PART I. QUESTIONABLE AMUSEMENTS.

"The excesses of our youth are drafts on our old age,

payable about one hundred years after date without

interest."--JOHN RUSKIN.

I. TOBACCO.

Tobacco wastes the body. It is used for the nicotine that is in it. This

peculiar ingredient is a poisonous, oily, colorless liquid, and gives to

tobacco its odor. This odor and the flavor of tobacco are developed by

fermentation in the process of preparation for use. "Poison" is commonly

defined as "any substance that when taken into the system acts in

an injurious manner, tending to cause death or serious detriment

to health." And different poisons are defined as those which act

differently upon the human organism. For example, one class, such as

nicotine in tobacco, is defined as that which acts as a stimulant or

an irritant; while another class, such as opium, acts with a quieting,

soothing influence. But the fact is that poison does not act at all

upon the human system, but the human system acts upon the poison. In

one class of poisons, such as opium, the reason why the system does not

arouse itself and try to cast off the poison, is that the nerves become

paralyzed so that it can not. And in the case of nicotine in tobacco the

nerves are not thus paralyzed, so that they try in every way to cast off

the poison. Let the human body represent the house, and the sensitive

nerves and the delicate blood vessels the sleeping inmates of that

house. Let the Foe Opium come to invade that house and to destroy the

inmates, for every poison is a deadly Foe. At the first appearance of

this subtle Foe terror is struck into the heart of the inmates, so that

they fall back helpless, paralyzed with fear. When the Intruder Tobacco

comes, he comes boisterously, rattling the windows and jostling the

furniture, so that the inmates of the house set up a life-and-death

conflict against him.

This is just what happens when tobacco is taken into the human system.

Every nerve cries out against it, and every effort is made to resist it.

You ask, Will one's body be healthier and live longer without tobacco

than with it? We answer, by asking, Will one's home be happier and more

prosperous without some deadly Foe continually invading it, or with such

a Foe? When the membranes and tissues of the body, with their host of

nerves and blood vessels, have to be fighting against some deadly poison

in connection with their ordinary work, will they not wear out sooner

than if they could be left to do their ordinary work quietly? To

illustrate: A particle of tobacco dust no sooner comes into contact with

the lining membrane of the nose, than violent sneezing is produced.

This is the effort of the besieged nerves and blood vessels to protect

themselves. A bit of tobacco taken into the mouth causes salivation

because the salivary glands recognize the enemy and yield an increased

flow of their precious fluid to wash him away. Taken into the stomach

unaccustomed to its presence, and it produces violent vomiting. The

whole lining membrane of that much-abused organ rebels against such an

Intruder, and tries to eject him. Tobacco dust and smoke taken into

the lungs at once excretes a mucous-like fluid in the mouth, throat,

windpipe, bronchial tubes, and in the lungs themselves. Excretions such

as this mean a violent wasting away of vitality and power. Taken in

large quantities into the stomach, tobacco not only causes an excretion

of mucus from the mouth, throat, and breathing organs, but it produces

an overtaxing of the liver; that is, this organ overworks in order to

counteract the presence of the poison. But one asks, If tobacco is so

injurious, why is it used with such apparent pleasure? A small quantity

of tobacco received into the system by smoking, chewing, or snuffing is

carried through the circulation to the skin, lungs, liver, kidneys, and

to all the organs of the body, by which it is moderately resisted. The

result is a gentle excitement of all these organs. They are in a state

of morbid activity. And as sensibility depends upon vital action of

the bodily organisms, there is necessarily produced a degree of

sense gratification or pleasure. The reason why these sensations are

pleasurable instead of painful is, in this state of moderate excitement

the circulation is materially increased without being materially

unbalanced. But as with every sense indulgence, when the craving for

increased doses becomes satisfied, when larger doses are taken the

circulation becomes unbalanced, vital resistance centers in one point,

congestion occurs, then the sensation becomes one of pain instead of one

of pleasure. This disturbance or excitement caused by tobacco is nothing

more nor less than disease. For it is abnormal action, and abnormal

action is fever, and fever is disease. It is state on good authority,

"that no one who smokes tobacco before the bodily powers are developed

ever makes a strong, vigorous man." Dr. H. Gibbons says: "Tobacco

impairs digestion, poisons the blood, depresses the vital powers, causes

the limbs to tremble, and weakens and otherwise disorders the heart." It

is conceded by the medical profession that tobacco causes cancer of the

tongue and lips, dimness of vision, deafness, dyspepsia, bronchitis,

consumption, heart palpitation, spinal weakness, chronic tonsillitis,

paralysis, impotency, apoplexy, and insanity. It is held by some men

that tobacco aids digestion. Dr. McAllister, of Utica, New York, says

that it "weakens the organs of Digestion and assimilation, and at length

plunges one into all the horrors of dyspepsia."

*Tobacco dulls the mind.* It does this not only by wasting the body,

the physical basis of the mind, but it does it through habits of

intellectual idleness, which the user of tobacco naturally forms.

Whoever heard of a first-class loafer who did not e-a-t the weed or burn

it, or both? On the rail train recently we were compelled to ride for

an hour in the smoking-car, which Dr. Talmage has called "the nastiest

place in Christendom." In front of me sat a young man, drawing and

puffing away at a cigar, polluting the entire region about him. In the

short hour enough time was lost by that young man to have carefully read

ten pages of the best standard literature. All this we observed by

an occasional glance from the delightful volume in our own hands. The

ordinary user of tobacco has little taste for reading, little passion

for knowledge, and superficial habits of continued reasoning. His

leisure moments are absorbed in the sense-gratification of the weed. But

if as much attention had been given in acquiring the habit of reading as

had been given in learning the use of tobacco, the most valuable of all

habits would take the place of one of the most useless of all habits.

When we see a person trying to read with a cigar or a pipe in his mouth,

Knowing that nine-tenths of his real consciousness is given to his

smoking, and one-tenth to what he is reading, we are reminded of the

commercial traveler who "wanted to make the show of a library at home,

so he wrote to a book merchant in London, saying: 'Send me six feet of

theology, and about as much metaphysics, and near a yard of civil law in

old folio.'" Not a sentimentalist, a reformer, nor a crank, but Dr. James

Copeland says: "Tobacco weakens the nervous powers, favors a dreamy,

imaginative, and imbecile state of mind, produces indolence and

incapacity for manly or continuous exertion, and sinks its votary into

a state of careless inactivity and selfish enjoyment of vice." Professor

L. H. Gause writes: "The intellect becomes duller and duller, until at

last it is painful to make any intellectual effort, and we sink into a

sensuous or sensual animal. Any one who would retain a clear mind, sound

lungs, undisturbed heart, or healthy stomach, must not smoke or chew the

poisonous plant." It is commonly known that in a number of American and

foreign colleges, by actual testing, the non-user of tobacco is superior

in mental vigor and scholarship to the user of it. In view of this fact,

our Government will not allow the use of tobacco at West Point or

at Annapolis. And in the examinations in the naval academy a large

percentage of those who fail to pass, fail because of the evil effects

of smoking.

Tobacco drains the pocketbook. "Will you please look through my mouth

and nose?" asked a young man once of a New York physician. The man of

medicine did so, and reported nothing there. "Strange! Look again. Why,

sir, I have blown ten thousand dollars--a great tobacco plantation and a

score of slaves--through that nose." The Partido cigar regularly retails

at from twenty-five to thirty cents each. An ordinary smoker will smoke

four cigars a day. Three hundred and sixty-five dollars a year, besides

his treating. A small fortune every ten years! A neighbor of ours on the

farm used to go to town in the spring and buy enough chewing tobacco

to last him until after harvest, and flour to last the family for two

weeks. Among all classes of people this useless drain of the pocketbook

is increasing. In our country last year more money was spent for tobacco

than was spent for foreign missions, for the Churches, and for public

education, all combined. Our tobacco bill in one year costs our Nation

more than our furniture and our boots and shoes; more than our flour and

our silk goods; one hundred and forty-five million dollars more than all

our printing and publishing; one hundred and thirty-five million dollars

more than the sawed lumber of the Nation. Each year France buys of us

twenty-nine million pounds of tobacco, Great Britain fifty millions,

and Germany sixty-nine million pounds, to say nothing of how much these

nations import from other countries. Never before has the use of tobacco

been so widespread as to-day. "The Turks and Persians are the greatest

smokers in the world. In India all classes and both sexes smoke; in

China the practice--perhaps there more ancient--is universal, and girls

from the age of eight or nine wear as an appendage to their dress a

small silken pocket to hold tobacco and a pipe." Nor can the expense and

widespread use of tobacco be defended on the ground that it is a luxury,

for the abstainer from tobacco counts it the greater luxury not to use

it. The only explanation for its use is, that it is a habit which binds

one hand and foot, and from which no person with ordinary will power in

his own strength can free himself.

Tobacco blunts the moral nature. It is not certain how long tobacco

has been used as a narcotic. Some authorities hold that the smoking of

tobacco was an ancient custom among the Chinese. But if this is true, we

know that it did not spread among the neighboring nations. When Columbus

came to America he found the natives of the West Indies and the American

Indian smoking the weed. With the Indian its use has always had a

religious and legal significance. Early in the sixteenth century tobacco

was introduced into England, later into Spain, and still later, in 1560,

into Italy. Used for its medicinal properties at first, soon it came

to be used as a luxury. The popes of Italy saw its harm and thundered

against it. The priests and sultans of Turkey declared smoking a crime.

