FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109  
110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   >>  
a have groaned with the desolation; and by it have been quenched such lights as Haller and De Quincey. One hundred millions are the victims of the betel-nut, which has specially accursed the East Indies. Three hundred millions chew hashish, and Persia, Brazil, and Africa suffer the delirium. The Tartars employ murowa; the Mexicans the agave; the people of Guarapo an intoxicating quality taken from sugar-cane; while a great multitude, that no man can number, are the disciples of alcohol. To it they bow. In its trenches they fall. In its awful prison they are incarcerated. On its ghastly holocaust they burn. Could the muster-roll of this great army be called, and they could come up from the dead, what eye could endure the reeking, festering putrefaction and beastliness! What heart could endure the groans of agony! Drunkenness: Does it not jingle the burglar's key? Does it not whet the assassin's knife? Does it not cock the highwayman's pistol? Does it not wave the incendiary's torch? Has it not sent the physician reeling into the sick-room; and the minister, with his tongue thick, into the pulpit? Did not an exquisite poet, from the very height of reputation, fall, a gibbering sot, into the gutter, on his way to be married to one of the fairest daughters of New England, and at the very hour when the bride was decking herself for the altar; and did he not die of delirium tremens, almost unattended, in a New York hotel? Tamerlane asked for one hundred and sixty thousand skulls, with which to build a pyramid to his own honor. He got the skulls, and built the pyramid. But if the bones of all those who have fallen as a prey to dissipation could be piled up, it would make a monster pyramid. Talk not of Waterloo and Austerlitz, for they were not fields of blood compared with this great Golgotha. Who will gird himself for the journey, and try with me to scale this mountain of the dead--going up miles high on human carcasses, to find still other peaks far above, mountain above mountain, white with the bleached bones of drunkards! Hang not your head or shut your eyes until we have seen it. We must get a sight at the monster before we can shoot him. I will begin at our national and State capitals. Like government, like people. Henry VIII. blasts all England with his example of uncleanness. Catharine of Russia drags down a whole empire with her nefarious behavior. No Christian man can be indifferent to what every hour of
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109  
110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   >>  



Top keywords:

pyramid

 

mountain

 

hundred

 
endure
 
monster
 

people

 
skulls
 

England

 

delirium

 

millions


unattended
 

Waterloo

 

Austerlitz

 

Golgotha

 

tremens

 
compared
 

fields

 

thousand

 

fallen

 
Tamerlane

dissipation

 
government
 

blasts

 

capitals

 

national

 

uncleanness

 

behavior

 
nefarious
 

Christian

 

indifferent


empire

 

Russia

 

Catharine

 

carcasses

 

journey

 

bleached

 

drunkards

 

multitude

 

quality

 

intoxicating


murowa

 

employ

 

Mexicans

 

Guarapo

 

incarcerated

 

prison

 
ghastly
 

holocaust

 

trenches

 

disciples