The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1899-06-08

once stood in the pulpit and preached
the Gospel of the Son of God? We will
not forget the scene witnessed some
years ago in my Brooklyn church when
man rose in the midst of the audi
ence, stepped into the aisle and walked
up and down. Everybody saw that he
was intoxicated The ushers led him
out, and his poor wife took his hat and
overcoat and followed him to the door.
| Who was he? He had once been a
mighty minister of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ in a sister denomination, had
often preached in this very city. What
slew him? Strong drink! Oh, what
must be the feeling of a man who has
destroyed his capacity for usefulness!
Do not be angry with that man. Do not
lose your patience with him. Do not
wonder if he says strange things and
| gets irritated easily in the family. He
has the Pyrenees and the Andes and
the Alps on him. Do not try to per-
suade him that there is no future pun
ishment. Do not 60 into any argument
to prove to him that there is no hell. He
knows there is. He is there now!
But he suffers also in the loss of phys
ical health. The older people in this au-
dience can remember DIR. Sewell going
through this country electrifying great
audiences by demonstrating to them
the effect of strong drink upon the hui
man stomach. l am told he had eight
or ten diagrams which he presented to
the people, showing the different stages
in the progress of the disease, and l am
told tens of thousands of people turned
| back from that ulcerous sketch and
swore eternal abstinence from all intox-
icants. God only knows what the
drunkard suffers. Pain files on every
nerve and travels every muscle and
gnaws on every bone and stings with
every poison and pulls with every tor
ture. What reptiles crawl over his shiv-
ering limbs! What specters stand by
his midnight pillows! What groans tear
the air! Talk of the rack, talk of the
funeral pyre, talk of the Juggernaut-
| he suffers all at once.
| See the attendants stand back from
that ward in the hospital where the in
ebriates are dying. They cannot stand
it. The keepers come through it and
say: Hush up, now! Stop making this
noise! Be still! You are disturbing all
the other patients. Keep still now!"
Then the keepers pass on, and after
they get past then the poor creatures
wiring their hands and say: 80 God!
Help, help! Give me rum, give me
rum! O God! O God." And they
shrek and they blaspheme and they cry
for help and then they ask the keepers
to slay them, saying: ''Stab me, stran-
| gle me, smother me! o God! Help,
help! Rum! Give me rum! O God!
Help!" They tear out their hair by the
handful, and they bite their nails into
the quick. This is no fancy picture. 1t
is transpiring in a hospital at this mo-
ment.. 1t went on last night while you
slept, and, more than that, that is the
death some of you will die unless you
stop. l see it coming. God help you to
stop before you go SO far that you can
not stop.
| But it plaques man also in the loss
! of home. lido not care how much he
loves his wife and children, if this habit
gets the mastery over him he will do
the most outrageous things. If need be,
in order to get strong drink he would
sell them all into everlasting captivity.
There are hundreds and thousands of
homes that have been utterly blasted
of it. l am speaking of no abstraction.
Is there anything SO disastrous to a
man for this life and for the life to
come? Do you tell me that man can
be happy when he knows he is breaking
his wife's heart and clothing his chill
dren with rags? There are little chill
dren in the streets to-day, barefooted,
unkempt, uncombed, want written on
every patch of their faded dress and on
every wrinkle of their prematurely old
countenance, who would have been in
the house of God this morning as well
clad as you had it not been that strong
drink drove their parents down into
penury and then down into the grave
Oh, rum, rum, thou despoiler of homes
thou foe of God, thou recruiting officer
of the pit. hate thee!
but luy SuDJcCt tdNcS q uccpcF lOHe
when it tells you that the inebriate suf.
fers the loss of the soul. The Bible in.
Inmates that il we go into the future
world unforgiven the appetites and pas
sions which were regnant here will tor.
ment us there. | suppose when the inc
briate wakes up in the lost world there
will be an infinite thirst clawing upon
him. In this world he could get strong
drink. However poor he was in this
world, he could beg or he could steal five
cents to get drink that would for &
little while slake his thirst. but in eter
nifty where will the rum come from
Dives wanted one drop of water, bu1
could not get it. Where will the inebri
ate get the draught he SO much requires
SO much demands? No one to brew it
No one to mix it. No one to pour it
No one to fetch it. Millions of worlds
now for the dregs that were thrown OF
the sawdusted floor of the restaurant
Millions of worlds now for the rint
flung out from the punch bowl of al