Newark post., 1910-05-04
Sunday School Lesson
Lesson VI. May 8, 1910.
TEMPERANCE LESSON.
By r. S. Holmes
(frov. %: 20-35.)

Everyone knows these verses,
that begin Who hath woe Who
hath sorrow Who hath redness
OF eyes We have written notes
on them two or three times in the
past. They are the most graphic
description of the ruin and wreck
which Intoxicating drink makes OF
humanity that is to be found in
literature. We write no notes to-
day, but instead, a homily. Per-
haps someone can get from it that
which will be OF service in the
Sunday school hour
Drunkenness begins so easily. |
The temptation to drink once, lust
once, to young fellow just GO
ing out into lite, is very great.
Men do it. Other bows do it.
Other clerks in stores do it. Other
men in. mills do it. Other Young.
fellows in college do it. Why not
we who go 0ut from home for the
first time to try life for ourselves?
We will never be drunkards. We
have no such thought. Appetite
will never control us. We can do
Just as we please. We can drink
or not drink, and can stop when
ever we get ready" That is the
way young fellows talk But here
is one thing eternally TRUE, no
young man or young woman ever
became the victim OF intoxication
that never drank. If you let the
first drink alone and do not take
it, YOU will never be victim. 1t
is the bright, alert, self-conhdent
young fellow who loves popular
itv, who wants to be hail fellow,
we'll met" with every other one,
n who, having talen his first drink,
has taken his second and his third,
and who has at some time been
drunk iol the first time, and tn N
once again. How conscience
smites after such experiences.
How remorse takes us, and we
say we will never do it again, and
then we do, and SO it is again and
again, until the bright, alert,
warm-hearted, weil-dressed, ac-
tive, ambitious young fellow be-
comes the shambling, ragged, dis
graceful, disreputable vagabond,
who ends his life in the gutter or
in the prison or on the gallows.
That has been the story over and
over and over.
These are the men who have
woe, who tarry long at the wine,
who have redness OF eyes.
Is it not strange that young
people will not profit by the ex-
perience OF their elders' Is it not
singular thing that each man,
each woman wants to try even the
worst sides of life just to see what
there is of it? Women are kept
from this with more carefulness
than are men, in most OF the cir
cles of our lie. But there are
girls who grow up without social
advantage, without much educa-
ton, i'll families that are poor, ir
localities where they are beset by
temptations of every kind, who
seem to be as headstrong as are
Young men, and who seem to be
bound to go wrong. Many start
even as do young men, and the
tendency OF young life to rejec
everything that experience car
say, and go for itself, and learr
for itself, is something fearful II
these DAYS. The cities are full o
this sort Of evil.
Drunkenness means no home
no money, after while, no occu
patton. The great railroads vii
not employ men who drink. lher'
are great industrial institution
who will not employ men wh'
drink. The crime of the worl'
comes from intoxication. Two
thirds of it all is caused by the us
OF Intoxicating drink. 1t dethrone
the soul 1t throws a man into
beast 1t makes one such as thl
little passage in Proverbs describe
who is as he that lieth upon tn
top of a mast"
1t is to the writer singular tina
temperance Sunday and the lem
perance Lesson is unpopular wit
Sunday school teachers. Wh
should it be? There is no form {
sin which is so destructive, SO IT
Sidious. There is no form OF temp
tation that is made SO attractiv
as is this, and the tendency OF sc