“Frank began studying very earnestly; but before the first year was ended, the earnestness had passed away.  Friends would induce him to spend his evenings at their rooms, or at some public place of amusement, and each time Frank would try to satisfy his conscience with, ’It will be only this once.’

[Illustration:  “Only this once.”]

“Thus by degrees, his lessons were neglected, and as study became irksome, his love for excitement and gaiety increased, till one day I overheard a gentleman, who knew him well, remark that he feared Frank’s ‘only this once’ would prove his ruin.

“But a few years before, Frank would have been shocked with the thought of spending the afternoons in racing, and evenings in billiard saloons.  He had not at first really intended to visit these places more than ‘once,’ ‘just to see for myself;’ but there are very few who ever stop in the course of wrong doing at ‘only this once.’

“At length his father died.  When the sad tidings reached the son, he seemed more thoughtful for a time; but in an hour of temptation he yielded.  Before long his old companions surrounded him again, and of them he soon learned how to spend the large fortune left him by his father, in a most reckless manner.

“In vain his true friends tried to check him in his wild career; and, five years ago, Harry, my poor friend Frank died a drunkard.”

“Oh, father, how dreadful!” and Harry shuddered.

“Yes, it is dreadful, my son; but there are countless untold stories as dreadful as this one.  If we were to visit a prison, and ask the wretched inmates how it was that they were first led into crime, we should find that ‘only this once’ brought most of them there.  One took something which did not belong to him, never intending to do it more than that once; but the crime soon grew into a habit.  Another was once tempted to gamble, and only that one game was the foundation of all his crimes.  Another fully intended to stop with the first glass; but instead, became a reckless drunkard.

“Learn, my son, to dread those three little words, and when tempted to use them, think of all they may lead to, and ask for strength to resist the temptation; and, Harry, do you wonder now at our refusing to allow you to visit the billiard room even once?”

“No, father; I see now that you were right, and I was wrong in supposing that it could not possibly do me any harm to go only this once; and if Jim does tell the boys some silly story to make them laugh at me, I can tell them about Frank Allen, and that will soon sober them.”

My dear boys, do you flatter yourself that it is a trifling thing to do wrong, “only this once?” If so, stop and consider, how often not only the young but those of mature years yield to this deceptive and alluring thought and take the first steps in a career of sin, when, could they but see the end of the path which they are so thoughtlessly entering, they would shudder with horror.  They do not realize that sin once indulged in hardens the heart, and that one step in the downward path leads to the broad road.