Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1881 — Give Me Back My Husband. [ARTICLE]

Give Me Back My Husband.

Not many years since, a young married couple, from the “fast-anchored isles.” sought our shores with the most sanguine anticipations of prosperity and happiness. They had begun to realize much they had seen in the visions of hope, when, in an evil hour, the husband was tempted “to look upon the wine when it to red,” and to taste of it, “when it gives color in the cup.” The charmer fastened round its victim all the serpent spells of its sorcery, and he fell; and at every step of his degradation from the man to the brute, and downward, a heartstring broke in the bosom oi his companion.

Finally, with the last spark of hope flickering on the alter or her heart, she threaded her way into one oi those shambles where man is made such a thing as the beasts of the field would bellow at. She passed her way through the baccha alian crowd who were revelling there in their own ruin. With her bosom still of “that perilous stuff that preys upon the heart,” she stood before the plunderer of her husband’s destiny, and exclaimed in tones of startling anguish. “Give me back my husband!” '‘There’s your husband.” said the man, as he pointed toward the prostrate wretch. “That my husband! What have you done to him? That my husband! What have you done to that noble form that once, like the giant oak, held its protecting shade over the fragile vine that clung to it for support and shelter? That my husband! With what torpedo chill have you touched the sinews of that manly arm? That my husband! What have you done to that once noble brow, which he wore high among his fellows, as 4f it bore the superscription of the Godhead ? That my husband! What have you done to that eye, with it he was wont to “look erect on heaven,” and see in His mirror the image o? his God. What Egyptian drug have you poured into his veins, dnd turned the amber fountains of the' heart into black and burning pitch ? Undo your basillisk spells, and give me back the man that stood with me by the altar!” The ears of the rumseller, ever since the first demijohn of that burning liquid was opened upon our shores, have been saluted, at every stage of the traffic, with just such appeals as this. Such wives, such widows, and mothers, such fatherless children, au never mourned in Israel at the massacre of Bethlehem; or at the burning of the Temple, have cried in his ears, morning, night, and evening, “Give me back my husband! Give me back my boyi Give me back my brother.