Intemperance.
By Miss Ada A. Newton.
Intemperance is a fatal evil. What are felons, murderers and thieves but men who began drinking but moderately, just for fashion or to see how it tasted? From drinking moderately they go on taking a little more each time, until finally they become confirmed drunkards. How common it is to hear a wife say, Ah! He was a good husband before he began drinking. There was nothing he thought too good for me. How we pity the drunkard’s wife and children! The little ones are made to suffer for the doings of their father, for God says that “the iniquities of the fathers are visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation, while His mercy is shown unto thousands that love Him and keep His commandments.” How careful, then, should all be to guard against this evil. The cup that has the glow of ruby at last biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder.
Let us give an illustration that all may see the course of this sin. Here is a rich man who has a son; he indulges him beyond measure; he teaches him in youth to drink wine. At first he makes a wry face and tells his father that he does not like it and cannot drink it. His father scorns and ridicules the idea, and tells him that unless he drinks some he will never become a man. So the little fellow drinks because it is his father’s desire and not his own. He soon acquires a thirst for the poisonous cup, and when he comes to manhood’s estate he drinks often and freely. At last he drinks too much and becomes intoxicated—yes, intoxicated! This is his first step to ruin; the habit has been formed. His father is now much mortified. He threatens to disinherit him if he does not stop drinking, but it is too late. The father has laid the foundation and the son has built on it, and neither of them is now able to undo what has been done and fixed into a habit. His mother begs him to never again touch the deadly drug. For her sake he promises and takes the pledge. There is great rejoicing now. His father, mother, friends, all rejoice at the reclamation; the son has reformed! Yes, he has reformed. His eyes lose their redness and become bright and lustrous. He attends diligently to his business. After a while he marries. Then the rejoicing is universal. All delight at the great reformation. But alas! how frail is human nature. Soon after his marriage he meets at the tavern his old chums. He has perfect confidence in himself. He knows he will not drink again. His pride asserts itself. His old companions are gleeful and congenial; they ask him to drink. He pays no attention to them. Then they sneer, they ridicule, they appeal to his manhood, they accuse him of being tied to his wife’s apron strings. To prove to them that he is not all that they declare, he takes one drink, then another and another, and soon he is beastly drunk. Then they kick him out. His wife watches for him, then she watches over him, and he does not return, so it seems. He is now detained on business; he has an engagement at the club, at the lodge. How little does she know how soon she is to be bowed down and broken under grief! She watches. It is midnight; she meets him at the door with a glad heart; the sight is heart-sickening. She reels and faints. He is fearfully intoxicated! When he is able to reason, she reasons with him, but in vain. Down, down he goes from one step to another, until from a large mansion he brings her to live in a cellar. Who is that grinning monster the boys are pelting in the street? And who is that emaciated creature entreating the boys to let the miserable wretch whom she calls her husband go home? The once noble husband and the once beautiful wife! What has brought them so low? What has caused her misery, her anguish? Rum, rum, rum; nothing but the demon RUM!
Oh, young man, if you only knew the harm that the social glass does you, the misery that it brings, the death that follows, you would cast away the poison and turn from it now, before it is eternally to late. “Touch not, taste not the unclean thing, for wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging.”
Algiers, La.
From Arkansas.
For the Christian Recorder.
Mr. Editor: You have not heard from us for several months, not because we have lost interest, for we have always stood among the active workers of the Church, but we have been very busy. The last time we wrote you from the South we were in the State of Tennessee.