ffijotatmw. TWO MEMORABLE TEMPERANCE SPEECHES- J. GOV. JOHN tV. GEARY. On taking the chair as temporary presi dent of the State Temperance Convention at irarrisburgh, March sth, Governor Geary, said, — Ladies and Gentlemen of the Convention— . Fellow citizens-. —I rise, not for the purpose of addressing you at length cm. this occasion. I. will not insult the , distinguished, and bril liant minds around me, by attempting to ad dress you unprepared. But as you have seen proper to select me as your temporary pre siding officer/1 rise more to thank yOu than to make a speech. When I look irpon, this assemblage and contemplate its object, many thoughts -rush, upon my mind.'. I see here ministers of the Gospel, members of the legal profession, in tellectual men—tutors of the popular mind, from every section of the State, and I am happy to greet you. Shall we inquire why; you have come here? It has certainly been for no selfish object. Some noble impulse has doubtless guided yon, and I feel that our cause is a truly noble one 1 . ' You come hot with 1 arms or martial weapons. You come in time of peace, to set a grand example for the young men of, the country. You come in .the cause of temper ance. (Applause.) You do not propose to gain any object by forcible means, but to snatch our brethren from the dangers that surround them ( and that by reason and ex ample. , . ' . : Why, my friends, wo have just passed, through five years of war. Seven hundred thousand of our friends have laid down their lives, and hundredsbf thbusahds are maimed for. life. They met the foe in the field and conquered,him, and we now perceive a vast army engaged in another , warfare. , More than half a million,of our, fellow-countrymen are engaged in it, and the enemies they are fighting arc themselves. Now, we have come hereto-day to rescue them from so baleful a fight —to aid and essi'stthem against the fell destroyer, King Alcohol. (Applause.) When we see ,so many of our fellow citizens daily going down to a grave as ignoble as it is horrible, it is a.noble impulse which prompts us to rescue thbm from themselves. We are daily doing our duty to our maimed and crippled braves and devising plans for their maintenance and comfort, but. those gallant men wpuld gladly see their friends and protectors distributing a portion of their sympathies and attentions along the millions who are injuring their health, prospects and reputation by the excessive use of liquor- What is it that fills our asylums ? What is it that fills our prisons ? Our almshouses? Intemperance! Three-fourths -of the in . mates of our institutions for feeble-minded I children owe their sad Condition to inebriate parents, thus verifying the Divine sentence, saying that the sins of the father shall be visited upon the children. For my part, I do not deserve much credit for being a temperance man. I have been temperate from my youth up. (Applause.) In all my life I think I have never used, medicine or otherwise, a quart in all, of spi rituous liquors. (Cheers.) When a boy I saw the effects of drunkenness. At seven years 11 resolved that I never would be a drunkard; I and I nev(r have been one. I never ac- I quired an appetite for drinking; but I have i a-heart full of sympathy and compassion for' I those who do drink. I will tell you more: 1 Having passed ; thrpugh very exciting scenes and periods in ; my life, I have been able to go through an extended experience without even an appa rent necessity for an alcoholic stimulus. (Applause) Called to govern a large and wild district upon the Pacific coast, I found no necessity there for the use of ardent spirits. 1 passed through the war of Mexico and of tie Bebellion without it. I was no minated (and you will pardon me for this personal digression) to fill the gubernatorial chair of the Keystone State; but I did not, thank God! buy my nomination by giving men tljat which destroys the body and soul. (Cheeis.) Though the canvass was exciting it wasconduoted on temperance principles, strict vnd pure, and at my inauguration, I am happy to say no whiskey was used. (Cheers.) A new administration has just commmced, and I promise you that I can and will perform my duties without the use of intoxicating drink. (Cheers.) Lei us go forward, encouraging and pro tecting the weak, to break down the domi nation of strong drink in our State. We are encouraged by voices from the capital of the nation. To-day I have the glorious news to announce that Gen. Ulysses S. Grant is about to become a Son of Temperance. (Cheer upon cheer.) : With a full knowledge of the activity and usefulness of that Order, and observing so many of its representatives in my presence, I deem it a pleasure to tender to you a hearty welcome to this convention at the capital of our State, and to say to you, in the language of your beautiful ritual, “Bail Sons of Temperance, and be that name, thy Glory and thy Shield.” Let us go forward in the good cause. You have the Congress' of. the United States and the State administration with you Let all the people j6ih : ,i,h the, glad chorus of a redeemed Commonwealth and nation. Let our course be upward and onward, until all the people shall rejoice,, “the morning stars sing to gether, arid the sons of God shout with j oy . (Immense applause.) _ Bev Dr Torrence arose and said: I or the inauguration of 'a Governor of Pennsyl vania without the use of