BE A TOTAL ABSTAINER.
It pays to be a total abstainer. “Abstinence,” said Bishop Spalding, “is but negative, a standing aloof from what hinders or hurts.” The tendency of drink is to deaden the moral sensibilities. It weakens the nerves, impairs the brain, feeds disease and at last “bites like a serpent and stings like an adder.” On the other hand, “temperance is a bridle of gold, and he who uses it rightly is more like a god than a man.” Nothing is so conducive to one’s happiness and success in life. Burdette said, “Honor never has the delirium tremens; glory does not wear a red nose; fame blows a horn, but never takes one.”
There is a story told of Hannibal, the great Carthaginian, who fought so long and so successfully against the Romans, that when he was still a boy of nine years, his father Hamilcar asked him if he would like to go to the wars with him. The child was delighted at the thought. “Then,” said his father, “you must swear that you will, as long as you live, hate the Romans and fight against them.” Young Hannibal took the oath, and all through life was the bitter enemy of Rome. He took sides with his father and his country against the proud foes. The boy who wishes to succeed in life must incorporate “no liquor” in his resolutions, and under all circumstances refuse it, choosing rather to be an advocate of ennobling temperance.
It pays to be a total abstainer, because it is right. It is not so much a question of dollars saved or happiness promoted as a question of right. Said Amos Lawrence, “Young men, base all your actions upon a sense of right, and in so doing, never reckon the cost.” In the army, drinking and treating were common occurrences. One noble captain had the heroism to decline the oft-proffered treat. An observer asked, “Do you always reject intoxicating liquor?” “Yes.” “Do you not take it to correct this Yazoo water?” “Never.” “You must have belonged to the cold water army in your youth.” “Yes, but I learned something better than that; my mother taught me that what is right is right, and coming to Mississippi makes no difference. It would not be right for me to accept an invitation to drink at home, it is no more right here; therefore I don’t drink.” Some time after an officer met a lady who wanted to see one who had met her boy, naming his office and regiment. He told her of the noble examples of piety which were found in the army and related the case of the captain. She exclaimed, “That’s beautiful! That’s beautiful! His mother must be proud of him.” “Yes, she is, and you are that mother.” Amid grateful tears she exclaimed, “Is that my boy? Is that my Will? It’s just like him; I knew he would do so. He was a good boy. He told me he always would be and I knew he would.” Beautiful trust. Excellent commendation. Would that it could be said of every boy.
It pays to be a total abstainer for the sake of those who suffer through intemperance. The good and wise Governor Buckingham, of Connecticut, gave as his reason for being a total abstainer, “If I indulge, I am not safe. There is no degradation so low that a man will not sink to it, and no crime so hellish that he will not commit it, when he is drunk. But if it could be proved conclusively to my own mind that I could drink and never be injured, yet I could not be certain but others, seeing me drink, might be influenced to drink also, and, being unable to stop, pass on in the path of the drunkard.” Were many more as considerate there would be less drinking husbands, and less despised and taunted children because of drunken fathers.
TWO SAD CASES.
Who would ever think of a two-dollar bill relating a sad story and giving a pathetic warning? Yet such a bill was brought to the office of a Temperance Union recently. Written in red ink a poor man told what liquor had done for him, and what it would do for others. Here is what it said, “Wife, children and $40,000 all gone. I alone am responsible. All have gone down my throat. When I was twenty-one I had a fortune. I am now thirty-five years old. I have killed my beautiful wife, who died of a broken heart; have murdered my children with neglect. When this bill is gone I do not know how I am to get my next meal. I shall die a drunken pauper. ’Tis my last money and my history. If this bill comes into the hands of any man who drinks, let him take warning from my ruin.”
When Colonel Alexander Hogeland was sitting in his room at Louisville some years ago, a lame boy knocked at the door. Said he, “My father is to be hung to-morrow. The Governor will not pardon him. He killed my mother when he was drunk. He was a good father, and we were always happy only when he drank. Won’t you go and talk and pray with him, and then come to our house when his body is brought to us?” The Colonel did as requested, and found that the demon drink was the sole cause of that family’s ruin. The father was hung, and when the body was taken to the home, he was there. Six worse than orphans were curled up on a bundle of straw and rags, crying with a grief that would make the stoutest heart quail. The crippled boy but fourteen years of age was the sole support of the little family. The father’s body was brought in by two officers. The plain board coffin was rested upon two old chairs, and the officers hurried out of the room and away from the terrible scene. “Come,” said the crippled boy, “come and kiss papa’s face before it gets cold;” and all six children kissed the face of that father, and, smoothing the brow, sobbed in broken accents, “Whiskey did it. Papa was good, but whiskey did it.”
My boy, be temperate. Do your best to stop another such scene. Sign the pledge. Talk against, work against, and when able, vote against the liquor interests. “Woe to the man or boy who becomes a slave to liquor,” said General Phil. Sheridan. “I had rather see my son die to-day than to see him carried to his mother drunk. One of my brave soldier-boys on the field said to me just before a battle, ‘Tell mother, if I am killed, I have kept my promise to her. Not one drink have I ever tasted.’ The boy was killed. I carried the message with my own lips to the mother. She said, ‘General, that is more glory for my boy than if he had taken a city.’”