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About Haralson banner. (Buchanan, Ga.) 1884-1891 | View Entire Issue (April 6, 1889)
R SRR R o R, TALMAG] ‘i A A 4 K) 0 LY " DIVINE’S SUN . AY SERMON. U: «“The Uses of Money.” . e ST ’ ;. “They that willbe rich fall into ptation and a snare, and into many Dlish and hwrtful lusts,which drown men degcstruution and perdition.”—l Timothy 9 That is the Niagara Falls over which rush a multitude of souls, nnfiwly the determina tion to have money anyhow, right or wrong. . Tell me how a man gets his money and what he does with it, and | will tell 30\1 his char acter, and what will be his destiny in this world and the next. I proposs to speak this morning about some of the ruinous modes of goetting money. We recently passed through a national election in which it has been estimated that thirty million dollars were expended. Ithink about twenty million of it were spent in out and out briberfi. Both parties raised all they could for this purposs, But that was only on a large scale what has been done on a smaller scale for fifty years and in all de partments, Politics from being the science of good government has often been bedraggled into the synonym for truculency and turpitude. A monster sin, plausible, potent, pestiferous, has gone forth to do its dreadful work in all ‘ages. Its two hands are rotten with leprosy. It keeps its right hand hidden in a deep pocket. The left hand is clenched, and with its ichorous knuckle it taps at the door of the court room, the legislative hall, the congress and the parliament, The door swings open and the monster enters, and glides through the aisle of the council chamber as softly as a slippered page, and then it takes its right hand from its deep pocket and offers it in salutation to judge or legislator. 1f that hand be taken, and the palm of tha intruder croes the palm of the official, the leprosy crosses from palm to palm in a round blotch, round as a gold eagle, and the virus spreads, and the doom is fixed, and the victim perishes. Let bribery, ac%ursed of God and man, stand up for trial. he Bible arraigns it again and again. Samuel says of his two sons who becamse judges: ‘‘They took bribes and Ferverted Judgment.” David says of somse of his pur surers: ‘‘Their right hand is full of bribes.” Amos says of some men in his day: “They take a bribe and turn aside the poor in the gate.” Eliphaz fortells the crushing blows of God’s indignation, declaring: ‘‘Fire shall consume the tabernables of bribery.” It is no light temptation. The mi%htiest have fallen under it. Sir Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England, founder of our modern philosophy, author of ‘Novum Organum,” and a whole library of books, the leading thinker of his century, so precocious that when a little child he was asked by Queen Elizabeth: *“How old are you?’ he responded, ‘lam two years younger than your Majesty’s happy reign;” of whose oratory Ben. Johnson wrote: ‘“The fear of every man that heard him was lest he should make an end;” hav ing an income which you would suppose would have put him beyond the temptation of bribery—thirty-six thousand dollars a year, and Twickenham court a gift, and Erincely estates in Hertfordshire and Gor ambury — yet under this temptation to bribery falling flat into ruin, and on his confession of taking bribes, giving as excuse that all his predecessors took them:; he was fined two hundred thousand dollars, cr what cor responds with our two hundred thousand dollars, and imprisoned in London tower. 8o also Lord Chanecellor Macelesfield fell; so also Lord Chancellor Waterbury perished. The black chapter in English, Irish, French and American politics is the chapter of bribery. Some of you remember the Pacific Mail subsidies., Most of you remember the awful tragedy of the Credit Mobilier. Under the temptation to bribery Benedict Arnold sold the fort in the Highlands for $31,675. For this sin Gorgey betrayed Hungary, Ahithophel forsook David and Judas kissed Christ. When 1 see so many of the illustrious going down under this temptation, it makes me think of the red dragon spoken of in Revelation, with seven ds and ten horns and seven crowns, wing a third part of the stars of heaven n after him. The lobbies of the legisla— 'es of this country control the country. e land is drunk with bribery. ‘Oh,” says some one, *‘there’s no need of king against bribery by promise or by Ilars, because every man has his price.” I not believe it. Even heathenism and the k ages have furnished specimens of in ruptibility. A cadiof Smyrna had a case ought before him on trial. A man ve him five hundred ducats in bery. The case came on. The iber had many witnesses. The poor an on the other side had no witnesses. At close of the case the cadi said: ‘‘This r'man has no witnesses, he thinks: I shall oduce in his behalf five hundred witnesses ainst the other side.” And then pulling out the bag of ducats from under the -otto man, he dashed it down at the feet of the briber, saying: “I give my decision against