The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1906-08-24

witnessed by the eye of man, sadder
than We're ever portrayed on canvass
by the artist brush, exist in living
realities in our own fair city, through
the influence of the saloons and dives
that are here, because of the abuse
of this terrible traffic. All, the pic.
lures Of human woe and human suffer
ing around us are beyond all human
power of art or genius to portray.
Dore left behind him many most ex-
traordinary picturesque specimens of
his genius in depicting the terrible.
But the hand of Dore never painted
a single weeks experience in the sa-
looms and dives and novels of this
city. For he would have had to put
into il everything that was terrible
and revolving to the finer senses of
man; health in ruins, hopes dissipated,
affections crushed, prayers silenced,
homes once peaceful and happy made
desolate. He might put in the dis
tant back ground the vanishing WIS.,
ions of hopeful and promising fu-
ture, and in the foreground the ter
rible certainty of an amending woe;
prison houses with doors that open
only one way. He might people
his canvass with men whose shattered
forms are tenanted by torment, blur
red and ruined souls; with little chill
dren on whose lips the smiles of Joy
never play; with women in whose
cheeks burrows have been ploughed
by tears wrung from breaking hearts.
Paint that and you will see what the
omniscient eye of God sees every
week in this, and every city in our
fair land; and then light 1t up with
the glares that flash from eternal fires,
and still the picture will give you but
a faint conception Of what the eye Of
God continually beholds in our
midst"
We find the saloon close by the tenn
pies of God; we find it dealing out its
destroying liquors at the outposts of
civilization. This hydra-headed mon
ster stalks with brazen affrontery
down our own streets, bent on destruc-
tion. He would set his cloven foot on
the Threshold of every happy home,
and fill it with want and shame. He
would breathe his fowl breath on the
cheek of every pure woman and drag
her down to the brothels. There is
not a fair hope he would not blast, no
tie of love or honor or home he
not sever. He has been on trial for
cl hundred years and there exists
no good reason for his continued ex-
istence.
A Nashville minister in a sermon
last Sunday said that the preachers
should stay out of oplitics. That
Christ did not mix in politics when He
was on earth and would take no part
if He were on earth today. The devil
is the author of this saying and he
first said it forty years ago. He said
it to keep Christian men from parti-
cipating in the affairs of government
and to keep the saloons in power and
the whiskey people in Office and keeps
saying it for the same purpose. hold
my political rights next in Importance
to my christianity. Politics embraces
everything that tends to civilization.
Civic righteousness means right con-
duct from one citizne towards another,
and civic righteousness was taught
by Christ If He was on earth today
He would still teach civic righteous
ness and would take some part in
civic righteousness through
politics. But thank God, the time
Is coming when christian men will
control. The clouds of whiskey domi-
nation are gradually rolling away and
we are at the dawn of a better day. |
And when the noontide shall come,
and 1t is coming rapidly, this awful
curse will be banished from our land.
Today there are 100000 confirmed
lrunkards in these United States.
Half a million blurred and bloated |
wrecks of once promising manhood |
Hopeless drunkards, bound in the
ldamantine chains forged by king AL
,hoI. Look at that vast army, the |
broken, the bloated, the blurred, all |
fastening down the slippery slopes of |
leath. Every step marked by trail |
If blood. Eevery step marked by the |
,ries of women and children. Every |
tep fl He'd with the anguish of broken
hearts. $4,000 do down to a drunk
lrd's grave each twelve months-an
lrmy so vast that If they were to
march four abreast through the streets
If Columbia, it would take them sew
,nty hours to pass given point. All |
ire hound for a drllnkard'S hell.