C. F. Wimberly

THE DEVIL’S HANDMAIDEN

“Be not drunk on wine wherein is excess, but be ye filled with the Spirit.”—Ephesians v. 18.

“No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God.”—1 Corinthians vi. 10.

The fallen Lucifer knew from the beginning that his work must necessarily be in competition with the Son of God; therefore he has invested his genius to originate a duplicate for all that Christ has done for us. Knowing that the letter killeth, but the spirit maketh alive, he seeks to furnish all the appearances, and as far as possible duplicate experiences: Reformation without repentance; conviction without conversion; conversion without regeneration; membership without adoption; baptism with water without the baptism of the Holy Ghost; physical and emotional pleasure without the “joy of salvation.”

The prophet Isaiah exhorts the people to say: “Praise the Lord,” and, “with joy draw water out of the wells of salvation,” and, “Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, etc.” The Psalmist, also, gives out a continuous stream of joyous praise. In all ages people have at sundry times and places shouted out the joy of the Lord. This emotional expression is by no means the only test of experimental salvation, as nothing honours God so much as simple, unemotional faith; but there are times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. This contrast of emotional experience we wish to examine.

We must keep in mind the bitter rivalry between the Prince of light, and the Prince of darkness. The heart of a contest of this character is the expulsive power of the one over against the other. Satan studies assiduously every experience, every angle of advancement of Christ’s kingdom, and proceeds to furnish a duplicate. He knows that the followers of Jesus often rejoice with a fullness of joy—unspeakable, as it were; to meet this, he soon discovered that the exhilaration of drunkenness produced a splendid expulsive power. He proposes and promises his followers all the joys furnished by his rival; however pleasant they are always shams, and “at last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder.”

A beverage that would produce drunkenness has been a curse from the earliest history. We call attention to two events, each one of which was so great that it left a blight sufficient to turn the course of human history into darker and bloodier channels. The first followed closely upon the remarkable deliverance from the Flood. The Ark had settled; life began its routine, fresh from the awful calamity. Noah built an altar and worshipped God; but before the perfume of the holy incense evaporated, that faithful servant of the Most High became beastly drunk, and his son Ham looked upon his nakedness and shame. The children of Ham must carry the curse until the end. The other followed closely upon a deliverance from fire. Lot was a citizen of Sodom, but he had not defiled himself; the iniquity of the place came up before God, and He destroyed it; not, however, until His angel led this righteous man to a place of safety. Through the entreaties of his designing daughters, as they were resting in the mountains, Lot became intoxicated unto idiocy. We must draw a veil over the shameful scene that occurred during his debauch; but the tribes of Moab and Ammon, war-like savages of the desert unto this day, was the terrible resultant. They are the incorrigible followers of the Crescent rather than the Cross.

Wherever drunkenness has touched humanity it has blighted and withered like a Sirocco from Sahara. No one but a fallen archangel could have invented such a beverage. Yet the character of liquors used by the race in its infancy for carnival pleasures, compared with the output of the modern distillery and brewery, are as moonshine to the blistering heat of the summer sun. Satan profits by experience; he has not been idle during the centuries. Solomon warned against “looking upon the wine when it was red, and turneth itself in the cup”—fermentation. If fermented grape juice should, at that time, bring forth such an inspired warning, what language would be necessary to depict the character of the low grade, adulterated fire-water sold in the saloons and dives of America and Europe?

The true spirit and character of liquor cannot be understood if viewed as a stimulating beverage, satisfying and inflaming human passions. Its Author soon discovered that such an unmixed evil must answer at the bar of an outraged individual and public conscience. He saw that if liquor succeeded in all he had planned, it must send its roots deeper down than taste and appetite. Hence this handmaiden of the Devil has now become one of the most gigantic trusts on earth, blooming out into commercial, political, and industrial proportions. The whole business lives and moves and has its being on misery and bloodshed on one side of the counter; loot and plunder, coupled with an insane lust for gold, on the other side of the counter.

It has not one redeeming feature; but so carefully has it sheltered itself by a devil-fish organization that it stands like a Gibraltar. It has become so great that the actual investments in the business aggregate billions; an army larger than the combined forces, North and South, at any one time during the Civil War are being supported; over one hundred millions go annually into the national exchequer. China has been called a sleeping giant; woe to the nations once she is awakened. In the liquor traffic we have a giant that never sleeps. Twenty-four hours each day—like Giant Despair—he enslaves and imprisons the multitudes. So tremendous has this organization grown that its work does not stop with social demoralization, but with little difficulty can dictate governmental policies, throttle legislation, and bribe juries.

Again, we cannot judge or estimate the liquor traffic until we follow it down through its labyrinth of social, financial, and moral declension. Not until we see it face to face, glaring and defiant, in the haunts where finished products are on exhibition. The “Scarlet Annex,” temples of lust, and the White Slaver’s headquarters are united in the place where labour troubles are hatched, mob violence gathers fuel, and feud hatred is crystallized into bloodshed. Where gamblers, thugs, yeggmen, murderers, anarchists, jail-birds, and burglars hold high carnival. We must see the bloated faces, the bleeding Magdalenas, human beasts, and wife beaters, as they wallow in filth and obscenity, before the perspective is correct.

The inauguration of liquor as a duplicate for God’s greatest manifestation of Himself—the infilling of the Holy Spirit—was a master stroke. In a wild, reckless debauch it supplements man’s every need and hunger. In the crazed brain there is a vision of wealth, power, revenge, joy. The drunkard is clay in the liquor-demon’s hand; if a coward, liquor makes him bold; if sympathetic, liquor deadens his heart; if honest, liquor makes him a thief; if a loving father or son, liquor makes him a brute. Behold the Handmaiden of the Devil—King Alcohol: the most efficient ally of the “angel of the bottomless pit.”