Woman's War Against the Bottle

“Awake, awake, Deborah: awake, awake.” — Judges v., 12.

A TEXT of five words, and four of them one and the same. It seems that the men of Israel had lost their courage. Trampled into the dust by their oppressors, the cowards had not spirit to rise. Their vineyards destroyed, their women dishonored, their children slain, the land, was dying for a leader worthy of the cause. A holy woman by the name of Deborah saw the desolation, and, putting her trust in the Lord, sounded the battle-cry, and by the help of General Barak launched into the plain ten thousand armed men. The Canaanites, of course, came out with a larger force. They came out against Israel with nine hundred iron chariots, each of these iron chariots having attached to the sides of it long, sharp scythes, so that when these engines of war were driven down to battle, each one of the nine hundred was ready to cut two great swathes of death. But when God gives a mission to a woman, he gives her strength and grace to execute it. The nine hundred chariots of the Canaanites could not save them. They fly! they fly! horse and horseman, chariot and charioteer, officers and troops, in one wild and terrific overthrow. Sisera, their leader, is so frightened in the conriict, that he can not wait until his team turns round: he leaps from the chariot and starts, full run, for the mountains. Then this epic of the text was composed, to celebrate the grand womanly triumph: “Awake, awake, Deborah: awake, awake!”

My friends, an army of Canaanitish and infernal influences hasi3Qme down to destroy this fair land. They come on, armed with decanter, and demijohn, and legislative enactment, and brewer’s tank, and apothecary’s bitters, and distiller’s “worm” that never dieth. To meet these influences, some very brave men have gone out in battle, and have tried to break to pieces these iron chariots of destruction; but for the most part the land has slept. Indeed, it slept until a few weeks ago, at the West, when the Lord God uttered his voice until it rang through the churches, and the homes, and the gin -palaces, and off upon the prairie, saying, “Awake, awake, Deborah: awake, awake!” And now, while I speak, this great Austerlitz goes on, and earth, and heaven, and hell await the stupendous issue.

Befoi-e I proceed to discuss the modes and policies by which the great sin of drunkenness is to be assaulted, I w.ant to tell you two or three things which I think will bear me out in the statement that something radicnl needs to be done. The first fact I want to put before you is this: th[it there are coming up a vast multitude of children in this countiy who have, from the day of their birth, a thirst for strong drink. Whether it be developed in early life or not, it is there — they have inherited it. Eio’ht alone the ancestral line, how often goes the river of death! It seems as if their cradle is rocked by the rum-fiend. The father sits down to make his will. He says: “In the nariie of God, amen! I bequeath to my children my houses, and lands, and all my property. Share and share alike they must. Hereto I affix my hand and seal, in the presence of witnesses.” But that father may at the same time be making a will that he does not realize. He may be really saying: “In the name of Disease, and Appetite, and Death, amen! I bequeath to my children my thirst for strong drink. My tankards shall be theirs, my condemnation shall be theirs. In the ruin that I have wrought for them, let them share and share alike. Hereto I put my hand and seal, in the presence of all the astonished host of heaven and all the jubilant harpies of hell.” He does not know that he is making two wills at the same time. There are young men in this house to-day who have had two inheritances: one an inheritance of dollars — they have nearly spent that; the other an inheritance of thirst for strong drink — they have not spent that.

In addition to this, there is coming up from the lower haunts of society an uncounted throng of children who ’ have been familiar with the odors of the whisky-jug and the ale-pitcher from the time they started into life. In every fibre of their soul they feel the sting of parental indulgences, and while your children to-day will be in the Sabbath -school singing “hosanna,” there will be a vaster multitude — vaster by millions and millions — of little children, barefooted, imbruted in their countenances, filthy and uncombed, who will be singing the sons of the drunkard. Their swaddlini-clothes were torn off the winding-sheet of death. Their toy in infancy was a gin-bottle. They were baptized from the laver;/ of woe. Obscene songs were their lullaby. Their in-* heritance has been a father’s curse and a mother’s beastliness. Are you surprised that they turn out badly?

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Aj, if one out of ten thousand turns out any thing but badly, you ought to be surprised.

