The colored brother hesitated a minute, and said: "She don't do nuffin
wid it, caze I ain't never _give_ her none yet."
* * * * *
My friend who opposes foreign missions said: "So much you give never
gets there." Yes; and so many seed the farmer puts into the ground
never grow, and so the farmer says,
"Put five grains in every hill:
One for the cut-worm, one for the crow,
One to blight, and two to grow."
And you cannot tell which will grow. A weed grew by the wayside in the
old world. All it did was to furnish seed for the wind, and worry for
the farmer. But one blustering day, the wind carried a seed from the
wayside weed into a florist's garden; it sprouted, rooted and bloomed.
The gardener was impressed by the beautiful coloring of the blossom,
so he nurtured, transplanted and cultivated it into a beautiful
flower. It was from this bush, once a weed, Queen Victoria selected
the flower she carried when she entered the Crystal Palace to meet the
world's representatives.
When Delia Laughlin went astray, her father drove her from his door.
She was of that temperament that must either go to the heights or to
the depths, and to the depths she went. Down the rapids of a sinful
life her steps were swift. Along the Bowery she made her way to Five
Points, where thieves and drunkards dwelt. It was said she could drink
deeper, curse louder, and fight fiercer than any inmate of the most
wicked spot in New York City. Mrs. Whittemore went one day on her
mission of mercy through the slums. She sought some one to accompany
her who knew the deepest haunts of the wicked. Delia Laughlin was
recommended to her. Mrs. Whittemore, with her Bible in one hand and a
fragrant rose in the other, made her rounds. She was deeply impressed
with the intellect and culture, as well as the beauty of the wayward
girl who had been her guide through the slums. "Dear girl," she said;
"you are too bright and beautiful to be down here. I wish you would
come to see me at the Door of Hope Mission," and slipping a coin and
the white rose into the soiled fingers she said, "Good-bye."
The girl loved flowers, so she took the white rose to her room and put
it in water. Then with the coin she went to drown her misery in drink.
Forty-eight hours later she had slept off the debauch, and taking the
flower from the vase she said: "Ah! that represents my life. Once I
was as pure as the rose when the good woman gave it to me. Those
withered petals represent the withered graces of my life." From out
that little flower an arrow went to the heart of Delia Laughlin. She
took the street car and went to the Door of Hope Mission. Mrs.
Whittemore met her and they talked together. While the girl wept Mrs.
Whittemore prayed; she said: "O God, this poor girl has no other
friend than you. Her father's home is closed against her. You have
promised, when father and mother forsake, you will take the deserted
one. Won't you take her now?" And God did take her; from that hour she
was safe in the cleft of the Rock of Ages. When she addressed twelve
hundred inmates of Auburn prison, a reporter said: "Never did John
Wesley, John Knox, or Martin Luther do greater work for the Master."
When laid in her casket in the Door of Hope Mission a few years later,
a New York paper said: "Never did a fairer face or more eloquent
tongue do work in slum life than Delia Laughlin."
"The stone o'er which you trample,
May be a diamond in the rough.
It may never never sparkle,
Though made of diamond stuff.
"Because someone must find it,
If it's ever found;
And then someone must grind it,
If it's ever ground.
"But when it's found, and when it's ground,
And when it's burnished bright;
Then henceforth a diamond crowned
'Twill shine with lustrous light."
You can't tell what seed will grow.
After the Civil War I lived for two years in Richmond, Kentucky.
