A man is overcome with some great grief. Whiskey makes him forget, or at least it makes him not care.
A man is suffering some great humiliation, some sense of personal shortcoming, that is intolerable to him. Whiskey offers to relieve him, and for the moment it does relieve him. ——
YOU who talk nobly of temperance and advocate laws governing other men are apt to be proud of your own self-control.
Perhaps you have been a drinking man and have stopped. But you do not know how much lighter whiskey's hold may have been upon you than upon others.
Suppose you worked hard every day, every week and every year.
Suppose you had no pleasure in life, save the fictitious pleasure and excitement that come from whiskey. Suppose you failed, and failed and failed again—and suppose that whiskey was always ready to praise you, make you feel proud of yourself, make you hold others responsible for your failures—are you sure you could let it alone? ——
In your condemnation of those who persist in whiskey drinking you must remember that what is easy for one man is very hard for another.
Suppose you should urge two animals to go without meat—one of the animals being a tiger and the other a sheep. Would you praise the sheep for its faithful keeping of the promise? Would you blame the tiger for breaking its word, if the temptation to eat meat were offered?
In men's nervous systems, in their craving for alcohol, there is as great a difference between different temperaments as between the appetites of the sheep and the tiger. One man is dragged toward the gulf by whiskey with a force of which you have no conception.
You look with contempt at a hopeless drunkard, shuffling along toward destruction.