Sermon III
When he beheld the city, he wept over it” — Lctkb xlx. 41.
THEKE is a remarkable phenomenon to be seen on certain parts of our own coast. Strange to say, it proves, notwithstanding such expressions as the stable and solid land, that it is not the land but the sea which is the stable element. On some summer day, whet there is not a wave to rock her, nor breath ot wind to fill her sail or fan a cheek, you launch your boat upon the waters and, pulling out beyond lowest tide mark, you idly lie upon her bows to catch the silvery glance of a passing fish, or watch the movements of the many curious creatures that travel the sea’s sandy bed, or, creeping out of their rocky homes, wander its tangled mazes. If the traveller is surprised to find a deep-sea shell embedded in the marbles ot a .iiountain peak, how groat is your surprise to see beneath you a vegetation foreign to the deep I Below your boat, submerged many feet beneath the surface of the lowest tide, away down in these green crystal depths, you see no rusting anchor, no mouldering remains of some shipwrecked one, but in the stf.nding stumps of trees you discover the mouldering vestiges of a forest, where once the wild cat prowled, and the birds of heaven, singing their loves, had nestled and nursed their young. In counterpart to those portions of our coast where sea-hollowed caves, with sides the waves have polished, and floors still strewed with shells and sand, now stand high above the level of the strongest stream-tides, there stand these dead decaying trees — entombed in the deep. A strange phenomenon, which admits of no other explanation, than this, that there the coast line has sunk beneath its ancient level.
Many of our cities present a phenomenon as melancholy to the eye of a philanthropist, as the other is interesting to a philosopher, or geologist. In their economical, educational.
moral, and religious aspects, certain parts of tlijs city bear palpable evidence of a corresponding subsidence. Not a single house, nor a block of houses, but whole streets, once from end to end the abodes of decency, and industry, and wealth, and rank, and piety, have been engulphed. A flood of ignorance, and misery, and sin, now breaks and roars above the top of their highest tenements. Nor do the old stumps of a forest, still standing up erect beneath the sea-wave, indicate a greater change, a deeper subsidence, than the relics of ancient grandeur, and the touching memorials of piety whioh yet linger about these wretched dwellings, like evening twilight on the hills — like some traces of beauty on a corpse. The unfarnished floor, the begrimed and naked walls, the stifling, sickening atmosphere, the patched and dusty window — through which a sunbeam, like hope, is faintly stealing, the ragged, hunger-bitten, and sad-faced children, the ruffian man, the heap of straw where some wretched mother, in muttering dreams, sleeps off last night’s debauch, or lies UDsbrouded and uncoffined in the ghastliness of a hopeless death, are sad scenes. We have often looked on them. And they appear all the sadder for the restless play of fancy. Excited by some vestiges of a frescopainting that still looks out from the foul and broken plaster, the massive marble rising over the cold and cracked hearth-stone, an elaborately carved cornice too high for shivering cold to pull it down for fuel, some stucco flowers or fruit yet pendant on the crumbling ceiling, fancy, kindled by these, calls up the scenes and actors of other days — when beauty, elegance, and fashion graced these lonely halls, and plenty smoked on groaning tables, and where these few cinders, gathered from the city dust-heap, are feebly smouldering, hospitable fires roared up the chimney.
But there is that in and about these houses which bears witness of a deeper subsidence, a yet sadder change. Bent on some mission of mercy, you stand at the foot of a dank and filthy stair. It conducts you to the crowded rooms of a tenement, where — with the exception of some old decent widow who has seen better days, and when her family are all dead, an-d her friends are all gone, still clings to God and her faith in the dark hour of adversity and amid the wreck of fortune — from the cellar-dens below to the garrets beneath the roof-tree, you shall find none either reading their Bible, or even with a Bible to read. Alas I of prayer, of morning and evening psalms, of earthly or heavenly peace, it may be said that the place that once knew them, knows them no more. But before you enter thee door-way, raise your eyes to the stone above it. Dumb, it speaks of other and better times. Carved in Greek or Latin, or our own mother tongue, you decipher such texts as these: — “Peace be to this house.” ^’Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.” ^’ We have a building of God, an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.” t “Fear God;” or this, “Love your neighbor.” Like the mouldering remnants of a forest that once resounded with the melody of birds, but hears nought now save the angrj dash or melancholy m jan of breaking waves, these vestiges of piety furnish a guage w hich enables us to measure how low in these dark localities the whole stratum of society has sunk.