One sultan made it punishable with death. The pipes of smokers were

thrust through their noses in Turkey, and in Russia the noses of smokers

were cut off in the earlier part of the seventeenth century. "King James

I of England issued a counterblast to tobacco, in which he described its

use as a 'custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful

to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fumes

thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is

bottomless.'" As one contrasts this sentiment with the practice of the

present sovereign of England, his breath is almost taken away in his

great fall from the sublime to the ridiculous!

While we do not believe a moderate use of tobacco for a mature person is

necessarily a sin, yet we do believe that it does blunt the moral sense,

and soon leads to spiritual weakness and indifference, which are sins.

To love God with all one's heart, mind, soul, and strength, and

one's neighbor as himself, means not only a denial of that which is

questionable in morals, but a practice of that which is positively good.

However noble or worthy in character may be some who use tobacco, yet by

common consent it is a "tool of the devil." Every den of gamblers,

every low-down grogshop, every smoking-car, every public resort and

waiting-room departments for men, every rendezvous of rogues, loafers,

villains, and tramps is thoroughly saturated with the vile stench of the

cuspidor and the poisonous odors of the pipe and cigar. "Rev. Dr. Cox

abandoned tobacco after a drunken loafer asked him for a light." Not

until then had he seen and felt the disreputable fraternity that existed

between the users of tobacco.

Owen Meredith gives us a standard of strength and freedom, which is an

inspiration to every lover of rounded, perfected manhood and womanhood:

"Strong is that man, he only strong,

To whose well-ordered will belong,

For service and delight,

All powers that in the face of wrong

Establish right.

And free is he, and only he,

Who, from his tyrant passions free,

By fortune undismayed,

Has power within himself to be,

By self obeyed.

If such a man there be, where'er

Beneath the sun and moon he fare,

He can not fare amiss;

Great nature hath him in her care.

Her cause is his."

Only let the "will," the "powers," the "freedom," and the "self" of

which the writer speaks become the "Christ will," the "Christ powers,"

the "Christ freedom," and the "Christ self." Then the strongest chains

of bondage must fly into flinters. For "if the Son make you free, ye are

free indeed." (John viii, 36.)

II. DRUNKENNESS.

I. A TEMPERANCE PLATFORM.

WE bring to you three words of counsel with respect to this subject.

First, Beware of the Social Glass; second, Study the Drink Evil; third,

Openly oppose it. This is a Temperance Platform upon which every sober,

informed, and conscientious person may stand. Would it be narrow or

uncharitable to assert that not to stand upon this platform argues that

one is not sober, or not informed, or not conscientious? The crying

need of to-day is, that men and women shall be urged into positions of

conviction and activity against this most colossal evil of our time.

In our country the responsibility for drunkenness rests not with the

illiterate, blasphemous, ex-prison convicts who operate the 250,000

saloons of our Nation, nor yet with the 250,000 finished products of

the saloon who go down into drunkards' graves every year, but with the

sober, respectable, hard-working, voting citizens of our country.

Nor does this exempt women, whose opportunity to shape the moral and

political convictions of the home is far greater than that of the men.

When the women of America say to the saloon, You go! the saloon will

have to go. The moral and political measures of any people are easily

traceable to the sisters and wives and mothers of that people. You and I

and every ordinary citizen of our country had as well try to escape our

own shadow, as to try to escape the responsibility that rests upon us

for the drunkenness of our people. To help us to do our whole duty in

our day and generation in this matter is the purpose of our message.

II. BEWARE OF THE SOCIAL GLASS.

The first and least thing that one can do to destroy drunkenness, is

to be a total abstainer. Beware of the social glass! But quickly one

replies, "Why should there be any social glass?" "Why allow sparkling,

attractive springs of refreshing poison to issue forth in all of our

social centers, and then cry to our sons and daughters, to our brothers

and sisters, Beware?" My friend, we must deal with facts as they are.

There should not be a social glass; but what has that to do with

the fact that the social glass is here? You answer, "Why allow these

fountains of death to exist?" while we cry to our loved ones, "Beware!"

We do not advocate the presence of these fountains; but while we seek

to destroy them beseechingly we cry, "Beware!" The social factor in the

liquor traffic is its Gibraltar of defense. Rare is the young man who

has the intellectual stamina and moral courage to resist the invitations

to take a social drink. And in our frontier and foreign towns many of

our bright and respected girls use the social glass. But in its use is

the beginning of a fateful end. The subtlest thing in this world is sin.

Listen!

"Sin is a monster of so frightful mien;

To be hated needs but to be seen;

But seen too oft, familiar with the face,

We first endure, then pity, then embrace."

The subtle thing about it is, that the first embracing of any sin seems

to be but a trifling, an occasional affair. For one who lives in an

ordinary city of a thousand inhabitants or upwards, unless he is an

"out-and-out" Christian and selects only associates like himself, it

becomes a real Embarrassment not to indulge in a social drink. It seems

polite, clever, the kindly thing to do. And the sad fact is, that the

majority of unchristian young people and many older ones do not decline.

To prove this we have but to look at the human wrecks along the shore.

Two young men lived near our home. Their parents were well-to-do. The

family grew tired of the farm and moved to town. The boys fell in with

bad company. They did not decline the social glass. Soon they furnished

other young men with drink from their own pocket. This was fifteen years

ago. To-day one of them is a hardened sinner, violent in his passions

and blasphemous against God. The other one, having spent a term in our

Illinois State University at Champaign, married a beautiful neighbor

girl and moved to Missouri. Here he lived off the money of his father's

estate, practicing his early-learned habits of drinking, gambling, and

loafing. He moved from State to State until, finally left in poverty,

he tended bar in a saloon. While visiting with relatives in his old

neighborhood a few years ago he stole a watch and some money from

his own nephew, and was tried in the courts, and sentenced to the

penitentiary for one year. His wife, having carried the burden of

disgrace and want through all these years, with the seven unfortunate

children were released from him to struggle alone. All this we have seen

with our own eyes as the years have come and gone. The downfall and ruin

of this young man, and the unsaved fate of his brother, easily may be

traceable to the "social glass" and the boon companions of the social

glass--tobacco and playing-cards. Last year I met a man who had prided

himself in the fact that he could drink or let it alone, and thought

that it was all right to take a "social glass" occasionally. Election

time came around; he fell in with his friends, and, as one always will

do sooner or later who tampers with it at all, went too far. Before he

knew it he was as low in the gutter as a beast. It was three days before

he was a sober man again. He work had ceased, he had disgusted his

fellow-workmen, disgraced his Christian family, and had humiliated

himself so that he was ashamed to look any man in the face until he had

repented of his sins before God, and had promised Him, by His help, that

he would never drink another glass. What a pleasure it was to hear that

old man, as he is close to sixty years of age, to hear him tell in a

spirited religious service of how he had strayed from his path and had

got lost in the woods, but thanked God that he was out of the woods, and

by His help would remain out. When we become undone in Christ He lifts

us up and starts us on our new way rejoicing in His love. If Christ

Himself were here in body, do you know what He would advise on this

point? He would say: "As it is written;" "Look not thou upon the wine

when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it goeth down

smoothly: at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an

adder." Beware of the social glass, my friend, for though it promises

pleasure, it gives but pain; it promises joy, it gives but sorrow; it

promises deliverance, it gives but eternal death!

III. STUDY THE DRINK EVIL.

We hear it said, "No use to picture the horrors of the drink evil; every

one knows them already." In part, this is true. All of us know more than

we wish it were possible to be true; and yet no one can ever realize

its horrors until caught, and torn, and mangled in its pinching, jagged,

griping meshes. It is one thing to know by a distant glance, it is

another thing to know by the pangs of a broken heart and of a wrecked

life. For those who are not thus caught in its meshes to realize its

horrors so as to seek its destruction but one course is possible;

namely, To study the evil. Let the teacher tell of its ravages; let the

minister proclaim its curses; let the poet sing it; the painter paint

it; the editor report it; the novelist portray it; the scientist

describe it; the philosopher decry it; the sisters and wives and mothers

denounce it--until all shall unite in smiting it to its death!

We should study the drink evil in its relation to disease. That strong

drink tends to produce disease is no longer questioned. "During the

cholera in New York City in 1832, of two hundred and four cases in the

Park Hospital only six were temperate, and all of these recovered; while

one hundred and twenty-two of the others died. In Great Britain in the

same year five-sixths of all who perished were intemperate. In one

or two villages every drunkard died, while not a single member of a

temperance society lost his life." "In Paisley, England, in 1848, there

were three hundred and thirty-seven cases of cholera, and every case

except one was a dram-drinker. The cases of cholera were one for every

one hundred and eighty-one inhabitants; but among the temperate portion

there was only one case to each two thousand." "Of three hundred and

eighty-six persons connected with the total abstinence societies only

one died, and he was a reformed drunkard" of three months' standing. "In

New Orleans during the last epidemic the order of the Sons of Temperance

appointed a committee to ascertain the number of deaths from cholera

among their members. It was found that there were twelve hundred and

forty-three members in the city and suburbs, and among these only three

deaths had occurred, being only one-sixth the average death-rate." "In

New York, in 1832, only two out of five thousand members of temperance

societies died." The Northwestern Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee,

Wisconsin, one of the oldest and most successful Companies in the

Northwest, has lived for nearly forty years next neighbor to lager beer

interests. The shrewd men of this company have studied the influence of

the beer industry upon those who engage in it. The result is, that they

will no longer grant an insurance policy to a beer-brewer, nor to any

one in any way engaged in the business. In their own words their reason

is this: "Our statistics show that our business has been injured by the

short lives of those men who drink lager beer."

