Have you ever seen a London gin-shop? There is perhaps no statelier shop in the magnificent chief city of England. No expense seems to be spared in the building and the furnishing of a gin-shop.
Not many years ago a gin-shop was a mean-looking, and by no means a spacious place, with a few small bottles, not bigger than a doctor’s largest vials, in the dusty window. But now, however poor many of the working classes may be, it seems to be their pleasure to squander their little remaining money upon a number of these palaces, as if they were determined that the persons whom they employ to sell them poison should dwell in the midst of luxury and splendor. I do not mean to say, that we have a right to throw all the blame upon the master or the mistress of a gin-shop. For my part, I should not like to keep one, and be obliged to get rich upon the money of the poor infatuated creatures who will ruin both soul and body in gin-drinking; but the master of the gin-shop may be heard to say, “I don’t force the people to drink; they will have gin, and if I do not sell to them somebody else will.” The story of “The Fools’ Pence,” which follows, is worth attending to.
A little mean-looking man sat talking to Mrs. Crowder, the mistress of the Punch-bowl: “Why, Mrs. Crowder,” said he, “I should hardly know you again. Really, I must say you have things in the first style. What an elegant paper; what noble chairs; what a pair of fire-screens; all so bright and so fresh; and yourself so well, and looking so well!”
Mrs. Crowder had dropped languidly into an arm-chair, and sat sighing and smiling with affectation, not turning a deaf ear to her visitor, but taking in with her eyes a full view of what passed in the shop; having drawn aside the curtain of rose-colored silk, which sometimes covered the window in the wall between the shop and the parlor.
“Why, you see, Mr. Berriman,” she replied, “our business is a thriving one, and we don’t love to neglect it, for one must work hard for an honest livelihood; and then you see, my two girls, Letitia and Lucy, were about to leave their boarding-school; so Mr. Crowder and I wished to make the old place as genteel and fashionable as we could; and what with new stone copings to the windows, and new French window-frames to the first floor, and a little paint, and a little papering, Mr. Berriman, we begin to look tolerable. I must say too, Mr. Crowder has laid out a deal of money in fitting up the shop, and in filling his cellars.”
“Well, ma’am,” continued Mr. Berriman, “I don’t know where you find the needful for all these improvements. For my part, I can only say, our trade seems quite at a stand-still. There’s my wife always begging for money to pay for this or that little necessary article, but I part from every penny with a pang. Dear Mrs. Crowder, how do you manage?”
Mrs. Crowder simpered, and raising her eyes, and looking with a glance of smiling contempt towards the crowd of customers in the shop, “The fools’ pence—’tis the fools’ pence that does it for us,” she said.
Perhaps it was owing to the door being just then opened and left ajar by Miss Lucy, who had been serving in the bar, that the words of Mrs. Crowder were heard by a man named George Manly, who stood at the upper end of the counter. He turned his eyes upon the customers who were standing near him, and saw pale, sunken cheeks, inflamed eyes, and ragged garments. He turned them upon the stately apartment in which they were assembled; he saw that it had been fitted up at no trifling cost; he stared through the partly open doorway into the parlor, and saw looking-glasses, and pictures, and gilding, and fine furniture, and a rich carpet, and Miss Lucy, in a silk gown, sitting down to her piano-forte: and he thought within himself, how strange it is, by what a curious process it is, that all this wretchedness on my left hand is made to turn into all this rich finery on my right!
“Well, sir, and what’s for you?”
These words were spoken in the same shrill voice which had made the “fools’ pence” ring in his ears.
George Manly was still in deep thought, and with the end of his rule—for he was a carpenter—he had been making a calculation, drawing the figures in the little puddles of gin upon the counter. He looked up and saw Mrs. Crowder herself as gay as her daughters, with a cap and colored ribbons flying off her head, and a pair of gold earrings almost touching her plump shoulders. “A glass of gin, ma’am, is what I was waiting for to-night, but I think I’ve paid the last ‘fools’ pence’ I shall put down on this counter for many a long day.”
George Manly hastened home. His wife and his two little girls were sitting at work. They were thin and pale, really for want of food. The room looked very cheerless, and their fire was so small that its warmth was scarcely felt; yet the commonest observer must have been struck by the neatness and cleanliness of the apartment and every thing about it.
“This is indeed a treat, girls, to have dear father home so soon to-night,” said Susan Manly, looking up at her husband as he stood before the table, turning his eyes first upon one and then upon another of the little party; then throwing himself into a chair, and smiling, he said,
“Well, children, a’n’t you glad to see me? May not those busy little fingers stop a moment, just while you jump up and throw your arms about your father’s neck, and kiss him?”
“O yes, we have time for that,” said one of the girls, as they both sprang up to kiss their father.
“But we have no time to lose, dear father,” said Sally, pressing her cheek to his, and speaking in a kind of coaxing whisper close to his ear, “for these shirts are the last of the dozen we have been making for Mr. Farley, in the Corn-market.”
“And as no work can be done to-morrow,” added Betsy gravely, who stood with her little hand in her father’s, “we are all working as hard as we can; for mother has promised to take them home on Monday afternoon.”
“Either your eyes are very weak to-night, dear wife,” said George, “or you have been crying. I’m afraid you work too hard by candlelight.”
Susan smiled, and said, “Working does not hurt my eyes,” and as she spoke, she turned her head and beckoned with her finger to her little boy.
“Why, John, what’s this that I see?” said his father. “What, you in the corner! Come out, and tell me what you have been doing.”
“Nay, never mind it, dear husband; John will be very good, I hope, and we had better say no more about what is past.”
“Yes, but I must know,” said he, drawing John close to him. “Come, tell me what has been the matter.”
John was a plain-spoken boy, and had a straight-forward way of speaking the truth. He came up to his father, and looked full in his face, and said, “The baker came for his money to-night, and would not leave the loaves without mother paid for them; and though he was cross and rough to mother, he said it was not her fault, and that he was sure you had been drinking away all the money; and when he was gone, mother cried over her work, but she did not say any thing. I did not know she was crying, till I saw her tears fall, drop, drop, on her hands; and then I said bad words, and mother sent me to stand in the corner.”
“And now, John, you may bring me some coal,” said Susan; “there’s a fine lump in the coal-box.”
“But first tell me what your bad words were, John,” said his father; “not swearing, I hope?”
“No,” said John, coloring, but speaking as bluntly as before, “I said that you were a bad man. I said, bad father.”
“And they were bad words, I am sure,” said Susan, very calmly; “but you are forgiven, and so you may get me the coal.”
George looked at the face of his wife, and as he met the tender gaze of her mild eyes now turned to him, he felt the tears rise in his own. He rose up, and as he put the money into his wife’s hands, he said, “There are my week’s wages. Come, come, hold out both hands, for you have not got all yet. Well, now you have every farthing. Keep the whole, and lay it out to the best advantage, as you always do. I hope this will be a beginning of better doings on my part, and happier days on yours; and now put on your bonnet, and I’ll walk with you to pay the baker, and buy a bushel or two of coal, or any thing else you may be in want of; and when we come back I’ll read a chapter of the Bible to you and the girls, while you get on with the needle-work.”