rum, I propose three hearty cheers. (Given with a will.) n. SENATOR YATES. • At bi. recent meeting of the Congressional Temperance Society, Senator Yates, of lIHt nois, said-,- ’ ~ “ Temperance is one of the sweetest and most delightful .things, upon earth; it is the THE AMERICAN PRESBYTERIAN, THURSDAY, MARCH 28, 1867. very spring-head of cheerfulness, happiness, and joy—the very chivalry of manhood itself. I have been a temperance man for fifteen days, and I am a gayer boy to-night than I have been for seventeen years. (Laughter.) I think I am the gayest man in .the Senate, except the compeer of-Olay and Crittenden —the able, indomitable and gallant old cava lier of Kentucky (Garrett DaviA) 1 I except you also, Mr. Chairman. (Laughter.) Tem perance gloomy ? Not a bit of it, Mr. Presi dent. My pledge shall be, a perpetual charm, ‘a thing of beauty which is a joy forever,' not a cloud of gloom, but an ever present rain bow of promise, hope and beauty. lam as proud of it as of my wife and children, and that is the strongest way I have to express my pride. (Applause.) I am as proud of it as .1 am of the commission which entitles me to hold the position of an American sen tor. By-the-by, Mr. Chairman, I will sub mit to you 1 the question. I rather think the commission and the temperance pledge ought to go together. (Applause.) What do you think of having ‘the teetotaller’ put into the iron-clad oath ? (Laughter.) ■ “You say, of what use is the pledge? I will tell you.-’ Twenty days ago there came along a friend of mine, a senator, and said, ‘Let. us take a drink.’, I sa,id, ‘Certainly, all right.’ Another friend from Illinois in about three minutes and a' half came along and said; ‘Let us take a drink.’ Said I ‘All right.’ It is this way. One drink of liquor is enough for me; two ain’t half enough (laughter;) three is only one-third'enough, and: four is chaos. . After I sighed , the pledge I was asked several times to ’fake a, drink, ; but I. didn’t do any such thing. (Laughter.) “After I signed this temperance pledge I wrote to a little lady put in Illinois, who weighs about a hundred pounds, has black hair and flashing black eyes, and 1 a form fairer than Grecian chisel "ever(woke from Parian marble,’ and I received the following answer: , > ■ “‘ My Dear Pi chard : How beautiful is this.morning;,how bright the sun shines; how sweetly our birds sing: how joyousthe children ; how happy is my heart' I see the smile of God. He has answered the prayer: Always proud of your success, .you have now achieved that success which God and angels ■will bless. It is the shining summit .of hu man aspiration, for' you have conquered yourself. All who love you will aid you td keep the pledge. I love you, my dear boy. “ ‘ Katie.’ ” ‘Love, the sun,, soul and centre of the moral uni verse ; ; Love, which links angel to angel, and God to man,; Love, which binds in one two loving" hearts; How beautiful is love/ (Applause.) ' ‘.‘As I look over .this audience, composed of senators , and representatives of this great nation, and these galleries blazing with' beauty and the (worth'of the city and so journers from all the States and territories, I ask myself why jthey are here ? Proud England, upon whose dominions the sun never sets, has but one queen; but, thank God, we have millions of queens, who ‘Shine in beauty like the night Of sunny climes and etarry skies.’ whose chains we feel, and yet we bless the silken Sceptre. You are here to give by your presence, encouragement to the con gressional temperance society, and'l pro pose, sir, that this society shall be the be ginning of societies throughout the land, and that we will push forward the temper ance column, move upon the enemy’s works and give him canister and Greek fife. (Ap plause.) We will .storm upon the citadel of intemperance until it shall crumble and tot ter, and fall to .the earth. (Applause.). Why do I refer to the ladies ? Because their ex atuple is mightier than the eloquence of a thousand senates, or the banners of a thou sand legions. “You are here to-night to see the snowy white flag of temperance as it is unfurled over the capital of your country, as it rises and rises, and unfolds to "God and spreads until there shall not •be a drunkard nor a moderate; drinker to take away the bloom from the cheek pf female beauty, and until all the hearth-stones pf this land shall blaze with comfort and joy, and' happiness and gladness shall dwell in green freshness there. (Tremendous applause.” A MORNING WITH DE, ALEXANDER. HIS VIEWS ON PREACHING. The last volume from the pen of Dr. James W. Alexander —“ Thoughts on Preaching”— lies before us as we write. His serene, benig nant face, engraved by Bitchie, looks down upon us from our study wall. It looks pre cisely as the dear Doctor looked, when seat ed in the chair of Bhetoric at Princeton, he used to say, “ Young gentleman, please to say something about Pericles.” We never can forget the last interview we ever had with that countenance. It was thin then, and sallow, already bearing .the premonitions of the grave. We met him in the exhibition room of the Heart of the Andes, surrounded by a half-dozen men, each of whom has “found himself famous.” Church was there him self, with his pale, eager, boyish face, look ing like just what he is, the enthusiastic child of nature. Before the glorious paint ing stood Huntington, ‘ Who has never yet surpassed his “Mercy’s Dream,” painted near twenty years ago. The.handsome face of Geo. William Curtis was turned towards the,landscape just in front of us; and two or three celebrities filled up the group. As Dr. Alexander gazed at the great snow mountain, he said to us—“ Does not that re call the view which we took of the Bernese Alps .from the valley of Interlachen ? How America, is, surpassing modern Europe in landscape art! I saw no painting by any living man abroad' that is comparable with this picture.” As we parted, his hand trembled violently from bodily weakness; in six weeks more that right, hand: had forgotten its cunning. He,had gone in to see, the King in his glory. Among the legacies which Doctor Alexan der leaves to the working Church, are these admirable “Thoughts on Preaching.’’ He had a special fondness for writing and chat ting on sermons and sermonizing. Oh no theme was his talk more racy and sugges tive. While he lived in Chambers street, New York, we spent a morning with him in his study; he rearranging his library and overhauling old letters, while we sat laugh ing and enjoying his riot, of mirth and re miniscence, surrounded by piles of books and manuscripts. The turning up of letters from such men as Summerfield, Kirk, Nevins and Breckenridge, set him upon pleasant sket ches of these “ men of renown; ” and in one of Summerfield’s letters occurred' the expression, “ I leave the selection of my language’till I get into the pulpit, for the best word always comes to me in the heat of the moment." Dr. Alexander then broke out into a diatribe against dull essay-reading in the pulpit. Taking up three or four huge pack ages of sermons, and pitching them over in to the corner, he said —“There goes the la bor, of my life; and now, after twenty years of experience, I candidly say that if I could live iny life over again, I never would take one of those manuscripts into the pulpit. I would try to take them into my head, and not on paper. We are sacrificing preaching to essay-reading. Yet I would haye thorough preparation, and then an unhampered deliv ery with great enthusiasm. My young Mend! aim at a high degree of passion, especially when you are preaching in doctrine. Argu ment made red-hot is what pleases people, and interests them. Argument admits of great vehemence and fire. No man can be a great preacher without great feeling. Aim At a high, holy enthusiasm. The old Greek tragedies used, to stir people up, and keep open the founts of rage and tears. Many ministers are enthusiastic about other things, such as art, poetry, authorship, or politics. Their week-day conversation is full of enter tainment, but their Sabbath sermpn .is like a sponge, froth which all the moisture is squeezed out. Live for your sermon; live in your sermon. Get some starling to cry sermon, sermon, sermon. The best discourses ; are the efflux of a man’s best thoughts and ■ feelings during the week. It is manifestly so with Melvill and Chalmers." : “ If-you would preach well, pray. Even aesthetically considered, one hour of prayer: is ; better preparation than a day of study. Keep your mind in. a glow. , Write when you are in a glow. Our young preachers have too uniform a method of frying all the unc tion out of a sermon over a lamp. Bead as much as you can,'but write your sermons with as total a forgetfulness of the language of books as possible.. lam growing,jealous of even looking at a book inter scribendum. The Bible is, after all, the one book' of the preacher.' Make the Bible your book of prayer; cut off all superfluous Studies, and come back to your Bible. Make Scripture the interpreter of Scripture. When I \vrito my best discourses I have nothing % me but my Bible and my Concordance.” These were golden words which fell from the good man’s lips that morning—inter-1 spersed with amusing personal sketches which delicacy forbids to the public eye. The glOry of the three Alexanders lay in this, that they were all intensely Bible preachers. We wish that our brilliant and aeloved brother of Plymouth Church could learn a lesson from them in this particular. Nearly all his pulpit faults —his excess of phrenological and of political preaching — his oft-repetitions of a foolish sneer at “doc trine as the stuffed skin of truth”—his pain ful lack of thorough exegesis, and of exposi tion of vital doctrine, —all could be cured by holding more of the Bible in solution. In knowledge of human nature, and in the power of stirring the human heart, :he .walks without a rival. A combination, of the.best qualities of James W. Alexander and of Henry Ward Beecher would have made the most glorious preacher of the age. But since the Creator saw fit to send them separately; and not in one propria persona, it is a pleas ant thought that the excellences of each may supplement the other, and the world be the richer for them both.