you.” ‘¢ Epam inondas, offered a bribe, said: “I will do this thing if it be right, and if it be wrong all your goods cannot persuade me.” Fabricius of Lfihe Roman senate was offered a bribe by Pyrrhus of Macedon. Fabricius answered: **What an example this would be to the Roman people: you koej) your riches and I will keep my poverty and reputation.” The_ President of the American Congress during the American Revolution, General Reed, was offered ten thousand guineas by foreign commissioners if he would betray thi; country. He re%lied: “Gentlemen, lam a very poor man, but tell your King he is not rich enough to buy me.” But why go so far, when you and I, if we move in hongrable society, know men and women who gy all the concentrated force of earth and ell could not be bribed. They would no more be bribed than you would think of tempting an angel of light to exchange heaven: for the pit. To offer a bribe is villainy, but _ it is a very poor compliment to the man to whom it is offered. T have not much faith in those people whor about bragging how much they could get fiothey would only sell out. Those women who complain that they are very often in - gulted need to understand that there is some thing in their carriage to invite insult. There are men in Albany and at Har risburg and at Washington who would no more be approached by a bribe than a pirate boat with a few cutlasses would dare to at tack a British man-of-war with two banks of 2 s\ms on each side loaded to the touch hole. hey are incorruptible men, and they are the few men who are to save the city and save the land. Meanwhile, my ad vice is to all people to keep out of politics unless you are invulnerable to this style of temptation. Indeed, if you are naturally strong, %ou need religious Dbuttressing. Nothlni us the grace of God can sustain _our: public men and make them what we ‘wish. .1 wish that there might come an | _old-fashioned revival of religion, that ‘{6 might break out in' Congress and in the Legislatures and bring many of the lead _ ing Republicans and Democrats down on the - anxious seat of repentance. That day will _ come, or something better, for the Bible de % that Kings and Queens shall become : m%fl.hm and mothers to the church, and if the greater in authority, then certain- 1, My charge also to -parer !}W mfiwi bribe your children. Teach them to do that - which is right, and not because of the ten cents or the orange yon will give them. 'There iga greatdifference between rewarding virtue and mnklng'gno profits thereof the ‘impelling motive, at man who is honest merely because ‘‘honesty is thea best policy” is aJready a moral bankrupt. 1 My chnrfo is to gou. in all departments of life, steer clear of brikary, all of you. Every man and woman at some time will be tempted to do wrong for compensation. The bribe may not be offered in momi‘ It may be offered in social position. t us re member that there is a day coming when the most secret transaction of pri vate life and of public lifs will come up for public reprehension. We cannot bribe death, we cannot bribe sickness, we cannot bribe the grave, we cannot bribe the judgments of that God who thunders against this sin. “Fie!” said Cardinal Beaufort, ‘‘fle! can't death be hired? is money nothing? must I die. and so rich? if the owning of the whole realm would save me, 1 could get it hy policy or by purchase—by money.” No, death would not be hired then: he will not be hired now. Men of the world often regret that they have to leave their money nere when they go away from the world. You can tell from what they say in their last hours that one of their chief sorrows is that they have to leave their money. I break that delusion. 1 tell that bribe taker that he will take his money with him. God will wrap it up in your shroud. or put it in the palm of vour hand in resurrec tion, and there it will lie, not the cool,bright, shining gold as it was on the day when you sold your vote and your moral princinle, but there it will lie, a hot metal, burning and consuming your hand forever, Or, if there be enough of it fora chain, then it will fall from the wrist clank inz the fetters of an eternal captivity. The bribe is an everlasting possession. You take it for time, you take it for eternity. Some day in the next world, when you are long ing for sympathy, you will feel on your cheek a kiss. Looking up you will find it to be Judas, who took thirty pieces of silver as a bribe and finished the bargain by putting an infamous kiss on the pure cheek of his Divine Master. £ & Another wrong use of money is seen in the abuse of trust funds. Every man dur ing the course of his life, on a larger or smaller scale, has the properltjrv of others committed to his keeving. eis so far a safety deposit, he is an administrator, and holds in his hand the interest of the family of a deceased friend. Or he is an attorney, and through his custody goes the payment from debtor to creditor, or he is the collector for a business houss which compensates him for the responsi bility; or he is a