Now there are forces in nature which, heaving Tip the crust of our earth, may convert the sea bed again into forest or corn land. At this moment these forces are in active operation. Y/orking slowly, yet with prodigious power, they are now raising the coasts of Sweden in the old world and of Chili in the new. And who knows but these subterranean agencies, elevating our own coasts, may yet restore verdure to those deep sea sands — giving back to the plough its soil, to waving pines their forest land. And thus on our shores, redeemed from the grasp of the ocean in some future era, golden harvests may fall to the reaper’s song, and tall forests to the woodman’s axe. We know not whether this shall happen. But I do know that there is a force at work in this world — gentle, yet powerful — commonly slow in action, but always sure in its results, which, mightier than volcanic fires, pent-up vapor, or rocking earthquake, is adequate to raise the most sunken masses of society, and restore the lowest and longest neglected districts of our cities to their old level — to set them on the platform even of a higher Christionity.
Can these people ever be raised? Can those “dry bones live?” “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” are questions, distressing questions, which, when worn and weary, and disappointed, and cast down, and heart-sick, we have been often tempted to ask. 01 such times, we could say with David: — “We had fainted, unless we had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” But this voice of God came sounding down from Heaven, saying; — “Though je have lain among the pots, yet ye shall be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.” When ready to sink under a sense of our own feebleness, it said to us : — “The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels; the Lord 8 is among tLemp as in Sinai, in the holy place.** To the question, Can these lost ones be recovered? the answer came in these brave, and bold, and cheerful terms: — “I will bring again from Bashan; I will bring my people again from the depths of the sea, that thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same.” And, as he stood on the heights of inspiration, looking far away into distant time, and commanding an extent of prospect hid from common eyes, we heard the prophet announce the approaching of the promised event, a glorious gospel change: — “They have seen thy goings, 0 God; even the goings of my King in the sanctuary. The singers went before, the players on instruments followed after; among them were the damsels playing on timbrels. There is little Benjamin with the ruler, the princes of Judah with their council, the princes of Zebulon and the princes of Naphtali. Thy God hath commanded thy strength. Strength’ en, O God, that which thou hast wrought for US. Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth 0 sing praises unto the Lord.”
Yes. To put new vigor into his sinking energies, a man has only to “remember the years of the right hand of the Most High.” How does the gospel of Jesus Christ, crowned with triumphs, point her sceptre not to families, nor hamlets, nor cities, but whole nations, raised from the lowest barbarism and the basest vices!
We cannot despair so long as we do not forget, that the power of God, and the wisdom of God, and the grace of God, have nothing tc« do within our shores which they have not done already. Are our lapsed classes rude and uncultivated, ignorant and vicious? So were our forefathers, when Christianity landed on this island. She took possession of it in Jesus’ name, and conquered bold savages, whom the Komans could never subdue, by the mild yet mighty power of the gospel. God’s “hand is not shortened that it cannot save, nor is his ear heavy that it cannot hear.” Therefore, whatever lengtl of time may be required to evangelize our city masses, however long we may be living before the period when a “nation shall be born in a day,” whatever trials of patience we may have to endure, whatever tears we may have to shed over our cities, our tears are not such as Jesus wept, when he beheld Jerusalem.
No. Jerusalem was sealed to ruin — doomed beyond redemption. Our brethren, our cities are not so. We have not to mourn as those who have no hope. As on a summer day I have seen the sky at once so shine and shower, that every rain-drop was changed by sunbeams into a falling diamond, so hopes mingle here with fears, and the promises of the gospel shed sun-light on pious sorrows. “Weep we may; weep we should — weep and work, weep and pray. But ever let our tears be such as Jesus shed beside the tomb of Lazarus, when, while weeping, groaning, he bade the bystanders roll away the stone — anticipating the moment when the grave at his command would give up its dead, and Lazarus be folded, a living brother, in the arms that, four days ago, had swathed his corpse. Be such our tears and anticipations. Sustained by them we shall work all the better; and all the sooner shall our heavenly Father embrace the most wretched of these wretched outcasts. Faith may be cast down, but cannot be destroyed. There is no reason, because we are “perplexed,” ever to “despair.” Black as the prospect looks, the cloud presents one aspect to the world, and another to the Christian. I stand on the side of it that lies next the sun. There, with the sun shining at my back and the black cloud in my eye, I see a radiant bow which spans its darkness, and reveals in heavenly colors mercy to a fallen world. “It Is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” With the eye of faith fixed on that, we resume our work, and proceed still further to lay bare the state of the city — its sorrows for Christian balm, its sins for Christian cure.
We have turned your attention to the extent of intemperance, let us now 8*
Secondly, Attend to the effects of this vice.
