Newspapers / Eastern Courier (Hertford, N.C.) / Aug. 21, 1895, edition 1 / Page 2
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REY. DR. TALMAGR The Eminent New York Dlvlna's San . day Sermon. Subject! 'Tbe Worst Foe oribor." Owing to great grief at the sudden death of his lamented wife. Rev. Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage canceled his engagement to prea?h, but in order that the vast congregation to which he sreaks through tht press may not be disappointed, a famous and always-timely sermon delivered by him on a previous occasion is supplied for this week. Text: ''He that earneth waees, earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes," Haggai i., 6. In Torsia, under the reign of Darius Tly KtHspe?, the people did not prosper. They made money, but did' not keep it. They were like people who have a sack in which they put mony, not knowing that the sack is torn, or eaten of moths, or in some way made incapable of. holding valuables. As fast as the coin was put in one end of the sack it dropped out of the other. It made no difference how much wages they got, for they lost them. "He that earneth waeres earneth wages to put it into a bag with holes." What has become nf the billions and bil lions of dollars in this country paid to the working classes? Borne of these moneys have gone for house rent, or the purchase oi homesteads, or wardrobe, or family expenses, or the necessities of life, or to provide com forts in old age. What f as become of other billions? Wasted in foolish outlay. Wasted at the caming-table. Wasted in intoxicants. Put into a bag with a hundred holes. Gather up the money' that the working classes have spent for rum during the last thirty years, and 1 will build for every work iusrman a house, and lay out for him a gar Tien, and clothe his sons in broadcloth and his daughters in silks, and stand at his front door a prancintr span of sorrels or bays, and secure him a policy of life insurance, so that the present home miybe well maintained after he is dead. The most persistent, most overpowering enemy of the working classes is intoxicating liquor. It is the anarchist of the centuries, and has boycotted and is now boycotting the body and mind and soul of American labor. It is to it a worse foe than monopoly, and worse .than associated capi tal. It annually swindles industry out of a large percentage of its earnings. It holds out its blasting solicitations to the mechanic or operative on his way to work, and at the ,hoon-spell. and on his way home at even tide; on Saturday, when the wages are paid, it snatches a lapsre part of the money that might come to the family, and sacrifices it among the saloon keepers. Within eisrht hundred yards of Sands Street Methodist Church, Brooklyn, it has fifty-four saloons, and is plotting now for another. Stand the. saloons of this country side by side, and it is carefully estimated they wouid reach from New York to Chicago. Forward, march, says the rum power, and take possession of the American Nation! The rum business is pouring its vitriolic and damnable liquids down the throats oT hundreds of thousands of laborers, and while the ordinary strikes are ruinous both " to employers and employes, I proclaim a strike universal against strong drink, which, if kept up. will be the relief of the w.orking classes and the salvation of the Nation. I will un dertake to say that there is not a healthy laborer in the United States who, within the next ten years, if he will refuse allintox ieafing beverage and be saving, may not be come a capitalist on a small scale. Our country in a year spends one billion five hundred million and fifty thousand dollars for rum. Of course the working classes do a great deal of this expenditure. Careful statistics show that the wage-earning classes of Great Britain expend in liquors one hun dred million pounds, or five hundred mill ion dollars a year. Sit down and think, O workingman! how much you have expend ed in these directions. Add it all up. Add up what your neighbors have expended, and realize that instead of answering the beck of other people you might have been your own capitalist. When you deplete a work ingman's physical energy 3Tou deplete tis capital. The stimulated workman gives out before the unstimulated workman. My father said: "I became a temperance man in early life, because I noticed in the harvest field that, though I was physically weaker than other workmen. I could hold out longer than they. They took stimulants. I took none." A brickmakerin Englrnd gives his experience in regard to this matter among men in his employ. He says, after investigation: ''The per-drinkers who made the fewest bricks made six hundred