Page 2 Advertisements Column 6

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXIX, Issue 11128, 13 February 1886, Page 2

[advertisement.] TEMPERANCE NOTES. — .j » " FOB GOD AND HOME AND NATIVE LiND." "Thou hast given 'a banner to thera that fear thee, that it rniy be displayed because of ths Truth, that thy beloved may be delivered." Week after week wo come to you with the same message. If we weary you it is not our fault, bit yours. To two classes of people we spaak : To those who are blind or won't see, and tb those who are deaf or who won't hear. Our eyes are open, and the responsi* bility remains with us to warn. We. Bee you on the brink of an awful preoi« pics, and do what we will you don't seem to realise your position. We know that drink, even in so-c-llad moderation, numbs the faculties, mud* dies the brain, and leads to -&rink in. Jfl| immoderation. It lulls to sleep— a" sleep that ends in a terrible awakening. We wish to break the spell of the siren siuging, ceaselessly singing, " Sleep on, >lsBp on, beloved ; all is well ;. enjoy yourself ; all i3 well." Lo! the infatuated youth slumbers on. Occasionally his batter-self resists — conscience asserts herself. He opens hi3 eyos, bat only to find himsolf in th* possession of an insatiable demon -a slave bodnd by the strong chain of evil habit. He tries perhaps, Samson -like, _to shake* himself free from tbe fetters that bind him, but* no, hfl is, , shorn of his strength of will. "lehabod": [I Tha glory is dep irted." He despisai -Total Abstinonce. He J thought himself perfectly safe in the " hands or his oh iraier. He would not wear the bit of Blue Ribbon for fear of ridicule. Those companions whose laugh he feared are ths ones who je3t at his expensa now. The devil, who sang so many comfortable songs to him, enjoys 1 the havoc h>d ha3 made, and the angels look on and weep. " If thou hadst known- — the things whSch belong unto peace/--but now they are hid from thine eyes*" Charles Lamb, in his "Confessions of a Drunkard," puts the question: "Is there no middle way betwixt Total Ah* stinenoe and the excess which kills you ? — and he answers : " For your sake, reader, and that you may never attain to my experience with pain, I must uct :e tbe dreadful truth, that there is none — none that I oau find." He asks others to believe on his credit rather than know - fcoin thsir own trial v " The waters '■ have gone over me. But out of thej*black depths, could I be heard* I wouldT cry out to all those who hive but set a foot in the perilous flood. Gould the youth, to whom the flavour of his first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life or the entering upon soma newly* discovered paradise, look into my deso- • lation, and be made to understand what a dreary time it is when a man shall feel ; himself going down a precipice with , open eyes aud a passive will, — to s ehis^^ destruction, and have no power to stop it, ..•.ud yet to feel it all tho way emanating ; from himself ; to perceive all goodness emptied out of him, au.l yet not to So*** able to forget a tim9 when it was otherwise ; to bear about the piteous spectacle of his own self*ruin. Could he see my fevdred eye, feverish with last night's drinking, and feverishly kwkinj; for this night's repetition of tha folly : Could he feel the body of the deatb out of which I cry hourly with feebler and feebler outcry to be delivered,— it were enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the ear.h in all the pride oi its mantling temptation."