Upon the doctor’s entrance, I saw in an instant he was the one to be influenced in the right direction, and it was I who had produced the uneasiness in the clerk’s mind, and impressed him to speak.
“Ah,” said the doctor, “I’ll stop and see about this; and do you, Master Ned, have a care how you sell poisonous articles to whoever comes for them.”
He hurried from the store over to No. 8, entered, and without ceremony passed up to the attic of the wouldbe suicide. I of course followed. We found the youth engaged in writing a letter, the package of poison close to his hand.
It is needless for me to recount all that passed in that interview. Suffice it to say, that, by a few welldirected inquiries, that good man managed to learn the condition of the lad, and what had been its cause. He then proceeded to talk to him earnestly and firmly, yet kindly, of the sin he contemplated, of the agony of his mother upon hearing of the deed, and the anguish he would cause to all he loved.
The young man broke down, wept bitterly, and promised he would live to be a better man. The physician furnished him with means sufficient for present necessities, promised him he would interest some of his influential friends in his behalf, and, when he left, carried the poison with him.
The man kept his word, and through his influence Harold H. was placed in better circumstances, assisted in his efforts to gain an education, and lives today an ornament and useful member of society, and the pride of his parents and friends.
More than once I have visited liquor saloons, hoping to draw some poor wretch away from the curse of rum and its allurements. I have not always succeeded, but at times have been more successful.
On one of these occasions, a man in the prime of life, who was drinking copiously, and rapidly making himself worse than a beast, arrested my attention, but I could make no impression upon him. While making the effort, a street musician began playing a dancing tune. The musician, a young and delicate boy, accompanied by a still younger female child, who was the dancer, was one whom I could impress, which I did by making him cease the dancing tune, and begin that sweet, pathetic air of Payne’s “Home, Sweet Home.” The little maid stopped her dancing, looked puzzled for a moment, when, catching the inspiration of the moment, she broke out in bird-like tones of sweetness, and sang the words of the song.
I watched the effect upon the drinker. At first he did not seem to hear, but gradually a listening expression stole over his features, and at last his head sank upon his hands. Now was my time. I whispered to him of his mother, of his dear old childhood home, of his wife and child waiting anxiously for him even now, and of the dear one who had died and was calling to him from her heavenly abode.
He, of course, never knew but what they were his own thoughts awakened by that tune. In part they were, but their power was intensified by spirit presence and aid. His spirit child was close by my side, anxious that her father should be drawn away from that place. From her I learned of her mother and invalid sister, who were living, and of whom I whispered in his ear.