Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1899-05-01

| an apparition of what once was. am
| a Gagged immortal and my soul beats
| against the wires of my cage on this
| side and beats against the wires of my
| cage on the other side until there is
blood on the wires and blood on the
soul. but l can't get out. Destroyed
without remedyl"
Again the man suffers from the loss
of usefulness. Do you know some of the
men who have fallen into the ditch
were once in the front rank in churches
and in the front rank in reformatory
institutions Do you know they once
knelt at the family altar and once car
ried the chalice of the holy communion
on sacramental days? Do you know
they once stood in the pulpit and preach
ed the gospel of the Son of God? We
will not forget the scene witnessed some
years ago in my Brooklyn church when
a man rose in the midst Of the audience
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 over
coat and followed him to the door. Who
was he2 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 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 Pyre-
nees and the Andes and the Alps on him.
Do not try to persuade him that there
is no future punishment. Do not go in
to any argument to prove to him that
there is no hell He knows there is. He
is there nowi
Horrors of AIcOh oIism.
But he suffers also in the loss of phys
ical health. The older people in this au-
dience can remember DR.. Sewell going
through this country electrifying great
audiences by demonstrating to them
the effect of strong drink upon the hu-
man stomach. I 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 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 pillowsl What groans tear
the airl Talk of the rack, talk of the
funeral pyre, talk of the Juggernaut-
he suffers them 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, nowl Stop making this
noisel Be still You are disturbing all
the other patients. Keep still nowr'
Then the keepers pass on, and after
they get past then the poor creatures
wiring their hands and say: go Godl
Help, helpl Give me rum, give me
ruml o Godl Help Take the devils off
of mel o Godl o Godr' And they
shrek and they blaspheme and they cry
for help and then they ask the keepers
to STAY them, saying: "Stab me, stran-
gle me, smother mel 0 Godi Help,
help Ruml Give me ruml 0 Godl
Helpl" They tear out their hair by the
handful, and they bite their nails into
the quick. This is no fancy picture. 1t
is transporting in 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. I see it coming. God help you to
stop before you go so fer that you cam
not stop.
DespoiIer of Homes.
But it plaques a man also in the loss
of home. / do 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 THAI have been utterly blasted
of it. I 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 ragsf There are little chill
dren in the streets today, barefooted,
unkempt, uncombed, want written on
every patch of their faded dress and on
every wrinkle Of their prematurely old
countenancs, 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
perjury and then down into the grave
Oh, rum. rum, thou despoiler of homes,
thou foe Of God, thou recruiting officer
Of the pit. I hate theei
But my subject takes deeper tone
when il tells Won that the inehriafe suf-