treasurer for a charitable institution and he holds alms contributed for the suffering; or he is an official of the city or the State or the nation, and taxes, and subsidies, and salaries, and supplies are in his keeping. It is as solemn a trust as God can make it. 1t is concentred and multi plied confidences. On that man de - pends the support of bereft household. or the morals of dependents, or the right of move - ment of a thousand wheels of social mechan ism. A man may do what he will with his - own, but he who abuses trust funds, in that one act commits theft, falsehood, per jury and becomes, in all the intensity of the word, a miscreant. How many widows and orphans there are with nothing between them and starvation but a sewing machine, or held up out of the vortex of destruction simply by the thread of a needle, red with their own heart’s blood, who a little while age had, by father and husband, left them a competency. What is the matter? The administrators or the exe cutors have sacrificed it—running risks with it that they would not kave dared to encounter in their own private af fairs. How often it is that a man will earn a livelihood by the sweat of his brow, and then die, and within a few months all the es tate goes into the stock gambling rapids of ‘Wall Street. How often is it that you have known the man to whem trust funds were committed taking th>m out of the savings bank and from trust companies, and ad ministrators, turning eld homesteads into hard cash, and then putting the entire estate juto the vortex of speculation, Embezzle ment is an easy word to pronounce, but it has ten thousand ramifications of horror. There is not a city that has not suffered from the abuse of trust funds. Where is the court house, or the city hall, or the jail, or the postoftice, or the hospital, that in the building of it has not had a political job? Long before the new Court-House in New York city was completed, it cost over §12,- 000,000. = Five millions six hundred and sixty-three thousand dollars for furniture. For plastering and repairs, $2,370,000. For plumbing and gas works, $1,231,817. For awnings, $23,553. The bills for three months coming to the nice little sum of $13,151,198.39. ’Fhere was not an honest brick, or stone, or lath, or nail, or foot of plumbing, or inch of plaster ing, or ink stand, or door knobin the whole establishment. That bad example was followed in many of the cities, which did not steal quite so much because there was not so much to steal There ought to be a closer inspection and there ought to be less op%orbunity for embez zlement. Lest a man shall take a five cent piece that does not belong to him, the con ductor of the city horse car must sound his bell at every payment, and we are very cautious ahout small offenses, but giva plenty of opportunity for sinners on a lar%e scale to escape. For a boy who steals a loaf of bread from a corner grocer to keep his mother from starving to death, a prison; but for defrauders who abtscond with half a million of dollars, a castle on the ‘Rhine, or, waiting until the offense is forgotten, then a castle on the Hudson! Another remark needs to be made, and that is that people ought not to go into places, into business, or into pesitions, where the temptation is mightier than their character. If there be large sums of mone to be handled and the man is not sure of hi}; own integrity you have no right to run an unseaworthy craft into an euroclydon. A man can_ tell by the sense of weakness or strength in the presence of a bad opfior tunity whether he is in a safe place. ow many parents makean awful mistake when they put their boys in banking houses aund stores and shops and factories and places of solemn trusts, gwithout once (Piscussing whether they can endure the temptation. You give the boy plenty of money and have no account of it, and make the way down, £ become very easy, and - you may put upon him a pressure then he cannot stand. There are men who go into positions full of temptation, cop sidering only the one fact that they are lucrative positions. I say to the youn, people here this morning, dishonesty wifi not pay in this world or in the world to come. An abbot wanted to buy a g}eoe of ground and the owner would not séll 'it, but the owner finally consented to let it to him until he could raise one crop, and the abbot sowed acorns, a crop of two hundred years! i And I tell you, zoung man, that the dis honesties which you plant in your | peart and life will seem to be very insigmi ficant, but they will grow up until they will overshadow you with horrible darkness, overshadow all time and all eternity. It will not be a crop for two hundred years, but a crop for everlasting ages. I stand this morning before many who | have trusted funds. It is a compliment to you that you have been so intrusted, but I charge you, in the presence of God and tha AR L S S SRR SRS 4 S w ‘,5;.,;.@?“ e “fifiwf« {'fifiw&! fl : T T Tae yous 0L you m - AD fll. k“p ,o“r own gfl te account at the bank separate 1,, rom your account as trustee of an om" or trustee of an institution. ~ That .