There is another fact I want to present, showing that there is a need of something radical on this subject, and that is the multiplicity of drinking-houses all over our cities. There never has been any lack of these establishments. There never has been much reason for a man’s being thirsty a great while. But it was once only like an eruption on the body of the city; now it has become a multitude of carbuncles that threaten the very life of the community. You go down a beautiful street and see carpenters at work. You say, “I wonder what they are going to make there?” You go along a few days after, and you see they are painting an ale-pitcher on the sign, and see the red and blue light in the lamp at the door, as though kindled by a spark from the nether world to which it will decoy very many victims. In those places the villainies of your city are concocted. Those are the places where men whet their courage for arson, and for garroting, and for burglary, and for murder. I can remember the time when these saloons were chiefly on the street corners. Now they flame out from the heart of the block — a long line of fortifications leveling their enginery of death. Sometimes they call them “hotels.” Sometimes they call them “wine-cellars.” Sometimes they call them “restaurants.” Sometimes they call them “retreats.” Sometimes they call them “concert saloons,” where music plays the march of death. Sometimes they call them “casinos,” combining all the abominations of the theatre, grog-shop, and brothel. Sometimes they call them “lager-bier saloons,” under which, I suppose, there are more villainies and more obscenities than under any

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Other name. These institutions are springing up all around us. They come like some fabulous monster, taking at one swallow a hundred victims. They are plagues sweating on your great thoroughfares, and rot ling away the life of Brooklyn and New York. They are on every avenue — Fulton Avenue, Atlantic Avenue, Lafayette Avenue, Gates Avenue — girding the city with a chain of eternal fire.

We can not even have the laws against them executed. All through this country it is against the law to sell liquor on the Sabbath-day. Where is the city that keeps that law? Where are the police? Where are the mayors? Where are the common councils? Where are the ‘legislative assemblies? The fact is, that when the Eepublicans are in power they dare not execute the law lest they lose votes, and when the Democrats are in power they dare not execute the law lest they lose votes. Meanwhile, between these political parties who are struggling for the spoils of office, the virtue and the religion of the city die.

What chance is there for the morals of our city when these places are so easy of access, and when, if you want to get out of the smell of rum, you have to ride five or six miles out of town, and even the outskirts of the city are sometimes worse than the heart of it? What chance is there for that young man? Temptation before him, temptation behind him, in the loft above him, and in the cellar beneath him; and when our very best citizens patronize such places! They are cold, and they must go in and get something warm; they are warm, and they must get something to cool off. They lose money, and begin to drink to keep up their spirits; they gain something,

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and then they can afford to di-ink. And so the casks are filled, and the strychnine is poured in, and the leaks are stopped, and the faucets are drawn, and the intoxication is swilled down; and sometimes, standing before professed Christian men, their breath is so foul with drink that I feel tempted to bury my face in my pocket-handkerchief

Look at another fact. Many of the drug-stores of our country, that ought to be the agencies of health, are becoming the means of dissipation and death. There are forms of disease that need a stimulus, and under a prudent and skillful physician I think that alcohol has an important work to do; but what have you to say about the deceptions practiced upon people in this day by bitters — bitters of all sorts — cordials, tonics, Hostetter Bitters, Golden Bitters, Plantation Bitters — Bitters that make a man’s life bitter, and his death bitter, and his eternity bitter. Bitters! Now, I say, if you are going to blast a man for time and eternity, give him a fair chance. Put on the outside of the bottle what it is. But a man, maintaining, as he thinks, his sobriety, goes and gets a bottle of bitters and puts it on his desk. That bottle is soon gone. After a while he gets another, and another, and another; and one day, while he is seated in his room, the cork flies out of the black bottle of bitters, and with it a fiend that grapples the man by the throat, and says: “Ah! I have been chasing about for you fifteen years. I have got you now. Down with you to perdition!” If you propose to destroy a man, give him at least a fair fight.

Take two appalling statistics. In one year we spent in this country many million dollars more monev in 248 WOIIAN’S WAIi AGAINST THE BOTTLE.

making, and selling, and buying intoxicating drinks than for the woolen goods, and cotton goods, and flour, and meal, and boots, and shoes, and clothing of the people. In other words, we pay in this country much more to kill the people than to make them live. Put that down in your memorandum-books for one item.

Then the other item is this: If we should take all the drunkards in this country and gather them in battle array, five men abreast, they would make a line a hundred miles long. So that, if you wanted to marshal that host, and look at the companies, and the regiments, and the battalions, and you wanted to review them, you would have to mount one horse and ride until he was exhausted, and then mount another horse and ride until he was exhausted, and another horse, until he was exhausted; and then if you wanted to marshal that great host, and had a voice loud enough to order them to “Forward, march!” their step would make the earth shake and the gates of hell tremble. That is the other item.