and fifty-nine thousand; the abstainer who made the fewest bricks, seven hundred and forty-six thousand." The difference in behalf of the abstainer over the indulger. eighty-seven thousand. There came a very exhausting time in the British Parliament. The session was pro longed until nearly all the members got sick or worn out. Out of six hundred and flfty . two members only two went through ' un damaged; they were teetotalers. When an army goes out to the battle the soldier who has water or coffee in his can teen marches easier .and fights better than the soldier who has whisky in his canteen. Rum helps a man to fight when he has only one contestant, and that at tha street cor ner. But when he goes forth to maintain some great battle for God and. his country, he wants no rum about him. When the Russians go to war a corporal passes along the line and smells the breath of every sol dier. If there be in his breath a taint of in toxicating liquor, the man is sent back to the barracks. Why? He cannot endure fa tigue. All our young men know this. When they are preparing for a regatta, or for a ball club, or for an athletic wrestling, they ab--stain. Our working people will be wiser af ter a while, and the money they fling away on hurtful indulgences they will put into co operative associations, and so become capi talists. If the workingman put down his wages and then take his expenses and spread them out, so they will just equal, he is not wise, I know workingmen who are in a perfect fidget until they get rid of their last dollar. The following circumstances came under our observation: A young man worked hard to earn his six or seven hundred dollars yearly. Marriage day came. The bride had inherited five hundred dollars from her grandfather. She spent every dollar of it on the wedding dress. Then they rented two rooms in a third story. Then the young man toot extra evening employment; almost ex hausted with the day's work, yet took even ing employment. It almost extinguished his eyesight. . Why did he add evening employ ment to the day employment? To get money. Why did he waut to get money? To lay up something for a rainy day? No. To get his life insured, so that in case of his death his wife would not be a beggar? No. He put the extra evening work to the day work that he might get a hundred and fifty dollars to get his wife a sealskin coat. The sister of the bride heard of this achievement, and was not to be eclipsed. She was very poor, and she sat up working nearly all the nights for a great while until she bought a sealskin coat. I have not heard of the result on that street. The street was full of those who aro on small incomes, but I suppose the con tagion spread, and that everybody had a sealskin coat, and that the people came out . and cried, practically, not literally .'''Though the heavens falJ, we must have a seals cm coat!" I was out West, and a minister of the Gos pel told me, in Iowa, that his church and the neighborhood had been impoverished by the fact that they put mortgages on their farms in order to send their families to the Phila delphia Centennial. It was not respectable not to go to the Centennial. Between such evils and pauperism there is a very short step. The vast majority of children in your aim houses are there because their parents are drunken, or lazy, or recklessly improvident. I have no sympathy for skinflint saving, but I plead for Christian prudence. You say it is impossible now to lay up anything for a rainy day. I know it. but we are at the day break of National prosperity. Some people think it is mean to turn the gas low when they go out of the parlor. They feel embar rassed if the door-bell rings before they have the hall lighted. They apologize for the plain meal, if yon surprise them at the table. Well, it is mean if it is only to pile up a mis erly hoard. But if it be to educate your children, if it be to give more help to your wife when she does not feel strong, if it be to keep your funeral day from being horri ble beyond all endurance, because it is to be the disruption and annihilation of the do mestic circle if it be for that, then it is mag- nifleent. There are those who are kept in poverty because of their own fault. They might have been well off, but they smoked or chewed up their earnings, or they lived beyond their means, while others on the same wages and on the same salaries went on to competency. I know a man who was all the time com plaining of his povertv and crying out against rich men, while he himself "keeps two dogs, and chews and smokes, and is full to the chin with whisky and beer. Wilkins Mi cawber said to David Copperfield, "Copper field, my boy. one pound income, expenses