During that time the Klu Klux movement broke out in fury. Men were
hanged, others whipped and driven from the county. On my way to market
one morning I saw a man hanging from a limb of a tree in the
court-house yard. On his sleeve was pinned a piece of paper, on which
was written, "Let no one touch this body until the sun goes down." All
day that body hung there and not an officer of the law dared to cut
the rope. Such was the reign of terror no one offered a protest. One
Saturday night a young man named Byron was hanged in the same
court-house yard. He was the only son of a widowed mother, and he
begged the mob to let him live for his mother's sake. Sunday morning
several empty bottles lay about the tree, indicating that the men were
drinking who did the deed. The evening after the hanging I gave an
address in the Methodist Church for the Good Templars. I had no
thought of referring to the hanging of young Byron, but in showing up
the evils of drink, those empty bottles came to my mind, and I could
imagine the old mother then weeping over her dead boy. Without
considering the consequences I denounced the Klu Klux and the
cowardice that permitted such lawlessness. After the lecture a young
man of influence advised me to leave at once and not dare spend the
night in the town. I felt sure the Klan could not be called together
that night, so I ventured to spend the night at home. About eleven
o'clock that night the front gate was opened, and tramp, tramp, tramp,
came the sound of feet toward the cottage, which was about forty feet
from the street. It seemed as if all was over with me, when the
"pluck" of a string introduced a serenade from the string band of the
little city. Since the daughters of Judah hung their harps upon the
willows, no sweeter music has ever fallen upon mortal ears than I
heard that night from the string band of Richmond, Kentucky.
I do not know how much my speaking out against Klu Klux had to do with
arresting the outlawry that made the roads rattle with the clatter of
the hoofs of horses at midnight raids, but I do know young Byron was
the last man hanged by the Klu Klux in Madison county, and may I not
hope the unpremeditated protest made in that Sunday evening address,
helped in some measure to bring about the transformation, and
contribute a mite to the public sentiment that has made Richmond a
saloonless place in which to live.
You cannot tell what seed will grow. Already out of the new woman
movement has come a host led by such women as Frances E. Willard, Mary
A. Livermore, Clara Hoffman, Dr. Anna Shaw, Jane Addams, Maude
Ballington Booth, Susan B. Anthony, and in our own state, Frances E.
Beauchamp. These and many more have been springing the bolts that have
barred woman from spheres of great usefulness.
Allow me to say, I have no patience with the mannish woman (and about
as little use for a feminine man); but if this old world is ever to be
redeemed it is because He who sitteth on the throne has said: "Behold
I make all things new."
Oh! for a new man, who will stop the waste of wealth and destruction
of morals to which I have referred. Oh! for the day when "each sex
will be the equal of the other in the average, each above the other in
specialties; when each can see in the other a source of inspiration,"
and both worthy to have been created in the beginning a "little lower
than the angels" and in the end to be crowned with glory and honor.
V
THE SAFE SIDE OF LIFE FOR YOUNG MEN. A PLEA FOR TOTAL ABSTINENCE AND A
BETTER LIFE.
I do not assert that everyone who drinks intoxicating liquor as a
beverage will become a drunkard, but I do come before this audience to
hold up total-abstinence as safer and better for practice. Drunkards
are made of moderate drinkers; drunkards are never made of total
abstainers. One _may_ drink and never get drunk; one cannot get drunk
who never drinks. Take away every drunkard from the earth today and
moderate drinking will soon create another supply; but sweep all
drunkenness from the world, let total-abstinence be the absolute rule
and the last drunkard will have debased his body, ruined his
character, and doomed his soul.
Since running the risk of being a moderate drinker is so great, I
commend to the young people before me the caution of the Scotch
minister, who, when called upon to marry a couple, said: "My young
friends, marriage is a blessing to a great many persons; it's a curse
to some; it's a risk for everybody; will you take the venture?" I
presume they did. I do not believe the use of intoxicating liquor as a
beverage is a benefit to anyone, yet for argument's sake I will permit
one who drinks to say: "Moderate drinking is a benefit to a few
persons; it's a curse to a great many; it's a risk for everybody;
let's take a drink!" Against this I affirm that total abstinence is a
blessing to millions; it's a curse to nobody; it's safe and right for
everybody; then let's take the pledge and God helping us, let's keep
it.
A very comforting reply to the infidel who claims there will be no
hereafter is the inscription on the tomb of a faithful Christian:
"If there's another world, he's in bliss;
If not, he's made the best of this."