iSrow if all these things are so, is it not time that something great, something earnest, something radical be done? Revolution! Revolution! In the light of these things I come to consider this great movement which has attracted the attention of this whole land toward the West. You ask me, as I have often been asked in private — you ask me silently two questions. You say, in the first place, “Do you approve of that assault made by the women of the West upon the liquor business?” And in the second place, “Would you have the same assault and the same scenes enacted here at the East?” I take your questions separately and alone. I answer your first. You say, “Do you approve of the assault that has been made by the -women of the West upon the grog-shops there?” I reply that there have been some things done there that I have no sympathy with, and I also assert that, so long as we have so many fools masculine, we ought to be willing to have a few fools feminine. Then I go further on, and aver that the campaign waged at the West by the women against the grog-shops of Ohio, and Illinois, and Indiana, and Michigan, is the grandest and most magnificent thing that has been on earth since the day when Deborah in the name of the Lord God Almighty hurled ruin and death on the armed oppressors of Israel. Why, it seems that by the force of prayer — certainly there can not be any thing wrong about that; and by the force of Christian song — certainly there can not be any thing wrong about that — there were in a little while three hundred saloons shut up, and in some villages all the drinking-places were abandoned. You tell me they will be open again very soon. I reply, is it nothing to shut up the fires of hell for six weeks? Why, it seems that these men engaged in that business did not know how to cope with this kind of warfare. They knew how to fight the Maine Liquor Law, and they knew how to fight the National Temperance Society, and they know how to fight the Sons of Temperance and Good Samaritans; but when Deborah appeared upon the scene, Sisera took to his feet and got to the mountains. It seems that they did not know how to contend against “Coronation,” and “Old Hundred,” and “Brattle Street,” and “Bethany,” they were so very intangible. These men found that they could not accomplish much against that kind of warflire, and in one of the cities a German regiment was brought out all armed to disperse the women. They came down in battle array; but, ob, what poor success! for that German regiment was made up of gentlemen, and gentlemen do not like to shoot women with hymn-books in their hands. Oh, they found that gunning for female prayer-meetings was a very poor business! No real damage was done, although there has been threat of violence after threat of violence all over the land. Let us give fair warning to all military companies, and to all mayors, and to all courts of law, that on the day that one of these Christian women engaged in this holy war shall, under the point of soldiers’ bayonet, or under the stroke of police club, fall down wounded or slain, on that day there will be a fire kindled in this country, a fire of indignation and national wrath, that all the waters of the Mississippi and the Ohio and the Hudson can not put out; and the influence will keep on rolling over this whole country, until the last liquor shop, and the last distillery, and the last gin store, and the last brewery, shall be trampled out under the feet of an indignant people. I tell you that the curse of the Lord God Almighty is on that business forever and forever, amen!

They say that it was not dignified for these women — they ought to have been home crocheting, or watching the loaves of bread in the oven to see that they did not get too brown and hard. Oh, my soul, which would have been most dignified? to have staid in the homes already desolated by rum, shivering amidst half- clad children, waiting for the staggering step of the father, or brother, or son, or to put on the only hat and shawl that had not been pawned away by the companion, and go out under the leadership of some great-souled Deborah,

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and with the famished family at the back, attempt with the artillery of prayer and song to put an end to those institutions where the domestic ruin had originated? Who are you, that, seated in your homes of plenty and sobriety, you should be so severely critical of these women of the West, who not for personal display, not for a play spell, but because they wanted to get back the homes of which they had been robbed, and the children’s inheritance, and the souls of the men who had been imperiled by strong drink, went forth to do their duty? When my voice shall, through the printing-press, reach those women at the West, I want to say to them, “God speed you in the work!” “Awake, awake, Deborah: awake, awake.” Nine hundred chariots can not do you any harm. The Lord of Hosts is with you, and he is mightier than all that can be against you.

Now I come to answer the second question, “Would you have the same kind of war upon the liquor establishments made at the East, and in our midst, as at the West?” I say most emphatically, NO; but for different reasons from what I have ever heard given. It is not because I think that the women of the West were undignified or unchristian, it is not because I think that the women of Brooklyn are too good for such a holy iconoclasm; but it is because there seems to be no Deborah with sufficient f;iitb in God to lead forth the host. Here at the East we are all watching to see what somebody else will say, and we are bound hand and foot by the conventionalities of society more than at the West; and at the flutter of a newspaper, we are so frightened that we are not fit for any great warfare of the kind of which I speak. I will, however, say, oh mothers, and

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sisters, and daughters of Brooklyn! I really think if you had as nuich faith in God as your sisters at the West have, and the same recklessness of human criticism, I really believe that in one month three-fourths of the grog-shops of Brooklyn would be closed, and there would be running through the gutters of the streets Burgundy, and Cognac, and Heidsick, and old Port, and Schiedam schnapps, and lager-bier, and you would save your fathers, and your husbands, and your sons, first, from a drunkard’s grave, and, secondly, from a drunkard’s hell!