— The Evangelist. SENATOR LOWRIE, OP ERIE’S, SPEECH ON THE SUNDAY OAR BILL. The speech of this Senator was a remarka-1 ble and somewhat eccentric performance. Without any connected argumentation it contained some of the severest and most telling hits that have been made on either side of the discussion. Some of them must have fallen with the suddenness and stunning effect of a thunder-clap on the ears of his antagonists. It was such a speech as cannot be easily reported. Yet fragmentary extracts such as we give below, will convey a fair idea of its character. “ I.will vote against this bill, because it is a side-blow at religion, a side-blow at the ministers of religion, a side-blow at the ob servance of religion, and a direct blow with the devil’s sledge hammer on the devil’s chisel, to cut out the letters written by the finger of God on the keystone of the Ten Commandments. ‘The constitution of hea ven, the organic law, for man’s government, the fundamental principles of. all truth, the code of the law of laws,’ shall not be erased by my vote; and I would be a coward and a dog did I place a sin individually upon the shoulders of an unthinking, unwashed, un godly mass in Philadelphia that I dare not as sume myself. The‘Unionpassengerrailroad company’ have gotten enough from this Leg islature. Six days in the week she blocks,up, by our votes, the highways upon earth, and now she comes here, demanding that we let them use the' debauched in a debauched city to block up the only strait and narrow path to heaven. Who is it that asks us to vote for this bill, which has in its loins wealth fora corporation and poverty for the peo ple ? Which are the most charitable to the poor—-those who.ask that this legislation be given them, or .those who.protest against it ? All general: rules, have their exceptions.. I speak for rule, not the exception. Are those who ask for this bill, as a rule, not scoffers ? Are they not legislative lobbyists ? Are they not infidels? Are they not the young men who desire to turn the Sabbath into a day of feasting, dancing and revelry? Are they not the red nosed rumsellers—the keepers of the very purlieus of vice ? Are they not those who love their beer better than their Bible, keepers of fast horses and fast women ? Will you tell me, Senators, that those who ask for the passage of this hill have a deep er sympathy for the poor, in whose name it is brought here, than the G-od who created them, and who gave his Son, horn of the poor and lowly, and who suffered the agony of the cross that they might be saved ? The place for the poor man, after his six days of labor, is not in the street cars, leading to the ball alley and the dance house, and freighted with the votaries of sin; hut on foot, and in the pure air of heaven, leading his little ones in the quiet of the Christian Sabbath to the Sabbath school and to his church, guided by the example and precept of his Saviour, visiting in mercy the house of the widow and the fatherless, and comforting the sick child's bedside. * * * Is the wisdom of those; who ask us to strike down the institution of the Sabbath greater than the wisdom of God, of Moses, of t Solomon, of Penn—greater than the wisdom of expe rience, the wisdom of the Christian world ? You have no more right, and it is fully as impolitic, to give the roughs of Philadelphia the right to repeal the observance of the fourth commandment, than you have to give them authority to chisel out, with rude hand, from Christ’s Rock all of the ten. The commandments of God are “ distinct as the waves and one as the sea.” Strike down the fourth commandment, and the whole deca logue will fall. * * * The ten command ments are the common law of the country, recognized as such by the highest judicial authority of the nation, and the fourth com mandment, that closed the first tablet of the law, was re-written by Penn as an indispen sible necessity to man, and whose legality, I believe, has never been seriously question ed by any one except the Union passenger railway company, The bill has passed the other branch of this Legislature, and I now appeal to the country members of the Senate to turn back the-wrong which the members from Phila delphia propose to heap upon the fair name of this body, and the moral and social sui cide to which they are hurrying the people of that great city. The Senators from Philadelphia may point to this deacon and that clergyman, with a slipshod conscience or a badly located church, and tell us that they are in favor of this bill. Away with such dissemblers, who, on such a plea, sup port a measure that compels the Christian people-of that city to surrender their Sab bath for the benefit of brothel-keepers. Had the devil asked us respectfully for one day in seven of his own, and that not the Lord’s day, I would have taken his petition into respectful consideration. Mephistophe les says he has become pious; but, old hyp ocrite, I will tear your veil from your face and your disguise from your body. The devil has cut his hair and shaved his face, and comes into the Senate Chamber and says that he is a Christian of great respec tability, and coolly proposes to enter into this partnership with the Lord for purely Christian and benevolent purposes —the whole profit of which is to go into the pock ets of a corporation, with the Senator from Philadelphia for its treasurer. Senators! you cannot get rid of your ojvn moral re sponsibility by handing over in chains the good element of a great cityHo the bad ele i ments of violence and crime. Let us not ’ shift our own religious responsibility to the shoulders of unbelief. If we believe we shall meet beyond the tomb, do not let those who have fallen, through their crime, shout into ■ our, ears, “you did it.” A GENTS WANTED TOR GREELEY’S History Complete, Ex- A tkaokdinart Opportunity I Unparalleled Success! ! 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