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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 74

The Drunkards that are to be

The Drunkards that are to be.

Yes, the children that grow up and not those who untimely die are most in need of our pity. Few things are more appalling than to reflect that in the nurseries of to-day are playing the drunkards and criminals of the future. As certainly as the sun will rise to-morrow, will this traffic claim its victims. Slowly but surely for each the thread is being spun. Unstop your ears, and you may almost hear the beating of the wings of the Augel of Death; open your eyes, and you will see that for many the death which comes merciless only because it comes too late, and has too far prolonged the sorrow and shame of a life which admitte! bnt of one realease. Contemplating these helpless little lives, as yet unblemished, [unclear: s] destiny lies largely in your keeping, can you hesitate for a page 20 moment in your choice ? Is it to bless or to curse that you desire, to saves or to destroy ? Yon cannot do both, and there is no middle course. And [unclear: if] must bo that a paltry self-indulgence turn the scale for destruction [unclear: J] death, at least be frank about it, Abandon the monstrous falsehood; that only the guilty will suffer through your acting. Admit that comfort is your law-giver, and that the consequences to others are no concern of your Mumble no flimsy pretext about Cana of Galilee. Sparc us the sbocking pretence that the Master who said, "Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not," and "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me," will find in the offering which you make upon [unclear: f] altar of your selfish gratification an acceptable and well-pleasing sacrifies Better surely cast out devils in the name of Beelzebub than use the [unclear: mo] sacred name to drive them in!*

* What an outrage our Christianity must appear to the worshippers of many [unclear: he] Beelzebub, when English churchmen have to make confessions as these:—" It was [unclear: la] said by the Archdeacon of Bombay that we had made 100 drunkards for every Christian. The Hindoos are temperate, the Mahomedans are abstainers, but the Christians, so called as undermining both. When a man is seen drunk the saying is, ' that man has, left [unclear: ma] gone to Jeans !, "Sermon of Archdeacon J. M. Wilson at Rochdale; Alliance [unclear: New] January. 1896. Though one spoke "with the tongues of men and of angles," he could [unclear: not] the horror of the words I have italicized.