But the time has not come. I have read the reports

I of the women who have assembled in this city in different churches, and I see that the time has not come. A woman can not do, tjsat which she thinks she can not,

i and yoi €an hot. There is no Deborah with enough faith in God and recklessness of human criticism to go forth in the work. I really think that, perhaps, things have got to be worse before they are any better. I do not know but that there must yet be one dead in each house, slain by this destroying angel, and that the piano that you brought into your parlor last week will have to go down under the sheriff’s hammer, and some midnight your son be tossed into your front door dead-drunk, and the rose on your daughter’s cheek fade under the breath of the rum-fiend as her father stoops over to kiss her “good-night,” and this tornado of domestic desolation go on until our great cities shall be one wreck of dissipation and crime”’! do not know but it will have to be that way before the women of the East are as brave as the women of the West.

But since we are not ready for that war, there is some-W0MA2iS WAIi AGALYST THE BOTTLE. 253

thing in which all the women of my church are ready to engage, and in which all the women of this city are ready to be marshaled, and that is in some kind of war against the drinking usages of society. Oh, young woman, never give your hand in marriage to a man who tampers with strong drink, any more than you would take hold of a basilisk! You would reform him by marriage, would you? Never! I have seen the experiment tried too often, and the women who made the unsuccessful experiment, by marriage, of reforming a man, some of them are in suicides’ graves, some are in the alms-house, and all the rest are wretched, without one exception. Reform him, will you? Why, where one woman has succeeded in that experiment, there are five hundred women buried in the ruins. Young woman, if a young man does not think enough of you to give up the wine-cup, tell him plainly that you will not contest for his af-* i fections with so vile a rival. Do not be hasty to leave! your father’s house in such an unseaworthy craft. They say that Captain Williams was drunk when he drove the ‘Atlantic on Mars’ Head, and look out how you trust your voyage of life in the hands of an inebriate. The rocks! the rocks I

Let the mothers teach their children from the very start what an accursed thing rum is. Give the lesson to them with “Brown’s Shorter Catechism.” Give every emphasis to the truth, and then pray, morning, noon, and night, and until the day of your death, that your sons — ay, your daughters, too, may be saved from these overwhelming temptations.

Let sisters make the home every evening bright, make it very bright You do not know the allurements that are around your brother. You can not afford to stand by his bruised brow when he is dead, as I knew a sister who once did when the night before she had heard her brother howhng in the dehrium, while three men could not hold him down, for he arose in the couch and beat back imaginary demons, crying, “Begone I begone!” 3Yii-are not ready for the crusade of the West here, but I want to marshal every woman in this house in one of three regiments. In the first place, we will have a regiment of mothers, their step not so strong as once it was, for they have come a great way; but their faith in God, mighty — the God who has never forsaken them. Alas! for the mother who bends over the son scorched with this fiery sirocco. 0 God! appease her agony for a little while.

In the second regiment, we will have all the wives of the country; some of their homes already invaded by this evil; their domestic joy somewhat shaken; the next ten years charged with a good deal of uncertainty

^i’he third regiment will be made up of the daughters of the land; their comfort and their respectability dependent upon the sobriety of their parents; their brow not yet clouded; their lips unacquainted with the acrid draught that a drunkard’s chiUl always has to drink.

A man said to a little girl going along the street, “Why, Jennie, I don’t see you any more. You used to come to my house begging for cold victuals. I haven’t seen you for weeks. Where have you been, Jennie?” “Oh!” she replied, “we don’t want cold victuals any more. Papa don’t drink now, and so we have warm victuals.” God have mercy on the drunkard’s child!

Isow the three regiments are formed. Forward! ye

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women baptized of the Holy Ghost. Forward! into- the strife. Your ensigns shall not be stained with tears ot blood. No skeleton will mark the line of your march; but in the wake of this great army there will smile a harvest of reformed inebriates, and there will be heard the shout of children at the return of their fathers from the captivity of the wine-cup. The mountains and the hills will break forth into singing, and all the trees of the wood will clap their hands. “Instead of the thorn shall come the fir-tree; instead of the brier shall come the myrtle-tree; and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” — — I ‘^- Postponing until next Sabbath morning what I have to say to the men who are tampering with strong drinks, postponing until next Sabbath morning my counsel to all those who have already the shackles fastened upon them, postponing until next Sabbath morning the completion of the discourse that I have begun now, I will only say to the families of my congregation, banish the wine -cup from your table, dash the beaker from your lip, and in the strength of God resolve that you will no more have any thing to do with strong drink; for I tell you now that there is a multitude of you kept away from Christ by intoxicating liquor, and there are some of you who profess to be followers of Jesus, members of my church, who are drinking a little too much. Though you have not gone far on in sin, though you may never have been intoxicated, as I suppose you have not, I know some of you are drinking a little too much, and so I ask you all to abstain. Come out on the side of sobriety. Come out on the side of the Christian religion.

Let me tell you now, no drunkard hath eternal life, and that some of you are running an awful risk of being drunkards. May the Lord God Almighty save you, and me, and our families, and this whole country from the scathing, scalding, blasting, damning influence of strong drink!