Susan went up stairs to put on her bonnet and shawl, and she remained a little longer, to kneel down on the spot where she had often knelt almost heart-broken in prayer—prayer that her heavenly Father would turn her husband’s heart, first to his Saviour, and then to his wife and children; and that, in the meantime, he would give her patience. She, knelt down this time to pour out her heart in thanksgiving and praise. The pleasant tones of her husband’s voice called her from her knees.
George Manly told his wife that evening, after the children were gone to bed, that when he saw what the pence of the poor could do towards keeping up a fine house, and dressing out the landlord’s wife and daughters; and when he thought of his own hard-working, uncomplaining Susan, and his children in want, and almost in rags, while he was sitting drinking, and drinking, night after night, more like a beast than a man, destroying his own manly strength, and the fine health God had given him, he was so struck with sorrow and shame, that he seemed to come to himself at last. He made his determination, from that hour, never again to put the intoxicating glass to his lips, and he hoped he made it in dependence upon God for grace and strength to keep it.
It was more than a year after Mrs. Crowder, of the Punch-bowl, had first missed a regular customer from her house, and when she had forgotten to express her wonder as to what could have become of the good-looking carpenter that generally spent his earnings there, and drank and spent his money so freely—
“There, get on as fast as you can, dears; run, girls, and don’t stop for me, your beautiful dresses will be quite spoilt; never mind me, for my levantine is a French silk, and won’t spot.”
These words were screamed out as loud as her haste would permit, by Mrs. Crowder, who was accompanying her daughters, one Sunday evening, to the tea-gardens.
She was answered by Miss Lucy, “You know, ma, we can’t run, for our shoes are so tight.”
“Then turn into one of these houses, dears,” said the mother, who was bustling forward as fast as she could.
“No, indeed,” replied the other daughter, who found time to curl her lip with disdain, notwithstanding her haste and her distress, “I’ll not set a foot in such filthy hovels.”
“Well, dears, here is a comfortable, tidy place,” cried the mother at length, as they hastened forward; “here I’ll enter, nor will I stir till the rain is over; come in, girls, come in. You might eat off these boards, they are so clean.”
The rain was now coming down in torrents, and the two young ladies gladly followed their mother’s example, and entered the neat and cleanly dwelling. Their long hair hung dangling about their ears, their crape bonnets had been screened in vain by their fringed parasols, and the skirts of their silk gowns were draggled with mud. They all three began to stamp upon the door of the room into which they had entered with very little ceremony; but the good-natured mistress of the house felt more for their disaster than for her floor, and came forward at once to console and assist them. She brought forth clean cloths from the dresser-drawer, and she and her two daughters set to work to wipe off, with quick and delicate care, the rain-drops and mud-splashes from the silken dresses of the three fine ladies. The crape hats and the parasols were carefully dried at a safe distance from the fire, and a comb was offered to arrange the uncurled hair, such a white and delicately clean comb as may seldom be seen upon a poor woman’s toilet.
When all had been done that could be done, and, as Miss Lucy said, “they began to look themselves again,” Mrs. Crowder, who was lolling back at her ease in a large and comfortable arm-chair, and amusing herself by taking a good stare at every thing and every one in the room, suddenly started forward, and cried out, addressing herself to the master of the house, upon whose Bible and at whose face she had been last fixing her gaze, “Why, my good man, we are old friends: I know your face, I’m certain; still, there is some change in you, though I can’t exactly say what it is.”
“I used to be in ragged clothes, and out of health,” said George Manly, smiling, as he looked up from his Bible; “I am now, blessed be God for it, comfortably clad, and in excellent health.”
“But how is it,” said Mrs. Crowder, “that we never catch a sight of you now?”
“Madam,” said be, “I’m sure I wish well to you and all people; nay, I have reason to thank you, for words of yours were the first means of opening my eyes to my own foolish and sinful course. You seem to thrive—so do we. My wife and children were half-naked and half-starved only this time last year. Look at them, if you please, now; for, so far as sweet, contented looks go, and decent raiment befitting their station, I’ll match them with any man’s wife and children. And now, madam, I tell you, as you told a friend of yours one day last year, that ‘’tis the fools’ pence which have done all this for us.’ The fools’ pence! I ought to say, the pence earned by honest industry, and spent in such a manner that I can ask the blessing of God upon the pence.”
When Mrs. Crowder and her daughters were gone, George Manly sat without speaking for some considerable time. He was deep in thought, and his gentle, pious wife felt that she knew on what subject he had been thinking so deeply; for when he woke up from his fit of thought, a deep sigh stole from his lips, and he brushed away the tears which had filled his eyes.
“Susan,” he said, “what can I render to the Lord for all his goodness to me? From what a fearful depth of ruin have I been snatched! Once I met some of my old companions, who so set upon me to draw me to drink with them, that I thought Satan must have urged them on. Another time, I went walking on, and found myself at the door of the poison-shop, without knowing how I got there; but God gave me strength to turn instantly away, and not linger a moment to daily with temptation.
“I could not help thinking, as I was reading this holy book, when that showy dame came in from whose hand I so often took the poisonous cup, how much I owed to God for saving me from ruin, and giving me that peace and satisfaction in religion which I now enjoy; and making me, I hope, a blessing to you all. O, what a love was the love of Christ to poor sinners! He gave his own blood as our precious ransom; he came to save us from our sins, that we may serve him in newness of life.”
The above history, which is taken from a Tract of the Religious Tract Society in London, has its counterpart in the case of multitudes in our own country. Let him who would not shorten his days, and make his family wretched, and ruin his own soul, resolve with George Manly, “never again to put the intoxicating glass to his lips;” and like him, let him go humbly and with childlike confidence to God for strength to keep his resolution, and for grace to pardon all his sins, through the blood and righteousness of Christ. Then shall he have peace of mind, and be a blessing in his day; and when this brief life is ended, he shall enter into eternal joy.
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.
For fifteen years of my married life I was as miserable as any woman could be. Our house was the picture of wretchedness externally, and it looked still more wretched within. The windows were patched, the walls shattered, the furniture defaced and broken, and every thing was going to ruins.
It had not always been so: once my home was happy, and I used to take much pleasure and some pride in hearing the neighbors say, “How neat and trim neighbor N——’s house always looks!” But they could not say so long. One thing after another changed. Our table was no longer spread with comfortable food, nor surrounded with cheerful faces; but there were scanty meals, sour looks, and loud and angry words; while, do the best I could, I was not able to conceal the tatters of my own and my children’s clothing. My husband is a mechanic; his employment is good, and he might have made his family as happy as any family in the place; but he was in the habit of taking ardent spirit every day. He thought it did him good; I knew it did not, for I found him every day more and more unkind. Our comforts, one by one, were stripped away, till at last I saw myself the wife of a confirmed drunkard.
