THE MOTHER'S MISTAKE.
ALF a dozen little children brimful of life and frolic, a delicate wailing infant, an indolent maid of all work, and a careworn anxious mother, wearied with sleepless nights and the burden of domestic cares!
"Poor thing! no wonder you look exhausted!" said a friend who had called, and was listening with a sympathetic ear to the story of a woman's fretting cares and heavy responsibilities.
"I wouldn't mind if only my health were vigorous, and I had physical strength to face life bravely," sighed Mrs. Stewart in reply.
"Do let me beg you to take all the care of yourself that you can. You must think not only of the present, but of the future, for these little ones who need such unceasing toil now will want your loving thought and oversight for many years to come; and for their sake, and your husband's, it is your bounden duty to stimulate your flagging energies and strengthen your system to meet the constant demand upon it," was the response.
"How can I?" despairingly asked Mrs. Stewart; "you see baby, poor little fellow, fills my arms night and day, and seldom gives me a chance of taking proper rest."
"I know of only one way in which, overtaxed as you are, you can prevent yourself from breaking down under such pressure, and that is, by taking stimulants in one form or another. When you feel nervous and depressed, don't hesitate to take a glass of wine, and before commencing your dinner and supper take a little malt liquor to give you an appetite, for after attending to the children's wants I am sure you must feel disinclined to eat anything yourself."
"Yes, I am often unable to eat a mouthful of solid food; but thanks for your advice; I will try what a little stimulant will do for me."
So Mrs. Stewart commenced the daily use of alcoholic stimulants, and finding their effects to be beneficial to body and mind, and knowing little or nothing of the subtle danger that lurked in the poisoned cup, each domestic emergency that arose was ere long met in the fictitious strength afforded by the ready stimulant.
Years passed away, and the children, whose ceaseless demands upon their mother's patience and love had well-nigh exhausted her strength, grew into girlhood and boyhood.
One morning the family was seated at the breakfast table when the servant brought in a letter enclosing a bill with the familiar signature of a well-known firm of brewers. The husband's brows knitted as he glanced down the items.
"It seems to me, Eliza, that we use too much ale and wine for a private family. Why, we consume more and more, and I only take the same quantity that I did years ago. It's more than I can stand!" he said, looking across at his wife, who was listlessly sitting at the head of the table with her coffee untasted before her. She answered sharply:
"I can't help it, John; I shouldn't take it if I didn't need it, and you might know that nothing else has kept me alive for many a year."
"I don't complain of stimulant in moderation, my dear; but I cannot believe that an extensive use of alcohol can benefit a delicate constitution," replied Mr. Stewart. His wife was not inclined to let the matter drop.
"You seem to forget that the children take their glass of ale too, and that makes some difference in the amount we use."
"Well, I object to strong, healthy boys and girls touching stimulants; it is expensive and quite unneedful."
"But, papa, we like it so much; you mustn't stop our supplies," cried several youthful voices.
"I must, and I will, my dears; you have not your mother's plea of ill-health to urge, and from this time I shall not expect you to take alcohol as a daily beverage. I have no objection to lemonade or some other non-intoxicant taking its place, for that will be much less expensive, and besides, I have lately come to the conclusion that young people, at least, are likely to be harmed by the stimulus of ale or wine."
"You are very absurd, John. What harm could come to our boys and girls by taking half a glass of ale at dinner and sometimes at supper?" testily asked Mrs. Stewart.
"Why, Eliza, you know that a taste formed in childhood is held with greater tenacity than any other, and this taste for stimulant, which I am sorry to see the children possess, may not always permit them to remain satisfied with a glass or so daily; for, I was reading not long ago, that the tendency of alcohol is to create a morbid craving which may become that insatiable thirst for drink which has ruined thousands of men and women who were once children as promising as those who sit round our table. I wish I had been as wise years ago; they should never have known the taste of it." So saying, Mr. Stewart left the table.
A chorus of voices was raised as the door closed.
"It's too bad!" "A great shame!" "Lemonade, indeed!" and other exclamations were uttered expressing disapproval of the father's action. Mrs. Stewart had not been careful of late years to uphold her husband's authority in the household, and the unfilial remarks passed without rebuke, she merely adding: "You'll have to mind what your father says, you know, or we shall all get into trouble."
A few hours after, when the elder children were at school, the youngest, a bright boy of seven, came to her side and said: "Shall I get your wine, mamma?"
"You are mamma's dear boy to remember her lunch time. Yes, bring it out, though it is quite early."
The wine was brought, and one glass, and then another, and yet another was drained; the little fellow meanwhile standing by. Catching sight of his wistful looks, the mother said: "Come, and have a sip, Bertie."
"Papa says I mustn't," faltered Bertie, but drawing a step nearer. Lost to all sense of duty to husband or child, Mrs. Stewart answered:
"Come, and drink, I tell you; didn't your father say you were not to have any at dinner, and this is lunch?"
She poured out a full glass, which the child drank without further demur. He was shortly asleep on the sofa, waking at dinner-time in fretful mood, and turning impatiently from his food.
