Flee the presence of the dissipating club-houses.
“Paid your money?” Sacrifice that rather
than your soul. “Good fellows,” are
they? They cannot stay what they are under such
influences. Mollusca live two hundred fathoms
down in the Norwegian seas. The Siberian stag
grows fat on the stunted growth of Altaian peaks.
The Hedysarium thrives amid the desolation of Sahara.
Tufts of osier and birch grow on the hot lips of volcanic
Schneehalten. But good character and a useful
life thrive amid club-room dissipations—Never!
The best way to make a wild beast cower is to look
him in the eye, but the best way to treat the temptations
I have described is to turn your back and fly!
O! my heart aches! I see men struggling to get
out of the serfdom of bad habits, and I want to help
them. I have knelt with them and heard their
cry for help. I have had them put one hand on
each of my shoulders, and look me in the eye, with
an agony of earnestness that the judgment shall have
no power to make me forget, and from their lips, scorched
with the fires of ruin, have heard them cry “God
help me!” There is no rescue for such, save in
the Lord Almighty.
Well, what we do, we had better do right away.
The clock ticks now and we hear it. After a while
the clock will tick and we shall not hear it.
Seated by a country fireside, I saw the fire kindle,
blaze, and go out. I gathered up from the hearth
enough for profitable reflections. Our life is
just like the fire on that hearth. We put on fresh
fagots, and the fire bursts through and up, and out,
gay of flash, gay of crackle—emblem of
boyhood. Then the fire reddens into coals.
The heat is fiercer; and the more it is stirred, the
more it reddens. With sweep of flame it cleaves
its way, until all the hearth glows with the intensity—emblem
of full manhood. Then comes a whiteness to the
coals. The heat lessens. The flickering shadows
have died along the wall. The fagots drop apart.
The household hover over the expiring embers.
The last breath of smoke has been lost in the chimney.
Fire is out. Shovel up the white remains.
ASHES!
FLASK, BOTTLE, AND DEMIJOHN.
[NOTE.—This chapter, in its first shape,
was given some currency under the title of “The
Evil Beast.” I have, however, so revised
and added to that Lecture, that, as here given, it
is essentially a new presentation of the dreadful
Abomination of Rum, and it is in this present shape
that I wish the public to receive it as a full expression
of my views thereon. T.D.W.T.]
There has in all ages and climes been a tendency to
the improper use of stimulants. Noah, as if disgusted
with the prevalence of water in his time, took to
strong drink. By this vice Alexander the Conqueror
was conquered. The Romans, at their feasts, fell
off their seats with intoxication. Four hundred
millions of our race are opium-eaters. India,
Turkey, and China have groaned with the desolation;