I well remember, one evening, I was sitting by the fire, mending my poor boy’s tattered jacket. My heart was very sad. I had been thinking of the happy evenings I had spent with my husband before our marriage; of the few pleasant years that succeeded; of the misery that then came; of the misery yet to come; and for me there seemed no ray of hope or comfort. My husband was a terror to his family, and a nuisance to the neighborhood; my children were idle, ragged, and disobedient; myself a heart-broken wife and wretched mother. While I thought of all this, I could no longer retain my composure, but, dropping my work, I leaned my head upon my hand and wept bitterly. My husband had been absent all day, and I was now expecting him home every minute. It was growing late, so I wiped away my tears as well as I could, and put the embers together, to make my fireside look as inviting as possible. But I dreaded my husband’s return—his sharp voice and bitter words pained me to the heart, and rougher treatment than all this I often experienced from him who had once been to me all that I could wish.
At length the door opened, and Robert entered. I saw by his flushed countenance and angry expression that I had better remain silent; so, with a sinking heart, I placed a chair for him by the fire, and continued my work without speaking.
Robert broke silence, and in a sharp tone said, “What on earth do you sit there for, at work on that dirty rag? Why don’t you give me something to eat?” and snatching the work roughly from my hands, he threw it into the fire. I sprang forward to rescue my poor child’s garment, and so quick were my movements, that I saved it from much injury. But while I was shaking the ashes from it, my husband again snatched it from my hands, and with a terrible oath, defying me to touch it, once more threw it into the fire. I was afraid to attempt to save it; so I turned away, with bitter feelings to see my labor all lost, and my destitute child made still more destitute by its father’s hand. But, as patiently and kindly as I could, I set before Robert the supper I had prepared for him. It did not look very inviting, to be sure; but I could offer nothing more. He swore he would not taste a particle. I now reproached him for not having provided any thing better for myself and children. But this was no time for reproach. Robert’s anger rose to the highest pitch. He dashed the cup and plate I had placed for him to the floor, and seizing me roughly by the arm, he opened the door, and forcing me from the dwelling, bid me enter again, if I dared. The night was cold and windy. I was thinly dressed, and even ill. But I forbore to take refuge under a neighbor’s roof. My heart was too sad and desolate to admit of human consolation. At this sorrowful moment I remembered that
so, falling almost unconsciously upon my knees, I prayed that God would comfort my stricken heart; that my sins might be pardoned; that I might be enabled to repose all my griefs in the bosom of that gracious One who has kindly promised to give the heavy-laden rest. I then prayed for my miserable husband, that God would have mercy upon him, and deliver him from his dreadful delusion before it was too late. I prayed, too, for my poor children, with all the fervor of a mother’s soul. This was the first prayer I had offered for years; for I had been an impenitent woman. Had I prayed sooner, I might have saved myself much sorrow and distress. But as it was, I arose from my knees with feelings far less hopeless and bitter. I then crept back to the house, and on looking in at the window, I found that Robert had fallen asleep; so I opened the door quietly, without disturbing his heavy slumbers, and laid myself down to rest.
The events of this evening were no uncommon events to me. Each succeeding day brought but the same rough treatment, the same wretchedness and want. Robert grew worse and worse. He not only destroyed all our peace, but brought noise and discord into the whole neighborhood, till at last, for the sake of quiet, he was taken to the house of correction. I never can forget that dreadful night when he was carried away. He came home shockingly intoxicated. The little children crept into the farthest corner of the house to shield themselves from his fury. He threatened every thing with destruction. I was in danger of my life, and ran for safety into the nearest house, where a poor widow lived. Robert followed—we fastened the door—he swore he would set fire to the building, and burn it over our heads. But some one passing by heard the uproar, and went for the town officers. Several of them came, just as my infatuated husband was pelting the window with stones. They took him away by force, while he was uttering the most shocking oaths. I sat down and wept with shame and vexation. My little Jane put her arm round my neck, and said, “Don’t cry, ma—he has gone—wicked pa has gone, and I hope he will never come back—he is so cross, and beats us so.” I hardly knew what to say in answer to my little girl, but I felt that it was a dreadful thing to have my children speak so of him whom I would gladly have taught them to love and honor.
I determined, now my husband was away, to support my family by my own work; for wretched as my home was, I could not bear to leave it and come upon the town. I could not earn much, for my health was feeble, but I managed, by depriving myself of several meals, to save enough to mend my poor neighbor’s window.
But Robert longed to regain his liberty. He resolved that he would do better, and upon promising orderly conduct, was permitted to return to his family. Badly as he had treated me, I was glad to see him back again. He looked humble, and spoke to me kindly. He kissed the younger children, too, and for a while every thing went on smoothly. To me it seemed like the dawning of better days, and when Robert one evening brought home some new shoes for our oldest boy, and a new gown for my little Jane, I actually wept for joy, and Jane said, her “wicked pa had come back very good.”
But these bright days were not to last. Darker ones came, darker than I had ever known before, or perhaps they seemed darker, from the transient sunshine that had gleamed upon us. I again heard my children crying for food, when I had no food to give them. I was again often turned from my dwelling, or, if I offered any resistance, was forced to receive harsh words and cruel blows. But it is in vain to tell all I suffered. Many have gone through the same fiery trial, and will feel that a recital of my woes is but a recital of what they too have borne.
There was one privilege, the want of which I at this time felt deeply. The village church was within sight of our door. I used to hear the bell ring, and see the children of the neighborhood go by, neatly dressed, to the Sabbath-school; but I had no gown, nor bonnet, nor shawl fit to wear, and my children were still more destitute than myself. So we were obliged to spend the Sabbath in sadness at home, while Robert, if the day was fine, would profane it by going on the water to fish, or would linger with his companions round the door of the grogshop—not to enter, it is true; for the dram-seller, with his wife and children, dressed very fine, and were accustomed to attend church; and but for that dreadful shop, I might have gone there too.
Our minister was one of those who thought it his duty to “reason on temperance,” as well as “righteousness,” and “judgment to come;” and through his exertions, and the exertions of other good men, a reform had commenced, which gave great encouragement to the friends of human happiness and virtue. Temperance-meetings were held once a month in different parts of the town, and in spite of much opposition, and many prophecies to the contrary, the cause went on.
I heard much said about these meetings, and resolved to attend the next; so, when the evening came, I borrowed a cloak and bonnet of one of the neighbors, and hastened to the church. The prayers I there heard did my wounded spirit good, and the plain, impressive language of the minister spoke to my very heart. I resolved to persuade my husband, if possible, to go with me when there should be another meeting.