&h&r’qim at which thousands of peo ple oanho shipwreck, ‘l‘h:g get the , property of others mixed up with their own property, ' taey put it into investment, and away it all | fm.' and they cannot return that which they borrowed, Then comes the ex plosion and the money market is shaken and the press denounces and _ the church thunders expulsion. You have no right to use the property of others except for their advantage, nor without consent, unless they are minors. If with their con ~sent you invest their property as well as you can, and it 1s all lost, you are not to blame, - you did the best you could; but do not come into the delusion which has ruined so “many men, of thinking because a thing is in their possession, therefore it is theirs. You have a solemn trust that God has given you. In this vast assem blage there may be some who have misap propriated trust funds. Put them back, or, 1f you have so hopslessly involved them that you cannot put them back, confess the whole thing to those whom you have wronged, and you wil sleep better nights,.and you will have the better chance for your soul. What a sad thing it would be if, after you are dead, your administrator should find | out from the account books, or from the lack ~of vouchers, that you were not only bankrupt !in estare, but that you lost your soul. If all ths trust funds that have been misappro priated should suddenly fly to their owners, and all the property that has been purloined should suddenly go back to its owners, it - would crash into ruin every city in America. A blusterir% young man arrived at a hotel in the West and he saw a man on the sidewalk, and in a rough way, as no man ' has a right to address a laborer, said to - him: ‘Carry this trunk upstairs.” The man ~carried the trunk upstairs and came down, ‘ and then the younz man gave him a quarter of adollar which was marked, and instead of being twenty-five cents it was worth only twenty cents. Then the young man gave his card to the laborer and said: *You take this up to Governor Grimes; I want to see him.” ‘‘Ah,” said the laborer: ‘I am Governor Grimes.” ‘‘Oh,” said the young man, ‘‘you--[—excuse me.” ‘Then the Gov ernor said: ‘I was much impressed by the letter you wrote me asking for a certain office in my gift, and [ had made up my mind you should have it; but a young man who will cheat a laborer out of five cents would swindle the Government of the State if he got his hands on it. I don’t want you. Good morning, sir.,” It never pays. Neither in this world nor in the world to come will it pay. 1 do not suppose there ever was a better specimen of honesty than was found in the Duke of Wellington. He marchéd with his army over the French frontier, and the army was suffering, and he hardly knew how to get along. Plenty of plunder all about, but he commanded none of the plunder to be taken. He writes home these re markable words: ‘**We are over whelmed with debts, and I can scarcely stir out of my house on account of public credit ors waiting to demand what is due them.” Yet at that very time the French peasantry were bringing their valuables to him to keep. A celebrated writer says of the trans action : “ Nothing can be grander or more nobly original than this admis sion. This old soldier, after thirty years’ service, this iron man and victorious general, established in an ememy’s country at the head of an immense army, is afraid of his creditors! This is the kind of fear that has seldom troubled conquerors and invaders, and I doubt if the annals of war present anything comparable to its sublime sim plicity.” Oh! is it not high timathat we preached the morals of the Gospel, right beside the faith of the Gospel? Mr. Froude, the cele brated English historian, has written of his own country these 'remarkable words: “From the great house in the city of Lon don to the village grocer, the commercial lite of KEngland has been saturated with fraud. So deep has it gone that a strictly honest tradesman can hardly hold his ground against competi tion. You ean no longer trust that any ar ticle you buy is the thing which it pretends to be. We have false weights, false meas ures, cheating, and shoddy everywhere, And yet the clergy have seen all this grow up in absolute indifference. Many hundreds of sermons "have I heard in Eng iand, many a dissertation on the mysteries of the faith, on the divine mission of the 'clergy, on bishops and justification, and the theory of good works, and verbal inspiration, and the efficacy of the sacraments; but, during all these thirty wonderful years, never one that I can recollect on common honesty.” Now, that may be an exaggerated state ment of things in England, but I am very certain that in ali parts of the earth we need to preach the moralities of the Gospel right along beside the faith of the Gospel. My hearer! what are you doing with that fradulent document in your pocket? My other hearer! How are you getting along with that wicked scheme you have now on foot? Is that a *‘pool