Then, we need to study the drink evil in its relation to society. "A

recent report of the chaplain of the Madalen Society of New York shows

that of eight-nine fallen women in the asylum at one time, all but

two ascribed their fall to the effect of the drink habit." "A lady

missionary makes the statement that of two thousand sinful women known

personally to her, there were only ten cases in which intoxicating

liquors were not largely responsible for their fall." "A leading worker

for reform in New York says that the suppression of the curse of strong

drink would include the destruction of ninety-nine of every one hundred

of the houses of ill-fame." "A missionary on going at the written

request of one of these lost women to rescue her from a den of infamy

remonstrated with her for being even then slightly under the influence

of drink." "Why," was her indignant reply as tears filled her eyes,

"do you suppose we girls are so dead that we have lost our memories of

mother, home, and everything good? No, indeed; and if it were not for

liquor and opium, we would all have to run away from our present life or

go mad by pleadings of our own hearts and home memories."

Only by a study of the drink evil shall we know its ravages in the home.

Those of us who have lived in the pure air of free, country home-life

can not easily realize the moral plague of drunkenness as it blights the

home in the crowded districts of city slum life. Nor is the home of the

city alone cursed by the drink evil. Three years ago this last holiday

season we were doing some evangelistic work in a neighboring town, a

mere village of a couple hundred inhabitants. I shall never forget

how the mother of a dejected home cried and pleaded for help from the

ravages of her drunken husband. She said that he had spent all of his

wages, and had made no provision for the home, in furniture, in books

for the children, nor in clothing for them nor for her. She had come

almost to despair, and was blaming God for allowing her little ones to

suffer because of a worthless man. O, the world is full of this sort of

thing to-day, if we only knew the sighs and heartaches and blasted hopes

of those who suffer! In a smoking-car one day a commercial traveler

refused to drink with his old comrades, by saying: "No, I won't drink

with you to-day, boys. The fact is, boys, I have sworn off." He was

taunted and laughed at, and urged to tell what had happened to him. They

said: "If you've quit drinking, something's up; tell us what it is."

"Well, boys," he said, "I will, though I know you will laugh at me; but

I will tell you all the same. I have been a drinking man all my life,

and have kept it up since I was married, as you all know. I love whisky;

it's as sweet in my mouth as sugar, and God only knows how I'll quit it.

For seven years not a day has passed over my head that I didn't have

at least one drink. But I am done. Yesterday I was in Chicago. Down on

South Clark Street a customer of mine keeps a pawnshop in connection

with his business. I called on him, and while I was there a young man of

not more than twenty-five, wearing thread-bare clothes, and looking

as hard as if he had not seen a sober day for a month, came in with a

little package in his hand. Tremblingly he unwrapped it, and handed the

articles to the pawnbroker, saying, 'Give me ten cents.' And, boys, what

do you suppose that package was? A pair of baby's shoes; little things

with the buttons only a trifle soiled, as if they had been worn once

or twice. 'Where did you get them?' asked the pawnbroker. 'Got 'em at

home,' replied the man, who had an intelligent face and the manner of a

gentleman, despite his sad condition. 'My wife bought 'em for our baby.

Give me ten cents for 'em. I want a drink.' 'You had better take those

back to your wife; the baby will need them,' said the pawnbroker. 'No,

she won't..She's lying at home now; she died last night.' As he said

this the poor fellow broke down, bowed his head on the showcase, and

cried like a child. 'Boys,' said the drummer, 'you can laugh if you want

to, but I have a baby of my own at home, and by the help of God I'll

never drink another drop.'" The man went into another car, the bottle

had disappeared, and the boys pretended to read some papers that lay

scattered about the car. Ah, this is only one out of hundreds of such

scenes that are being enacted every day in our saloon-cursed cities.

We should study the drink evil to see how it makes people poor and keeps

them poor. A story is told of a drinking man who related to his family

a dream that he had had the night before. He dreamed that he saw three

cats, a fat one, a lean one, and a blind one; and he was anxious to

know what it meant that he should have such a strange dream. Quickly

his little boy answered, "I can tell what it means. The fat cat is the

saloon-keeper who sells you drink, the lean cat is mother and me, and

the blind cat is yourself." "In one of our large cities," one day, "a

laboring man, leaving a saloon, saw a costly carriage and pair of horses

standing in front, occupied by two ladies elegantly dressed, conversing

with the proprietor. 'Whose establishment is that?' he said to the

saloon-keeper, as the carriage rolled away. 'It is mine,' replied the

dealer, proudly. 'It cost thirty-five hundred dollars. My wife and

daughter couldn't do without that.' The mechanic bowed his head a

moment in deep thought; then, looking up, said with the energy of a man

suddenly aroused by some startling flash, 'I see it!' 'I see it!' 'See

what?' asked the saloonkeeper. 'See where for years my wages have gone.

I helped to pay for that carriage, for those horses and gold-mounted

harnesses, and for the silks and laces for your family. The money I have

earned, that should have given my wife and children a home of their own

and good clothing, I have spent at your bar. By the help of God I will

never spend another dime for drink.'" South Milwaukee has five thousand

inhabitants. Three large mills operate there. A reliable business man,

foreman in one of the mills, told me that the laboring people of South

Milwaukee put $25,000 each month into the tills of the saloons. Dr. J.O.

Peck, one of the most successful pastor evangelists of recent years,

tells of a man who crossed Chelsea Ferry to Boston one morning, and

turned into Commercial Street for his usual glass. As he poured out the

poison, the saloonkeeper's wife came in, and confidently asked for $500

to purchase an elegant shawl she had seen at the store of Jordan, March

& Co.. He drew from his pocket a well-filled pocketbook, and counted out

the money. The man outside the counter pushed aside his glass untouched,

and laying down ten cents departed in silence. That very morning his

devoted Christian wife had asked him for ten dollars to buy a cloak, so

that she might look presentable at church. He had crossly told her he

had not the money. As he left the saloon he thought, 'Here I am helping

to pay for five-hundred-dollar cashmeres for that man's wife, but my

wife asks in vain for a ten-dollar cloak. I can't stand this. I have

spent my last dime for drink.' When the next pay-day came that meek,

loving wife was surprised with a beautiful cloak from her reformed

husband. She could scarcely believe her own eyes as he laid it on the

table. 'There, Emma, is a present for you. I have been a fool long

enough; forgive me for the past, and I will never touch liquor again.'

She threw her arms around his neck, and the hot tears told her heartfelt

joy as she sobbed out: 'Charley, I thank you a thousand times. I never

expected so nice a cloak. This seems like other days. You are so good,

and I am so happy.'" The drink bill of our Nation for last year was over

a billion of dollars, more money than was spent for missions--home and

foreign--for all of our Churches, for public education, for all the

operations of courts of justice and of public officers, and at least for

two of the staple products of use in our country, such as furniture and

flour. More than for all these was the money that our Nation paid for

drink last year. When the people of our country get their eyes open to

the cost and degradation of the drink evil, something definite will be

done by every one against it.

The drink evil in its relation to lawlessness and crime, and to

political corruption, reveal still more ghastly aspects of it than we

have yet mentioned. The saloon strikes at the very heart, not only of

law and order, but at personal liberty and justice in securing law and

order. It was in a police court in Cincinnati on Monday morning. Before

the judge stood two stalwart policeman and a woman. She was charged

with disorderly conduct on the street and with disturbing the peace.

The policemen were sworn, and one of them told this story, to which the

other one agreed. He said: "I arrested the woman in front of a saloon

on Broadway on Saturday night. She had raised a great disturbance, was

fighting and brawling with men in the saloon, and the saloonkeeper put

her out. She used the foulest language, and with an awful threat struck

at the saloonkeeper with all her force. I then arrested her, took her to

the detention house, and locked her up." The saloonkeeper was called to

the witness stand, and said: "I know dis voman's vas making disturbance

by my saloon. She comes and she makes troubles, und she fights mit me,

und I put her de door oud. I know her all along. She vas pad vomans."

The judge turned to the trembling woman and said: "This is a pretty

clear case, madam; have you anything to say in your defense?" "Yes,

Judge," she answered, in a strangely calm, though trembling, voice:

"I am not guilty of the charge, and these men standing before you have

perjured their souls to prevent me from telling the truth. It was they,

not I, who violated the law. I was in the saloon last Saturday night,

and I will tell you how it happened. My husband did not come home from

work that evening, and I feared he had gone to the saloon. I knew he

must have drawn his week's wages, and we needed it all so badly. I put

the little ones to bed, and then waited all alone through the weary

hours until after the city clock struck twelve. Then I thought the

saloons will be closed, and he will be put out on to the street.

Probably he will not be able to get home, and the police will arrest him

and lock him up. I must go and find him, and bring him home. I wrapped

a shawl about me and started out, leaving the little ones asleep in bed.