A circumstance occurred about this time that quite destroyed my remaining courage, and almost caused me to give Robert up for lost. We lived in a small, shabby-looking house, a part of which he rented to a very poor family. They could not pay the rent immediately upon its being due. It was in the depth of winter, and the poor woman had a little infant, not more than two weeks old. But Robert’s heart was shut to all kind feelings. One very stormy day he drove the whole family out of doors, and they were obliged to seek some other dwelling. It was too much for the poor woman in her feeble state. She caught a severe cold, and died in a few days. After this heartless act, my faiths quite failed me, and I felt as if nothing could recall my husband to a sense of duty. But I little knew the workings of his mind. He seemed to return a little to his senses, when he saw that his cruelty had probably caused the death of the poor woman, and rendered a large family of helpless children motherless. His countenance became more dark and gloomy, and he scarcely raised his eyes to notice any one.
Things were in this state, when one day our minister called, as he was visiting the people of his parish. I was very glad to see him, and told him all my griefs freely. He gave me what consolation he could, and informed me that there was another temperance-meeting in the evening, which he hoped I would attend; “and,” added he, “bring your husband along with you, if you can persuade him to come.”
When Robert came home to supper, I was surprised and delighted to find him sober; so I told him of the minister’s visit, and the meeting in the evening. He seemed pleased that the minister had called, and even asked me how things looked about the room, “for,” said he, “we don’t look quite so stylish here as we once did, Mary.”
“No, Robert,” said I, with a sigh, as I surveyed the wretched apartment; “but if you would attend the temperance-meeting, and hear what the minister says about saving money, I think it would soon look much better here, and the boys might have better jackets, and I might have a better gown. Oh, Robert”—
I would have said more, but my eyes filled with tears, and I could not. Robert hung down his head, and looked ashamed. He knew he had spent, for rum, money enough to feed and clothe his family well. I thought he had half a mind to tell me he would go with me. When I had cleared away the supper, and sent the children to bed, I put on my bonnet, and said, “I will just step into neighbor Warren’s, and borrow Nancy’s cloak.”
“Have not you any cloak of your own?” said he.
“No,” I replied, “I have been without one a long time.”
Robert said no more, but when I came back with the cloak, and said to him, “Will you go with me?” he said, in a tone which seemed as if he were trying to suppress kinder feelings, “Go along, Mary, and don’t be always fretting about me.” I was grieved, but said nothing, and proceeded to the meeting alone, praying that Robert might think better of it, and come. The services were even more interesting than they had been at the preceding meeting. The minister said every thing to convince, and I felt a distressing anxiety, that I could not control, to have my husband hear all that was said. Judge, then, of my surprise and pleasure, when, a short time after I had returned home, Robert entered, and said, “Guess where I have been, Mary.”
“Not to meeting, Robert.”
“Yes, Mary, to meeting. I took up my hat after you had gone, thinking that I would go down to the shop; for I felt uneasy, and wanted something to suppress my disagreeable thoughts. But as I passed by the meeting-house, it was so well lighted up, and the bell was ringing, and the people going in, I thought perhaps I had better go in too; and I am glad I did. Wife, I do believe the minister is right. I know that hard drinking has been the ruin of myself and family, and while the minister was speaking, I thought I would try to break away from my bad habits.”
“O, Robert, will you try?” I exclaimed, while my heart beat with pleasure to hear him thus speak.
“’Tis hard work, Mary, harder than you think for.”
“I know it is hard, my dear husband; but only think of the happiness it would bring to us all—of the ruin from which it will save our little boys—the agony from which it will save your poor wife. O, Robert, if you have one spark of love remaining in your bosom for any of us”—
I could not go on; but leaning my hands upon my husband’s shoulder, I sobbed aloud.
Robert seemed affected, and said, in a doubtful tone, “Perhaps I might leave it off by degrees.”
“O no, Robert, no,” I answered, “that will never do. Don’t you remember how particular the minister was to say, ‘Leave it off at once?’ You will never do it by degrees.”
Robert looked steadily into the fire, and did not say one word more. When not under the influence of strong drink, he is a man of good sense, and I thought it better to leave him to his own reflections. I know not what passed through his mind. The kinder and better feelings of other days seemed to be awakened from their slumber, or rather, He from whom “all just thoughts and holy desires proceed,” was influencing his determination. As for myself, I longed in secret to pour out my soul to God. So I went into the bedroom, where my poor children were fast asleep; and after seeing that they were well covered up, I kissed each one of them, and knelt down by their side to offer up my prayer. I prayed as I had never done before. I seemed, through my Redeemer, to gain a nearer and bolder access to the throne of grace. My heart was filled with deep gratitude, penitence, humility, and joy; and from that hour I have dared to hope myself a child of God. O that blessed, blessed night. It caused joy among the angels in heaven, over the reconciliation of one soul to God—over the desire of another soul to return to the path of duty. It caused joy on earth, in our poor, humble dwelling—joy in the bosom of the long-afflicted wife—joy that her own soul was trusting in Christ—joy that her husband was purposing to forsake his wretched way, and turn into a happier, better path.
The next day, before Robert went out, I encouraged him all I could to persevere. I brought to his remembrance as much of the lecture as I could, so that it might be fresh in his mind. He left me in good spirits, and promised to see me again at night a sober man. But O, what an anxious day was it for me! I dreaded, and yet longed for evening to come, and my heart beat as I heard his footstep at the door. But he had kept his word—he had not tasted a drop of spirit during the day. He had seen, too, the minister and several members of the Temperance Society. In consequence of the meeting on the last evening, many new names were added to the temperance list, and they had promised, in case of entire abstinence till the next meeting, to receive his. I could scarcely believe my senses when I heard my husband speak thus, and the prospect of his becoming a sober man seemed too delightful to be ever realized. For a time, I rejoiced with trembling; but when, day after day, I saw him return orderly and quiet, my courage revived, and I felt that he would persevere.
At length the evening came round for the next meeting, and my husband and myself went, O so happy! and put our names to the pledge. What a different prospect did our home now present. I could not keep my countenance for joy, when the neighbors came in to congratulate me on the change. I could now dress my children neat and comfortable, and send them to the Sabbath-school. I went myself with my husband constantly to church, and on making known my wish to our minister, publicly professed my faith in the Saviour of sinners. Thus happily did the winter and summer pass away. One day in autumn, as the minister was passing by, my husband was in the road in front of the house.
The minister remarked, “I am glad, Robert, to see your house repaired and looking so well.”
“Thank you, sir; why, it does look some better.” As the minister was about to pass on, Robert added, “Mr. G., I have not drank a drop of rum for one year, come next Monday. So you see the effect upon my house. I used to work hard before, and spent about all I earned for rum, to drink myself, or to give away. Many a time I have been at my work on a Sunday, and earned a dollar or more in the course of the day, and taken the money, and then laid out the whole in rum. Now I can clothe my family well, and have something to lay out upon my house. Last summer, my boy and I saved sixty dollars besides supporting the family.”