ticket” you have in your pocket? Why, O young man, wereyou last night practicin§ in copying your employer's sig nature? Where were you last night? Are your habits as good as when you %est. your father's house? You had a Christian ances try, perhaps, and you have had too many prayers spent on you to go overboard Dr. Livinfgsbone, the famous explorer, was descended from the Highlanders, and he said that one of his ancestors, one of the Highlanders, one day called his family around him. The Highlander was dying; he ' had his children around his death-bed. He said: “Now, my lads, I have looked all through our history as far back as [ can find it, and I have never found a dishonest man in all the line, and I want you to understand you inherit good blood. You have no excuse for doing vu-ongs My lads, be honest.” Ah, my friends, be honest before God, be honest before your fo_gow men, be honest be fore your soul. If there be those here who have wandered away, come back, coms hgme, come now, one and all, not one exception in all the assemblage, come into the Eing— dom of God. Come back to the right track. The door of mercy is open and the infinite heart of God is full of compassion. Come home! Come homs! Oh, I would be well satisfied if I could save some young man this morning, some young man that has been going astray and would like to get back. lam glad some one has set to music that scene in August of 1881, whsn a young girl saved from death a whole rail train of pas ‘seniers. Some of you remember that out west, in that year on a stormy night, a hur ricane blew down part of a railroad bridge. A freight train came along and it crashed into the ruin, and the engineer and conduct or perished. These was a girl living o her father's cabin near the disaster, wnd she heard the crash of he freight train, and she knew that in a ‘ew moments an express train was due. She lighted a Ilantern and- clambered up on the one beam of the wrecked bridge on to the main bridge, which was trestle work, and started to cross amid the thunder and the lightning of the tempest and the ragin of the torrent benedth. One misstep anfi it would have been death. Amid all that horror the lantern went out. Crawling sometimes and sometimes walki over the slippery rails and over the tres’:}ge work, she came to the other side of the river. She wanted to get to the telegraph station, where the express train did not stop, so that the danger might be telegrapehd to the station LRI L Y T | R SLR G R T BAT TNI PR YSR whoro the train dil stop. The grat was due in five minutes. She was one mile off from the telegraph station, but fortunately the train was late. With cut and bruised foet she flew like the wind., Coming up to the telegraph gtation, panting with almost deathly exhausa tion, she had only strength to shout, ** The bridge is down,” when she dropped uncon pons and could hardly be rasuscitated The inessage was sent from that station to the next station and the train halted, and that night that brave girl saved the lives of hun dreds of Fasuengox's and saved many homes from desolation. But every street is a track. and every style of business is a track, and every day is a track, and multitudes under the power of temptation coming sweeping on and sweep ing down toward perils raging and terrific. GGol hep us to go out and stop the train. Eel: us throw some signal. Let us give some warning. Byv the throne of God let us flash some influencs to stop the downward progress. Beware! Bewave! Tae bridge is down, the chasm is deep, anl the lightnings of (01l set all the night of s.n on fire with this warning: ‘‘He, that being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly lie destroyed, and th at without remedy.” THE CARTHUSIANS. Monks Who Live in Nearly Perpet ual Silence. The cable brings the news that the Carthusian monks have refused an offer of $15,000,000 from a London firm for a monopoly of the manufacture and sale of their world famed liquers. And it is not like’y that offsrs even much larger will succeed in obtaining from the monks their long and jealously kept secret. The cunning combination of samples whereby the flavor of the four varieties of the article are produced has never been known outside the monastery pre cincts and doubtless never will be, Numberless experiments have been made to produce a liquor resembling them, and though money and much trouble have not been spared the result has always been a failure. Upwards of four dozen different plants, 1t is said, are used in the manufacture, the prineci pal of which are the earliest tender shoots of the pines, wormwood, balm, mint, and mountain pinks. Many of the herbs are cultivated by the monks, each of whom has his little garden, which, with a small carpenter shop, is his place of recreation. The good St. Bruno held wisely that a healthier re laxation from long vigils of contempla tion and prayer was to be had in manual labor than in mere objectless walking. The distillery is not within the mon astery ; it is lower down the mountain, some distance