THE CHURCH AND THE SALOON.

Text: "For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial?" 2 Cor. 6:14, 15.

I. As to the church. What is it? The word is ekklesia; that is, "called out." The church is an association of persons called out of the world to perform definite service for God.

1. It is not a holy club.

2. It is not a social coterie.

3. It is not a company of truth seekers. We are not seeking truth; we have found it.

4. It is not an ethical society. We are not casting about for a system of morals. Our moral code is in the Bible.

5. The church is a great living organism through which God is working for the tearing down of evil and the building up of truth and righteousness on earth. The emblem of our service is the sword and trowel. What is the sword for? To make war on iniquity. What is the trowel for? To build up all forms of goodness on earth; to lay grace upon grace, as the mason lays stone upon stone, until our world shall be a temple fit for the Holy Spirit to dwell in. Thus with sword and trowel we clear the way and rear the fabric of the Kingdom of God.

II. As to the saloon. What is it? A definition must be an indictment. It is the focal expression of almost everything evil.

1. It is an enemy of man.

2. It is an enemy of the home.

3. It is the worst enemy of the State. On last election day I took occasion to make the round of the polling places in the lower part of New York City. I saw scores of sovereign citizens staggering to the ballot box. Here is the Gibraltar of evil politics. Are there witnesses to verify this indictment? Aye, thousands of them reeling about our streets. See them issuing from the dram shop; mark their flushed faces; their shuffling gait; see them as they pass by hiccoughing down to death.

Are more witnesses needed? Let the wives and children of this drunken multitude pass by. Oh, these sad-eyed, pale-faced women; God pity the drunkard's wife; and his little children, ill-clothed and hungry, shrinking from the pointed finger and the taunt, "A drunkard's child!"

More witnesses still? Let me stand by the doorway of one of our multitudinous dive, and hear the laughter of lost womanhood. The evils which are wrought in this place of infamy are scarcely to be spoken of in this presence. But inmates and patrons alike are devotees of Bacchus.

Is more evidence needed? Let us pass through the corridors of our prisons. Here are thieves, murderers, and wrongdoers of every sort. Chief Justice Coleridge says more than eighty per cent of all these commitments are due to strong drink. Put one of our daily newspapers in evidence; cast your eyes over the police reports. What is it that nerves men to deeds of shame and violence?

There are criminals of many sorts and degrees, but the rum-seller is the criminal of all criminals; for it is scarcely beyond the bounds of simple fact to say that he is the maker of them all.

Still farther. Let us visit our insane asylums. See these poor demented creatures, driveling idiots, raving madmen. It was long ago that a wise student of human nature exclaimed: "Alas, that men should put an enemy into their mouths to steal away their brains!" It is stated that seventy per cent of the inmates of our lunatic asylums have dethroned their reasons by inebriety, or else are paying by inheritance the penalty of parental indulgence.

Or pass through our poorhouses. Many of the paupers are old before their time, watery-eyed and decrepit through drink.

Or go through the potter's field. Oh, what tragedies of pain and sorrow lie hidden under these grounds! Here are men who struggled vainly in the grip of habit and died in drunken frenzy; here are wives whose life was starved and beaten out of them until they were laid out for their burial in borrowed shrouds; here are little children whose fathers were so impoverished by drink that not enough was left to purchase a meager four feet of earth to lay them in.

III. Now as to the relation of the church to the saloon. We have seen that the church is an appointed organism through which God is building up truth and goodness on earth. We have seen that the saloon is the practical expression of nearly all that is iniquitous among men. How shall the two stand in relation to each other? Or what in these premises is the church to do?

1. It can choose to do nothing. It can supinely fold its hands and say: "The saloon has come to stay." God save us from that cowardly sophism!

2. The church may sanction the saloon — that is, license it. The word license is from the word licet, which in the original is an impersonal verb meaning "it is permitted;" but brought over into the English tongue it becomes intensely personal and means "I permit it." And that is the meaning of a vote for license — "I permit it." What is it that we permit? The dram shop is authorized to do what?

3. The church may undertake to sanction the dram shop — that is, throw the cloak of ecclesiastical help and comfort over it. That is the last proposition which, in certain ecclesiastical quarters finds favor. It is incredible that so preposterous a thing should be seriously proposed. The saloon is totally bad; it has done evil and only evil all the days of its life.

4. There is but one other attitude which the church may assume, namely, it may antagonize the dram shop to the uttermost. War to the knife and the knife to the hilt! No quarter! There are thirty continuous miles of saloons in the City of New York, and every red light that streams from them marks an open mouth of hell. What can the church do but antagonize this thing? What shall ministers do but denounce it? If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, what shall the suffering people do? Let us befriend the drunkard and the drunkard's wife and children, and defend them from their foe. Let us not undertake to cleanse what has been proven in the nature of things to be essentially unclean. Let us not lay a blessings upon that which God has cursed. We must needs do our best and uttermost to rescue the dram-seller from the error of his way, to break the chains of the inebriate and set him free; to heal the wounds of the poor and helpless whom the drink horror has stricken down. But as to that unmitigated evil — the dram shop — we can offer naught but bitterest enmity. The vow of Cato, "Carthago delenda est," must be ours. No quarter to the dram shop! The thing must die, because it is accursed of God. — D. J. Burrell.