The Spartans, a brave, and, although heathens, in many respects a virtuous people, held intemperance in the deepest abhorrence. When Christian parents initiate their children in drinking habits, and — as we have seen and wondered at — teach them to carry their glass to infant lips, copy whom they may, the wise old Spartans are not their model. They were not more careful to train the youth of their country to athletic exercises, and from their boyhood and almost their mothers’ breasts to ‘’ endure hardship as good soldiers” of Sparta, than to rear them up in habits of strictest, sternest temperance. It formed a regular branch of their national education. Why should it not of ours? It would be an incalculable blessing to the community. It would do incalculably more to promote domestic comfort, to guard the welfare of families, and secure the public good, than other branches ihat, while they go to improve the taste and polish the mind, put no real pith or power into the man. Well, once a year these Greeks assembled their slaves, and, Laving compelled them to drink to intoxication, they turned them out — all reeling, staggering, besotted, brutalized — into a great arena, that the youths who filled its benches might go home from this spectacle of degradation to shun the wine-cup, and cultivate the virtues of sobriety. Happy country! thrice happy land I where drunkenness was to be seen but once a year, and formed but an annual spectacle. Alas I we have no need to employ such unjustifiable means even for so good an end I We do not require to get up any annual show, from the pulpit to tell, or on the stage of a theatre to represent, its accursed, and direful, and disgusting effects. The lion is daily ravaging on our streets. He goes about “seeking whom he may devour.”
Once a year, indeed, when church-courts meet, our city may present a spectacle which fools regard with indifference, but wise mec with compassion and fear. A jiale and haggard man, bearing the title of “Reverend,” stands at the bar of his church. Not daring to look up, lie bends there with his head buried in his hands, blushes on his face, his lips quivering, and a hell raging, burning within him, as he thinks of home, a broken-hearted wife, and the little ones so soon to leave that dear sweet home, to shelter their innocent heads where best, all beggared and disgraced, they may. “Ah, my brother” there! And ah, my brethren here, learn to ‘* watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation.” See there the issue of all a mother’s anxieties, and a father’s self denying and parsimonious toil, to educate their promising, studious boy. In this deep darkness has set for ever a brilliant college career. Alas I what an end to the solemn day of ordination, and the bright day of marriage, and all those Sabbaths when an affectionate people hung on his eloquent lips I Oh I if this sacred office, if the constant handling of things divine, if hours of study spent over the word of Grod, if frequent scenes of death, with their most awful and sobering solemnities, if the irremediable ruin into which degradation from the holy office plunges a nan and his house along with him, if the unspeakable heinousness of this sin in one who held the post of a sentinel, and was charged with the care of souls — if these do not fortify and fence us against excess, then, in the name of God, “let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.” You are confident in your sh-ength, so was he. You can use without abusing, so once could he. I tell you T have seen ministers of the gospel charged by fame, dragged to the bar of their church, and degraded before the world as drunkards, whom once I would have as little expected to fall as I expect some of you — as you believe it possible that this vice shall yet degrade me from the pulpit, and cause my children to blush at mention of their father’s name. Such case a are trumpet-tongued. Their voice sounds the loudest warning. In such a fall we hear the crash of a stately tree. Leave an ungodly world — deaf, stone-deaf to the voice of Providence — to quaff their cups, and make the fall of ministers “the sorg of drunkards;” leave them to say that all religion is hypocrisy, and see, in such a case, but the dropping ol a mask from falsehood’s face. Let that which emboldens them in sin teach you to stand in awe. For it seems to me as if, disturbed in his graVe by the shock of such an event, the old prophet, wrapped like Samuel in his mantle shroud, had left the dead to cry in the ears of all the living, who regard with indifference the fall of a minister, “Howl, fir-trees, for the cedar is fallen.”
On leaving a church-court, where he has seen so strange and dreadful a spectacle as a man of cultivated mind, a man of literary habits, a man of honorable position, a man of sacred character, sacrifice all, — the cause of religion, the bread of his family, the interests of his children, the happiness of his wife, his character, bis soul, — all, to this base indulgence, no man, after such a terrible proof of the might and mastery of this tyrant vice, will be astonished at anything he may encounter in our streets. Yet if the soul of Paul was “stirred within him,” — stirred t(.) its deepest depths, — when he saw the idolatry of Athens, I think that lie who can walk from this neighboring castle to yonder palace, nor groan in spirit, must have a heart about as hard as the pavement that he walks on. The degradation of humanity, the ragged poverty, the squalid misery, the suffering childhood, the pining, dying infancy, oh, how do these obliterate all the romance of the scene, and make the most picturesque street in Christendom one of the most painful to travel. They call the street in Jerusalem, along which tradition says that a bleeding Saviour bore his cross, the Via Dolorosa; and I have thought that our own street was baptized in the sorrows of as mournful a name. With so many countenances thai have misery stamped on them as plain as if it were burned in with a red-hot iron — hunger siarmg at us out of these hollow eyes — drinkpalsied men, drink-blotched and bloated women — sad and sallow infants who pine away into slow death, with their weary heads lying so pitifully on the shoulders of some hali’ de-humanized woman — this poor little child, who nevei smiles, without shoe or stocking on his ulcered feet, shivering, creeping, limping along with the bottle in his emaciated hand, to buy a parent drink with the few pence that, poor hungry creature, he would fain spend on a loaf of bread, but dare not — the whole scene is like the roll of the prophet, ‘’ written within and without, lamentations, mourning, and woe.” How has it wrung our heart to see a poor ragged boy looking greedily in at a window on the food he has no one to give him, and dare not touch, — to watch him, as he alternately lifted his naked feet, lest they should freeze to the icy pavement. He starves in the midst of abundance. Neglected among a people who would take more pity on an ill-used horse or a dying dog, he is a castaway upon the land. Of the throngs that pass heedlessly by him to homes of comfort, intent on business or on pleasure, there is no one cares for him. Poor wretch I 0 if lie knew a Bible which none has taught him, how might he plant himself before us, and bar our way to church or prayer-meeting, saying, us he fixed on us an imploring eye, “Pure religion and undefiled before God” is to feed me — is to clothe these naked limbs — is to fill up these hollow cheeks — is to pour the light of knowledge into this darkened soul — is to save me — is not to go to house of God or place of prayer, but first coming with me to our miserable home, “to visit the widow and fatherless in their affliction, and keep thy garments unspotted from the world.”