out of the village of St. Laurent, and is conducted by one lay brotber, under whom 2re employed a number of ordinary laborers. The Carthusian order has the distine tion of being the only one of the ancient communities which has never been re formed or in need of reform, a fact ex plainable by the stern opposition of its superiors from the very beginning so “ mitigations ” or tamperings with the heroi¢ rules of the great founder. Among other provisions for the thorough weaning of his monks from the world, St. Bruno decreed that no woman should ever set foot within Chartreuse, and it is only royalty itself, backed by a brief from the Pope, which has on a few oceasions been able to break through this rule. The brotherhood never eat meat, and are denied cheese and butter for six months of every year. They sleep on sheetless beds in their day clothing, and each monk eats his meagre one meal a day and collation solitary in his cell. Over the doors of these cells such in seriptions as O Beator Solitudo” re main from the old time. Perpetual silence, except on high festivals, 1s the rule, and when death comes to claim them, generally at a great age, for as ceticism and pure air and thorough iso lation from worldly distractions, lengthen out the life wonderfully, they are laid, with nething about them but their white robes, in the little crowded burying ground in the centre of the buildings. A cross, with neither name nor date, stands at the head of each many-ten anted grave. The superiors’ resting p*aces are distinguished only by having a'cross of stone instead of wood. Be sides giving length of days, the life led by the monks impresses on them a look of spirituality and refinement. An Eng lish traveler says : ‘I never saw a Car thusian monk who did not look like a gentleman.” Thetime allowed to male visitors at the monastery does not exceed forty-eight hours. Insummer the houseiscrowded, sometimes as many as 200—many of them priests making a ‘‘retreat”—being there together. Ladies who climb up to get an outside view of the famous place are lodged and entertained by a few of the Sisters of Providence from Grenoble, who have a convent near by. In 1676, the date of the last rebuilding of the monastery, it was aftiliated to no less than 260 houses of the order through- | out Europe. Of these the most well known was the old Charter house of London. But revolutions and changes of many sorts cansed the number to dwindle until to-day the followers of St. Bruno are few enough. The returns from their distillery are of course very large, but were they greater by far, the monks, whose oppor tunities of doing good are immense, could find means to dispose of them for the benefit of their fellow-creatures. For themselves the money does not change a single item in their way of living. St. Bruno’s rules and constitu tion are as fnii;hful]{l followed and ad heved to in 1889 as they werein 1084,— COhlacago T'imes. TaE Secretary of War has approve¢ the plans for the building of Fort Sheri dan Military Post at Highwood, 111., as recommended by Capt. C. P. Miller, The cost of the building will exceeqd $300,000, and will be begun at once, the officers’ quarters being the first to be put under way., In all there will be thirty-five buildings erected, and it will be the finest military postin the United States, It will front on Lake Michigan, LR B T X B LTR A G TTR e ~ TEMPERANCE. « True Heroism. Let others write of battles fought On bloody, ghasily fields, ; Where honor greets the man who wins, And death tae man who yields; But I will not write of him who fights And vanguishes his sins— Who struggles on tiiongh weaiy years Against himeelf and wine, He is a hero, true and b ave, ‘Who tights an unseen toa, And puts at Jast beneath his feet His passions base and low; And stands erect in manhood's might, Undanted, undismayed-— The bravest man who drew a sword In foray or in raid. It calls for something more than brawn Or muscle to o’ercome An enemy who marcheth not With banner, plume or drum— A foe forever lurking ni:h, With silent, stealthy tread, Forever near your board by day, At night beside your Led, All honor, then, to that Lrave heart, Though poor or rich bho be, Who struggles with his baser pare, Who conquers and is free. He may not wear a hero's erown Or fill a hero’s grave, But truth will place his name among The bravest of the brave Bible Facts Not Bible Doctrines. ‘We frequently receive wildly fanatical let ters attempting to defend the modern liquor traffic by facts related in the Bible in regard to wine drinking, The upholders of poly gamy use the same argument; murderers and thugs might do the same. But Bible facts are not Bible doctrines. There is no more defense in Bible doctrine for liquor selling in America to-day than there is for slavery and for lying stealing, and adultery. —Z2he Voice. Cider and Temperance A Boston paper remarks that the new amendment propo ed to be added to the Con stitution of tge Bay State [to prohibit the sell ing of cider as a beverage, we infer], will not hinder the manufacture of cider by the farr ers in case it is engrossed and improved by the people. The farmers may manufacturs cider just as they do to-day, anl after con verting it into vinegar can make two and a half or three cents 2 gallon more than if sold as a beverage. 