oicing in His love. If Christ
Himself were here in body, do you know what He would advise on this
point? He would say: "As it is written;" "Look not thou upon the wine
when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it goeth down
smoothly: at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an
adder." Beware of the social glass, my friend, for though it promises
pleasure, it gives but pain; it promises joy, it gives but sorrow; it
promises deliverance, it gives but eternal death!

III. STUDY THE DRINK EVIL.

We hear it said, "No use to picture the horrors of the drink evil; every
one knows them already." In part, this is true. All of us know more than
we wish it were possible to be true; and yet no one can ever realize
its horrors until caught, and torn, and mangled in its pinching, jagged,
griping meshes. It is one thing to know by a distant glance, it is
another thing to know by the pangs of a broken heart and of a wrecked
life. For those who are not thus caught in its meshes to realize its
horrors so as to seek its destruction but one course is possible;
namely, To study the evil. Let the teacher tell of its ravages; let the
minister proclaim its curses; let the poet sing it; the painter paint
it; the editor report it; the novelist portray it; the scientist
describe it; the philosopher decry it; the sisters and wives and mothers
denounce it--until all shall unite in smiting it to its death!

We should study the drink evil in its relation to disease. That strong
drink tends to produce disease is no longer questioned. "During the
cholera in New York City in 1832, of two hundred and four cases in the
Park Hospital only six were temperate, and all of these recovered; while
one hundred and twenty-two of the others died. In Great Britain in the
same year five-sixths of all who perished were intemperate. In one
or two villages every drunkard died, while not a single member of a
temperance society lost his life." "In Paisley, England, in 1848, there
were three hundred and thirty-seven cases of cholera, and every case
except one was a dram-drinker. The cases of cholera were one for every
one hundred and eighty-one inhabitants; but among the temperate portion
there was only one case to each two thousand." "Of three hundred and
eighty-six persons connected with the total abstinence societies only
one died, and he was a reformed drunkard" of three months' standing. "In
New Orleans during the last epidemic the orde