"You mustn't have it, Bertie," said his eldest sister; "we all have to do without it now, thanks to papa's whimsical notions."
"Wait till you're a man, Bertie, and you can drink as much as you please, as I mean to," remarked his fourteen-year-old brother with a contracted brow, and a longing glance towards his mother's glass; while she, poor deluded woman, looked on, languidly smiling, with never a thought of the possible future of these children for whom she had suffered and toiled. Many a time, when scarcely conscious of her own actions, did she encourage them to partake with her in secret of that which was banished from the table. It was only by the awful but timely discovery of their mother's degradation that the children were prevented from following in her steps.
A few months later, upon entering the house at the close of the day, the father was met by his eldest daughter, a girl of seventeen, who, with dismay on her face, exclaimed: "Oh, papa, do come upstairs, and see what is the matter with poor mamma. She has been sleeping heavily for hours, and when I have tried to disturb her, she has spoken quite wildly, and then gone to sleep again. A dreadful thought has just occurred to me that perhaps she has taken poison." Mr. Stewart anxiously followed his daughter to the room where his wife was lying on the bed. He bent over her. Her unnatural appearance, and the strong smell of liquor which proceeded from her parted lips, told the tale; and the truth, horrible and ghastly, stood revealed to the husband.
"Papa, tell me the truth; is it poison?" asked his daughter, as Mr. Stewart staggered to a seat. He hesitated a moment, then hoarsely said:
"It is poison of the worst kind, my poor child! Your mother is intoxicated. Oh, what shall we do? How can we save her?" One brief moment of horror, and then, subduing all outward manifestation of her agony, the girl said:
"Papa, we must put the temptation out of her way. We must all of us do without a luxury which has brought about such a terrible result."
So from the house there was banished from that time the alcoholic beverages which had been deemed necessary; but, alas! too late to save the wife and mother from rapidly drifting into confirmed habits of drunkenness. All the schemes that love could devise proved powerless to prevent the mistaken woman from continued indulgence in the fatal cup.
The apparent need for constant recourse to stimulants had long since passed away, but the habit of past years had wrought deadly mischief, not alone in gradually weakening the power of self-control, but in creating that morbid craving for alcohol which leaves its deluded victim no alternative but to obey its behests. She had seen no harm in what had become an essential of life to her, until she found herself bound in its toils. True, she did not yield to its slavery without many a struggle, but temptation was overpowering, and finally she succumbed to what she declared was inevitable. She had forgotten the only remedy available in such need as hers. No cry from her despairing heart had risen to heaven; the strength she lacked had not been sought from Him Who only can save from the thraldom of sin, and so, with the stain of uncancelled guilt upon her conscience, she hastened to an untimely end.
As she lay dying with mind weakened by long excess, they sought in vain for some sign of penitence, for some words to assure their sad hearts that the darkness of approaching dissolution was gilded by hues of hope and trust in the forgiving mercy of God through Christ. Day after day the sufferer's lips were sealed in an obstinate silence that struck dismay into the hearts of the watchers. She was dying without hope it seemed; but the prayer of faithful friends rose that the intercession of the Great High Priest might be made, and prove effectual for His wandering child.
Still the shadows deepened until it became evident that the mother's hours were numbered.
"I will watch beside her now, my dears," said the husband, dismissing his children for a brief period. Taking his seat beside the motionless form, he sent up a petition for help. Then, stooping over his wife, he said: "Eliza, dear, would you not like me to pray for you?"
The dying woman opened her eyes and faintly whispered: "No."
"Shall I send for a minister to come and pray with you, then, dear?"
Mrs. Stewart roused herself with a great effort, and with energy exclaimed: "No, He has prayed for me, and that is enough." They were her last words. Before the next morning she had passed away, leaving to husband and children the faint comfort of her dying testimony: "He has prayed for me."
Say, gentle reader, whether being assured of the thousand parallel cases which exist in this civilised land of ours, you will dare to place temptation in the way of your sister, by advocating the use of alcohol as the necessary stimulant which alone can nerve the failing heart and brain to meet the exigencies of her daily life, thus placing before her unwary feet the stumbling-block over which she may fall never to rise? It may be that you who proffer the well-meaning advice are moderate in the use of your own alcoholic luxuries, and cannot understand the mysterious attraction they may hold for another; yet, surely to you is uttered the divine warning: "Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him." And you, sister, plying your household tasks with an aching head, amidst the ceaseless prattle of the little ones who call you mother, striving patiently to perform your God-given duties, yet fainting under the burden and heat of the day, beware, oh, beware, of seeking relief from the tension of nerve and brain, which is a woman's allotted portion, by deadening the finely strung susceptibilities of your nature by indulgence in any of the various forms which alcohol assumes, or under which it would hide. Beware how you seek its false stimulus to enable you to cope with the almost superhuman duties devolving upon you! Patience and strength to endure will be given in God's appointed way; but be assured you will never find it in that which is responsible for myriads of ruined homes and blighted lives.
