Beware! Oh, beware!
For sickness, sorrow and care
Are all there.”
A GREAT STATESMAN’S DOWNFALL.
In one of the older colleges in Massachusetts years ago, there was a boy of great promise, bearing an honored name, and concentrating in his own intellect the mental power of generations of ancestors. He was a prodigy in learning. He seized a language almost by intuition. His person was faultless; his hair like the raven’s wing, his eye like the eagle’s. On the day of his graduation he married a charming young lady. His profession, the law, led him to the highest office of advocacy in the State. He was Attorney General at an age when most students are admitted to the bar. Suddenly, when as yet no one knew the cause, he resigned his high appointment, giving no reasons. He was a secret drunkard. Too high was his sense of honor, and the importance of his station, to intrust himself longer with the destinies of society. As years rolled by he sunk like a mighty ship in mid-ocean, not without many a lurch, many a sign of righting once more to plow the proud seas that were destined to entomb him forever. His lovely wife left him, and, returning to her parents, died of a broken heart. With bowed head at the grave, he wept bitterly on the head of a dear boy she had left behind. Friends of his, men of talent and piety, prayed over him, and at times he would get the better of the demon that ruled him, and again put forth his gigantic powers. The greatest effort he exerted during this period was in an important case before the Supreme Court of the United States. Marshall, the patriarch of American judges, gazed with wonder on the barrister, as burst after burst of eloquence and oratory followed. George Briggs, member of Congress from Massachusetts, seeing his splendid portrait hanging in a conspicuous place at Washington, inquired who it was, and was told “that is the portrait of Talcott, the brilliant genius, the most talented man in the United States.” In his last spasm of temperance he wrote a beautiful tract: “The Trial and Condemnation of Alcohol.” After a fatiguing argument before a court in the city of New York, he was over-persuaded by a friend to take a glass of beer. It was his last sober moment till he was in the agonies of death. Down, down he went and never rose to assume manliness again. As the fabled phœnix is said to rise from the ashes of its parent, one of the most noble and eloquent advocates of temperance proved to be the son of this ruined genius.
A GREAT DELUSION.
It is a great delusion for boys to think it manly to drink. Manliness implies strength and courage. A drunkard lacks both. He might be brutal, but he is a coward. Manliness also implies reason, and when we consider that liquor robs one of this, a boy shows his manliness by letting it alone and helping others do the same. Liquor is a poison. Incorporated in it is a deadly drug known as alcohol. Drop a little on the eye and it destroys the sight. Sprinkle a few drops on the leaf of a plant and it will kill it. Immerse a tadpole in it and it ceases to live. Drink it and its action produces weakness, and its reaction nervousness. In a word, alcohol is the devil’s best drug and the boy’s worst enemy. Said General Harrison, “I was one of a class of seventeen young men who graduated at college. The other sixteen now fill drunkards’ graves. I owe all my health, my happiness and prosperity to a resolution I made when starting in life, that I would avoid strong drink. That vow I have never broken.”
WHAT TEMPERANCE DID FOR A MAN.
In 1812 the town of Farmington, New Hampshire, saw a poor boy. When old enough he was bound out to a farmer. Afterward he learned a trade. He worked well and studied evenings. A friend took an interest in him and encouraged him to attend and speak at a political meeting. “How can I be anything when my father is a drinking man?” he was wont to say. He solemnly signed the pledge of total abstinence and began speech-making. Soon the young men said: “Let us send him to the Legislature.” At every step he did his best. Finally Massachusetts sent a petition by him to Congress. John Quincy Adams invited him to dinner. While at dinner, Mr. Adams filled his glass, and turning to the young man, said: “Will you drink a glass of wine with me?” He hated to refuse, there was the ex-President of the United States, and a company of great men. All eyes were upon him, and so he hesitated and grew red in the face, but finally stammered: “Excuse me, sir, I never drink wine.” The next day the whole account came out in the Washington papers. It was copied all over Massachusetts, and the people said: “Here is a man who stands by his principles. He can be trusted. Let us promote him.” He was made Congressman and Senator. Finally he became Vice-President of the country. That farmer-boy was Henry Wilson.
When elected to this office, he gave his friends a dinner. The table was set without one wine-glass upon it. “Where are the glasses?” asked several of the guests, merrily. “Gentlemen,” said Mr. Wilson, “you know my friendship and my obligation to you. Great as they are, they are not great enough to make me forget the rock whence I was hewn and the pit whence I was dug. Some of you know how the curse of intemperance overshadowed my youth. That I might escape I fled from my early surroundings. For what I am, I am indebted to God, to my temperance vow and to my adherence to it. Call for what you want to eat, and if this hotel can provide it, it shall be forthcoming; but wine and liquors can not come to this table with my consent, because I will not spread in the path of another the snare from which I escaped.” At this, three rousing cheers rent the room for the man who had the courage to stand by his noble convictions.