1t is quite probable that this amendment will be given by the Massa chusetts Legislature to the people to act upon, and it is decidedly important that they act intelligently. —New Yorlk Witness. Drinking in Ancient Times. It would be a great mistake tosuppose that the medizeval inhabitants of northern Europe were mere hordes of drunken barbarians, The favorite beverage of the ancient Teu tons was the lightest kind of bear—brewea in camp-kettles. on their monthly days ol merrymaking, wien their potations, indeed, were liniited only by the veto of rather in dulgent chiefs, who knew how soon the effects of the symposium would be neutralized by the rouglh, out-door sports of their fol lowers. In time of war the beer-kettle was often buried for monthks together, and the Gothic warriors who annihilated a Roman army on the plain of Adrianople were, on the whole, perhaps the soberest men of their time. In subsequent centuries the bibulout propensities of the Saxon rustics were greatly limited by their poverty. i A Boy's Terrible Inheritance. The most striking illustration that is in my recollection at the present moment was in one whom I knew from his birth until he met his death by the most tragical of suici dal acts, and who was as peculiar in some re spects before the fatal infiuence of drink had actually seized on himas afterward. On his paternal side this boy directly inherited the alcoholic taint: on his mother’s side, indi rectly. He was a boy not wanting in a cer tain abilty, and not wanting in a certain beauty of build: but he had avout him no de termination of purpose. He was restless without object, capricious, and often melan choly. He was not intentionally cruel, but as it without knowing it he was suddenly and often desperately cruel with animals and playfellows alike. No he grew up, not mak- Ing much progress in anything, and caring less tor play than a healthy boy should. At Jast, when he was undet age, the taste for wino, and almost in stantly for stronger fluid of the same spirit-class, was acquired. Then as it were, with a bound, he passed into dipsoma nia. There were no 11'»ralimin:u'y stages of gayetgv. of occasional intoxication, with periods of reformation; no relapses under anxiety or urgent temptation, but a com plete transformation of the whole man—or, rather, the whole youth-into drunk mad: ness. He did not, would not, could not reason on the matter. e was as conscious of the evil as was anyone who looked at him in his worst phases. "He had no desire what: over to reform. 1t was his confession thafl he cared for life only so far as it gave him the opportunity to indulge in drink. Having no dpif.y for himself, he had no pib{ for others, and disrogardCul of his welfare, dragzge! all who approached him, as far as he could, into his own conrse: not, he it observed, from any desire to do them wrong, but from an actual indifforence, or, it may be, ignorancs of she relations hetween right and wrong: and 50, for many years, his distorted way of life, accursed, as he himaslf said, and ac cursing, progressed, until in mare rreak, ani practising in the actual act of killing him self an awful cruslty on others, he came t¢ his untimely end. — /Mion oar, Temperance News and Notes. Russia closed 80,000 dram shops by law last year. The Toronto General Hospital had, last year, seventy-three cases of ‘‘alcoholism.” The Sons of Temperance have thirty-six grand and 1500 subordinate divisions located in the Btates, Territories and British Prov inces, A npative newspaper of India makes this ?ertinent remark: “Our liquor traffic begins )y hanging a sign over the door,and ends by hanging a man on a gibbet.” A question that is becoming a local issue in.many cities of many States is thus asked by the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Sentinel: ‘Are the saloon-keepers or the citizens running Fort Wayne?’ Mr. Walker, the coatractor of the Mam chester ship canal, has entered into an ar rangement with a coffee public house com pany to supply the thousand of navvies under him with barmless drinks and nour ishing food. No intoxicating liquor is al lowed to be sold. | Dr. Oswald says: During the horrible flood whien a few months ago devastated the two richest fprovinces of the Chinese Empires, anumber of vile marauders eked out an exist ence by fishing out wreck?e and plunder ing floating corpses. The idea of mentioning the profits of theso wretches as a compensat ing offset to the horrors of a public calamity would justly consign its meer to the custody of a lunatic commission, yet, by an exactly analogous line of arfinmont mnnty of our ]political economists continue to defend the Jegal sanction of the liquor traffic. Killarney, Ireland, with a mfim of 6500, supports eighty-three shops be sides hotels, g