You can test the truth of these statements. You have only to walk along the street to verify them. Yet bad as it looks, and bad as it is, the street reveals not half the evil. I know that some look with suspicion upon our statements. They doubt whether matters below are so bad as we report. They insinuate that surely we are exaggerating existing evils. Well, there is nothing more easy, although there might be many things more noble, than to lie beneath bright skies, and amid gay company, and on a flowery sward, and dismiss with an incredulous smile the claims of suffering humanity. It were more like a man and a Christian to throw yourself into the bucket, seize the chain, go down into the pit and put the matter to the proof. We invite jou to do that which will rudely dissipate every doubt, and bring you up, a better and wiser man, to say with Sheba’s Queen, “The half was not told me.” Meanwhile, come along with me, while I again travel over some bygone scenes.
Look there! In that corpse you see the cold, dead body of one of the best and godliest mothers it was ever our privilege to know. She had a son. He was the stay of her widowhood — so kind, so affectionate, so loving. Some are taken away from the “evil to come;” laid in the lap of mother earth, safe beneath the grave’s green sod, they hear not and heed not the storm that rages above. Such was not her happy fortune. She lived to see that son a disgrace, and all the promises of his youth blighted and gone. He was drawn into habits of intemperance. On her knees she pleaded with him. On her knees she prayed for him. How mysterious are the ways of ProvirrS SINS AND SORROWS. 99
dence I She did not live to see him changed; and with such thorns in her pillow, such daggers, planted by such a hand, in her heart, she could not live. She sank under these griefs, and died of a broken heart. We told him so. With bitter, burning tears he owned it; charging himself with his mother’s death — confessing himself a mother’s murderer. Crushed with sorrow, and all alone, he went to see the body. Alone, beside that cold, dead, unreproaching mother, he knelt down and wept out his terrible remorse. After a while he rose. Unfortunately — how unfortunate that a spirit bottle should have beer left there — his eye fell on the old tempter. You have seen the iron approach the magnet. Call it spell, call it fascination, call it anything bad, demoniacal, but as the iron is drawn to the magnet, or as a fluttering bird, fascinated by the burning eye and glittering skin of the serpent, walks into its envenomed, expanded jaws, so was he drawn to the bottle. Wondering at his delay, they entered the room; and now the bed hold? two bodies
—a dead mother, and her dead-drunk son. What a sight! what a humbling, horrible spectacle I And what a change from those happy times, when night drew her peaceful curtains around the same son and mother — he, a sweet babe, sleeping, angel-like, within her loving arms! “How is the gold become dim, the most fine gold changed!”
Or look there. The bed beside which you have at other visits conversed and prayed with one who, in the very bloom and flower of youth, was withering away under a slow decline — is empty. The living need it; and so its long, and spent, and weary tenant lies now, stretched out in death, on the top of two rade chests beside the window. And as you stand by the body — contemplating it — in that pallid face lighted up by a passing sun-gleam you see, along with lingering traces of no common beauty, the calmness and peace which were her latter end. But in this hot, sultry, summer weather, why lies she there uncoffined? Drink has ieft us to do that last office for the dead. Her father — how unworthy the name of father — when his daughter pled with him for his soul, pled with him fcr her mother, pled with him for her little sister, had stood bj her dying pillow to damn her — fiercely damning her to her face. He has left his poor, dead child to the care of others. With the wages he retains for drink, he refuses to buy that lifeless form a coffi.n and a grave!
