Part 3 (1/2)

My first lecture--A cold and disagreeable evening--A fair audience--My success--Lecture at Fairview--The people turn out enbefore the audience--Hesitation--I go on the stage and aht--I throw off in to speak, and soon warm to my subject--I make a lecture tour--Four hundred and seventy lectures in Indiana--Attitude of the press--The aid of the good--Opposition and falsehood--Unkind criticisers--Ten months of sobriety--My fall--Atteerous wound on myself--Ask the sheriff to lock n of '74--”Local option”

I delivered raceful debauches andannounced for my lecture was unpropitious Late in the afternoon a cold, disagreeable rain set in, and lasted until after dark The roads were muddy, and in places nearly i the hall, or school house, or church in which I was to speak, to find reeably disappointed; for while the house was by no h had turned out en masse, men, women and children I suppose they were curious to hear what I had to say, and they heard it if I aan to speak--more so than I have ever been since, even when in the presence of thousands I did the best I could, and the audience expressed very general satisfaction I think some of my statements astounded them a trifle, but they soon recovered and listened with profound and respectful attention My next appointh, I had often been seen during soh, the people came out in force to hear me I improved on my first lecture, I think, and felt emboldened to make a more ambitious effort I settled on Rushville as the next e men in the town of the class that never used liquor, but who had always sye to the ministers of the different churches, and had the Luther Benson, ”the reformed drunkard,” would lecture in the Court House I was nervous from the want ofbefore an audience before whose members I had so many times covered myself with shame, and in whose Court House--the very place in which I was to speak--I had been several times indicted for violations of the law, al on what course to take, whether to go before the audience or go ho cae, which had been extemporized forthe rooreeted with applause, but instead of reassuring htened me almost out ofup my mind to die, if necessary, on the spot, or succeed, I hastily threw off my father's old and threadbare overcoat (I had none of my own) and stood forth in a full dress coat, which showed an ot my embarrassment and talked with ease and volubility I did not fail, in proof of which I have only to add that on the following day I th of my lecture, he went my security for a respectable coat and pair of boots

Fro in Dublin, Connersville, Cahtstown, Newcastle, and other places By degrees I widened the field of my lectures until it embraced the whole of Indiana and parts of many other States In a little more than three years I have spoken publicly four hundred and seventy times in Indiana alone Froenerously supported by the press

There have been exceptions in the case of a few papers, but they were only the exceptions Since ood people have aided ht opposition and falsehood I have been accused of being drunk when I was sober, and outrageous falsehoods have been told about ot fairly started to lecture I had always one object paramount, and that was to save myself from the drunkard's terrible fate and dooratulatethat I had opened their eyes, and that from that day forward they would drink no more liquor Mothers, wives, and sisters, who had sons, husbands, and brothers that indulged in the fatal habit, caood I had done the additional motive to lecture and save others And here I wish to say that er (and all are in danger who touch liquor in any form) of the curse, have been the cause of much unkind criticism People have said: ”O, well, we don't believe Benson is in earnest He don't see hiht sort of coe ofto know if there was any escape fro the lecture field I have paid out in actual money over a thousand dollars to aid men and families in trouble caused by the use of liquor I have the first one yet to turn ahen I had anything to give I have more than once robbed myself to aid others Oftentimes my labor and money have been throay, but I have the satisfaction of knowing that I did my duty In some cases, thank heaven! I have cause to know that my efforts were not in rain