And, Judge, I have not seen them since." She did not give way to tears,

for the worst grief can not weep. She continued: "I went to the saloon,

where I thought most like he would be. It was about twenty minutes

after twelve; but the saloon, that man's saloon"--pointing to the

saloonkeeper, who now wanted to crouch out of sight--"was still open,

and my husband and these two policemen were standing at the bar drinking

together. I stepped up to my husband and asked him to go home with me;

but the men laughed at him, and the saloonkeeper ordered me out. I said,

'No, I want my husband to go home with me.' Then I tried to tell him

how badly we were needing the money that he was spending; and then the

saloon-keeper cursed me, and told me to leave. Then I confess I could

stand no more, and said, 'You ought to be prosecuted for violating the

midnight closing law.' At this the saloonkeeper and policemen rushed

upon me and put me into the street; and one of the policemen, grasping

my arm like a vice, hissed in my ear, 'I'll get you a thirty days'

sentence in the workhouse, and then we'll see what you think about suing

people.' He called a patrol wagon, pushed me in, and drove to jail; and,

Judge, you know the rest. All day yesterday I was locked up, my children

at home alone, with no fire, no food, no mother." The judge dismissed

the woman; but the saloonkeeper, the perjured policemen, nor the corrupt

judge were ever prosecuted for their unlawfulness. The whole affair was

dropped because the saloon power in Cincinnati reigns supreme.

"This case is a matter of record in the Cincinnati courts." It is a

disgraceful fact that the liquor-traffic rules in politics to-day. A

saloonkeeper in Richmond, Virginia, overheard some one talking of

reform in municipal politics, when he scornfully said: "Any bar-room in

Richmond is a bigger man in politics than all the Churches in Richmond

put together."

IV. THE PRACTICAL QUESTION FOR US HERE AND NOW IS, How may we openly

oppose this drink evil?

The Churches need not expect a widespread revival of religion until

professing Christians do their duty with respect to the saloon. Mothers

and fathers need not expect their sons to remain sober while the saloon

opens to them day and night. Wives need not expect their husbands to

remain devoted and loyal until the saloon is abolished. What is our

duty? How shall we oppose the evil? How do the American people deal with

evils when they deal with them at all? When Great Britain went a little

too far in "taxation without representation," what course did the

American Colonies adopt in remedying the evil? Their chief men said,

"These Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent

States." The popular voice of the people decided it. When the British

Government unduly impressed American seamen, how was the difficulty

settled? The representatives of the people, their lawmakers, declared

war against the opposing nation, and forced her to cease her oppression.

The popular vote decided it. When Negro slavery darkened the entire sky

of our country, and caused our leading men to realize that we could not

long exist half-slave and half-free, how was the dark cloud dispelled?

The representatives of our people, the lawmakers of the land, in

letters of blood wrote the immortal Thirteenth Amendment to the American

Constitution: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a

punishment for crime, whereof the person shall have been duly convicted,

shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their

jurisdiction." When we wanted to increase our territory in 1803, and in

1845, and in 1867, how did we go about it? The representatives of the

people, the lawmakers of the land, voted to make the purchases, and

they were made. When a Territory is organized, or a State comes into the

Union, what is done? The representatives of the people, the lawmakers

of the land, vote upon it, and it is done. When treaties are to be

made with foreign countries; when immigration of foreigners is to be

regulated; when money is to be borrowed or coined; when post-offices and

post-roads are to be established; when counterfeiting is to be punished,

and public abuses are to be reformed, whose business is it? The

Constitution of the United States says the representatives of the

people, the lawmakers of the land, have this power. When will the drink

evil cease in our country? When our representatives in Congress, or

lawmakers, stand for the abolition of the American saloon, and vote it

out of existence; then, and not until then, will drunkenness cease. When

will we have representatives in Congress, lawmakers who will stand for

the abolition of the saloon, and who will vote it out of existence? Not

until you and I have select them, and place them there with our vote.

To expect Christian temperance in our country from any other source is

absolute folly.

The abolition of drunkenness by local option is selfish, unpractical,

and unscriptural. You vote the liquor-traffic out of your town; we vote

it in ours. Remember every saloon exists only by vote of the people.

Your young people come over to our town for drink. We have the curse of

God upon us. "Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink." (Hab. Ii,

15.) It is unpractical, for so long as intoxicants are made they will

be sold. It is selfish, for to vote against the saloon in your town

election, and to vote for it in your State or National election, is to

drive the mad-dog on past your door to the door of your neighbor, when

you might have killed him.

The abolition of drunkenness by regulating the traffic through license

is the most gigantic delusion that Satan ever worked upon an intelligent

people. It is a well-known truth that "limitation is the secret of

power." The best way to provoke an early marriage between devoted lovers

is bitterly to oppose them. The stream whose water spreads over its low

banks is without depth and current and power. But confine the waters

between high, narrow banks, the bed of the stream is deepened, and its

mighty current supports animal life and turns the wheels of mill and

factory. The regulation of the liquor-traffic by license makes it a

financial and political power second to none in America to-day. To vote

for any party or man who advocates liquor license, is to give a loyal

support to the American saloon.

To expect the abolition of drunkenness solely through processes of

education is to preach one thing and to practice another. It is to

perpetuate an evil that costs two hundred and fifty thousand precious

lives every year. It is to leave to the next generation a work that God

expects us to do here and now. Dr. Banks relates an incident witnessed

by Major Hilton on the coast of Scotland. "Just at the break of day the

people of a little hamlet on the coast were awakened by the boom of a

cannon over the stormy waves. They knew what it meant, for frequently

they had heard before the same signal of distress. Some poor souls were

out beyond the breakers perishing on a wrecked vessel, and in their last

extremity calling wildly for help. The people hastened from their houses

to the shore. Out there in the distance was a dismantled vessel pounding

itself to pieces. Perishing fellow-beings were clinging to the rigging,

and every now and then some one was swept off into the sea by the

furious waves. The life-saving crew was soon gathered. 'Man the

life-boat!' cried the man. "Where is Hardy?" But the foreman of the crew

was not there, and the danger was imminent. Aid must be immediate,

or all would be lost. The next in command sprang into the frail boat,

followed by the rest, all taking their lives in their hands in the hope

of saving others. O, how those on the shore watched their brave loved

ones as they dashed on, now over, now almost under the waves! They

reached the wreck. Like angels of deliverance they filled their craft

with almost dying men--men lost but for them. Back again they toiled,

pulling for the shore, bearing their precious freight. The first man

to help them land was Hardy, whose words rang above the roar of the

breakers: "Are you all here? Did you save them all?" With saddened faces

the reply came: "All but one. He couldn't help himself at all. We had

all we could carry. We couldn't save the last one." "Man the life-boat

again!" shouted Hardy. "I will go. What! leave one there to die alone?

A fellow-creature there, and we on shore? Man the life-boat now!

We'll save him yet." But who is this aged woman with worn garments and

disheveled hair, with agonized entreaty falling upon her knees beside

this brave, strong man? It is his mother! "O, my son! your father was

drowned in a storm like this. Your brother Will left me eight years ago,

and I have never seen his face since the day he sailed. No doubt he,

too, has found a watery grave. And now you will be lost, and I am old

and poor. O, stay with me!" "Mother," cried the man, "where one is in

peril, there is my place. If I am lost, God surely will care for you."

The plea of earnest faith prevailed. With a "God bless you, my boy!"

she released him, and speeded him on his way. Once more they watched and

prayed and waited--those on the shore--while every muscle was strained

toward the fast-sinking ship by those in the life-saving boat. At last

it reached the vessel. The clinging figure was lifted and helped to

its place. Back came the boat. How eagerly they looked and called in

encouragement, and cheered as it came nearer! "Did you get him?" was the

cry from the shore. Lifting his hands to his mouth to trumpet the words

on in advance of their landing, Hardy called back above the roar of the

storm, "Tell mother it is brother Will!"

My friend, simply talking and praying will not save our loved ones from

drunkards' graves. We must man the life-boat of municipal, State, and

National reform, and vote for principle and Christian temperance until

we save the last man. He may be "brother Will."

III. GAMBLING, CARD-PLAYING

GAMBLING has become a moral plague of modern society. In one form or

another it has entered the rank and file of every department of life--in

private parlor over cards; in hotel drawing-room over election reports;

in college athletic grounds over brains and brawn; in the counting-room

over the price of stocks; in the racing tournament over jockeying and

speed; in the Board of Trade hall over future prices of the necessaries

of life; in the den of iniquity at dice; in the drinking saloon at

the slot-machine; in the people's fair at the wheel of fortune; in the

gambling den itself at every conceivable form of swindling trick and

game. Gambling has come to be almost an omnipresent evil. In treating

this subject, it is our purpose to point out something of the nature

of its evil, not only that we may be kept from it but that we may save

others whom it threatens to destroy.

Gambling grows out of a misuse of the natural tendency to take risks. A

social vice is some social right misused. Men have the social right to

congregate to talk over measures of social and economic welfare. But if

they discuss measures which oppose the principles of free Government,

their meeting together becomes a crime against the State. A personal

vice is some personal right misused. As some one has put it, "Vice is

virtue gone mad." It is a personal right and a personal virtue to be

charitable, even beneficent. But since justice comes before mercy, if

one uses for charity that which should be used in payment of debt, his

virtue of beneficence becomes a vice of theft. So it is with gambling.

