THE DISSIPATIONS OF POLITICS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 707, 5 November 1875, Page 3

THE DISSIPATIONS OF POLITICS.

—o — In a recent discourse referring to the political duties of Christians, the Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, of New York, remarked : I ask you as Christian men to set yourselves against the dissipations that hover over the ballot-box. Let me ;;a" that no man can afford to go into political life who is nob a teetotaller. Hot political discussion somehow creates an unnatural thirst, and hundreds and thousands of men have gone down into drunkenness through political life. After an exciting canvass through the evening yon must “ take something,” and rising in the morning with less' animation than usual you must “ take something,” and goitm off among your comrades during the forenoon you meet political friends and you must “ take something,” and in the afternoon you meet other political friends and you must “take something,” and before night has comp something has taken you. There are but few cases where men have been able to stand up against the dissipations of politic! life. Joseph was a politician, but he maintained his integrity. Daniel was a politician, but he was a teetotaller to the last. Abraham was a politician, but he was always characterised as the father of the faithful. Moses was a politician : the grandest of them ; but he honored God more than he did the Pharaohs. And there are hundreds of Christian men now in the political parties maintaining their integrity, even when they arc obliged to stand amidst the blasted, lecherous, and loathesome crew that sometimes surround the ballot-box : these Christian men, doing their duty’ and then coming back to the prayermeeting and Christian circles as pure as they went out. But that is not the ordinary chcumstance; that is the exception. How often you see men coming back from the political conflict, and their eye is glazed, and their cheek has an unnatural flush, and they talk louder than they usually do, and at the least provocation they bet, and you say they are convivial, or they are exceedingly vivacious, or you apply some other sweet term to them; but God knows they are drunk ! Bonn of you, a month or six weeks ago, had no more religion than yon ought to have, and after the elections are over, to calculate how much religion you have loft will be a sum in vulgar fractions. Oh, the pressure is tremendous. How many mighty intellects have gone down under the dissipation of politics. I think of one who came out from the West. He was able to stand out against the American Senate, God had given him faculties enough to govern a kingdom, or to frame a constitution. His voice was terrible to bis country’s enemies, and a mighty inspiration in the day of national pride. He was in a fair way to become our president; but twenty drinks a day were his usual allowance, and he went down into the habits of a confirmed inebriate. Alas for him. Though a costly monument has been roared over bis resting-place, and though- in the presence of the laying ot the corner stone there stood military and ecclesiastical dignitaries, the young men of this country shall not be denied the lawful lesson that the agency by which the world was robbed of one of its mightiest intellects and our country of one of its ablest constitutional defenders, was the dissipation of political life. You need not go far off to find the worn-nut politician. Here he is stumbling along the highway, bis limbs hardly able to bold him up. Bent over and pale with exhausting sickness. Surly to anybody who accosts him. His last decent article of apparel pawned for strong drink. Glad if, when going by a grocery, some low acquaintance invites him in to take a sip of ale, and then wiping his lip with his greasy sleeve, kicked off the steps by men who were once proud to be bis constituents. Manhood obliterated. Lip blistered with a curse, Scars of brutal assault on cheek and brow. Foul mouthed. A staggering, crouching, wheezing, wretch, No friends. No God. No hope No heaven. That is what some of you will become unless by this morning’s warning and the grace of God, your steps are arrested. Ob, there are no words enough potent, enough consuming, enough damning’ to describe the horrible drunkenness that has rolled over this land, and that has bent down the necks of the mightiest intellects until they have been compelled to drink out of tire trough of bestiality and abomination. I warn young man against political life unless they are teetotallers and consecrated Christian men.