Questionable Amusements and Worthy SubstitutesJudy, J. M.
Religion
Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes
Judy, J. M.
Amusements -- Religious aspects -- Methodist Church; Christian ethics
Then, we need to study the drink evil in its relation to society. "A
recent report of the chaplain of the Madalen Society of New York shows
that of eight-nine fallen women in the asylum at one time, all but
two ascribed their fall to the effect of the drink habit." "A lady
missionary makes the statement that of two thousand sinful women known
personally to her, there were only ten cases in which intoxicating
liquors were not largely responsible for their fall." "A leading worker
for reform in New York says that the suppression of the curse of strong
drink would include the destruction of ninety-nine of every one hundred
of the houses of ill-fame." "A missionary on going at the written
request of one of these lost women to rescue her from a den of infamy
remonstrated with her for being even then slightly under the influence
of drink." "Why," was her indignant reply as tears filled her eyes,
"do you suppose we girls are so dead that we have lost our memories of
mother, home, and everything good? No, indeed; and if it were not for
liquor and opium, we would all have to run away from our present life or
go mad by pleadings of our own hearts and home memories."
Only by a study of the drink evil shall we know its ravages in the home.
Those of us who have lived in the pure air of free, country home-life
can not easily realize the moral plague of drunkenness as it blights the
home in the crowded districts of city slum life. Nor is the home of the
city alone cursed by the drink evil. Three years ago this last holiday
season we were doing some evangelistic work in a neighboring town, a
mere village of a couple hundred inhabitants. I shall never forget
how the mother of a dejected home cried and pleaded for help from the
ravages of her drunken husband. She said that he had spent all of his
wages, and had made no provision for the home, in furniture, in books
for the children, nor in clothing for them nor for her. She had come
almost to despair, and was blaming God for allowing her little ones to
suffer because of a worthless man. O, the world is full of this sort of
thing to-day, if we only knew the sighs and heartaches and blasted hopes
of those who suffer! In a smoking-car one day a commercial traveler
refused to drink with his old comrades, by saying: "No, I won't drink
with you to-day, boys. The fact is, boys, I have sworn off." He was
taunted and laughed at, and urged to tell what had happened to him. They
said: "If you've quit drinking, something's up; tell us what it is."
"Well, boys," he said, "I will, though I know you will laugh at me; but
I will tell you all the same. I have been a drinking man all my life,
and have kept it up since I was married, as you all know. I love whisky;
it's as sweet in my mouth as sugar, and God only knows how I'll quit it.
For seven years not a day has passed over my head that I didn't have
at least one drink. But I am done. Yesterday I was in Chicago. Down on
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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