It is giving the natural tendency to chance, to risk an illegitimate

play. The person who is afraid to risk anything accomplishes but little

in any way, is seldom a speculator, and never a gambler. Usually the

gambler is the man who is naturally full of hazard, who loves to run

risks, to take chances. Nor will one find a more practical and useful

tendency in one's make-up than this. See the discoverer of America and

his brave crew for days and days sailing across an unknown sea toward an

unknown land. But that was the price of a New World. Note the hazard

and risk of our Pilgrim Fathers. But they gave to the world a new

colonization. See the Second greatest American on his knees before

Almighty God, promising him that he would free four million of slaves,

providing General Lee should be driven back out of Maryland. General

Lee was driven back, and that immortal though most hazardous of all

documents, from man's point of view, was read to his Cabinet and signed

by Abraham Lincoln. All great men have taken great risks. Not a section

of the United States has been settled without some risk. No business

enterprise is launched without some risk. To secure an education, to

learn a trade, to marry a wife, all involve some risk, much risk. The

tendency to risk, to hazard, to chance it is a practical and useful

tendency. Only let this tendency be governed always by wisdom

and justice. No person ever became a gambler until consciously or

unconsciously he forfeited wisdom and justice in his chances and risks.

Gambling takes a variety of forms. First of all is the professional

gambler. He has no other business. His investment is a "pack of cards"

and a box of "dice. See him with his long, slender fingers; with his

shaggy, unkempt hair; with keen eyes, and a sordid countenance. He is

prepared to "rake in" a thousand dollars a night, and would not hesitate

to strip any man of his fortune. The professional is found at county

fairs, on railway trains, in gilded dens, and at public resorts. Being a

professional outlaw, and subject at any time to arrest and imprisonment,

usually he has an accomplice. Sometimes a gang work together, so that

it is with perfect ease they may relieve any unwary novice of his money.

They know human nature on its low, mercenary side, and soon can find

their man in a crowd. But few persons have started out in life having

it for their aim to get something for nothing who, sooner or later, have

not been "taken in" by this gang of swindlers. They know their kind.

The end of the professional gambler is final loss and ruin. He will make

$100, he will make $500, he will make $1,000, he will make $2,000; then

he will lose all. Then he will borrow some money and start anew. And

again he will make $200, he will make $600, he will make $1,200, and he

will lose all. Like the winebibber and the professional murderer, the

professional gambler has his den. Not a large city in the world is

without these haunts of vice. Who is it that feeds and supports them?

The novice at cards and dice, husbands and sons of respectable families,

just as the occasional dram-taker supports the saloon. As one has asked:

"Could fools to keep their own contrive,

On whom, on what could gamesters thrive?"

--GAY.

The penny novice seeks the penny gambling den. The aristocratic

speculator seeks the gilded gambling den. The expert trickster of large

luck and large fortune makes his way to Monte Carlo, the gambling Mecca

of the world. Monte Carlo is a famous resort situated in the northwest

part of Italy. It is notorious for its gambling saloon. This city of

nearly four thousand inhabitants is located in Monaco, the smallest

independent country in the world. Monaco is about eight miles square,

and lies on a "barren, rocky ridge between the sea and lofty, almost

inaccessible rocks." The soil is barren, except in small tracts

which are used for fruit-gardens. For centuries the inhabitants, the

Monagasques, lived by marauding expeditions, both by sea and land, and

by slight commerce with Genoa, Marseilles, and Nice. But in the

last century the people have converted their country and city into

a world-wide resort. In 1860, M. Blanc, a famous gambler and saloon

proprietor of two German cities, went to Monaco, and for an immense

sum of money received sole privilege to convert their province into a

gambler's paradise. Soon immense marble buildings arose in the midst

of such beauty as to make it a modern rival of the gardens of ancient

Babylon. Costly statues, gorgeous vases, graceful fountains, elegant

basins, and beautiful terraces, all of which are made alluring by

blooming plants, by light illuminations, and by free concerts of music

day and night,--these are the attractions in this gambler's paradise.

Here fortunes are won and lost in a night. For, as has been sung,

"Dice will run the contrary way,

As well is known to all who play,

And cards will conspire as in treason."

--HOOD.

Then we have the speculator in commerce. He is the denizen of the Board

of Trade hall. He speculates on the prices of next week's, of next

month's meat and breadstuffs. And still this sort of gambler may be a

book-keeper in a bank, a farm hand, or a clerk in a grocery store. It

ha become so simple and so common a practice for persons to speculate on

the markets that any person with ten dollars, or twenty-five dollars,

or a hundred dollars may take his chances. Tens of thousands of dollars

to-day are being swept into this silent whirlpool, the gambler's

commerce.

Also we have the pool gambler. He is actuated by love of excitement. He

is found at the race course, at the baseball diamond, and at all sorts

of contests, where he may find opportunity to be on the outcome. It is

a common thing for young men to steal their employers' money, for young

girls to take their hard-earned wages to stake on games and races.

Recently $175,000 were paid for the exclusive gambling right for one

year at the Washington Park races in Chicago.

Last of all, we have the society gambler. He is growing numerous to-day.

He is the same person, whether clad in full dress in the drawing-room of

the worldling, or in common dress around the fireside of the unchristian

Church member. Like the professional gambler his instrument is "cards,"

and he can shake the "dice." His games are whist, progressive euchre,

and sometimes poker. The stakes now are not money, but the gratification

of excitement and the indulgence of passion. One, two, four hours go by

almost unnoticed. Prizes are offered for the best player. As a Catholic

priest told me after he had won a small sum with cards. Said he: "We

just put up a few dollars, you know, to lend devotions to the game."

So prizes are offered in the social gambling "to lend devotions to the

game." It is under such circumstances as these that young men and

young women receive their first lessons in card-playing. A passion for

card-playing is called forth, developed, and must be satisfied, even

though it takes one in low places among vile associates. "A Christian

gentleman came from England to this country. He brought with him $70,000

in money. He proposed to invest the money. Part of it was his own; part

of it was his mother's. He went into a Christian Church; was coldly

received, and said to himself: 'Well, if that is the kind of Christian

people they have in America, I don't want to associate with them much.'

So he joined a card-playing party. He went with them from time to

time. He went a little further on, and after a while he was in games of

chance, and lost all of the $70,000. Worse than that, he lost all of his

good morals; and on the night that he blew his brains out he wrote to

the lady to whom he was affianced an apology for the crime he was about

to commit, and saying in so many words, 'My first step to ruin was the

joining of that card party.'"

In all of its forms gambling is loaded down with evil. In the first

place it destroys the incentive to honest work. Let the average young

man win a hundred dollars at the races, it will so turn his head against

slow and honorable ways of getting money that he will watch for every

opportunity to get it easily and abundantly. The young girl who risks

fifty cents and gets back fifty dollars will no longer be of service as

a quiet, contented worker. The spirit of speculation, the passion to get

something for nothing, is calculated to destroy the incentive to honest

toil and to honorable methods of gain. As one values his character,

as he values his peace of mind, so should he zealously guard himself

against overfascinating games of chance. Once we had a family in our

Church who played cards, and who taught their children to play cards. Of

course these families had no time for prayer-meeting, nor for Christian

work. Card-playing for amusement or for money will create a passion

that must be satisfied, although one must give up home and business

and pleasure. In a town where we once lived a young man and his wife

attended our Church. In every way the husband was kind, and attentive

to business. But he had fallen a victim to playing cards for money.

When that passion would seize him he would leave his business, his hired

help, his home and wife and little one, and would lose himself for days

at a time seeking to satisfy that passion. An enviable husband, father,

citizen, and neighbor but for that evil; but how wretchedly that ruined

all! Dr. Holland, of Springfield, Massachusetts, says: "I have all my

days had a card-playing community open to my observation, and yet I am

unable to believe that that which is the universal resort of starved

soul and intellect, which has never in any way linked to itself tender,

elevating, or beautiful associations, but, the tendency of which is to

unduly absorb the attention from more weighty matters, can recommend

itself to the favor of Christ's disciples. I have this moment," says he,

"ringing in my ears the dying injunction of my father's early friend:

'Keep your son from cards. Over them I have murdered time and lost

heaven.'"

Gambling is dishonest. It seeks something for nothing. Man possesses no

money, that he might risk giving it to some rogue to waste in sin. All

the property one possesses, he possesses it by stewardship to be used

wisely and honestly for good. Every age has needed a revival of the

Golden Rule in business. Much of the business of to-day is attended to

on the dishonest principle that characterizes gambling, "Get as much as

possible for as little as possible." This spirit is first cousin to the

spirit of gambling. The only difference is, one is called wrong and is

wrong; the other is wrong and is called right. Tell the gambler he is a

thief; he will acknowledge it, and will beat you, if he can, while he is

talking to you. Tell the other man he is a thief, and he will sue you at

court and win his case, although it is just as wrong to steal $100 from

an unbalanced mind, as it is to steal $100 from an unlocked safe or

off of an untrained football team. It will be an easy matter to produce

professional gamblers so long as society upholds dishonest dealers

by another name. What men need in this matter is moral and spiritual

vision, spiritual discernment. Some persons live by taking advantage of

those who are down.

