"Of course. I mean whiskey, too, and beer, and—and—"
"Never mind the rest of them now. It's a good long list, and the worst of the drinking isn't always done in the saloons."
"Where is it, then?" Theodora looked at him in astonishment.
"At banquets and dinners and receptions. Too often at college suppers, and by boys not much older than Hu."
"Really?"
"Yes, Ted. Now, my dear, I'm going to give you a lecture. It won't be like the one you heard, last night, for I'm not a temperance orator, only a plain old doctor. Temperance isn't signing the pledge, or keeping it after it is signed; it is keeping one's self free from all kinds of badness and excess, whether it's drinking or smoking, or too much dancing, or tight shoes. It is taking all our pleasures moderately, so that they can never hurt our bodies or our minds. Do you see what I mean?"
"But oughtn't all liquor to be taken away?" she urged, still mindful of the orator's sounding periods.
"Like any other powerful drug. It's one thing to use it, Ted, another to abuse it, as we doctors know. There are times when it must be used, just like any other medicine. Because I give you a dose, one day, you don't need to go on taking it forever, dear."
He paused for a minute, then he went on,—
"That is one side of it,—a side that we must look at. On the other is the horrible danger of forming the habit of taking wine and such things to excess. The suffering is terrible, and the poverty. That comes from intemperance in drink more than from any other form of it; and the only way that it is to be prevented is for us parents to teach our boys and girls all the danger, teach them that, because they want it, there is no excuse for their taking it. If you aren't strong enough to deny yourself something you know is a sin, you haven't learned the first lesson of good living. But it isn't drinking alone; there are other sins that are as bad and as dangerous; and a man or woman, to be strong and pure and good, must turn his back upon them all."