TOTAL ABSTINENCE.
But admitting, for the sake of argument, that you can drink with safety to yourself, can you drink with safety to others? 'No man liveth to himself.' We are all a kind of chameleon, and naturally derive a tinge from that which is near us. Our friend attributes his early drunkenness to the influence and example of his father. You should view your drinking habits in the light of these passages of Scripture, 'Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.' 'It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereat thy brother stumbleth or is made weak.' So that you may look at Paley's saying, in its application to the use of strong drinks, again and again; you may examine it as closely as you like, and criticise it as often as you please, still it remains true, that to drink is doubtful, while to abstain is safe, and that we are as morally bound to choose the latter as if a voice from heaven said, 'This is the way, walk ye in it.' 'Let us not, therefore, judge one another any more, but judge this rather that no man put a stumblingblock or an occasion, to fall in his brother's way.'—Rom. xiv. 13.
CHAPTER V.
HIS BOLD ADVENTURES ON THE WATER.
SWIMMING ADVOCATED.
That swimming is a noble and useful art, deserving the best attention of all classes of the community, is a fact few will dispute. 'Swimming,' says Locke, 'ought to form part of every boy's education!' It is an art that is easily acquired; it is healthy and pleasurable as an exercise, being highly favourable to muscular development, agility of motion, and symmetry of form; and it is of inconceivable benefit as the means of preserving or saving life in seasons of peril, when death would otherwise prove inevitable. Mr. Ellerthorpe early became an accomplished swimmer; he often fell overboard, and but for his skill in the art under consideration he would have been drowned. He also enjoyed the happiness of having saved upwards of forty persons, who, but for his efforts must, to all human appearance, have perished.
To a maratime nation like ours, with a rugged and dangerous coast-line of two thousand miles, indented by harbours, few and far from each other, and with a sea-faring population of half a million, it seems as necessary that the rising generation should learn to swim as that they should be taught the most common exercises of youth. And yet 'this natatory art' is but little cultivated amongst us. On the Continent, and among foreigners generally, swimming is practised and encouraged far more than it is in England. In the Normal Swimming school of Denmark, some thirty years ago, there were educated 105 masters destined to teach the art throughout the kingdom. In France, Vienna, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Berne, Amsterdam, &c., similar means were adopted, and very few persons in those countries are entirely destitute of a knowledge of the art. But so generally is this department of juvenile training neglected by us as a people, that only one in every ten who gain their livelihood on the water are able to swim.
HULL SWIMMING CLUB.