twenty shillings and six pence; result, misery. But, Copperfield, my boy, one pound income, expenses nineteen shillings and six penee; result, happiness." But, O working man of America, take your morning dram, and your noon dram, aud your evening dram, and spend everything you have over for to bacco and excursions, and you insure pov erty for yourself and your children forever! If by some generous fiat of the capitalists of this country, or by a new law of the Gov ernment -of the United States, twenty-five per cent., or fifty per cent., or one hundred per cent, were added to the wages of the working classes of America, it would be no advantage to hundreds of thousands of them unless they stopped strong drink. Aye, un til they quit that evil habit, the more money, the more ruin, the more wages, the more holes in the bag. My plea this morning is to those working people who are in a discipleship to whisky bottle, the beer-mug, and the wine-flask. And what I say to them will not be more ap propriate to the working classes than to the business classes, and the literary classes, and the professional classes, and all classes, and not with the people of one age more than of all ages. Take one good square look at the suffering of the man whom strong drink has enthralled, and remember that toward that goal multitudes are running. The dis ciple of alcoholism suffers the loss of self respect. Juat as soon as a man wakes up and finds that ne is the captive of strong drink, he feels, demeaned. I do not care how reckless he act?. He may say, "I don't care;" he does care. He cannot look a pure man in the eye unless it is with positive force of resolution. j Three-fourths of his nature is destroyed; j his self-respect is gone; he says things he i would not otherwise say; he does things lie would not otnerwise ao. vtnen a man is nine-tenths gone with trong drink, the first thing he wants to do is to persuade you that he can stop any time he wants to. He cannot. The Philistines have bound him hand and foot, and shorn, his leeks, and put out his eyes, and are making him grind in the mill of a great horror. He cannot stop. I will prove it. He knows that his course is bringing ruin upon himself. He loves himself. If he could stop he would. He kiiows his course is bringing ruin upon his family, ne loves them. He would stop if he could. He cannot. Perhaps he could three months or a year ago. not now. Just ask him to stop for a month. He cannot; he knows he cannot, so he does not try. I had a friend who was for fifteen years going down under this evil habit. He had large means. He had given thousands of dollars to Bible societies and reformatory institutions of all ! sorts. He was very genial, very generous, and very lovable, and whenever he talked about this evil habit he would say, "I can stop any time." But he kept going on, going on, down, down, down. His family i would say, "I wish you would stop." "Why." he would reply, "I can stop any time jit I want to." After a while . he had delirium tremens; he had it twic?; and yet, after that, he said. "I could stop at anytimeif I wanted to." He is dead now. What killed him? Hum! Rum! And vft a.mon? his last! utterances was. "I can stop at any time. cause lie couia nor poiut in inebriation goes he cannot stop! One of these victims said to man, "Sir. if I were told that I a drink until to-morrow night all mv fingers cut off. I would He did not stop it, be stop it. Oh, there is a beyond which if a man a Christian couldn't get unless I had sav. 'Bring the hatchet and cut them off now.- I nave a dear friend in Philadelphia whose nephew came to him one day, and, when he was ex horted about his evil habit, said, "Uncle, I can't give it up. If therj stood a cannon and it was loaded, and a glass of wine were set on the mouth of that cannon, and I knew that you would fire it off as I came up and took tho glass, I would start, for I must have it." Oh, it is a sal thing for a man to wake no in this life and feel that he is a captive! Ha says, "I could have got rid of this at once, but I can't now. I might have lived an hon orable life and died a Christian death: but there is no hope for me now; there-is no. escape for me. Dead, but not buried. I am a walking corpse, I am an apparition of what I once was. i am a caged im nortal beating against the wires of my cage in this direc tion; beating against the eage until there is blood on the wires and blood upon my soul, yet not able to get out. Destroyed without remedy!" I go on, and say pat the disciple of rum suffers from the I033 of health. The older men in the congregation may re member that some years ago Dr. Sewell went through this country and electrified the peo ple by his