Sixty dollars saved! But who can tell the value of the happy days and nights of this year; or the worth of a kind, sober, industrious husband and father, compared with a cross, cruel, and drunken one? Ask the wife; what would she tell you? Ask the children; what would be their answer?
Some of my husband’s former wicked companions felt piqued and envious that Robert was free from their degrading habit. They saw him thriving, respected, and happy. His life and prospects were a continued reflection upon theirs. They longed to see him fall, and determined, if possible, to effect his ruin. As he was quietly returning home one evening, he passed by the shop which he was once so much in the habit of frequenting. They accosted him: by taunts and jeers which he had not firmness enough to resist, they drew him into their company. Once there, they thought him within their power. When they could not induce him to violate his pledge by taking rum, they called him a “cold-water man;” “a white-livered coward;” “priest-ridden;” “afraid of his minister,” and many other titles of reproach. They then told him he had not promised to drink no wine; and, after much persuasion, they induced him to take a glass. But in this glass they had mingled the poison. Once stimulated, he called for more and yet more, till these wretches had the pleasure of seeing him who had so long stood firm, reeling from the shop, to mar at once all that was pleasant and peaceful at home. When my husband did not return at supper-time, I felt rather anxious, but thought he might be delayed, as he sometimes is; so I put his supper to the fire and sat down to my knitting-work, while one of the boys read to me from his Sabbath-school book.
We were thus employed when my deluded husband entered. O the agony of that moment! Had he been brought to me a corpse, I could not have been more shocked. Had those wicked men that thus seduced my husband entered my house and done the same things that they caused him to do, they might have been indicted for the outrage. In the morning Robert had come to himself; but he saw in the broken furniture, in the distrustful looks of the children, in the swollen eyes and distressed countenance of his wife, more than he cared to know. There was a mixture of remorse and obstinacy in his looks, and when he left me for the morning, instead of his usual “Good-morning, Mary,” he shut the door roughly after him and hurried away.
When evening came again, Robert returned to the shop, and asked for a glass of rum. He wanted something to stifle the keen reproaches of conscience. The dram-seller knew my husband, knew of his reform, that from being a nuisance to the town, he had become an orderly and respectable citizen; and now that he had been seduced from the right way, instead of denying him the cause of all our former misery—instead of a little friendly advice—with his usual courteous smile, he put the fatal glass into his hand.
For a time my poor Robert continued in a very bad way. He mingled again with his profane and wicked associates; he was ashamed to see his minister, and took no notice of him when he passed; hung down his head when he met any of his temperance friends, and seemed to be fast returning to his former miserable habits.
But he was not thus to become the dupe of wicked and designing men. His wife’s prayers and tears were not thus to be of no avail. On a sudden he awoke from his delusion. He had lived a whole year without rum; and though exposed to all weathers, he knew his health had been better, his head clearer, his nerves firmer, his purse heavier, and his home happier. He called one evening to see the President of the Temperance Society; confessed his weakness in yielding to temptation; asked the forgiveness of the Society; requested to have his name, which had been erased from the temperance list, renewed; and promised never again to violate the pledge. Since that night my husband has continued a perfectly temperate man. No temptation has ever led him again to violate his pledge.
I have been induced to give this history of his reform to the world, in order, if possible, to persuade others to follow his example, to show them how quiet and plenty were restored to a wretched dwelling, virtue and respectability to a ruined family, and the poor man’s house repaired.
A clergyman, worthy of all confidence, and acquainted with the writer of the above, and the circumstances detailed, testifies, that the case is “literally and faithfully described.”
In a populous and civilized district of Ulster lived Jamie, a day-laborer; a fellow of right good sense and practical talent, carpenter and mason, shoemaker and blacksmith, and aught else the case required. The variety of his powers had nearly ruined him. On all hands he was in requisition, and everywhere he was a favorite—kindness flowing to him in its common channel, spirituous liquor. Wherever he went, he was treated. This was too much for flesh and blood, and Jamie became, in the style of the world’s false charity, “fond of the drop.” His cash flew to the spirit-shop, and brought neither health nor happiness in return. The neighbors called him—alas, for such lullabies to conscience!—an honest, good-hearted fellow, who did nobody any harm but himself. While, however, they tempted, and flattered, and deceived, their victim was posting to ruin.
But, while moderate drinkers were training him to drunkenness, God was raising up the Temperance Society as an ark of safety to him from the flood of their temptations. One of the publications of the Ulster Temperance Society fell into his hands, and he read it, for he was of an inquiring spirit, and a blessing attended it. What, said he, in amazement, can this be true?—distilled spirits of no more use to any man in health than arsenic or opium? “Distilled spirits are too tempting, and dangerous, and violently intoxicating, to be used as a common beverage at all!” O, thought he, that at least is true. “Distilled spirits are in their very nature injurious to the human constitution; and every man who indulges even in their moderate use, injures himself in proportion to the quantity which he consumes.” Jamie was astonished, and well he might be; but Jamie was conscientious, and though he had the manhood to confess, what few moderate drinkers will, that he liked a glass, yet, because he had still a conscience, notwithstanding the searing it had got from the fiery drink, he said to himself, “I must, at least, try whether these wonderful statements respecting distilled spirits be true.” James tried, and the effects were delightful. In a very short time he found, from happy experience, that his health was better from the change; that his purse was better; that soul and body, the whole man of him was far better, in all respects, since he renounced the maddening draught.
His duty was now clear before him—to abstain from the raging drink which, in time past, had been emptying his pocket, destroying his character, and bringing down his body to the grave, and his soul to hell. He did his duty in the right way for doing duty—at once, and right on.
He saw, however, that something more was incumbent on him than merely doing his duty in this particular—he must, for the good of others, let it be known, without ostentation, that his duty was done. Abstaining, he said to himself, has done me good; the banishment of spirituous liquors would do my country good; what is every man’s duty is my duty; and therefore, in love to my brethren, I’ll freely give the blessing which to me has been so freely given. Union is strength, thought he: separate efforts are a rope of sand; united, they are the cable which holds the mighty ship. He resolved to establish a Temperance Society.
For this purpose, he supplied himself immediately with a number of Tracts on temperance; for Jamie knew that when self-interest or passion come in, second thoughts are not always best; and forthwith he commenced travelling around, reading them, at spare hours throughout the neighborhood, wherever he could find half-a-dozen people to listen to him. He was a good reader, and very soon found that his reading was not without effect; for in a short time he heard of a decent woman telling her neighbor to send for Jamie to the wake which was to be held in her house, if she wished to save her whiskey, and have peace and quietness; for, said she, he came to the wake in my house, and read and talked about temperance, till both the whiskey and the people seemed either persuaded or frightened, for hardly one had the courage to put to his lips what Jamie called, indeed too truly, “the accursed thing.”