Or look there. You have found a young man, the victim of an incurable malady, sinking into the tomb. Dying is hard enough work amid all the comforts which wealth, and kindness, and piety can command; but in that winter time, with the frosty wind blowing through the broken panes, he is shivering while he seeks in the Bible its precious comforts; and how much his body is emaciated is too plainly visible beneath that single threadbare coverlet. You could not have stood that; no more could we. And where, at our next visit, are the warm comforts charity had provided? They have gone for drink! Gone for drink! For such purpose, what incarnate demons have plucked the blankets from that wasted form — steeling their iron hearts against his cries, his struggles, his unavailing tears? Accursed vice! that can sink man beneath the brutes that perish. The barbarous deed was done by a father’s hand! That father, instigated and aided bj her who had suckled him on her breast, a breast twice withered — by worse than age, deformed and dried up I
Did I saj sinks man beneath the brutes that perish? It is a libel on creation to speak of a drunkard as a brute. The bear, when she refuses to desert her cub, when she makes the most daring, desperate efforts to protect her offspring, when, rearing herself on her hind feet, she stands up growling to face the hunter, and offer her shaggy bosom to his spear, extorts our admiration; as does the little creature which, when the spear is buried in a mother’s heart, leaps on her dead body, and, giving battle to the dogs, attempts bravely, though vainly to defend it. Look at this case, and that. How beautiful is nature, how base is sin I Dr. Kane tells a story of a savage man in. those arctic regions, where God has poured such affection into the bosom of the fiercest animals, which excites our pity. Noluk, when all other families in the time of famine had fled from their sick, remained faithful to his wife. She was dying. From waging fierce battle with the monsters of the deep, scaling the slippery iceberg, leaping the cracks of the ice-floe, homeward over the snowy wastes he drove his sledge each night, with food for her. The evening of his last visit arrives. He approaches the rude stonehut, looks in, and through a window sees his wife a corpse, and his infant son sucking at her frozen breast. Instinct moved him to enter, pluck away the child, and make a daring effort to save its life and his own. But the burden of a sucking babe, the pressing fears of famine, these mastered parental affection; and, claiming our pity for the grief that stood in his eye and wrung his heart, he turned his dogs southward, nor crossed the threshold. But what emotions do the cases 1 have told you. of awaken? To be matched by many and surpassed by some that I could tell — samples of the stock) what passion can they, what passion ought they to move, but the deepest indignation? Nor would I, however fiercely it may run, seek to stem the flood. The deeper it flows, the higher it rises, the stronger it swells and rolls, so much the better. I would not seek to stem, but to direct it — directing it not against the victims, but against the vice.
I pray you do not hate the drunkard; he hates himself. Do not despise him; oh, he cannot sink so low in your opinion as he is sunk in his own. Your hatred and contempt may rivet, but will never rend his chains. Lend a kind hand to pluck him from the mire. With a strong hand shatter that bowl — remove the temptations which, while he hates, he cannot resist. Hate, abhor, tremble at hia sin. And for pity’s sake, for God’s sake, for Christ’s sake, for humanity’s sake, rouse yourselves to the question, What can be done? Without heeding others — wiether they follow or whether they stay — rushing down to the beach, throw yourself into the boat, push away, and bend on the oar, like a man, to the ♦vreck. Say, I will not stand by and see my fellow-creatures perish. They are perishing To save them I will do anything. What luxury will I not give up? What indulgence will I not abstain from? What customs, what shackles of old habits will I not break, that these hands may be freer to pluck the drowning from the deep? God my help, his word my law, the love of his Son my ruling motive, I shall never balance a poor personal indulgence against the good of my country and the welfare of mankind. Brethren, such resolutions, such high, and holy, and sustained, and self-denying efforts, the height of this evil demands.
Before God and man, before the church and the world, I impeach Intemperance. I charge it with the murder of innumerable souls. In this country, blessed with freedom and plenty, the word of God and the liberties of true religion, I charge it as the cause — whatever be their source elsewhere — of almost all the pov ertj, and almost all the crime, and almost all the misery, and almost all the ignorance, and almost all the irreligion, that disgrace and afflict the land. “I am not mad, most noble Festus. I speak the words of truth and soberness.” I do in my conscience believe that these intoxicating stimulants have sunk into perdition more men and women than found a grave in that deluge which swept over the highest hill-tops — engulphing a world, of which but eight were saved. As compared with other vices, it may’ be said of this, ‘’ Saul has slain his thousands, but David his tens of thousands.”
