Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1859 — A Withering Appeal to Dealers in Strong Drink. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A Withering Appeal to Dealers in Strong Drink.

Tim at! -r.ving eloquent and scathing appeal is o in the pen of the Rev. Alexander j Duncan mn: “Dealers in Drini! Yours is a melancholy .position — i more pitiful, more unworthy, more degraded and more sinful position, cannot he conceived! To prey upon tiie shame, the crime, the body, the soul, the time, the j eta r ni:y of a fellow creature, is awful! To : prepare the way of bankruptcy, pauperism, , b;-: prison, death, is not to be coveted! To assist' to ruin character, murder reputation , sink position and circumstances, filch : a man’s crumbs of bread, is odious! To beg- ; gar families, break the hearts of wives, ecatj ter domestic firebrands and death, break up happy homes, divide united hearts, dissolve family links of the closest ties, is a baseness indescribable. To rise into riches by such u course is not to be rich; to be honored ia ; to be dishonored; to gain place in the world ] is to have no dignity; to stand forth in the ; cause of religion is to daub Zion’s walls with untempered mortar. To swell out into portly dimensions by the sale of strong ; drink is the price of poverty; to rise into luxury is a gain from wretchedness; to walk abroad in ease is a purchase from perspiration and toil; to assume high airs and gad j about all bespangled and bejeweled, is an ; elevation wrung from shame, degradation, ' misery and death. lI.Av infatuated the deaiI or must he to be rolling in every comfort i ami luxury, possessing wealth and property, and all purchased at the poor inebriate’s expense. The publican well clothed, while he is in rags; the publican’s wife handsome, i buxom, jeweled, but the poor drunkard’s not j where to lay her head; the publican’s children clothed, fed, educated and preserved. I from the inclemencies of the season; but j mark .his customers, cold, starved, ragged, ■ wet, diseased- What a difference between ; the state of those that are supported by 1 strong drink! Surety, if reflection was left j In the drunkard’s mind, the sketch that we | have ju. t given would banish forever the drinker from tiie drunkery door. “And what state can the mind bo in that can keep such a house? How destitute of j all the finer feelings of humanity!—to speak !o: religion would he nonsense. Where is ,i we for his country and his kind! Can pa- ! t riot ism : nil ibit such a bosom! Impossible. | Can such a man be a reformer—a regeneraur of s i tv — and keep a house and sell an article to degrade, dehumanize and en- | slave his fellow men, soul and body, hand | and foot? Incredible! How much of Christ’s h>ve c in be in the bosom of man who contiiim s to soil spirits, and sees and hoars and reads the awful deeds It is doing ag 'inst G6d and man! Not a spark. “And is it possible that the spirit dealer ! can commend I.is traffic to God in prayer? I could he lay his hand on his heart, and enter tite Divine presence, and crave God to bless his efforts? It cannot be. His blood would run cold, his soul would freeze iu the endeavor, iiis smitten conscience could not bear the piercing glance of God; lie can only carry on his trade by forgetting eternity, trampling on tiie cacred dictates of conscience, and escaping from thoughts of futuro death and judgment. Infinitely better for a man t . b<- ; his bread from door to door than occupy such a position. Til this caeo he might be a heir c! heaven — but who can recognize the Foiling of whisky an eternal glory!” fig/"A Washington paper contains the marriage of Martin Brigg to Louisa Schooner, Evcrat'd Boatman to Margaret Scull, George Ship to Piuebe Cutter. What a licet, to be sure. Half of it manned, and all,, we In: pe, well mated. Among so many vessels there out to be quite a number at berths. We'll sea about it. In the meantime, look out for squalls. ■ CO”We have seen ladies not only too weak to bear food, but even too weak to hour contradiction.

THE RENSSELAER GAZETTE. RENSSELAER, IND. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 1859.