lectures, in which he showed the effects of alcoholism on the human stomach. He had seven or eight diagrams by which he showed the devastation of strong drink upon the physical system. There were thousands 'of people that turned back from that ulcer ous sketch, swearing eternal abstinence, from everything that could intoxicate. God only knows wnat the drunkard suf fers. Pain files on every nerve, and travels every muscle, and j gnaws every ' bone, and burns with every flame, and stiugs with every poison, and pulls at him with every torture. What reptiles crawl over his creep ing limbs! Whatfiend3 stand by his mid night pillow! What groans tear his ear! What horrors shiver through his soul! Talk of the rack, talk of the Inquisition, talk of the funeral pyre, talk of the crushing Jug gernaut he feels them all at once. Have you ever been in the ward of the hospital where these inebriates are dying, the stench of their wounds driving back the attendants, their voices sounding through the night? The keeper comes up and says, "Hush, now, be still! Stop making all this noise!" But it is effectual only for a moment, for as soon as the keeper is I gone they begin again, "Oh, God! Oh, God! Help! Help! Rum! Give me rum! Help!. Take them off me! Take them off ms'.j Oh, Gail" And then they shriek, and they rave, and they pluck out their hair by haadfuls. and bite their nails into the qui -k, and then they groan, and v Ihey shriek, and they blaspheme, and they ask the keeper to kill them "Stab me! Smother me' Strangle me! Take the devils off me!" Oh. it is no fancy sketch! Thwt thing is going on now all up and down the land, and I tell you further that this is go ing to be the death that some of you will die. I know it. I see it coming. Again, the inebriate suffers loss of home. I do not care how much he loves his wife and children, if his passiou for strong drink has mastered him,j he will do the most out rageous Ihings; and if he could not get drink in any other way. he would sell his family into eternal bondage. How many homes have been broken up in that way no one but God knows. Oh. is there auyihing that will so destroy a man for this lii'e and camn him for the life that is to come? I hate that strong drink.) With all the concentrated energies of my jsoul I hate it. Tut not tell me that a man can be happy when he knows that he is breaking his wife's'heart and clothing his children with rags. Why, there are on the roads and streets of this land to day little children, barefooted, unwashed, and unkempt want on every patch of their faded dress and on every wrinkle of theii prematurely old Countenances, who would have been in churches to-dav. and a well clad as you are. but for the fact that rum de stroyed their parents and drove them into the grave. Oram, thou foe of God. thou despoiler of homes, thou recruiting officer of the pit. I hate tbee! But my subject takes a deeper tone, and that is. that the unfortunate of whom I speak suffers from the loss of the soul. . The Bible intimate that in the future worlds if we are; unforgiven here, our bad passions and appetites, unrestrained, will go along with us and make our torment there. So that, I suppose, when an inebriate wakes up in me lasi world, ne will feel an infinite through the thirst clawing on world, although poor, he could cents with which him. Now. down in the he may have been very beg or he could steal five to get that which xrrml.l n ct2r- Mce nis tnirst lor a little while; but city where is the rum to com? frors.' refuge! Oh, the deep, exhausting, exasperating everlasting thirst of tho drunkard in hlul Why, if a fiend came up to earth for some i fernai work in a grog-shop, and should sn back taking on its wing just one drop of that for which the inebriate in the lost worM longs, what excitement would it make there' Put that one drop from off the fiend's vinz on the tip of the tongue of the destroyed ine briate; let the liquid brightness just touch it: let the drop be very small, if it only have in it the smack of alcoholic drink; let that drop just touch- the lost inebriate in the lost world, and j he would spring to his feet and cryj . "That Is rum, aha' That is rum!" And ft would wake up the echoes of the damned "Give me rum! Gite me rum! Give me rum!" In the future world I do not believe that it will be the ab sence of God that will make the drunkard s sorrow. I do not believe that it will be the absence of light. I do not believe that it will be the absencej of holiness. I think it will be the absence; of rum. Oh, "look not upon the wine whein It U red, when it raov eth itself aright injthe cup, for at the last it biteth like a serpent, and it stingeth like an adder." j It is about time