For ten an to lecture, I averaged one lecture a day I lived on the work and its excite it take, as far as possible, the place of alcohol I learned too late that this was the very worst thing I could have done I was all the tith I so much needed for the restoration of ht ed a continued, never-ceasing, never-ending battle, hat earnestness and desire to conquer the God to whom I so fervently prayed all that tiony of ht after night, and I would rise fro ht rest The horror of such dreams can be known only to those who have experienced them The shock to my nervous system from a sudden and co drinks was of itself a fearful thing to encounter I was often so nervous that, for nights at a tiot little or no sleep The least noise would cause me to tremble with fear I suffered all the while h the same hell The s and an abiding sense of ainst ely--ain: ”I believe he uses opium” These assertions may have been honestly made, but they were none the less utterly false If people could only know just how loo to resist the accursed appetite which is destroying hio to him, as I have had men, and even women, come to me (I say ”men and women,” but they were neither men nor women, but libels on men and women), and say that this or that person had said that that or this person had heard some other person tell another person that he, she, or it believed that I, Luther Benson, had been drinking on such and such an occasion; or that some one told Mr B, who told Miss XT that JB had said to Madam Z that such and such a one had actually told TY that OMU had seen three men who had heard of four other men who said they could find tomen who had overheard a man say that he had seen a man who had seenwhich he felt pretty sure was Robinson county whisky Therefore B was drunk!

These things had the effect on me that this account will probably have on the reader--they annoyed ly at times At ti me many sleepless hours At the end of tenwhich I never tasted any stile and determined effort--I fell

Alas, that I am coth; ave way, andfire aboutat Charlottsville, Henry county, and went fro On the following Monday I went to Indianapolis drunk, and there got ”dead drunk” My friends in Rushville, hearing of my misfortune, came after me and took me with them to that place, where I remained utterly oblivious until the next Sunday, when, by soot on an early train that was passing through Rushville, and went as far as Colu a quart of liquor Between the hour of ht I drank three bottles of whisky

That night I returned to Rushville, and whilemy throat Well for ular artery The wound self-inflicted was an ugly but not dangerous one I kept on drinking for a week or more, until I found that it was utterly out ofas I re whisky I finally went to the sheriff and asked him to lock me up in jail, which I finally persuaded hiet more liquor I remained there until the fierce fires of my appetite smouldered once more, and then I was released I lay in bed sick several days at this time, sick inleft I had descended to the lowest depths I was forever ruined and undone Many who had said that I would not or could not stop drinking seehted over my terrible misfortune The smile hich they would say, ”I told you so!” was devilish and fiendish But athered about ht rise again Well and truly did a great English poet, Cas eternal in the huive up, I would fight my tireless enemy while a breath of life or an ato

It was now July, 1874 An exciting political ca off, the main issue was ”local option” I took the side and became an advocate of local option, and until the election in October, averaged one speech per day, frequently traveling all night in order to n broke ain yielded, after a prolonged and desperate struggle, to the powers of my sleepless and tireless adversary So terrible were the consequences of this fall that in the hope of preventing others fro in the ruinous habit which led to it, I wrote out and published a full account of it under the title of ”Luther Benson's Struggle for Life” Inasmuch as this book will be incomplete without it, I will embody that brochure in the next chapter, so that those who have never read it le for life--A cry of warning--”Why don't you quit?”--Solitude, separation, banishment--No quarter asked--The rumseller--A risk no man should incur--The woman's temperance convention at Indianapolis--At Richist--”Death and damnation”--At the Galt House--The three distinct properties of alcohol--Ten days in Cincinnati--The delirius--The stick that turned to a serpent--A world of devils--Flying in dread--I go to Connersville, Indiana--My condition groorse--hell, horrors, and torhts of a drunkard's madness

