SATAN'S FORCES COMBINING.
By E. W. Carey
THE great intoxicating liquor companies are now effecting a union which will control the entire output of spirituous liquors of the United States. There are the Bourbon Whisky Co., The Kentucky Distillery Co., and The Wines and Spirits Manufacturing Co. The aggregate wealth of these combines is said to be about twelve billions of dollars ($12,000,000,000), a sum almost incredible, being much greater than that of all other trusts put together. The liquor traffic is one of Satan's great powers to hasten the world on to its terrible doom. The enemy of all righteousness is giving close attention to this branch of his work, and is succeeding in dragging millions away from the "hope of the Gospel" by this one great evil. A recent number of the Louisville News makes the startling statement that there is in that city alone, enough whisky to furnish each inhabitant of the United States with two-thirds of a gallon. And still the work goes on. Satan is determined that his arsenals shall be kept full of the deadliest, soul-killing weapons, and he will also see that there are plenty of agents to use them. His forces are directed against every home of every land on earth. Love, life, liberty, reason, property, prosperity, peace, are destroyed. Fathers are made fiends, wives made widows, children made orphans and left to grow up in ignorance, vice, and crime. How much wo there is in store for the world in these 50,000,000 of gallons found in this city! How many hopes dashed to the ground, hearts broken, brains gone wild, sons gone astray, wife-beatings and wife-murders are barreled up in these 1,063,829 barrels of whisky. And what shall we say of the millions elsewhere? We would that men might see what an enemy is being nourished in our land! O Christian, pray for power from above! While Satan is combining his forces, and intensity is taking hold of every earthly element, and power is springing up from beneath, then is just the time to "look up" and remember that "it is time to seek the Lord, till He come, and rain righteousness upon you." Pray that this flood of iniquity may be driven back by waves of righteousness. And let every individual who reads these lines see that the command of Eph. 5:18 is fulfilled in his case: "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit." E. W. CAREY.
Frankfort, Ky.