Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1879 — IS THERE NO BALM IN GILEAD ? [ARTICLE]

IS THERE NO BALM IN GILEAD ?

A man grows up among relatives who take pride In him. They give him educational advantages more than ills fellows enjoy. He marries the choice of his youth; a good woman with kindly disposition, possessed of plousing manners, intelligent, virtuous. She bestows upon him the wealth of a young, undivided affection. Beautiful, bright and interesting children are born to him. He is petted by the public and is promoted to positions of trust, honor and reasonable profit. He is surrounded by faithful, enthusiastic and unselfish friends. The world is kindly to him uud to liis. He developes a fondness for exhilerating drinks. At first they are taken moderately, with a jolly companion or twH, and the boys have a good time. Indulgence follows indulgence; health beglus to fail and business is neglected. Qood times turn into midnight orgies. Friends see the signals of trouhle ahead, and they warn him of approaching danger. Ife laughs ut their fears and toys with the rocking billows of appetite. Friends plead with him and expostulate against his folly. He is deaf to their entreaties, aud rejoiees in his madness until the ominous roar of breakers thunder luhio maudlin ears. Hjt makes preteuce of repentance, and promises reformation. Wifeand friends cluster arouud to cheer him and encourage his good resolution. The public rally to his side and lend him their aid. A few days or weeks, perhaps two or three months, pass, and his resolution and pledges are broken reeds drifting far away to tlie leeward. Kindly words of expostulation are insolently resented. One by one, with a sigh of heartfelt pity and a hopeless shake of the head, friend after friend bids farewell to cherished hopes of reformation. They become discouraged, fold their arras in dumb dismay, and woefully wait the inevitable catastrophe. The victim of appetite flounders helplessly at the mercy of a stormy sea. The yawning deeps of a drunkard’s degradation lie in the valleys of the white-capped waves. He surrenders to the demon of appetite without conditions. Intoxicants he will have, even if he must steal them. He abuses his helpless children, and cruelly wrongs the suffering, patient, grief-worn wife. He publicly Insults her whose virtue is as spotless as the virginal suows of the mountaiu tops, with cruel charges of infidelity to her marital vows. He reels home at midnight from a drunken carouse, snatches his innocent sleeping babe from its mother’s arms’ and, with a savage oath, hurls it upon the floor. He hisses a volly of vile epithets upou his wife, and, us she attempts to protect her babe from his drunken fury, he brutally strikes her' He threatens to murder wife and children. She runs in terror to neigh hers and implores protection. They respond to her appeals, prompted by feelings common to humanity, aud haste to the assistance of her children. He discovers them to be his personal friends and intimate associates. He insults ans abuses them because they interfere to prevent the commission of crimes thatshock mankind. What should be done iu such cases? Is not the law deficient that it does not inflict a penally sufficient to check and prevent such outrages? Is it not a mawkish sentimentality that discovers pity for the depravity of such men? Suppose he should strike your child? Suppose lie should breathe his foul charges against your wife, or sister, or daughter, or mother? Would you be patient with him? Because he has given a solemn and sacred pledge to cherish and protect that woman is he to be excused and commiserated when he breaks that pledge? Because she is his wife must public sentiment rest with him when he abuses hers Only a cowardly man will strike a weak, defenseless woman ; only a base dastard will charge her to her face with unchastity—the most terrible of all accusations against woman. What ought the wife to do? Perhaps she has neither living father, brother, mother or sister; possibly the littlo dowry of her wedding dav has long since gone to indulge-her husband’s sinful appetite. The rounded fullness of her youth is disfigured by the rough excoriations of sorrow. The bright roses of maidenhood have been overrun by the wau blossoms of disappointment, neglect and cruelty. She is encumbered with helpless children. Ought she to continue to live with him who has caused her to sorrow, who has loaded upon her the burden of shame which darkens all joy and turns Into bitterness all things that should conduce to earthly happiness—to Buft'e^— to endure abuse—to hope for miraculous reformation? Who can auswer these questlous aright? What physician will prescribe an Infallible cure for the terrible madness of drunkenness ? What humanitarian will devise a sure relief from tho stuj; penduous wrongs of Intemperance? Is there no balm iu Gilead? T r ~- j To One and All.—So many frauds MvsUstna petpetnitud upon thbse whx. are entitled to pensions uudsr the government, that it has been found necessary to make the strictest regulations

