builder, pauper maker,
Trust betrayer, sorrow's source;
Pocket emptier, Sabbath breaker,
Conscience stifler, guilt's resource.
Nerve enfeebler, system shatterer,
Thirst increaser, vagrant thief;
Cough producer, treacherous flatterer,
Mud bedauber, mock relief.
Business hinderer, spleen instiller,
Woe begetter, friendship's bane;
Anger heater, Bridewell filler,
Debt involver, toper's chain.
Memory drowner, honor wrecker,
Judgment warper, blue-faced quack;
Feud beginner, rags bedecker,
Strife enkindler, fortune's wreck.
Summer's cooler, winter's warmer,
Blood polluter, specious snare;
Mob collector, man transformer,
Bond undoer, gambler's fare.
Speech bewrangler, headlong bringer,
Vitals burner, deadly fire;
Riot mover, firebrand flinger,
Discord kindler, misery's sire.
Sinews robber, worth depriver,
Strength subduer, hideous foe;
Reason thwarter, fraud contriver,
Money waster, nations' woe.
Vile seducer, joy dispeller,
Peace disturber, blackguard guest;
Sloth implanter, liver sweller,
Brain distracter, hateful pest.
Wit destroyer, joy impairer,
Scandal dealer, foul-mouthed scourge;
Senses blunter, youth ensnarer,
Crime inventor, ruin's verge.
Virtue blaster, base deceiver,
Spite displayer, sot's delight;
Noise exciter, stomach heaver,
Falsehood spreader, scorpion's bite.
Quarrel plotter, rage discharger,
Giant conqueror, wasteful sway;
Chin carbuncler, tongue enlarger,
Malice venter, death's broadway.
Household scatterer, high-hope dasher,
Death's forerunner, hell's dire brink;
Ravenous murderer, windpipe slasher,
Drunkard's lodging, meat and drink!
The rum vender's power is something enormous. We do not delude ourselves into thinking that the fight for national prohibition will be easily won. In many respects the liquor dealers will prove an enemy harder to vanquish than the slave dealers were. For slavery was an institution with a local habitation. It was restricted to certain well-defined limits. The whole world knew where it was and what it was doing. But rum is everywhere. Its upholders are woven into the warp and woof of society in every city and hamlet. It has a thousand heads, and it can hide them in times of danger with wonderful facility. Slavery was bold, brazen and defiant. It could be nothing else. But the liquor dealers, with equal bravado and strength, are enabled to resort to the cunning and subtlety of the serpent, when bravado is imprudent.
Then the liquor dealer's influence over his victims does not end with control of the bodies. His slaves are his allies. He owns them, many of them, body and soul for such a cause. They will fight for rum and vote for rum as persistently as the saloonist himself. These facts may as well be appreciated. When it comes to defiant antagonism, when temperance men boldly array themselves in professed opposition to the traffic in alcohol, the struggle will be severe. But it is certain there will come no time in the future when it will be less severe. The liquor power is a rapidly growing power. God knows it is strong enough now, but it becomes stronger with each passing day.
Are we willing that such a class of men not only hold such an enormous power, but add to it indefinitely? In the census for 1880 the capital employed in the manufacture of liquor was over one hundred and eighteen million of dollars, and the number of persons employed in the manufactories and in saloons aggregated over one hundred thousand. No nation can afford to leave such power in the hands of such men. It is suicidal.
Having said my say about "Old Devil" and his "Clerks" I guess I'll write a little letter to
My Dear Sister:
Your good, kind letter was duly received. We sincerely thank you. When meeting with savages who don't treat you respectfully please ever remember that in M– everybody who knows you or about you loves you. Mrs. D. told me to write to Mrs. Wheaton because "she is a lovely Christian."
"O taste and see that the Lord is good." Psa. 34:8.
That is the right way to find out that He is good. We may think He is good, we may have some idea that He is so—but to know it, and to know how very good the Lord is, we must taste his goodness. He alone is good. He is goodness itself; and because He is this, He wants us to taste, to enjoy Him.
Good men and women, and good children, will one day be like the angels in heaven; and they begin to be such already in this world. If it were not for them, if they were not here to be the bearers of peace and happiness, the ministers of mercy and of love, to wretchedness and woe, to the weary and the bowed down, how wretched would this world be! A thousand blessings upon you, beloved sisters, who, from the goodness of your great big heart, endeavor to do good to others. It is through such holy and devoted daughters of our thrice holy King and Father as Sister Elizabeth that we taste and see how good the Lord is.
"You see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand." Galatians 6:11. "I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers." Philemon, 4.
"Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost." Romans 15:13.
"Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body." Hebrews 13:3.
We salute thee, sister.
Mrs. Elizabeth R. Wheaton.
Dear Sister—John 17:20, 21: "Everyone members one of another." "If one suffer all suffer." I do not know that the relation and consequent influence of member upon member can be better illustrated than by the connection of the body, mind and spirit, and the power that any one of the three has over the other two.
The mind depends upon the body to carry out its desires, and the mind is in constant subjection to the body in health and in sickness. The body is controlled by the mind as the ship is directed in her course by the man at the helm. The spirit looks out through the eyes of the body and is entranced with the scene of beauty, or is crushed with the sorrow with which it is seized, according as we look upon a thing of beauty or the eye rests upon things withered and dead.
The life and experience of every man attest the fact that thought and emotion, and the body in which the organs of thought and feeling are placed, are inter-related in such a way and to such an extent that the mind and body control, to a very great extent, the activity of each other. The wise man, looking at the inner life and the outer manifestation of it, from a little different point of view, expresses it thus: "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he. The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded or broken spirit who can bear?" Says a writer in the Laws of Health: "If a man thinks he is an invalid he is one;