We will talk first of the harm alcohol does to the nerves.  You know they are the grayish-white cords which pass from the brain and the spine to every part of the body.  What do they act like in the kind of work they do?—­“Like telegraph wires.”  What is their work?—­“To carry messages to and from the brain.”  What kinds of nerves have you learned about?—­“Nerves of feeling and nerves of motion.”

When alcohol touches a nerve, it draws away the moisture or water from it, and hardens the white part or albumen; this makes the nerve shrivel as if it had been burned; it loses its power to feel and move, or, to use a long word, is paralyzed.

Alcohol paralyzes all the nerves it touches.  It makes them so stupid that they cannot understand what the brain says to them, and they do not carry the right messages back to it.  For instance:  when the nerves of the stomach are poisoned by the alcohol in beer, wine, etc., they do not feel the pain of hunger as much as they otherwise would, and they let the brain think the stomach is satisfied and does not need any more food, when it is only stupefied by these liquors.

Again, it is the work of some nerves to tell the muscles of the small arteries to tighten, or contract, when too much blood is coming into them.  Alcohol so paralyzes these nerves that they do not carry their message; the arteries let in the blood, and become swollen and enlarged.  They tell the mischief done to them, by causing the skin to be red or flushed.  If people drink much of any intoxicating liquor, and often, their skin is always a bad color, or, as grown folks say, becomes permanently discolored.  All this because the nerves have been made unfit to do their duty by alcohol poison.

The nerves also lose power over the muscles of the limbs.  This is plainly seen in the trembling of the hands and the unsteady walking of the drunkard; but is equally true of those who drink only a little now and then.  Their nerves are not as strong and wide-awake to control the machinery of the body as they would be if no alcohol were troubling them.

Sometimes the nerves of hearing and sight tell the brain queer stories, and the poor brain believes them all, for it, too, is stupefied by the same fire-water which has hurt the nerves.  Indeed, the harm done by alcohol to the brain is greater than that done to any other part of the body.  It takes the water from the albumen, and makes the white part of the brain hard, as if it had been cooked.  It kills the little, circle-shaped, red parts of the blood—­the corpuscles; these collect in the blood-vessels of the brain, and keep the blood from flowing as fast as it ought, which causes disease and very often death.  Sometimes the brain is so much injured by the poison that the drinker becomes crazy, and is a great deal of trouble to himself and everybody else.

Since all this is true, wise children will let cider, lager, ale, wine, and every other kind of alcoholic drink alone, and never, NEVER,