Depraved and wretched is he who has practiced vice so long that he curses it while he yet clings to it; who pursues it because he feels a terrible power driving hinaw his heart, and make him roll himself in the dust Thus it has been, and thus it is, with one over me But out of their awful, black depths, could I be heard, I would cry out to all who have just set a foot in the perilous flood For I am not one of those who, if they the of all others, would drag or even persuade one other soul to acco about me, and as I try to brave and buffet theasping and throwing up my hand for the last time, it would not be to clutch, but, if possible, to push back to safety Could the youth who has just begun to taste wine, and the youngscenes of a visionary life, or the entering into solory burst upon his vision--but see the end of all that, and what co into my desolation, and beit is for aover a precipice with his eyes wide open, with a will that has lost power to prevent it; could he see my hot, fevered cheeks, bloodshot eyes, bloated face, swollen fingers, bruised and wounded body; could he feel the body of the death out of which I cry hourly, with feebler and feebler outcry, to be delivered; could he kno a constant wail cos and pleads with a great agony to be delivered froo ho le moment what I am compelled to live, and battle, and endure day in, and day out, until the days drag themselves into weeks that see all the ti death, and cares, pleasures, and joys, all gone, yet compelled to endure and live, or rather die, on; could every young s as I am compelled to feel and bear theh to make the da te es which mankind, if they reflected upon theuilt In every human countenance I feared to find an eneilance of human eyes I dared not open my heart to the best affections of our nature, for a drunkard is supposed to have no love I was shut up within my own desolation--a deserted, solitary wretch in the midst of my species I dared not look for the consolation of friendshi+p, for a drunkard is always the subject of suspicion and distrust, and is not supposed to be possessed of those finer feelings that findthe delicious gifts of confidential sympathy, I was compelled to shrink back and listen to the horrid words, You are a drunkard--words the very ht of which has ten thousand tiasp and pant for breath Thus it was at the very opening of life, and thus it ever has been, and thus it is to-day I have struggled, and with strea eyes tried to wrench the chains froles led to no termination Ters, but makes my case more desperate For there is no rest for me Whithersoever I re ene, unrelenting tyrant! Is it coula swayed the Ro to offend the bloody rulers The Empire had already spread itself from climate to climate, and fro of the sun, where the luminary of day seems to us first to ascend from the waves of the ocean, the power of the tyrant was still behind him; if he withdrew to the west, to Hesperian darkness and the shores of barbarian Thule, still he was not safe froore-drenched foe Rum! Whisky! Alcohol! Fiend! Monster!

Devil! Art thou the offspring in whom the lineaments of these tyrants are faithfully preserved? Was the world, with all its cli victis no return of day Day after day rolls on, and my state is immutable Existence is to uish, with a tre a severer fate We talk of the instru existence of a man that is in the iron clutches of a monster that has neither eyes, nor ears, nor bowels of compassion; a venomous enemy that can never be turned into a friend; a silent, sleepless foe, that shuts out froht of day, and makes its victim the associate of those whom society has marked for her abhorrence; a slave loaded with fetters that no power can break; cut off froh hopes so often conceived; froine No language can do justice to the indignant and soul-sickening loathing that these ideas excite A thousand tied for death, and wished, with an expressible ardor, for an end to what I suffered A thousand times I have meditated suicide, and ru from my load of existence A thousand times in wretched bitterness I have asked myself, What have I to do with life? I have seen and felt enough to ering process of an unfeeling tyrant that is slowly tearing me to pieces, and not dare sodecrees? Still, soestion withheldwith desperate fondness to this shadow of existence, its mysterious attractions, and its hopeless prospects--appetite, fiendish thirst, a burning, ever-crying deive his body and soul as a sacrifice to whoever will satisfy his is Let this appetite entwine itself about a man, let it throw its iron arms about his bruised body, and he will curse the day he was born But some one says, Why don't you quit? Just don't drink! In answer I would say, O God, give me poverty, shower upon me all the hardshi+ps of life, turn ain the victim of rum Suffer me to call life and the pursuit of lifeto hold theer of beasts, or the revenge of cold-blooded men All of these, rather than the poison of the accursed cup

Solitude! separation! banishs; but few men except myself have been per The pride of philosophy has taught us to treatHe holds, necessarily, indispensably, a relation to his species He is like those twin births that have two heads and four hands, but if you attempt to detach them from each other, they are inevitably subjected to adestruction If a ions of the daet himself in that condition that he is alone with an enemy while he is surrounded by society and his friends--an enemy that is like what has been described as the eye of O a ray that awakens him to a new sensibility at the very moment that otherwise exhausted nature would lull him into a temporary oblivion of the reproaches of his conscience No walls can hide me from the discernment of my hated foe Everywhere his industry in unwearied, to create for me new distress Never can I count upon an instant of security; never can I wrap myself in the shroud of oblivion The minutes in which I do not actually perceive and feel my destroyer are contaminated and blasted with the certain expectation of speedy interference Thus it has been, and thus it is to-day, and with every returning day