8. Consider what cure we should apply to thit evil.
The grand and only sovereign remedy for the evils of this world is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that. There is no man more convinced of that than I am. But he rather hinders than helps the cause of religion who shuts his eyes to the fact, that, in curing souls, as in curing bodies, many things
[TS SINS AND SORROWS. 107
may be important as auxiliaries to the remedy, which cannot properly be considered as remedies. In the day of his resurrection Lazarus owed his life to Christ; but they that day did good service, who rolled away the stone. They were allies and auxiliaries. And to such in the battle which the gospel has to wage with this monster vice, allow me in closing this discourse to direct your attention. And I remark —
First, TJiat the legislature may render essential service in this cause.
This is an alliance between church and state which no man could quarrel with. Happy for our country, if by such help, the state would thus fulfil to the church — the woman of prophecy — this apocalyptic vision: — “And the serpent cast out of his mouth, water as a flood, after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman. And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth”
Many people feel no sympathy with the sufferings of the lowest class. They are not hard-hearted; but engrossed with their own affairs, or, raised far above them in social position, they are ignorant of their temptations, and trials. Therefore they talk ignorantly about them; and seldom more so than when they repudiate all attempts of the legislature by restrictive Acts of Parliament to abate, if not abolish, this evil. They have their remedies. Some plead for better lodgings and sanitary measures; which we also regard as highly valuable. Some put their faith in education — an agent, the importance of which, to the rising generation, it is impossible to over-. estimate. Some seem to have no confidence in anything but the preaching of the gospel. To one or other of these, or the combined lull uence of them all, they trust for the cure of drunkenness — repudiating and deprecating all legislative interference. Now, I should like as much as they to see the very lowest of oui people so elevated in their tastes, with minds so cultivated, and hearts so sanctified, that they could resist the temptations which on every hand beset them. But thousands, tens of thousands, are unable to do so. They must be helped with crutches till they have acquired the power to walk. They must be fenced round with every possible protection until they are “rooted and grounded in the love of God.” In the country I have often seen a little child, with her sun-browned face and long golden locks, sweet as any flower she pressed beneath her naked foot, merry as any bird that sung from bush or brake, driving the cattle home; and with fearless hand controlling the sulky leader of the herd, as with armed forehead and colossal strength he quailed before that slight image of God. Some days ago, I saw a different sight — such a child, with hanging head, no music in his voice, nor blush but that of shame upon his cheek, leading home a drunken father along the public street. The man required to be led, guided, guarded. And into a condition hardly less helpless large masses of our people have sunk. I don’t wonder that they drink. Look at their unhappy and most trying cir- 10 cumstances. Many of them are born with a propensity to this vice. They suck it in with a mother’s milk; for it is a well-ascertained fact that other things are hereditary besides cancer, and coDsumption, and insanity. The drunken parent transmits to his children a proneness to his fatal indulgence. The foul atmosphere which many of them breathe, the hard labor by which many of them earn their bread, produce a prostration which seeks in stimulants something to rally the system, nor will be debarred from their use by any prospect of danger, or experience of a corresponding reaction. With our improved tastes, our books, our recreations, our domestic comforts, we have no adequate idea of the temptations to which the poor are exposed, and from which it is the truest kindness to protect them. They are cold, and the glass is warmth. They are hungry, and drink is food. They are miserable, and there is laughter in the flowing cup. They are sunk in their own esteem, and the bowl or the bottle surrounds the drunkard with a bright-colored halo of self-respect, and, SO long as the fumes are in his brain, he feel a himself a man. “They drink to forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more.” Such indeed has been the only training, such are the physical, economical, moral, and religious conditions of large masses of the people, that their safety lies, not in resisting temptation, but escaping it. None know that better than themselves. How would thousands hail and bless the day, which, shuttmg up the drinking-shops, would preserve them from temptations which are their ruin, and to which they at length
passively yield themselves; although, as one said, they know theii doors to be the way to hell. Yet not passively, until this fatal pleasure has paralyzed the mind more even than the body. Many struggle hard to overcome this passion. There is a Ions and terrible fight between the man and the serpeni that has hnn in his coils; between the- love of wife and children and the love of drink. Never more manfully than some of them did swimmer struggle in his hour of agony — breasting the waves and straining il2 THE cirr:
every nerve to reach the distant shore Would Parliament but leave this matter to these people themselves — would tbej for once delegate their powers of legislation to the inhabitants of our lowest districts — we are confident that, by their all but unanimous vote, every drinking-shop in theii neighborhoods would be shut up. The buds, which are now drawn into the mouth of the serpent, would soar aloft on free and joyous wing to sing the praises of the hand that closed its jaws, of the heel that crushed its head. And so long as religion stands by — silent and unprotesting against the temptations with which men, greedy of gain, and Governments, greedy of revenue, surround the wretched victims of the basest vice — it appears to me an utter mockery for her to go with the word of God in her hand, teaching them to say, “Lead us not into temptation.”