Jamie, however, soon found to his cost that he had commenced a very great and a very sore work. The spirit-sellers, four of whom were at a single cross-roads in his neighborhood, he expected to be against him, and drunkards he expected would be against him too; but he soon found that his chief opponents lay in quite another quarter. Sensible people soon began to see that spirit-sellers are drones on the community, doing no good, but much harm: and, besides, one of them having first allowed a temperance meeting to be held in his barn, conscientiously shut up his spirit-shop, and joined the Temperance Society, being convinced that spirit-selling is poison-selling, and that each spirit-shop might justly have on its sign-board, “Beggars made here.” Of the drunkards, some indeed did call him hard names, and impute to him base motives; but from among even these, lost as they seemed to be to all hope, he was, by God’s grace, enabled to reclaim some, as brands snatched from the burning, while others of them said to him, in the bitterness of their reflecting moments, Go on, Jamie, your work is God’s work. Had you commenced but a little sooner, what a blessing might your Society have been to us; but alas, it is all over with us now!
What at first surprised Jamie much was, that the fathers or husbands of these very drunkards were his most bitter opponents. He went to them with a glad heart, expecting that they would hear with delight of a plan by which drunkards, in great numbers, have been reclaimed, and by which the temperate can be effectually secured against temptation; but his heart sunk when he found, not that they received him coldly, for to such receptions he was accustomed, but that they, as well as others who boast much of being “temperate enough already,” lost all temper at the very sound of temperance.
Some of these neighbors of Jamie were regular in attendance on public worship, orthodox and strict, which gave them an influence in the neighborhood. Jamie, therefore, was anxious to enlist them on the side of temperance. Yet he could not but know, and very seriously consider, that whether, in market or fair, these same men either bought or sold, there could be no such thing as a dry bargain; that at churns, and wakes, and funerals, and marriages, and such like, they always pushed round the bottle cheerily; that they held it churlish to refuse either to give or take a treat; that at their evening tea-parties it was not uncommon for six or eight gallons of spirituous liquor to be consumed by a few neighbors, men and women, in a single night; that in every house which their minister visited, the bottle was put to his mouth; and that as the natural consequence of all this and far more, not only was the crime of drunkenness, whether in minister or private layman, treated with much false charity, and called by many soft names, but drunkenness was spreading its ravages through many families, and bringing down many heads in sorrow to the grave.
Jamie was indeed charitable, but he was unable to persuade himself that, amid such universal drinking, all the objections to his Temperance Society arose merely from ignorance, or prejudice, or conscience; and therefore, when people were telling him, as they often did, that they cared not a rush about spirituous liquor, “they could either drink it or let it alone,” he used sometimes to reply, “Oh, I know well enough that you can drink it; what I want to know is, whether you can let it alone:” and at other times he would tell them Dean Swift’s story of the three men who called for whiskey in a spirit-shop: I want a glass, said the first, for I’m very hot; I want a glass, said the second, for I’m very cold; let me have a glass, said the third, because I like it!
As Jamie’s opponents were no match for him in argument, they tried the plans usually resorted to when the wisdom and the spirit by which truth speaks cannot be resisted. For a while they tried ridicule. That, however, neither satisfied their own consciences nor frightened Jamie, for Jamie could stand a laugh, what many a man can’t do who has stood grape-shot. Then they circulated reports about his having got drunk on different occasions, and having been caught drinking in secret; and some believed them, being of the same mind with the distiller, who asserted it to be mere humbug that any man could live without whiskey, and that wherever the croaking cold water society men did not drink in the daytime, they made up for it by drinking at night. These evil reports, however, fell dead after a little, and nobody was vile enough to take them up again; and though attempts were made to circulate the lie, that Jamie had grown weak and sickly since he gave up drinking, yet every body who looked him in the face saw, that though he had neither a purple nose nor whiskey blossoms on his chin, yet he was stronger and healthier than ever; and that he could say, what every member of the Temperance Society, whether temperate or intemperate formerly, can say with truth, after abstaining for a single month from distilled spirits, that in every sense of the word he is better for the change.
Foiled thus in all their attempts, the opponents of Jamie and of temperance rallied strong for one last charge; and as it was against Jamie’s weak side—who has not a weak side—they already chuckled in triumph. Jamie had thrown away his glass for ever, but his pipe stuck firm between his teeth still. The time was, when he was strong and well without tobacco, and when the taste of tobacco was disgusting and sickening to him; but respectable people were smoking, and chewing, and snuffing around him, and when he went to the wake, the funeral, or the evening gathering, “Why,” thought he, “should I be singular, and not take a whiff like the rest?” He chose smoking, probably, because he considered it to be the most genteel way of being dirty and disgusting; and, according to the general law of habits, being most inveterate where the article used was at first most nauseous, he soon became so confirmed a smoker that one-half of what he smoked would have kept him decently clothed.
The lovers of strong drink, therefore, thought that they had Jamie on the hip completely, when they told him that his only reason for giving up whiskey was, that he could not afford to buy both it and tobacco; and promised, though with no sincerity, that they would quit drinking if he would quit smoking.
The reproach stuck like a burr to Jamie’s conscience. He asked himself again and again, Is my use of tobacco a stumbling-block in the way of any? Does it do injury to the great cause which has all my heart? He read, he thought, and read and thought again; and the more he read and thought, the more was he convinced that the habitual use of tobacco in any of its forms is useless; is wasteful of time and money; is dirty; is offensive to others, and a breach of Christian charity; is a bad example to the simple and young; is a temptation to drunkenness, and injurious to health. He resolved to renounce it, and flung the old black pipe from him to lift it again no more. Thus Jamie was conqueror still; and his victory was one which Alexander, the conqueror of the world, could not gain. Jamie gained a victory over himself, and he that ruleth over his own spirit is better than he that taketh a city; but Alexander, who wept because he had not other worlds besides his own to subdue, died as a fool dieth, and sleeps in a drunkard’s grave.
Jamie learned an important lesson in his victory, which will be of use to him as long as he lives. Whatever bad habit, he says, has got hold upon you, break it of at once. Would you pull your child out of the fire cautiously and gradually; or would you out with him at once? So let it be with every thing wrong. Don’t prepare for ceasing from sin to-morrow, or next year, but cease from it now. Do so yourself; go right up to your neighbor without fear, and in love tell him to do the same, having this assurance on your mind continually, that what ought to be done, can be done.
Jamie seemed from the commencement, to have taken for his motto, Expect great things, work for them, and you shall have them. Work as though all depended on self; pray as knowing all to depend upon God. He knew his place, and modestly kept it; yet when opportunity offered for dropping a word on behalf of temperance, in the ear either of clergyman or layman, whatever his rank, he did what conscience told him was right towards a neighbor and a brother. Jamie’s pockets and hat were filled with tracts, which, as the most suitable plan for his shallow purse, and perhaps, too, for securing a reading of them, he generally lent, and sometimes gave away, to all who promised to read.