Tyrants have trembled, surrounded by whole armies of their janizaries

Alcohol--venomous serpent! robber and reviler!--what should make thee inaccessible to my fury? I will unfold a tale! I will show thee to the world for what thou art, and all the men that read shall confess my truth! Whisky--abhorrer of nature, the curse of the human species!--the earth can only be freed from an insupportable burden by thy extermination!

Rum--poisoner! destroyer! that spits venoround infected with slime! Accursed poison-ether passive; ano eer in inflicting on reat; miseries, however direful? Do you believeto contrive y to perpetrate it? I will tell the end of thy infernal works The country, in justice, shall hear ht glow, and burn, and drop like ht wipe you from the face of the earth, or persuade mankind to turn away and starve you to death Think you that I would regret the ruin that had overwhel

Whisky, whisky sellers and whisky makers, traffickers and dealers in tears, blood, sin, shame, and woe!--ten thousand times you have dipped your bloody talons in my blood There is no evil you have scrupled to accumulate upon me! Neither will I be more scrupulous You have shown me no mercy, and you shall receive none

Let us look at the rumseller, that we may knohat manner of man he is, and then ask if he deserves the pity, sympathy, or respect of society, or any part of it Viewed considerately, in the light of their respective motives, the drunkard is an innocent and honorable man in comparison with the retailer of drinks The one yields under the impulse--it may be the torture--of appetite; the other is a cool,on the frailties and vices of others He is a ain what he knows to be worthless and pernicious; good for none, dangerous for all, and deadly to many He has looked in the face the sure consequences of his course, and if he can but ain of it, is prepared to corrupt the souls, embitter the lives, and blast the prosperity of an indefinite nu of his poisons he sees that with terrible certainty, along with the havoc of health, lives, ho afloat a certain vast amount of property, and that as it is thrown to the winds, sorasp He knows that if men remain virtuous and thrifty, if these homes around him continue peaceful and joyous, his craft can not prosper The injured old mothers, the wives, and the sisters are found where ru from hut and hovel, and lift their childish hands in supplication, asking at the hands of the guilty whisky sellers for those who rocked their cradles, and fed and loved them

The murderer, now sober and crushed, lifts his es his ruin upon the men who crazed his brain with rum The felon comes from his prison tomb, the pauper from his dark retreat, where the ru's rest and a pauper's grave Froraves the sheeted dead stalk forth, and with eyeless sockets and bared teeth, grin hastly scorn at their destroyers The lost float up in shadowy for away, and God, upon his throne, looks in anger, and hurls a woe upon the hand which ”putteth a bottle to his neighbor's lips to make him drunken” To balance all this fearful array ofdirectly fro but the plea that appetite has been gratified

There are profits, to be sure Death finds it the most liberal purveyor for his horrid banquet, and hell fro profits of the trade; and the seller also gets gain Death, hell, and the rumseller--beyond this partnershi+p none are profited Go and shake their bloody hands, you ill! The time will be when deep down in hell these miserable, blood-stained wretches will pant for one drop of water, and curse the day and hour that they ever sold one drop of liquor

The experience of ages proves that the use of intoxicating agents invariably tends to engender a burning appetite for es in the a passionate and rabid thirst for them, which shall ulti hi, to his ruin No man can put himself under the influence of alcoholic sti the risk of this result It may not be perceptible at once It may be interrupted, and while the bonds are yet feeble he o forward, the exciteht physical effect will be produced; a headlong and almost delirious appetite, of the nature of a physical necessity, will have seized the whole man as with iron arms, and crushed from his heart the power of self-control