that we have another wo man's crusade likethat which swept through Ohio ten or twelve; years ago. With prayer ana song tne women went into tne grog geries, and whole neighborhoods, towns and cities were redeemed by their Christian heroics. Thirty women cleared out the rum traffic from a village of one thousand inhab itants. If thirty women, surcharged of the Holy Ghost, coutd renovate a town of a thousand, three thousand consecrate! wcw men, resolved to give themselves no peace until this crime was extirpated from this city, could in six months clear put three-fourths 01 the grog-shops of JJrooklyn. If there be three thousand women nbw in this city who will put their hands and their hearts to the work, I will take the contract for driving out all these moral nuisahces from the city at any rate, three-fourths of them in three months. If, when that host of three thousand con secrated women is marshaled, there be no one to lead them,! then, as a minister of the Most High God, will offer to take my position at the front of the host, and I will cry to them, "Come on, ye women of Christ, with your songs and your prayers! Some of you take the enemy's right wing and some the left wing. Forward! The Lord of Hosts is with us: the Gqd of Jacob is our Down with the dram shops!" But not waiting: for those mouths of he'.l to close, let me advise the wording and the business classes, and all classes, to stop strong drink. While I declared some time ago that there was a point beyond which a man could not stop, I want to tell you that while a man cannot stop in his own strength, the Lord God by His grace can help him to stop at anytime. I wasl in a room in New York where there were many men who had been reclaimed from! drunkenness. I heard their testimony and for the first time in my life there flashed out a truth I never undeblood. They said, "We were victims of Strong drink. We trie 1 to give it up, but altvays failed; but somehow since we gave oui hearts to Christ, He as taken care of us.f' I believe that the time will soon come when the grace of God will show its power not only to save man's soul, but his body, andireconstruct, purify, elevate and redeem it. I verily believe that, although you feel grappling at the) roots of your tongues an almost omnipotent thirst, if you will give your heart to God, He will help you by His grace to eonqueiv Try it. It is your last chance. I have looked off upon tha desolation. Sitting in our religious assemblages there aro a good many people in awful peril; auJ, judging. from ordinary circumstance-", there is not one chance in five thousand that they will get clear of St. There are men in my congregation from Sabbath to Sabbath of whom I must make the remark, that if they do not change their course, within ten years they will, as to their bodies, lie down ia drunkards' graves; and as to their souls, lie down in a drunkard's perdition. I know that is an awful thing to say, Dut I cannot help saying it. j Oh, beware! You have not yet been cap tured. Beware! Whether the beverage be poured in golden chalice or pewter mug. in the foam at the top, in white letters, let there be spelled out j to your soul, "Beware! When the books (of Judgment are open, and ten million drunkards come up to get their doom, I want ydu to bear witness that I. this morning, in the fear of God and in tha love for your soiil, told you, with all affec tion and with ail kindness, to beware of that which has already exerted its influence upoo your family, blowing out some of its lights a premonition of the blackness of darkness forever. I Oh, if yon could only hear this morniu? Intemperance with drunkards' bone? drum ming on the head of the liquor-cask th Dead March of immortal souls, methinks tn very glance of aiwine-cup would make yoa shudder, and the color of the liquor w;ouia make you think of tho blood of the loui, andthe foam onjthe top of the cup woula re mind you of the If roth on the maniac's up: and you would do home from this service ana kneel down and) pray God that, rather teas your children should become cap tives of this evil habit, you would like to carry them out jsome bright spring day the cemeterv, and put them away to the ia sleep, until at the call of the south wisJ W flowers would come up all over the r3eTJ sweet prophecies of the resurrection. nas a t-aim ior sucn a wounu; uu. flrnr-Ar nf wmfrti nir crrAW on the Ui& " ... - heath of a drunkard's sepulchre "Bridal pairs Green? They as mush. 1 tiat The Cincinnati Tribune says inst now are dftad ripe and as soft V
Eastern Courier (Hertford, N.C.)
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Aug. 21, 1895, edition 1
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