As a man, as well as minister of that blessed gospel which recognizes no distinction between rich and poor, I protest against the wrongs of a class that are to the full as unfortunate a.’» they are sfuilty. They deserve succor rather tnan censure. They are more to be pitied than punished. And, assuming the office of their advocate, I wish to know why the upper classes of society should enjoy from the legislature a protection denied to those who stand more in need of it? Gambling-houses were proved before Parliament to be ruining the youth of the aristocracy. Nobility complained Coronets and broad acres were in danger. Parliament rose to the rescue. She put forth her strong hand, and by a sweeping, summary, most righteous measure, put the evil down. It was also proved in Parliament that Bettinghouses were corrupting the morals of our merchants’ clerks, our shopmen, our tradesmen, and others of the middle classes of society. Once more Parliament rose up in its might, threw its broad shield over wealth and commerce, and closed every betting-house in the metropolis. Who talked then about the freedom of trade? When the honor of noble families, or the wealth of our merchants, and the honesty of their servants demanded pro- 10*
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tection, who talked about the liberty of the subject? Who proposed to leave these evils to be met by education and such means as education? I don’t complain of, but commend the measures which Parliament adopted. Only, I want to know, if the virtues of humble families and the happiness of the poor are less worthy of protection than the wealth of bankers, and the honors of an ancient nobility? I want to know if the bodies of the higher and wealthier classes are of better clay, or their souls of finer elements, than those of the very lowest of the people? Yet I would undertake to prove that, year by year, thousands and tens of thousands of our poor lose character, virtue, fortune, body and soul, in those drinking-shops that glare upon the public eye — which the law does not forbid, but license. For every one the gambling or bet — ting-house ruined, they ruin hundreds. I wish that those who govern this noble country should be able to say with Him who govbrns the universe, “Are not my ways equal?” Nor let our legislators be scared from their duty in this case, any more than they were in the other, by the allegation that to shut up the drinkmg-shop will not cure but rather aggravate the evil, by leading to illicit traffic and secret drinking. The removal of the temptation may not always cure the drunkard. But it will certainly check the growth of his class, and prevent many others from learning his habits — until sanguine men might entertain the blessed hope that, like the monsters of a former epoch, which now lie entombed in the rocks, drunkards may be numbered among the extinct races, classified with the winged serpents and gigantic sloths that were once inhabitants of our globe.
The subject before us is eminently calculated to illustrate the profound remark of one, who was well acquainted with the temptations and circumstances of the poor. He said: — “It is justice, not charity, that the poor most need.” And all we ask is, that you be a kind to them as to the rich; that you guard the o’le class as carefully as you guard the other from the temptations peculiar to their lot. I am sorry
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to say — but truth and the interests of those who, howevt/i* sunk and degraded, are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, require that I should say — that this is not done. The “poor,” says Amos, “are sold for a pair of shoes,” and with us they are sold to save the wealth of the rich. In this I make no charge which I am not prepared to prove. For example: — Certain measures were proposed in Parliament with the view of promoting the comforts and improving the moral habits of the common people. It was admitted that these, by introducing weak French and Ehenish wines in room of ardent spirits and strongly intoxicating liquors, would be attended with the most happy and desirable result. Yet they were rejected. And rejected because* their adoption, although it saved the people, would damage the revenue. As if there was not money enough in the pockets of the wealthy, through means of other taxes, to meet the debts of the nation and sustain the honor of the Crown. How different the tone of morals even in China I The ministers of that country proved to their sovereign that he would avert all danger of war with Britain, and also add immensely to his revenue, if he would consent to legalize the trade in opium. He refused, firmly refused, nobly refused. And it were a glorious day for Britain, a happy day for ten thousand miserable homes — a day for bonfires, and ju’ ilant cannon, and merry bells, and banner, d processions, and holy thanksgivings, which saw our beloved Queen rise from her throne, and in the name of this great nation address to her Lords and Commons the memorable speech of that pagan monarch: — “I will never consent to raise my revenue out of the ruin and vices of my people.” With such a spirit may God imbue our land! — “Even so come, Lord Jesus. Come quickly.”
Secondly, ThoA the example of abstaining from all intoxicating liquors would greatly aid in the cure of this evil.
No principle is more clearly inculcated in the word of God, and none, carried out into action, makes a man more Christ-like than self-denial, “If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.” That is the principle of temperance, as I hold it. I cannot agree with those who, in their anxiety for good, attempt to prove too much, and condemn as positively sinful the moderate use of stimulants. Bat still less sympathy have I with those who dare to call in Jesus C hrist to lend his holy countenance to their lu curious boards. It is shocking to hear men attempt to prove, by the word of God, that it is a duty to drink — to fill the wine-cup and drain off the glass.