for their protection. Among these regulations is the following for the government of postmasters: Soc. 101. It l* not proffer to deliver a letter from tlie Pension Omcc to any 011 c ntlier than tliu nersmi addressed, or to a memlwr of 111* pr her family, or u legal guardian of the pensionur, ami uriucr no c[rcmu|tunco* to ilullTor such letters to nil attorney, claim-agent, or broker. —Jttffiilatiniu 157.1, pitgc ITS, This regulation Is reiterated anil •mphusizetl In the United States Official P6stal Guide for April 1879, page 67, section GO. In the Post Office Gazette for May, 1879, under "Rulings of the Department,” ruling 5 reads “a letter addressed to n pensioner from ono of the pension agendo*, must under no. eircumatancca ho delivered to any other peredn.'’ With these explicit and multiplied prohibitions before him tiio postmaster at Rensselaer will under no circumstances whatever, neither upon the verbal or written request of the principals, deliver pension papers to any other thau those named lit section 161 of the Regulations above quoted. The treasurer of the Morton monument fund reports the following contributions from Rensselaer and vicinity, through Dr. James Ritchey s Judge E. P. Hammond, lieutenantcolonel eighty-seventh Indiana volunteers, S 10.00; Dr. G. A. Moss, surgeon one’ hundred and fifty-first Indiana volunteer, $1.00; H. W. Wood, ninety-third Ohio, $100; M. F. Chlicote, captain forty*eighth Indiana volunteers, $ LOO; D. J. Thompson, seventh Ohio volunteers, $1.00; D. H. Yeoman, lieutenant eightyseventh Indiana volunteers, $1.00; A. J. Yeoman, $1.00; John M. Wasson, lieutenant fortieth Ohio infantry, $1.00; Dr. I. B. Washburn, surgeon forty-sixth Indiana volunteers, $100; E. L. Clark, ninth Indiana, $1.00; Jonathan Branson, $1.00; J. F. Watson, $1.00; J. C- Morgan 60 cents; C- J. Brown 50 cents; total, $22.00,

Monticelu) society is all rlpt upover the scandalous acts of the greenbackera at their late corporation election. If reports are true they outdid "both corrupt old parties” In deeds of shame, and the leaders richly merit the infliction of the penalty provided by law for corrupting the ballot. As a rule those men who procure their election to office by disreputable means are not likely to scruple about what use they make of the power and advantage they have thus obtained. Corrupt political practices and dishonest financiering are building a reputation for the people of Mouticello which will not be an advantage to them in their relations with the world, and which, sooner or later, they will find occasion bitterly to regret. Veto. —President Hayes promptly vetoed the modified democratic ridcred army. bill. The brigadiers must yield. The loyal president is too much for the conspirators. The democratic position is untenable. The republicans hold the fort. Hqrrah for Hayes! His backbone is not near the fraud that democracy hoped it would beHon. Morgan H. Weir ou Tuesday of last week ran as an independent candidate for mayor of LaPorte, and very easily beat Mr. Nyo, his democratic competitor. Of course republicans generally voted for Mr. Weir, who is really a republican at heart*, although he has acted with the de* mocracy since the campaign of 1872. Rampant states rights democracy sticks out all over the Crown Point Star, like spines on the fretted porcupine. It is almost as mean a rebel sheet in a weak way as the notorious Okalona Stales. The Star probably bankers for cheap notoriety, but it lacks the ability of "Col. Harper, the wild-eyed child of destiny.” It Is authoritativly stated that Remington will soon be blessed with another newspaper. Whether the men who engage in the enterprise are blessed with a liberal patronage or whether they fail remaius to be tested. If they succeed it will be more than all previous undertakings of the kind have done. We deprecate and denounce the diabolical scheme of the Rensselaer UNION to Inlure the reputation of Mouticello by publishing that ostensible Railroad Romance.— MonticMo Utruld. There is not a repudtator in the that would not denounce an attempt to ‘‘injure his reputation.”