Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1914-05-15

and manifest his gratitude for
wine that maketh glad the
hearts of men" wine which his
son. Solomon, the mightest mon
arch and wisest man of all the
ages, in christian charitableness
proverbialized in these words:
"Give strong drink unto him that
is ready to perish and wine unto
those that be of heavy hearts.
Let him drink and forget his
poverty, and remember his mis-
cry no more"
But, while the tides of human
passion rise and fall, ebb and
flow, and good wine refreshes,
invigorates and gladdens hearts
now as then, the times have
changed.
The juice of the grape, at it's
best, is today under the ban-out-
llawed.
Prohibition reigns and creates
statutes, but cannot control ap-
petites. Illicit dealers in stimu-
lants unscrupulously dispense
their Cheap John, poisonous stuff;
meanwhile, the race of liars.
hypocrites and dope fiends are on
the increase.
David has had his day; the
glory of his son has departed,
and it is much to our shame that
the wisdom of a. Solomon. as a
thing to conjure with in Missis-
sippi, is not comparable to that
of a taking, booze fighting,
shameless Bilbo.
"Woe is me, Alhama!"
! flushed is the song of the
Psalmist; stilled is the voice of
the Wise Man. The rift in the
lutte has widened until it's strings
give no pleasing response to the
touch of a masters hand.
1.-THE harp that once through Tara s
halls,
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tsra's walls "a,
As IL that sost NJ. Ted
So sleeps the pride of former days,
| So glory's thrill is Ger,
And hnartu fhat nnoa hnot hiUh for
praise,
Now feel that pulse no more.
No more to chiefs and ladies' bright
| The harp of Tara swells;
The chord, alone, that breaks at night,
I Its tale of ruin tells
Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,
| The only throb she gives,
Is when some heart indignant breaks
To show that still she lives"
Be all that as it may, and
whether time has dealt kindly or
otherwise with his body, the
clippings from the Examiner re-
produced by the Beacon show
very conclusively that the vigor
of Major Jonas mind remains
unimpaired and he is yet, very
much to the qualification of those
who knew and loved him in the
light of other days, mentally
able and wiling, if | may para
phrase a couplet from Sir Walter
Scott,
To stoop his head and couch his spear,
And spur his steed to full career
to meet in the shock of fercest
intellectual combat the best of
the foes of his party and his peo-
pie
Lest some of our antisaloon
frienos take needless umbrage at
something in the foregoing, let
sme say in conclusion, nothing in
| it is intended to wound or offend
the good men and women enlist
| ed under the banner of Prohibi-
ton. For many of them | have
an abiding love, and no one more
willingly comedies the purity of
the purpose and the sincerity Of
the performance of the great
body of them than the writer.
But that they have been mis-
guided and misled and priest
ridden | earnestly believe, just
as | know history is replete with
cases in times past in which zeal
for the church has caused the
state to sanction cruelties un-
speakable and condone crimes
innumerable and unmentionable;
has permitted prosecutions of
Protestants by Papists, and sub
sequent retaliations by Protest
ants upon Papists, has produced
massacres as at st. Bartholomew,
in France, and martyrdoms over
in England, like those of Hugh
Latimer and Ridley: and others
superlatively horrible and too
numerous to mention, when the
English were run mad with re-
ligious intolerance, Papist zeal
and fanaticism during the reign
Of Bloody Mary,
n. W. BANKS.
EAlspsgt, May 6, isis,