I was able to use without abusing. But seeing to what monstrous abuse the thing had grown, seeing in what a multitude of cases the use was followed by the abuse, and seeing how the example of the uyper classes, the practices of ministers, and the habits of church members were used to shield and sanction indulgences so often carried to excess, T saw the case to be one for the apostle’s warning: — “Take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling block to them that are weak.” Paul says of meat oifeied unto an i(Jol: — “Meat commendeth us not to God, for neither if we eat are we the better, neither if we eat not are we the worse.” And will any man deny, that, save in medical cases, I can with the most perfect truth adopt the words of inspiration, and say of these stimulants what Paul says of meat: — “Drink commendeth us not to God; for neither if we drink are we the better, and neither if we drink not are we the worse.” On the contrary, the testimony of physicians, the experience of those who, in arctic cold or Indian heat, have been exposed to influences the most trying to the constitution; the experience also of every one who has exchanged temperate indulgence for rigid abstinence, have demonstrated that, if we drink not, we are the better. There is no greater delusion in this world than that health, or strength, or joyousness is dependent on the use of stimulants. So far as happiness is concerned, we can afford to leave such means to those who inhabit the doleful dens of sm. They cannot want them, Th*»y have to relieve the darkness with lurid gleama. They have to drown remorse in the bowl’s oblivion. They have to bury the recollection of what they were, the sense of what they are. and the foreboding of what they shall be — as one of them said, ^’we poor girls could not lead the life we do without the drink.”
Grant that there were a sacrifice in abstaining, what Christian man would hesitate to make it, if by doing so he can honor God and bless mankind? If by a life-long abstinence from all the pleasures which the wine-cup yields I can save one child from a life of misery, I can save one mother from premature grey hairs, and griefs that bring her to the grave, I can save one woman from ruin, bringing him to Jesus I can save one man from perdition, I should hold myself well repaid. Living thus, living not for myself, when death summons me to my account, and the Judge says, Man, where is thy brother? I shall be found walking, although at a humble distance, in the footprints of him who took bis way to Calvary. He said, ‘*If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” This cross, which has been held high in the battle-field by men nobly fighting for their faith, which rose above the scafibld red with martyr’s blood, which has been borne by missionaries to pagan lands, may be carried into our scenes of social enjoyment, and, a brighter ornament than any jewels flashing on beauty’s breast, may adorn the festive table. If this abstinence is a cross, all the more honor to the men who carry it. It is a right noble thing to live for God and the good of men.
I attempt to dictate on this subject to no man. Believing it to be one specially open to the apostolic rule, “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind;” I would yet venture to appeal to my brethren in the ministry, and to the members of every Christian church. There cannot be a doubt, not the shadow of a doubt, that if, devoting yourselves Christ-hke to the glory of God and the good of men, you saw it to be your duty to embrace the principle of abstinence, the result XI would be remarkable. Such would be the influence of your example within your own household, and outside in your different neighborhoods, and such also the power which you could exercise in the Parliament of our country, that intemperance with all its direful damning consequences would be, to a great extent and in time, banished from the land. “What a land ours then would be! Believed from this mill-stone which bangs about her neck, and weighs her down and bends her giant power to the earth, into what an attitude and height of power would sbe rise? Who then would dare to insult her flag? Who then would dare to cross her path, when she went forth in her might and virtue to assert the liberties of the world — to break the fetters of the slave or fight the battle of the oppressed. She would hear no more taunts from the slave-holders of the West or the despots of the South. Her piety, and sobriety, and virtues, preserving salt, elements of national immortality, she might hope to be exempted from the fat€ of all preceding empires, that, one after another, in unfailing succession, nave gone down into the tomb.
This moral revolution in our national habits, this greatest of all reforms, every one can engage in. Women and children, as well as men, can help it onwards to the goal. It is attainable, if we would only attempt it. It is hopeful, if we would but give the subject a fair consideration. Why should not the power of Christianity, by its mighty arguments of love and self denial, lead to the disuse of intoxicating stimulants, and so achieve that which Mahommedanism and Hindooism have done? Must the cross pale before the crescent? Must the divine religion of Jesus, with that God-man upon the tree for its invincible ensign, blush before such rivals, and own itself unable to accomplish what false faiths have done? Tell us not that it cannot be done It can be done. It has been done — done by the enemies of the CI OSS of Christ — done by the followers of an impostor — done by worshippers of stocks and stones. “And their rock is not like oui Rock,” If that is true — and it cannot be gainsaid — I may surely claim from every man who has faith in God, and loves Jesus, and is willing to live for the benefit of mankind, a candid, a full, and a prayerful consideration of this subject. But, whatever be the means, whatever the weapons you will judge it best to employ, when trumpets are blowing in Zion, and the alarm is sounding and echoing in God’s holy mountain, come — come to the help of the Lord against the mighty, crowd to the standard, throw yourself into the thick of battle, and die in harness fighting for the cause of Jesus. So “to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”