The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1912-06-14
Y. {. |. j. DEPARTMENT
(Mrs. f. Van Hood, EdltOr)
s.Be Not Drunk with Wine."

Paul did not preach against the
vices to which his hearers were not
tempted. His words. be not drunk
with wine. plainly indicate the pres
ence of beastly intoXicatiOn in the city
of Ephesus. Strong drink a peril
to his church; it was a foe to moral
and religious progress. He smites it
with all the vigor of Indignation. That
admonition holds good to the
church to this day. The liquor trust
has become colossal in power, and its
baneful influence falls across the
whole field of our civilization. The
monster lives on human calamity,
degradation and death. Why does it
fatten and lift it's insulting, foul face
in the eyes of men? 1t rests on two
things-the love of money, and the
love of whiskey.- The business ought
to be killed. The saloon is an outlaw
and a criminal The black demon flies
through the world, and not one home
escapes harm. It's works are poverty,
rags, tears, hunger, enfeebled man.
hood, wrecked character, crowded
criminal courts and jails. We grow
tired of describing the indescribable
horror; and moral Indignation feels
fatigue.
This legalized abomination laughs
at you and me when we try to fence
our homes and our churches against
his aggressions. The arrogant mock
cry of the accursed beast is hard to
bear. Sometimes the friends of temp
erance grow weary and say, What's
| the use? The battle is disgusting,
but it is not going to cease. Chris
etc oil ha fiAl1 IN
human life. In her program there is
| no place for barroom on this earth.
Moral forces always win. The whis-
key traffic knows the seriousness of
| meeting the hostility of all the Sun
| day schools, all the churches, all the
Christian families of this nation. Nor
al principle can never relax. Moral
| forces steadily gather. \ cyclone will
strike some day. Already the brew
| ers and distillers. wholesalers and re-
| tailerS, are thinking it prudent to
keep the laws. Their old tone of con-
| fidence begins to be shaken. They
| fought local option with all their
| might, but in vain. Now they are
| fond of local option when statewide
prohibition looms up.
| There is something to be done. One
thing. 1 want you to despise and re-
pudiate that old fraZzled falsehood.
! Prohibition doesn't prohibit. One gets
| so tired of hearing good men even re-
| peating the silly, outworn phrase.
/ Now, it does prohibit; they know it.
If it is a failure. if it works the traffic
no harm. why their frenzied opposition
| to it? Why do they spend millions to
| buy corrupt voters in order to defeat
| it? Let US laugh down the wretched
| mis-statement of fact. Let make
intelligent citizens ashamed to utter
! such nonsense. and give comfort to
| the worst criminal on the earth. Every
| wife and mother. for her own sake
| and for the sake of her children
| should vow eternal hate TO the COM
| mon foe. The name of this evil de-
| bauchery, lust, murder. sin 1t Is the
essence of them all No wonder temp
| and extreme sometimes, excuse them
| on the ground of the awful provoca
| ton. What side are you on? Don't
berate the prohibitionist. Help him
fight the enemy.
The English soldiers went down in
defeat time after time in the Boer
war in South Africa What was the
their hardihood and efficiency by
drink. In their long leisure of the
camp they had become the enervated
victims of whiskey England was
alarmed. and took hold of the evil
1t was weakening the nation. Re
form in the camp has been established
Germany took alarm and adopted sim
liar measures of reform. Drunken
ness. the whiskey traffic, threaten:
the life of nation.
There We're barrooms in Rome, too
as Well as in Ephesus. Was there
ever a city where 1t was not? Omni-
present and perniciously active 1t ha:
slain more men than all the wars o.
the world Yes, a hundred times over
Drunken fathers transmit disease Il
their children. and the annual toll o
death is enormous. This is one of tn,
tcruelest forms of the evil Whiske,