In all of its forms gambling leads to a long train of crimes. In

addition to his crime of theft the professional gambler, through passion

or drink, becomes a murderer. I knew a professional gambler who killed

a man, with whom he had been playing cards for money, for fifty cents.

After it was all over the man was sorry he had done it, for he had

committed the crime in a passion while he was intoxicated. The one who

speculates on the markets is not counted dishonest by the world, but how

often and how quickly it leads one into crime! In our neighboring town

in Illinois a man of a good family and of good standing in the community

began to speculate on the Chicago Board of Trade. He was as honest a

person, perhaps, as you or I. He thought he was. For years he had been

a trusted, Christian worker, and treasurer of the Sunday-school. But he

made just one venture too many. He had lost all; could not even replace

the Sunday-school fund that he had simply used, no doubt expecting to

replace it with usury; but the loss and disgrace were too much for him

to face, so he deserted home and friends and honor and all, and secretly

ran away. The speculating gambler became a deserting embezzler. The

person who has acquired a passion for betting on races and games is on a

fair way to professional gambling and to speculating on the markets. And

rarely does one ever escape these, if once he gets a start in them.

The evil of society gambling is most dangerous of all, because it is

most subtle of all. Ah first no one would suspect an innocent game of

cards, played just for fun. You may be the fourth one to make up a game;

you may not know how to play, but you are told you can quickly learn.

You brave it, and go in for a game. The next time a similar circumstance

arises, you can not easily decline, for you must confess you have

played, and so you go in as an old player. This may be as far as the

matter ever goes with you. But here is one who is more impulsive than

you; his surroundings are entirely different. He learns to play, and

comes to revel in it. A passion is created for the game. He is shrewd;

soon learns the tricks, and one evening--purely by chance, as it seems

to him--he wins his first five dollars. Strange possibilities with

cards lay hold upon him. He is consumed by that passion. He plays for

business, for keeps; he has become a professional gambler. Ah! this is

no finespun tale; it is being worked out every year in our country, all

over the world. Among many things for which I have to thank my father

and mother not the least is, that they would allow no gamblers, nor

gambling, nor the instruments of gambling about our home. Better keep

a pet rattlesnake for your child than a deck of cards; for if he

gets poisoned by the snake he may be cured; but if the passion for

card-playing should happen to seize him, there is little chance of a

cure. The inmates of our penitentiaries to-day, almost to a man, testify

that "card-playing threw them into bad company, led them into sin, and

was one of the causes of their downfall." Dr. Talmage was asked if there

could be any harm in a pack of cards. He Said: "Instead of directly

answering your question, I will give you as My opinion that there are

thousands of men with as strong a brain as you have, who have gone

through card-playing into games of chance, and have dropped down into

the gambler's life and into the gambler's hell." A prisoner in a jail

in Michigan wrote a letter to a temperance paper, in which he gives this

advice for young men: "Let cards and liquor alone, and you will never

be behind the gates." Friends, not every one who touches liquor is a

drunkard, but every drunkard touches liquor; so not every one who plays

cards is a professional gambler, but every professional gambler plays

cards. Is there nothing significant about these facts. "A word to the

wise is sufficient." "In a railway train sat four men playing cards. One

was a judge, and two of the others were lawyers. Near them sat a poor

mother, a widow in black. The sight of the men at their game made her

nervous. She kept quiet as long as she could; but finally rising came to

them, and addressing the judge, asked: 'Do you know me?' 'No, madam,

I do not,' said he. 'Well, said the mother, 'you sentenced my son to

State's prison for life.' Turning to one of the lawyers, she said: 'And

you, sir, pleaded against him. He was all I had. He worked hard on the

farm, was a good boy, and took care of me until he began to play cards,

when he took to gambling and was lost.'" Dr. Guthrie writes: "In regard

to the lawfulness of certain pursuits, pleasures, and amusements, it

is impossible to lay down any fixed and general rule; but we may

confidently say that whatever is found to unfit you for religious

duties, or to interfere with the performance of them; whatever

dissipates your mind or cools the fervor of your devotions; whatever

indisposes you to read your Bibles or to engage in prayer, wherever

the thought of a bleeding Savior, or of a holy God, or of the day of

judgment falls like a cold shadow on your enjoyment, the pleasures you

can not thank God for, on which you can not ask His blessing, whose

recollections will haunt a dying bed and plant sharp thorns in its

uneasy pillow,--these are not for you..Never go where you can not ask

God to go with you; never be found where you would not like death to

find you. Never indulge in any pleasure that will not bear the morning's

reflection. Keep yourselves unspotted from the world, not from its spots

only, but even from its suspicions."

IV. DANCING.

DANCING is the expression of inward feelings by means of rhythmical

movements of the body. Usually these movements are in measured step, and

are accompanied by music.

In some form or another dancing is as old as the world, and has been

practiced by rude as well as by civilized peoples. The passion for

amateur dancing always has been strongest among savage nations, who have

made equal use of it in religious rites and in war. With the savages

the dancers work themselves into a perfect frenzy, into a kind of mental

intoxication. But as civilization has advanced dancing has modified its

form, becoming more orderly and rhythmical. The early Greeks made the

art of dancing into a system, expressive of all the different passions.

For example, the dance of the Furies, so represented, would create

complete terror among those who witnessed them. The Greek philosopher,

Aristotle, ranked dancing with poetry, and said that certain dancers,

with rhythm applied to gesture, could express manners, passions, and

actions. The most eminent Greek sculptors studied the attitude of the

dancers for their art of imitating the passions. In a classical Greek

song, Apollo, one of the twelve greater gods, the son of Zeus the chief

god, and the god of medicine, music, and poetry, was called The Dancer.

In a Greek line Zeus himself is represented as dancing. In Sparta, a

province of ancient Greece, the law compelled parents to exercise their

children in dancing from the age of five years. They were led by grown

men, and sang hymns and songs as they danced. In very early times a

Greek chorus, consisting of the whole population of the city, would meet

in the market-place to offer up thanksgivings to the god of the country.

Their jubilees were always attended with hymn-singing and dancing.

The Jewish records make frequent mention of dancing, but always "as a

religious ceremony, or as an expression of gratitude and praise." As

a means of entertainment in private society, dancing was practiced

in ancient times, but by professional dancers, and not by the company

themselves. It is true that the Bible has sanctioned dancing, but let

us remember, first, that it was always a religious rite; second, that

it was practiced only on joyful occasions, at national feasts, and after

great victories; third, that usually it was "performed by maidens in

the daytime, in open air, in highways, fields, or groves;" fourth, that

"there are no instances of dancing sanctioned in the Bible, in which

both sexes united in the exercise, either as an act of worship or as an

amusement;" fifth, that any who perverted the dance from a sacred use

to purposes of amusement were called infamous. The only records in

Scripture of dancing as a social amusement were those of the ungodly

families described by Job xxi, 11-13, who spent their time in luxury

and gayety, and who came to a sudden destruction; and the dancing of

Herodias, Matt. Xiv, 6, which led to the rash vow of King Herod and to

the murder of John the Baptist. So much for the history of dancing.

The modern dance in which both sexes freely mingle, irrespective of

character, purely for amusement, at late hours, at which intoxicants, in

some form, are generally used, is, essentially, an institution of vice.

The modern dance is as different from the dancing of ancient times, and

from the dancing sanctioned in the Bible, as daylight is from dark,

as good is from bad. The modern dance imperils health, it poisons the

social nature; it destroys intellectual growth; and it robs men and

women of their virtue. Let us understand one another. To attend one

dance may not accomplish all of this in any person. One may attend many

dances, and he himself not see these results marked in his character,

but some one else will see them. For in the nature of the institution

the modern dance affects in all these particulars those whom it reaches.

The tendencies in a single dance are in these directions. In a way

peculiar to itself the modern dance imperils health. Though detestable

and out of date, as are the modern kissing games, yet no one ever heard

of one of those performances continuing until three and five o'clock in

the morning. Young people do not stay up all night, ride five, ten, and

twenty miles to play authors, or to snap caroms, or to play charades,

as interesting in a social way as these innocent amusements may be. The

fact that one will go to this extreme in keeping late hours to attend

the dance, and will not keep such late hours for any other form of

amusement, proves that the dance, as an institution, is at fault in

producing such irregularities. And then who ever heard of one having to

dress in a certain way to attend a purely social gathering. But let a

young lady attend a fashionable ball or a regular round dance of any

note, whatever, and if she wears the civil gown she will be thought tame

and snubbed. She must dress for this occasion, and thus, from a health

point of view, so expose her body that after the excitement and heat of

a prolonged round she takes her place in a slight draught of air, and a

severe cold is contracted. And this exposure is further increased by

the sudden change from a close, hot room to the damp, chilly air of the

early morning, on her journey home. It is possible to guard against all

of this, but are those persons who attend such exercises likely to be

cautious in such practical matters. At least, this risk of exposure for

men and women is peculiar to the dance, and it is certain that many

are physically injured in this way. The modern dance poisons the social

nature. The chief exercise at the modern dance is dancing. Those who

have attended dances, as a social recreation, have complained that they

never have an opportunity to get acquainted with one another. Such a

luxury as a complete conversation on any theme is out of the question.