Let it not be supposed that amidst such active benevolence he neglected his own business. No; Jamie had not learned in vain the apostle’s maxim, “Let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.” It was nothing for him to start off half a dozen miles of an evening after his work was finished, to procure some new tracts, or attend a temperance-meeting, or read and talk kindly to some poor drunkard, whose wife had sent him a hint that her husband would be glad to see him; or else to procure the services of some clergyman to address the next meeting of his Temperance Society. Jamie is one of those who imagine that the business of a minister of the Gospel is not finished when he has preached a couple of discourses on the Sabbath; he really presumes to say, that both minister and layman should be “instant in season and out of season,” and like their great Master, going about continually doing good. He does not set up for a preacher, nevertheless, but confines himself to his own proper sphere. He applied to ministers to address his meetings, and though some few of them refused, telling him significantly that they preach the Gospel, even when Jamie did ask in his simplicity, if Paul forgot his resolution to know nothing but Christ and him crucified, when he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come; yet to the honor of the ministry around him be it told, that whenever he got up a meeting, a minister was at Jamie’s service to address it.
Though, as a body, Jamie’s Temperance Society was most steady, yet a few, and only a few, fell. It would be harsh to say that some were glad at their fall; at least many temptations were thrown in their way; and when they fell, a shout of triumph was raised against the Temperance Society. Such trials as these only urged Jamie on with fresh vigor.
Suppose, he used to say, that every drunkard should return again to drunkenness and ruin; would not this be another proof that truth, and honor, and principle, are all as nothing before the drunken appetite? Would not this be a louder and a stronger call to save the young, to stop young sons and daughters, now safe, from filling the place of drunken parents when they are gone? What ruins these poor wretches? he would ask. Is it the mere abuse of a good and wholesome thing? No. Distilled spirits are tempting, deceitful, and too violently intoxicating to be at all habitually used with safety; and as four hundred of the ablest doctors now living have established, and unnumbered facts prove, they are unwholesome and injurious to body and soul. Let every man, then, for his own sake abstain; and for the sake of others too, especially such as are near and dear to him, O let him abstain for ever.
Who, he would ask, give currency and influence to the absurd fooleries which are circulated respecting the marvellous excellences of spirituous liquors, while common-sense tells that they are of no more use to a man than to a cow or horse? Not drunkards, surely; for, on such a subject at least, they would not be believed. Who give support and respectability to spirit-shops, and the whole spirit-trade? Drunkards surely could make nothing respectable, and no spirit-seller would put on his sign-board, “The drunkard’s spirit-shop.” Again, he would put it to men’s consciences to answer, who give respectability and permanence to all the treatings and other customs by which each successive generation of drunkards is trained? There was no getting over the undeniable fact, that moderate spirit-drinkers must bear the responsibility of all this; and the more the matter was canvassed, the more clearly was it seen, that the only way in which drunkenness can be put down is the very way which Jamie and the Temperance Society proposed—the union of the temperate in refraining from intoxicating drinks, and promoting temperance.
To parents Jamie addressed himself with unwearied and anxious importunity. Would you object, he would say to them, when other arguments had failed—would you object to your son becoming a member when going away from you to live, perhaps, amidst the temptations of a large town? Would you be afraid, lest keeping him away from the temptations of the bottle would make him an easier prey to the solicitations of the strange woman, whose house is the way to death, and whose steps take hold on hell? He met with none, whether spirit-sellers or spirit-drinkers, who were able to resist this appeal; and from this, as well as other causes, the young formed a large and zealous portion of Jamie’s Society. The young he was particularly anxious to enlist in his cause, not merely because youth is the time of truth, and of open, warm hearts, and in an especial manner God’s time, but because he believed spirit-drinking parents to be the great agents in making their children drunkards.
A case which happened in his own neighborhood, gave him a melancholy confirmation of this opinion. A respectable moderate drinker, who only now and then exceeded his single tumbler of punch, had seven daughters, whom he was in the habit of treating to a little glass of punch each day after dinner. He, of course, considered it good, and they were soon taught to consider it so too. They began first to like their one glass; then they began to like two glasses much better; one glass called for another, till, in the end, they found, according to the adage, that though one glass of spirits is too much for any one, two glasses are quite too little. Right onward they went to drunkenness and crime; for, alas, it was too true in their case, as in all others, that any one may be ruined who can be persuaded to drink intoxicating liquors. With the help of whiskey, as the murderer said, a man can do any thing; so, at least, it was with these poor girls; they are living with broken character, virtue and all lost. There is, however, one exception, the youngest; and how did she escape? She was too young when her father died to be influenced by her father’s example; and her father, with the character of a moderate, regular man, died sitting at table with his tumbler of punch before him.
Principally through the prudent and laborious exertions of Jamie, a great moral reformation has been effected throughout an extensive district; three hundred names are enrolled on the list of his Temperance Society; wives and sisters are blessing him for husbands and brothers reformed; the standard of public sentiment in regard to temperance has been nobly raised; people don’t talk now as formerly of a man’s being somewhat elevated or tipsy, or merely overtaken, when he is drunk, for they have learned to call things by their right names, and not practise imposture by slang phrases. Public resolutions have been passed against giving spirituous liquor at wakes or funerals, churns, ploughing-matches, or evening parties; men and women can go to market and fair, buy and sell, and yet never think of treating or being treated with spirits; and what still more fully exhibits the extent of the reformation, it has reached, in some cases, even the most degraded victims of iniquity, some of whom at least are now consistent members of the Temperance Society.
Arguing on the subject of temperance has, in a good degree, ceased in the neighborhood; and though a number of the old or ill-disposed appear decidedly resolved to have their glass, whatever the consequences, in the spirit of the fellow who told his doctor that he loved his glass, and did not care a fig for his liver, yet the young and conscientious are becoming more hearty in the cause of Jamie and temperance.
Nothing gladdened Jamie’s heart more than the success which crowned his efforts in the Sabbath-school, of which he is superintendent. Spirit-drinking he not only knew to be a barrier against the progress of the Gospel, in preventing drunkards from hearing it, and grieving away the Spirit of God from the moderate drinker, but he felt it to be peculiarly injurious to the young, in often swallowing up that money which should be spent in their education, and in withholding from many even the poor pittance which should cover their nakedness in the Sabbath-school and the house of God.
As, therefore, the children of the poor had wrung out so much of the bitter dregs of spirit-drinking, he was anxious that Temperance Societies, the sworn foes of spirit-drinking, should, with their earliest, warmest efforts, return blessings to them for years of sorrow, oppression, and wrong. Sabbath-school teachers, too, he saw to be among God’s choicest instruments in the work of reform. Young, yet serious, active, and benevolent, possessed of the confidence of their scholars and their parents, and from their own character, and their connection with a noble system of Christian enterprise, exercising a mighty moral influence, wide as the world, what could they not do for the regeneration of the public mind, especially of that mind which shall be all active, in good or ill, when the present generation are mouldering in the grave.
