Proverbs 23:29-35 Who has woe? who has sorrow? who has contentions? who has babbling? who has wounds without cause? who has redness of eyes?… Is it not Shakespeare himself who says, by the mouth of the disgraced and ruined Cassio, "O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee Devil"? What does drink cost in human misery? Ah, how can I tell you? Can I count the leaves of the forest, or the sands upon the shore? And the sounds of this misery are like the sighing of the leaves of illimitable forests, and the plashing on the shores of unfathomable seas. For it is the horrible fact that the drink which we, as a nation, are drinking, not from the necessities of thirst, but from the mere luxuries of appetite — drink often adulterated with the vilest and most maddening ingredients — yes, this rubied and Circean cup which we sip, and smile while it is converting thousands of our brethren into swine — this subtle, serpentine, insidious thing which we cherish in our bosoms, and laugh and play with its brightness, while it is stinging thousands of our brothers into raging madness — costs us millions of money, myriads of criminals, thousands of paupers, thousands of ruined women, hundreds and thousands of men and women goaded by misery, into suicide and madness, with every blossom in what might have been the garland of their lives blighted as by a fury's breath. (Dean Farrar.) Parallel Verses KJV: Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? |
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