"It is an excellent plan," Sydney replied, laughing, "now and then to stand on your head; in that position you see the world from quite a new aspect, for instead of your eyes being turned naturally to the earth with only an occasional glimpse of the heavens above, your view for the time is altered. It does not, however, do to keep in that attitude too long, or the blood will flow to your brain."
"But," asked Miss Smith, "do you not think that such doctrines might be very dangerous?"
"All truth is dangerous to those who wish for an excuse for weakness," he replied. "But there are many at the present time who want a little light thrown on the subject; for the man who does any action, however right in itself, feeling that thereby he may be throwing his influence on the side of selfishness, must therein be damned. Alcohol is probably one of our greatest gifts if rightly used, and being so, must of necessity be a frightful curse if abused."
"Gift indeed!" sniffed Lady Todman, "when every doctor will tell you it has no feeding property."
"That is quite true," Sydney continued. "It is not a food, and therein lies its great charm for an age when people eat far too much for the sedentary lives they live; but it prevents the waste of tissue, and enables man to keep in health without half his time and two-thirds of his energy being exhausted in the process of digestion. It is, however, a so-called poison, and must be treated as such; but the poisons of to-day will probably become the nutriment of the future. On the other hand, sugar, a splendid food for savages and labourers, is little better than a slow poison to those who neglect exercise. Some day we shall have a new commandment--'Thou shalt not take sweet things.' Considering the misery brought about in families through dyspepsia, I have a good mind to try and start a new order of lemontotallers at once.
"If, however, you want a temperance sermon, you must go to the drunkard, and as an antidote to what I have said, if you care to hear it, I will tell you a story of a friend of mine who is now dead. He was a young man of great ability, who had passed through the University, carrying off some of its most coveted prizes. For some years having heard nothing of him, I decided to look him up. I knew that he had been ordained, and, retaining his fellowship, had accepted a quiet living in the country, intending to spend his spare time in literary work. It had surprised me that since then I had heard nothing from him, nor had any book of his been published. I found him a hopeless wreck, and this, in a few words, is what he told me.
"He had come down to the country for the purpose of having leisure to study and write. For some time all went well. He had been brought up not to take wine, and was one of the few teetotallers of his College. His father had died from drink when Hamlin was a boy, and his mother had done all in her power to keep her child from following in the same course. 'I never,' he said, 'touched drink till I was ordained. My curacy was in the West End of London, and as the time drew near for me to preach my first sermon, I became hopelessly nervous, feeling that I should break down, or losing all self-control, behave like a lunatic. The thought horrified me. As I went over my sermon in private, my hand shook so that I could not read the words. In despair I tried a remedy many University men resort to when they have to read the lessons in chapel. I took a small dose of brandy and tried the effect. It was only about a tablespoonful, yet the result was miraculous. In a few minutes I felt capable of preaching in St. Paul's. On the following Sunday, having provided myself with a flask, I took a double dose in the vestry before the sermon, and the result was equally successful. From that day to this I have never preached without the aid of a stimulant.'
"For some time he confined his abuse of alcohol to this purpose, but before he came into the country the habit had grown, and he took spirits every evening, though not in large quantities. On being appointed rector to a small parish, the loneliness of his life added to his temptation.
"'I knew I was damned,' he said, 'but was helpless. Week by week, as I got less effect from the usual amount, I increased it. At last I began to feel the result. My interest in my work died down; the services in the church became a hollow and hateful mockery. I felt languid, and disinclined to take exercise, whilst my thoughts now always ran in one direction, to the moment when again I could drink--drink and be happy--feel the blood course freely through my veins, and my brain wake from its now normal condition of torpor; for you must understand that I never drank to what is called excess, that is to say, was never obviously the worse for drink. One night, after having been sleeping soundly for some hours, I woke oppressed with a feeling of nameless horror. The perspiration poured down me, and yet I shivered; then it seemed as if the very fiends of hell were tearing at my soul, mocking me, shouting my ordination vows into my ears, bidding me look at the damned souls in torture whom I had promised to watch over here, and had neglected. Thus I lay for an hour in anguish unspeakable, and at last got up, dressed, and went out into the cool night air. As I began to feel better I vowed to God never again to touch a drop of alcohol.
"'On the following morning it seemed that, after all, the whole state of my mind had been exaggerated, and was only probably due to indigestion. I, however, kept my vow for a few days and became a wreck. Sunday was drawing near. What should I do? I began my sermon after taking an unusually large dose, and preached contentedly from a passage chosen to strengthen my resolution during the night of misery--"Thy vows, O God, are upon me." Only once since,' he concluded in a whisper, 'have I made a vow, and that was after the first week spent with the real visible fiends in hell, when the doctor came and found that the minister whom all respected was suffering from delirium tremens!'"