He commenced, therefore, the work of reformation in his own Sabbath-school, and he commenced in the right way, by communicating information, and bringing both teachers and scholars to think and apply the truth for themselves. He wished none, he said, to join his ranks against the great enemy, but volunteers; he wished for no influence over any one, but the influence of truth, and no bond upon any but the bond of an enlightened conscience. He introduced a proposal for each teacher in rotation to read an interesting extract to the scholars on some suitable subject, and temperance of course was not excluded. The mere hearing of the principles of Temperance Societies was sufficient to make converts of some of the teachers; for what can be more rational than abstaining from intoxicating drinks and promoting temperance? but it was not so with others.
Freethinkers may talk as they please about a man having no more control over his belief than over the hue of his skin or the height of his stature, still it is a simple fact of Jamie’s experience, that it is mighty hard to convince a man who does not wish to be convinced; and that, when anybody first resolves to continue to drink, he is then marvellously fertile in objections against the Temperance Society.
One of the teachers especially, who had been at different times overtaken by the bottle coming from the market or fair, was so opposed to temperance, that when his turn for reading on the subject came, he had still some excuse; and Jamie, without in any way wounding his feelings, was prepared with an extract to read for him, till at length, finding him softening down under the influence of truth and love, he, on one morning of his turn for reading, put an extract into his hand, and said kindly, Just go out for a little and read it over by yourself, and that will prepare you for reading it nicely to the children. He did so, and came in and read it as one who felt its power. Jamie saw that his heart was full, he knew that now is the time for doing good, and not to-morrow, and therefore rising up and proposing that a Temperance Society should be formed in the school, he put his own name to the usual declaration, We resolve to refrain from intoxicating drinks, and promote temperance.
The next man who stepped forward was the self-same teacher who had so long opposed. “Children,” said he, “spirituous liquor is a bad thing; it has done me harm; it is doing harm to every thing good, and to show that I hate it and renounce it, I put down my name.” The other teachers followed; the elder children followed the noble example of their teachers, and as a proof that they knew and felt what they did, when after school-hours on next Candlemas-day, the master of a day-school which some of them attended, brought forth whiskey to treat the scholars according to custom, the noble little temperance heroes rose, as if by concert, and marched out of the room.
While thus Jamie urged on the good work of reforming others, his own soul knew the blessings of the promise, “He that watereth others, shall be watered also himself.” After renouncing whiskey, he felt a sweetness and power in God’s word which he had never known before. He almost doubted whether it could be the same old Bible that he used to read. He had been abusing God’s mercy by indulging in sin in time past, as if in expectation that sovereign grace would some moment descend in a miracle and drag him to holiness and heaven; but now he saw clearly that God is sincere in all his promises, and that the gracious invitations of the Gospel mean just what they say.
His first duty, he saw clearly, was to give his own self to the Lord. To that God of love who asked his heart, he gave it. He heard God in his word saying, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;” and he took God at his word, and obeyed his command. From what he knew to be sin, he ceased at once; and what God told him was duty, he did at once, as God enabled him, without stopping to calculate consequences, for he left them with his Maker. He knew that no one goes to heaven or hell alone, the influence of the most humble being necessarily exerted either for good or ill; and as though travailing in birth for immortal souls, he was each day, by his conversation and example, saying to his neighbor, Come with us, and we will do you good. The more heartily and fully he obeyed God, the better he liked God’s service; and the more extensive acquaintance he obtained of the great salvation of the Gospel, the more strongly did he feel himself drawn by a Saviour’s love to accept, to adorn, and propagate it. Though beyond middle life, he had never celebrated his Saviour’s love at the Lord’s table. Now, however, he saw it to be his duty and privilege; and those whose hearts are set on winning souls, can conceive with what holy joy a worthy young minister, whose church Jamie had lately joined, saw him sitting down to commemorate with his fellow-Christians the dying love of the great Redeemer.
“Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth’s sake.”
I knew a man by the name of D——, who was a very skilful, robust, and prosperous blacksmith, and a man of more than ordinary intelligence. He yielded to the temptation to which his trade exposed him, till he became habitually intemperate, and actually a nuisance to the neighborhood. The innkeeper, who was also a store-keeper, on whom he depended for his daily supplies of strong drink, amounting, it is believed, to little less than a barrel and a half annually, at length hired him to abstain for one year, by giving him his note of hand of ten dollars. He immediately became a calm and peaceable man. His health, and appetite, and business returned to him. And he would tell you that the innkeeper had done him the greatest kindness he had ever received. “I was undone,” said he. “Now I enjoy myself and my family, and the best farm in the town would not tempt me to return to the use of ardent spirits.” The poor man kept his resolution till the end of the eleventh month, which it seems he had mistaken for the end of the year, and then ventured to indulge a little; and alas, when I saw him last, he was dragging his legs along, supported by two of his companions, who I feared were pursuing the same miserable course to destruction, and seemed to be lending him their sympathy; and he was one of the most loathsome and degraded human beings my eyes ever beheld. I should not be surprised to know that he is now with the dead. May my latter end not be like his.
A respectable merchant in P——, having long observed that a farmer, with whom he often traded, was in the habit of using ardent spirits to great excess, offered one day to give him fifty dollars, if he would drink no more for ten years; except so much as his physician should think necessary for his health. The farmer agreed to the proposition, and the bargain was confirmed in writing. It was not long before he felt unwell, applied to his physician, and bitters were prescribed. He had scarcely begun to use them, when he found that his appetite for ardent spirits was returning with almost irresistible violence. He foresaw the evil that would probably ensue, threw away his bitters, and dashed his bottle to pieces. He drunk no more ardent spirits till the ten years had expired, when he called on the merchant, and informed him that the conditions of the obligation had been, on his part, fulfilled. “Of course, then,” said the merchant, “you want your money.” “No,” he replied, “I cannot take it. I have saved far more than my fifty dollars in my bills at your store, and I have made ten times that sum by attention to my business.” The merchant has long since gone to his rest. The farmer still lives, has a large estate, and a fine family around him, and is a respectable and worthy citizen; for, till this day, he drinks no ardent spirits.
DECLARATION OF THIRTY-EIGHT PHYSICIANS.
“The undersigned, physicians of Cincinnati, feel it their duty to express their decided opinion in opposition to the habitual, as well as occasional use of ardent spirits. They are convinced, from all their observation and experience, that ardent spirits are not only unnecessary, but absolutely injurious in a healthy state of the system; that they produce many, and aggravate most of the diseases to which the human frame is liable; that they are unnecessary in relieving the effects of cold and fatigue, which are best relieved by rest and food; that their use in families, in the form of bitters, toddy, punch, etc., is decidedly pernicious, perverting the appetite, and undermining the constitution; that they are equally as poisonous as opium or arsenic, operating sometimes more slowly, but with equal certainty.”