having finished the mission in the
grog shop, should come back, taking
on the tip of his wing one drop of al
coholic beverage, what excitement it
would make all through the world of
the lost; and if that one drop of alco-
holic beverage should drop from the
wing of the fiend upon the tongue of
the inebriate how he would spring up
and cry: That's it! that's it! Rum!
Rum! That's it," And all the caverns
of the lost would echo with the cry,
"Give it to me! RUM RUM" All!
my friends, the inebriate's sorrow in
the next world will not be the absence
of God, or holiness, or light; it will
be the absence of rum. Look not upon
the wine when it is red, when it NOV
eth itself Alright in the cup; for at the
last it biteth like serpent, and it
stingeth like an adder"
When 1 see this plague in the land,
and when l see this destroying angel
sweeping across our great cities, I'm
sometimes indignant, and sometimes
Inundated. When a man asks me:
What are you in favor of for the
subjugation of this evil?" I answer:
81 am ready for anything that is rea-
sonable." You ask me, Are you in
favor of Sons of Temperance" Yes.
Are you in favor Of Good Samari-
tans?" Yes. Are you in favor Of
Good Templars?" Yes. Are you in
favor of prohibitory law" Yes. Are
you in favor of the pledge?" Yes.
Combine all the influences, o Chris
tian reformers and philanthropists!
Combine them all for the extirpation
of this evil.
Thirty women in one of the West
ern states banded together, and with
an especial ordination from God they
went forth to the work and shut up
all the grog shops of large village.
Thirty women, with their song and
with their prayer; and if one thousand
| or two thousand Christian men and
women with an especial ordination
from God should go forth feeling the
responsibility of their work and dis
charging their mission, they could in
any city shut up all the grog shops.
| But l must not dwell on generali-
ties: | must come to specifics. Are
you astray? If there is any sermon
dislike it is a sermon on generalities
I want personalities. Are you astray
Have you gone so far you think you
cannot get back? Did 1 say few mo-
ments ago that a man might go to a
point in inebriation where he could
not stop? Yes, l said it, and I reit'
crate it: but l want you also to under
stand that while the man himself, Of
his own strength, cannot stop, God
can stop any man. You have only
to lay hold of the strong arm Of the
Lord God Almighty. He can stop you
Many summers ago I went over to New