Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes | Page 7

every public
resort and waiting-room departments for men, every rendezvous of
rogues, loafers, villains, and tramps is thoroughly saturated with the
vile stench of the cuspidor and the poisonous odors of the pipe and
cigar. "Rev. Dr. Cox abandoned tobacco after a drunken loafer asked
him for a light." Not until then had he seen and felt the disreputable
fraternity that existed between the users of tobacco.
Owen Meredith gives us a standard of strength and freedom, which is
an inspiration to every lover of rounded, perfected manhood and

womanhood:
"Strong is that man, he only strong, To whose well-ordered will belong,
For service and delight, All powers that in the face of wrong Establish
right.
And free is he, and only he, Who, from his tyrant passions free, By
fortune undismayed, Has power within himself to be, By self obeyed.
If such a man there be, where'er Beneath the sun and moon he fare, He
can not fare amiss; Great nature hath him in her care. Her cause is his."
Only let the "will," the "powers," the "freedom," and the "self" of
which the writer speaks become the "Christ will," the "Christ powers,"
the "Christ freedom," and the "Christ self." Then the strongest chains of
bondage must fly into flinters. For "if the Son make you free, ye are
free indeed." (John viii, 36.)

II. DRUNKENNESS.
I. A TEMPERANCE PLATFORM.
WE bring to you three words of counsel with respect to this subject.
First, Beware of the Social Glass; second, Study the Drink Evil; third,
Openly oppose it. This is a Temperance Platform upon which every
sober, informed, and conscientious person may stand. Would it be
narrow or uncharitable to assert that not to stand upon this platform
argues that one is not sober, or not informed, or not conscientious? The
crying need of to-day is, that men and women shall be urged into
positions of conviction and activity against this most colossal evil of
our time. In our country the responsibility for drunkenness rests not
with the illiterate, blasphemous, ex-prison convicts who operate the
250,000 saloons of our Nation, nor yet with the 250,000 finished
products of the saloon who go down into drunkards' graves every year,
but with the sober, respectable, hard-working, voting citizens of our
country. Nor does this exempt women, whose opportunity to shape the
moral and political convictions of the home is far greater than that of
the men. When the women of America say to the saloon, You go! the
saloon will have to go. The moral and political measures of any people
are easily traceable to the sisters and wives and mothers of that people.
You and I and every ordinary citizen of our country had as well try to
escape our own shadow, as to try to escape the responsibility that rests
upon us for the drunkenness of our people. To help us to do our whole

duty in our day and generation in this matter is the purpose of our
message.
II. BEWARE OF THE SOCIAL GLASS.
The first and least thing that one can do to destroy drunkenness, is to be
a total abstainer. Beware of the social glass! But quickly one replies,
"Why should there be any social glass?" "Why allow sparkling,
attractive springs of refreshing poison to issue forth in all of our social
centers, and then cry to our sons and daughters, to our brothers and
sisters, Beware?" My friend, we must deal with facts as they are. There
should not be a social glass; but what has that to do with the fact that
the social glass is here? You answer, "Why allow these fountains of
death to exist?" while we cry to our loved ones, "Beware!" We do not
advocate the presence of these fountains; but while we seek to destroy
them beseechingly we cry, "Beware!" The social factor in the liquor
traffic is its Gibraltar of defense. Rare is the young man who has the
intellectual stamina and moral courage to resist the invitations to take a
social drink. And in our frontier and foreign towns many of our bright
and respected girls use the social glass. But in its use is the beginning
of a fateful end. The subtlest thing in this world is sin. Listen!
"Sin is a monster of so frightful mien; To be hated needs but to be seen;
But seen too oft, familiar with the face, We first endure, then pity, then
embrace."
The subtle thing about it is, that the first embracing of any sin seems to
be but a trifling, an occasional affair. For one who lives in an ordinary
city of a thousand inhabitants or upwards, unless he is an "out-and-out"
Christian and selects only associates like himself, it becomes a real
Embarrassment not to indulge