bove you it rides in
rain clouds upon the wings of the wind; beneath you it hangs in
diamond dew upon the bending blade; behind you it comes galloping down
the gorge "from out the mountain's broken heart;" before you it goes
gliding down the glen, kissing wayside flowers into fragrance and
singing, as rippling o'er the rocks it runs: "Men may come and men may
go, but I go on forever." Oh, bright beautiful water! may it soon be
the beverage of all mankind.

I know some say: "This is a free country; if a man wants to drink and
be a brute, let him do so." The trouble about that is, while strong
drink will degrade some men to the level of the brute, drunkards are
not made of brutes. Some thirty or more years ago a grandson of one of
the greatest statesman this country ever produced, was shot in a
saloon while intoxicated. While that young man was dying, but a few
blocks away a grandson of one of the greatest men that ever honored
Kentucky in the Senate of the United States, was in jail to be tried
for murder committed while drunk; and in the same city at the same
hour in the station-house from drink was a great grandson of the
author of "Give me liberty or give me death." Whom did Daniel Webster
leave his seat in the Senate that he might hear his eloquence? S.S.
Prentice went down under the cloud of drink. A gifted family gave to a
Southern State a gifted son. His state sent him to the halls of
national legislation, but drink wrought his ruin. Horace Greeley was
his friend, and finding him drunk in a Washington hotel said to him:
"Why don't you give up what you know is bringing shame upon you and
sorrow to your family?"

He replied: "Mr. Greeley, ask me to take my knife and sever my arm
from my shoulder and I can do it, but ask me to give up an appetite
that has come down upon me for generations, I _can't_ do it." He threw
his cane upon the floor to emphasize his utterance. A few days later
in the old Saint Charles Hotel, he pierced his brain with a bullet and
was sent home to his family in his coffin.

Bring me the men who are drunkards in this city, strip them of their
appetite for strong drink, and they are husbands, brothers, fathers,
sons, and as a rule, generous in disposition.

Thank God, while drunkenness will drag down the gifted and noble,
temperance will build up the humblest and lowest. Bring me the poorest
boy in this audience, let him pledge me he will never take a drink of
intoxicating liquor as a bevera