If there is no hereafter, to say the least the Christian is even with
the infidel, while if there is a hereafter it's bad for the infidel.
If a moderate drinker has sufficient self-control to escape being a
drunkard, the total abstainer is equally safe; but if the moderate
drinker loses his self-control and becomes a drunkard his doom is
sealed. The safe definition of temperance is: "Moderation in regard to
things useful and right, total-abstinence in regard to things hurtful
and wrong." Is alcoholic liquor as a beverage hurtful and wrong? It's
the source of more misery, cruelty and crime than any other evil of
the world!
Some years ago after a lecture along this line, a doubting Thomas said
to me: "What answer have you for the scholar who claims your very word
'temperance' is the offspring of a word that signifies moderation?" I
said: "The same I would give to a Darwinian if he were to tell me I am
a descendant of the ape; and that is, I rejoice to know I'm an
improvement on my ancestor. To one who charges me with being a distant
relative of the chimpanzee, I give the reply of Henry Ward Beecher: 'I
don't care how _far distant_.'" I acknowledge my ignorance of the
derivation of the word temperance, but I do know drunkenness comes
from drinking intoxicating liquor, therefore I favor total-abstinence
and recommend it as the safe side of life for young men.
While, by quoting isolated passages of the Bible, advocates of
moderation have succeeded in filling the air with dust of doubt about
the teaching of the Scriptures on the wine question, there is one
thing about which there is no question, and that is the consent of the
Bible to total-abstinence for anyone who desires and "dares to be a
Daniel." I would rather search my Bible for permission to give up that
over which my brother may stumble into ruin, than to see how far I can
go in the use of it without committing sin. Marriage feasts in Cana of
Galilee two thousand years ago do not concern me so much as the social
feasts of the present age where "wine is a mocker, strong drink is
raging," and many are "deceived thereby."
A noted Bible scholar says: "The Bible is not simply a schedule of
sins and duties catalogued and labeled, but a revelation of immutable
principles, in the application of which God tests the sincerity of our
profession." To drink intoxicating liquor in this enlightened age,
with all the woes of intemperance about us and responsibilities of
life upon us, is a violation of every immutable principle laid down in
the Bible. First, it's against the law of prudence, which says of two
possible paths one should take the safer. Which is the safer,
moderation or total-abstinence? Next, it's against the law of
humility, which teaches where mightier than we have fallen, we must
distrust ourselves. Have mightier than we fallen through strong drink?
Next, it's against the law of human brotherhood, which makes it
imperative upon the strong to bear the infirmities of the weak. Is the
drinker weak? Next, it's against the law of expediency; "it is good
neither to eat flesh nor drink wine nor anything whereby thy brother
stumbleth." Do our brothers stumble over strong drink? Last, it's
against the law of self-denial; "if meat make my brother to offend, I
will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to
offend." Does strong drink make our brother to offend? On these
immutable principles the cause of sobriety is built, and the gates of
the devil of drink shall not prevail against it.
Young man, let me give you a bit of advice and assurance. Never take a
drink of intoxicating liquor as a beverage, and when you are as old as
I am you will not regret it. You cannot find me in all the world, one
man between forty and eighty years of age, an abstainer all his life,
who would change that record if he could. Boys, that's a very safe
rule that has not a single exception. But how many are there who
regret they ever put the bottle to their lips? "If I had only let
strong drink alone" is the bitter wail of millions of men and women.
From pauper poverty and prison cells, electric chairs and dying
drunkard's lips comes the cry: "Drink has been my curse!"
Does some young man in this audience say, "I can quit if I please?"
Then I beg you to _please_, ere you reach the time when you will
strive to quit, but in vain. I know you don't intend to go beyond your
power of control; neither did the drunkards who have gone before you.
Do you suppose Edgar Allen Poe dreamt when he took his first drink in
the social gathering of an old Virginia gentleman's home that it would
bring from his brilliant brain the weird strain:
"Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"