In the fiery fountains of the still; in the seething bubbles of the caldron; in the kingly palace and the drunkard’s hovel; in the rich man’s cellar and the poor man’s closet; in the pestilential vapors of foul dens and in the blaze of gilded saloons; in the hand of beauty and on the lip of manhood, rum is vile and deadly and accursed everywhere.
Rum, we yield not to thy unhallowed influence, and together we have met to plan thy destruction. And by what new name shall we call thee, and to what shall we liken thee when we speak of thy attributes? Others may call thee child of perdition, the base-born progeny of sin and Satan, the murderer of mankind and the destroyer of immortal souls; but I will give thee a new name among men and crown thee with a new horror, and that new name shall be the sacramental cup of the Rum-Power, and I will say to all the sons and daughters of earth—Dash it down! And thou, Rum, shalt be my text in my pilgrimage among men, and not alone shalt my tongue utter it, but the groans of orphans in their agony and the cries of widows in their desolation shall proclaim it the enemy of home, the traducer of childhood, and the destroyer of manhood, and whose only antidote is the sacramental cup of temperance, cold water!
THE POWER OF HABIT.
(DESCRIPTIVE, SPIRITED AND DRAMATIC.)
REMEMBER once riding from Buffalo to the Niagara Falls. I said to a gentleman, “What river is that, sir?”
“That,” said he, “is Niagara river.”
“Well, it is a beautiful stream,” said I; “bright, and fair and glassy. How far off are the rapids?”
“Only a mile or two,” was the reply.