It is a form of amusement that stultifies the communicative faculties,

and fosters social seclusion. Some one might say this may be a good

thing, since every grade in moral and social standing are represented.

Yes, but this only acknowledges the lack of opportunity for social

fellowship. It is not true that the dance, as an institution, is not

patronized by the most capable in conversation and companionship?

Certainly this is true in the so-called higher society, among those

whose sole ambition is to excel in formal manners and in personal

appearance at the gay function, and at the social ball. To be

communicative one must have something to communicate, and this means a

cultivation of the mind and heart. True social fellowship is one of the

sweetest pleasures of life and always has its source in the culture of

the soul. Whatever may be said for or against the modern dance, it is

true that because of the mixed characters of its attendants, and for

want of opportunity to communicate, the social nature becomes neglected

and abused, and may be fatally poisoned.

The modern dance destroys intellectual growth. The person who has the

dance-craze cares no more for mental improvement and growth than a

starving man cares for splendid recipes for fine cooking. The thought of

a problem to be solved, of a book to be read, of an organ exercise to

be practiced, of all things, are most tame to the one who is filled with

dreams of the last dance, and with visions of the one that is to come.

To grow, the mind must be free from excitement. The fault with the dance

in this respect is that it has in it a fascination that does not exist

in the ordinary social amusement. Some persons complain that they can

not get an evening to go off well without dancing. But this is only an

open confession to mental vacuity, to intellectual poverty. For one need

know but little to flourish at the dance. And always, where little is

required, intellectually, little is given. It is the rule that those who

are in the greatest need of mental cultivation and growth are those

who make up the dancing crowd. And the fact that the dance, as an

institution, in no way stimulates intellectual thought, destines those

who dance to remain on the lower intellectual plane.

Last, and worst of all, the dance robs men and women of their virtue,

and this often at the first unconsciously. If it is not for health and

physical vigor that one follows up dancing; if it is not the peculiar

social tie that binds dancers together; if it is not the incentive to

intellectual growth and equipment, what is it? A secret lies hid away

somewhere in the institution of the modern dance, that makes it the

chiefest attraction of worldly-minded and often of base-hearted people.

What is that secret? Ah, my friend, it is the appeal to the most sacred

instincts and passions of a man and of a woman! This appeal is peculiar

to the modern dance by the accident of physical contact that men and

women assume in dancing, and also by the circumstances that attend

it, namely, mixed society, late hours, and the customary use of strong

drink. No honest, normally passionate person, who has made it a practice

of attending dances, will deny the truth of this charge. One may never

have thought of it in this way, but when he stops to think he knows that

it is true. It is through ignorance of these circumstances, and of their

bad effects, that many a well-meaning person, presumably to have a good

time, or to acquire heel-grace, goes into the dance, secures a passion

for dancing, and through its seductive influences are led into sin and

shame. The following is an incident out of his own experience related

by Professor T. A. Faulkner, an ex-dancing master. Professor Faulkner is

the author of the little book entitled "From the Ball Room to Hell." A

book which every person who sees no harm in dancing should read.

"Here is a girl. The one remaining child of wealthy parents, their idol

and joy. A dancing-school having opened near their home, the daughter,

for accomplishment, was sent to it. She came from her home, modest, and

her innate spirit of purity rebelled against the liberties taken by the

dancing-master, and the men he introduced to her. She became indignant

at the indecent attitudes she was called upon to assume, but noticing a

score of young women, many of them from the best homes in the town, all

yielding to the vulgar embrace, she cast aside that spirit of modesty

which had been the development of years of home-training, and setting

her face against nature's protective warnings, gave herself, as did the

others, to this prolonged embrace set to music. Having learned to dance,

its fascinations led her an enthusiastic captive. Modesty was crucified,

decency outraged, virtue lost its power over her soul, and she spent

her days dreaming of the delights of the sensual whirl of the evening.

Hardly conscious of the change she had now become as bold as any of the

women, and loved the embrace of the charmer. The graduation of the class

was, of course, the occasion of a waltzing reception. To that reception

she went, attended by her father, who looked with a proud heart on

the fulsome greeting his dear one received. After a little the father

retired, leaving his daughter to the care of the many handsome gallants

who danced attendance upon her. The reception did not close until

the small hours of the morning. Each waltz became more voluptuous;

intoxicated by sensuality, the dancers became more bold, and lust was

aroused in every breast. How many sins that reception occasioned, I

do not know; this, at least, is sure, that this girl who entered

that dancing-hall three months before, as pure as an angel, was that

night.robbed of her honor and returned to her home deprived forever of

that most precious jewel of womanhood--virtue. Her first impulse the

next morning was self-destruction; then she deluded herself with the

thought of marriage with her dancing companion, but he still further

insulted her by declaring that he wanted a pure woman for his wife. What

was her end? Shunned by the very society which egged her on to ruin, her

self-respect was gone with her lost purity, she went to her own kind,

and in shame is closing her days." "Of two hundred brothel inmates to

whom Professor Faulkner talked, and who were frank enough to answer his

question as to the direct cause of their shame, seven said poverty and

abuse; ten, willful choice; twenty, drink given them by their parents;

and one hundred and sixty-three, dancing and the ball-room." "A

former chief of police of New York City says that three-fourths of the

abandoned girls of this city were ruined by dancing." Of the dance, one

says: "It lays its lecherous hand upon the fair character of innocence,

and converts it into a putrid corrupting thing. It enters the domain

of virtue, and with silent, steady blows takes the foundation from

underneath the pedestal on which it sits enthroned. It lists the gate

and lets in a flood of vice and impurity that sweeps away modesty,

chastity, and all sense of shame. It keeps company with the low, the

degraded, and the vile. It feeds upon the passion it inflames, and

fattens on the holiest sentiments, turned by its touch to filth and

rottenness. It loves the haunts of vice, and is at home in the company

of harlots and debauchees." George T. Lemon says: "No Church in

Christendom commends or even excuses the dance. All unite to condemn

it." The late Episcopal bishop of Vermont, writes: "Dancing is

chargeable with waste of time, interruption of useful study, the

indulgence of personal vanity and display, and the premature incitement

of the passions. At the age of maturity it adds to these no small

danger to health by late hours, flimsy dress, heated rooms, and exposed

persons." Episcopal Bishop Meade, of Virginia, declares: "Social dancing

is not among the neutral things which, within certain limits, we may do

at pleasure, and it is not among the things lawful, but not expedient,

but it is in itself wrong, improper, and of bad effect." Episcopal

Bishop McIlvaine, of Ohio, putting the dance and the theater together,

writes: "The only line that I would draw in regard to these is that of

entire exclusion..The question is not what we can imagine them to be,

but what they always have been, will be, and must be, in such a world as

this, to render them pleasurable to those who patronize them. Strip them

bare until they stand in the simple innocence to which their defenders'

arguments would reduce them and the world would not have them." A Roman

Catholic priest testifies that "the confessional revealed the fact that

nineteen out of every twenty women who fall can trace the beginning of

their state to the modern dance."

V. THEATER-GOING.

WITH drunkenness, gambling, and dancing, theater-going dates from the

beginning of history, and with these it is not only questionable in

morals, but it is positively bad. Every one who knows any thing about

the institution of the theater, as such, knows that it always has been

corrupting in its influence. Not only those who attend the theater

pronounce it bad, as a whole, but it is frowned upon by play-writers,

and by actors and actresses themselves. Five hundred years before

Christ, Jew, Pagan, and Christian spoke against the theater. It is

stated on good authority that the dissipations of the theater were the

chief cause of the decadence of ancient Greece. At one time, Augustus,

the emperor of Rome, was asked as a means of public safety, to suppress

the theater. The early Christians held the theater in such bad repute as

to rank it with the heathen temple. And to these two places they would

not go, even to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ. Nor has the

moral tone and character of the theater improved, even in our day. Dr.

Theodore Cuyler, for many years an experienced pastor in Brooklyn,

Says: "The American theater is a concrete institution, to be judged as

a totality. It is responsible for what it tolerates and shelters. We,

therefore, hold it responsible for whatever of sensual impurity and

whatever of irreligion, as well as for whatever of occasional and

sporadic benefit there may be bound up in its organic life. Instead

of helping Christ's kingdom, it hinders; instead of saving souls, it

corrupts and destroys." Dr. Buckley gives this testimony: "Being aware

of the fact that the drama, like every thing else which caters to the

taste, has its fashions--rising and falling and undergoing various

changes--now improving, and then degenerating, I have thought it

desirable to institute a careful inquiry into the plays which have been

performed in the principal theaters of New York during the past three

years. Accordingly, I procured the copies used by the performers in

preparing for their parts, and took pains to ascertain wherein, in

actual use, the actors diverged from the printed copies. They number

over sixty, and, with the exception of a few unprinted plays, include

all that have been produced in the prominent theaters of New York during

the three years now about closing..It is a singular fact, that, with

three or four exceptions, those dramatic compositions, among the sixty

or more under discussion, which are morally objectionable, are of a

comparatively low order of literary execution. But if language and

sentiments, which would not be tolerated among respectable people,

and would excite indignation if addressed to the most uncultivated and

coarse servant girl, not openly vicious, by an ordinary young man, and

profaneness which would brand him who uttered it as irreligious, are

improper amusements for the young and for Christians of every age, then

at least fifty of these plays are to be condemned."

