INTEMPERANCE DEGRADES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1752, 28 January 1888, Page 3

INTEMPERANCE DEGRADES.

I hate the strong drink. With all the concentrated energies of my soul I hate it. Do not tell me that a man can be htppy when he know! that he is breaking his wife's heart and clothing his children m rags. Why, there are on the roads and streets of this Und to-day little children bare-footed, unwashed and unkempt — want on every patch of their faded dress and on every wrinkle of their prematurely old oountenanooe— who would have been m churches to-day as well clad as you ate, but for tho f»ot that rum destroyed their parents and drove them into the grave, O rum, thon foe of God, than despoller of homes, thou recruiting officer of the pit, I hate thes ! But my subject takes a deoper tone, and that 1b that the unfortunate of whom I spesk suffers from' the loss of the soul. The Bible intimates that In the future world, if we are unforglven 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 m the last world. ho will find an. infinite thirut clawing on him. Now, down m the world although he may have been very poor, he oould beg|or steal five oents with which to get that which would shake his thirst, for a little while ; hut In- eternity where Is the rum to come 'from? Dives could not get one drop of water. From what ohalice of fire will the hoi lips of the drunkard drain his draught ? "No One to brew it. No one to mix It. No one to pour it. No one to fetch it Millions of world* then for the dregs which the young man jast now. flung on the aaw-dutt fl>or of the reßtanraoti Millions of worlds now for the rind thrown out from the punoti bowl of an. earthly banquet. Dives oried for water, The inebriate cries for rum. — Dr Talmage.

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