In the first place the theater leads one into bad company. As a class,

the performers are licentious. How can one be in their company, be moved

to laughter and to tears and not be contaminated by them? One who has

studied the theater tells us that the "fruits of the Spirit and

the fruits of the stage exhibit as pointed a contrast as the human

imagination can conceive." The famous Macready, as he retired from the

stage, wrote: "None of my children, with my consent under any pretense,

shall ever enter the theater, nor shall they have any visiting

connection with play actors or actresses." Dr. Johnson asks the

question: "How can they mingle together as they do, men and women, and

make public exhibitions of themselves as they do, in such circumstances,

with such surroundings, with such speech as much often be on their

lips to play the plays that are written, in such positions as they must

sometimes take, affecting such sentiment and passions--how can they do

this without moral contamination?" And we would ask, how can persons

live enrapt with this sort of thing for hours and hours each week, the

year around, and not become equally contaminated, for to the onlooker

all this comes as a reality, while to those who are performing, it is

hired shamming? Therefore, as the pupil becomes the teacher, so the

attendant at the theater becomes like the one who performs. So that to

go to the theater is to "sit in the seat of the scornful or to stand in

the way of sinners." "There you find the man," says one, "who has lost

all love for his home, the careless, the profane, the spendthrift, the

drunkard, and the lowest prostitute of the street. They are found in all

parts of the house; they crowd the gallery, and together should aloud

the applause, greeting that which caricatures religion, sneers at

virtue, or hints at indecency." Not only the actors and the onlookers of

the average theater are vile, but all of the immediate associations of

the playhouse must correspond with it. If not in the same building with

the theater, in adjoining ones, at least, are found the wine-parlor and

the brothel. It is generally conceded that no theater can be prosperous

if it is wholly separated from these adjuncts of evil.

The theater, therefore, kills spiritually and degrades the moral life

of the one who attends it. The theater deals with the spectacular.

This appeals to the eye, to the ear, and to all of the outer senses.

Spirituality depends upon a cultivation of the spiritual senses that

Grace has opened up within the soul. Hence, the spectacular is directly

opposed to the spiritual. The deep, contemplative, spiritual soul could

find little or no food in the false, clap-trap representations of the

modern stage. And to find an increased interest here is evidence that

one lacks spiritual life, at least deep-seated spiritual life. This is

why so many professing Christians are so eager to go to the card-party,

to the dancing-party, and to the theater. The inner-sense life of the

soul is dead, and one must have something upon which to feed, hence he

feeds upon the husks of "imprudent and un-Christian amusements." And let

one who has a measure of spiritual life, instead of increasing it,

seek to satisfy his soul-longing by means of the spectacular, of false

representations in any form, soon he will lose the spiritual life that

he has. And this loss will be marked by an increased demand for the

spectacular. The surest proof to-day that the spiritual life of

the Church is waning in certain sections, is not so much that her

membership-roll is not on the increase, but that professing Christian

people are running wild after cards and dancing and the theater.

Evangelist Sayles declares: "The people of our so-called best society,

and Christian people, many that have been looked upon as active workers,

sit now and gaze upon scenes in our theaters, without a blush, that

twenty-five years ago would not have been countenanced..The moral and

spiritual life of many a Christian has been weakened by the eyes gazing

upon the scenes of the theater." Says he, "The Christian, through

attendance upon the playhouse, creates a relish for worldly things, and

so spiritual things become distasteful."

Then, to go to one theater, sanctions all. To have heard and to have

seen Joe Jefferson in "Rip Van Winkle," Richard Mansfield in "The

Merchant of Venice," or Edwin Booth or Sir Henry Irving, or Maude Adams,

or Julia Marlowe in their best plays, is to have received a deeper

insight into human nature, and a stronger purpose to become sympathetic

and true, but who can afford to sanction all that is base and villainous

is the institution of the modern theater for the sake of learning

sympathy and truth and human nature from a few worthy actors, when he

may find all of this as truthfully, if not as artistically, set forth

by the orator, by the musician, by the painter, and by the author? It is

not cant, it is not pharisaism, it is not a weak claim of Christianity,

but it is common honesty, mighty truth, a cardinal and beautiful

teaching of Jesus Christ to deny one's self for the welfare of the

weaker brother. Let one go to hear Mansfield in Shakespeare, and his

neighbor boy will take his friend and go to the vaudeville, and his only

excuse to his parents and to his half-taught mind and heart will be,

"Well, Mr. So-and-So goes to the theater, he is a member of the Church

and superintendent of the Sunday-school; surely there is no harm for

me to go." To the immature mind what seems right for one person seems

lawful for another. This is because such a person has not learned to

discriminate between what is bad and what is good. Therefore, if the

theater as an institution has more in it that is bad than It has in

it that is good, rather if the general tendency of the theater, as an

institution, is bad, the safe thing for one's self and for those who

read one's life as an example, is to discard it entirely.

In view of these facts, no person can attend the theater at all without

hurting his influence. The ideal life is that one which gives offense

of stumbling to no one. A successful preacher who had an aversion toward

speaking on the subject of questionable amusements, when asked what he

believed concerning a certain form of amusement, replied: "See what I

do, and know what I believe." It is a glorious life whose actions are an

open epistle of righteousness and peace, read and believed and honored

by all men.

"Some time ago a gentleman teaching a large class of young men in a

Chicago Sunday-school, desired to attend a theater for the purpose of

seeing a celebrated actor. He was not a theater-goer, and thought that

no harm could come from it. He had no sooner taken his seat, however,

than he saw in the opposite gallery some of the members of his class.

They also saw him and began commenting on the fact that their teacher

was at the theater. They thought it inconsistent in him, lost their

interest in the class, and he lost his influence over the young men.

That teacher tied his hands by this one act, so that he could not speak

out against the gross sins of the theater."

Those who defend theater-going say that if Christian people would

patronize the theater that it would be made more respectable. But over

a thousand years of history proves that this principle fails here as it

does elsewhere. A Christian woman marries an unchristian man with the

hope that he will become a Christian; a steady, sensible woman in all

other matters marries a man who drinks, with the thought of reforming

him; one associates with worldly and sensual companions, expecting to

make them better; but, alas, what blasted hopes, what wretched failures

in all of these instances, at least in the most of them! You can not

reform vice; you may whitewash a sin, but it will be sin, still. To

purify a character or an institution one must not become a part of it

by sympathy, nor by association. This is what the psalmist meant when

he said, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsels of the

ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of

the scornful." And so it is, that every effort at reforming the theater,

thus far has failed. The Rev. C.W. Winchester says concerning the

reforming of the theater: "The facts are, (1) that the theater in this

city and country never had the support and encouragement of moral and

religious people it has now; (2) that the theater here was never so

bad. Clearly, if Christian patronage is going to reform the theater, the

reform ought to begin. But the grade is downward. The theater is growing

worse and worse." Dr. Wilkinson makes this statement on the question

of reforming the theater: "Now the Protestant Christians of New York

number, by recent computation, less than seventy-five thousand souls, in

a population of a million. Supposing a general agreement among them all

that a regular attendance at the theater was at this juncture the most

pressing and most promising method of evangelical effort, they would

not then constitute even one-tenth of the numerical patronage which the

management would study to please." Dr. Herrick Johnson says: "The ideal

stage is out of the question. It is out of the question just as pure,

chaste, human nudity is out of the question..The nature of theatrical

performances, the essential demands of the stage, the character of the

plays, and the constitution of human nature, make it impossible that

the theater should exist, save under a law of degeneracy. Its trend is

downward; its centuries of history tell just this one story. The actual

stage of to-day..is a moral abomination. In Chicago, at least, it is

trampling on the Sabbath with defiant scoff. It is defiling our youth.

It is making crowds familiar with the play of criminal passions. It is

exhibiting women with such approaches to nakedness as can have no other

design than to breed lust behind the onlooking eyes. It is furnishing

candidates for the brothel. It is getting us used to scenes that rival

the voluptuousness and licentious ages of the past." As never before

to-day, has the theater asked for the support of Church members. And the

ideal stage, with virtuous performers, and with pure dramas, are held up

as a sample of what Christian people are invited to attend. Dr. Cuyler

says: "Every person of common sense knows that the actual average

theater is no more an ideal playhouse than the average pope is like St.

Peter, or the average politician is like Abraham Lincoln. A Puritanic

theater would become bankrupt in a twelvemonth. The great mass of

those who frequent the playhouse go there for strong, passionate

excitements..I do not affirm," says Dr. Cuyler, "that every popular play

is immoral, and every attendant is on a scent for sensualities. But the

theater is a concrete institution, it must be judged in the gross and to

a tremendous extent it is only a gilded nastiness. It unsexes womanhood

by putting her publicly in male attire--too often in no attire at all."

"So competent an authority as the famous actress, Olga Nethersole,

recently declared that the only kind of play which may hope for success

with English-speaking audiences at the present day is the play which is

sufficiently indicated by calling it immoral. There is no doubt about

it that the theater, as at present conducted, is pulling the stones from

the foundations of public morality, and weakening, and in many quarters

endangering, the whole structure of society. The atmosphere of the

modern theater is lustful and irreverent. It is a good place for

Christians to keep away from. It is a good opportunity for the strong

man to deny himself for the sake of his younger or weaker brother."