DMMHHM
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CAL IFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 STRONG DRINK ; 
 
 TUE 
 
 CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 By T. S. AUTHTJR 
 
 Author qf "Three Ycari in a Han-Trap," " fringer," "Woman to the Sacw," 
 -Coil Adrift," etc., etc. 
 
 HUBBARD BROTHERS, 
 
 PHILADELPHIA, CISCIHHATI, CHICAGO AHD SPRIJIOFIELD, MASS. 
 
 N. D. TllOMl'dON A CO., ST. Louis, Mo.: A. L. BANCROFT & CO., 
 
 SAH FBAHCIBCO, CAL.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by 
 
 HUBBARD BROS., 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 
 
 t. STASLEV HAUT, Klcutrutvpcr and I'riutcr, 38 Hudson Street, Phila.
 
 PAKT I. 
 
 WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED 
 
 FKOM I UK 
 
 DEMON OF DRINK? 
 
 1691480
 
 PUBLISHERS 7 PREFACE. 
 
 I N tho FIRST PART of this important work we have one of 
 1 those intensely wrought temperance stories for which the 
 author is so distinguished. In the conception and execution of 
 ory, he has taken higher ground than usual, and lifted 
 the subject of temperance into the region of spiritual laws and 
 forces. Rarely has the insidious growth and overmastering 
 jM>wi-r of appetite, or the desperate and prolonged struggle of 
 an enslaved man for freedom, been more powerfully exhibited 
 than in the hero of this story a man of education, social 
 Mumlin;:, high honor and the tendcrcst home affections. We 
 follow him in his downward course, step by step, with an al- 
 most breathless interest and suspense glad and hopeful for 
 every new effort that he makes to overcome his pitiless enemy, 
 and disappointed and sorrowful at each successive failure 
 until manhood is eclipsed, love extinguished and honor a thing 
 of the past ; and we turn away from him at the prison door, 
 our hope as dead as his own. But the man is not lost. No; 
 il ( ).M: who can save to the uttermost all who come unto 
 Him. And by Him this man is saved, and made a power for 
 good in the salvation of many who had once been in the same 
 1'rarful bondage from which, in the name and by the power of 
 ("I. he had been able to get free. Can anyone who reads 
 what lirfell tins man in the cell where society had shut him 
 away as a foul and guilty thing, carinir little whether he liv-.l 
 or died, do so with dry eyes? We think not. It is something 
 to stir the heart profoundly. In this story, the author deals not 
 alone with the curse of strong drink, but with the means of 
 cure, and .-lu..ws thai even with the lowest and the vilest, reform 
 is
 
 yi PREFACE. 
 
 But it is in the SECOND PART that he addresses himself to 
 the more serious purpose of his work. It is because the ma- 
 jority of the people are ignorant of the specific action of alco- 
 hol on the nerves, membranes, blood-vessels and vital organs, 
 that so many indulge in its use. Under this head he gives the 
 latest and most carefully-conducted experiments of physiolo- 
 gists and scientists, from which it has been clearly demonstrated 
 that alcohol invariably acts as a poison when taken into the 
 body, and that its habitual use always lays the foundation for 
 disease, often of a fatal character. This chapter is a most im- 
 portant one, and should be read by every young man, and by 
 every moderate drinker in the land. Its well- authenticated 
 statement cannot fail to arrest the reader's attention, and deeply 
 impress him with the dangers that always attend the use of 
 alcoholic drinks. It is also shown how mental failure always 
 keeps pace with the physical deteriorations which attend the 
 regular drinking of alcoholic beverages ; that no man can do 
 his best, mentally or physically, while under their influence, 
 and that their continued use steadily lessens the intellectual 
 vigor and blunts the moral faculties. 
 
 In treating of the means of reformation and cure, the author 
 shows what has been done and is now doing in Inebriate Asy- 
 lums and Reformatory Homes ; and also through what is known 
 as Gospel Temperance. Work giving, in this connection, a brief 
 history of the "Woman's Crusade, of The "Woman's National 
 Christian Temperance Union, and the establishment of Reform 
 Clubs, Temperance Coffee-Houses and Friendly Inns. 
 
 The concluding chapters on the failure and disgrace of 
 license, and the salutory effects of Prohibition, should be care- 
 fully studied. In the exceedingly interesting and important 
 letter addressed to the author by Hon. Ncal Dow, the reader 
 will find a complete history of the "Maine Law," and the 
 results which have followed its enactment. Its testimony to 
 the value of Prohibition is conclusive and incontrovertable.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HE came in so noiselessly that I heard neither 
 the o}>ening nor shutting of the door, tmd 
 only became aware of his presence when I felt his 
 hand on my shoulder. 
 
 Shall I ever forget the face into which I looked? 
 A face so marred since I had seen it last; so pale, 
 so exhausted, so helpless and despairing, that I was 
 not only shocked by the sight but filled with inex- 
 pressible pain. The hand which he had laid upon 
 me was trembling violently. 
 
 " Why Granger ! " I exclaimed, as I started to my 
 
 "What does this mean?" 
 
 I saw the muscles of his face quiver and spasms 
 run about his lips, as he made an effort, to reply. 
 " It < -an't be possible that you " 
 I held back, from an instinct of delicacy, the 
 words that \\viv coming to my lips. 
 
 "Have fallen so low?" he said, in a husky, 
 shaking voice, finishing the sentence which I had 
 incomplete. Then, with a steadier utterance: 
 "I'm it is all too sadly true, Mr. Lyon. The devil 
 of drink has seized me, and I cannot get free from 
 the grip of his terrible hand !" 
 
 11
 
 12 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 "Don't say that, my friend. You must resist tliis 
 devil and, like all other devils, when met by resist- 
 ance, he will flee from you." 
 
 A short, bitter laugh, and then: "He isn't one of 
 that kind." 
 
 But, surely, Granger, you will not give up your 
 manhood to the vice of an appetite?" 
 
 " Vice ! That's a little, easy sort of a word, and 
 doesn't seem to mean much, does it?" 
 
 He was sitting, now, and I standing just in front 
 of the chair he had taken. As I looked at him 
 steadily, I saw more distinctly than at first the rav- 
 ages which intemperance had made upon his finely- 
 cut, and once handsome features. I had not met 
 him before for many months. 
 
 "To the demands of an appetite? Let me make 
 the proposition stronger," said I. 
 
 "Vice, demand, curse; anything you choose. It's 
 all the same." 
 
 "But the will-power is above them all can break 
 the bonds of appetite, and let the man go free." 
 
 I saw a change begin passing over his face. 
 
 " Free ! What would I not give to be free ! " 
 
 "Resolve, and it is done! In a man's will lies 
 his strength. Neither Heaven nor hell can move 
 him if he will not. Set your will against this appe- 
 tite, and will shall be master." 
 
 He looked at me with a gathering wonder in his 
 eyes, as though a new thought were dawning upon 
 his mind. His mouth became a little firmer; and
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 13 
 
 he raised his almost crouching form to an erecter 
 attitude. 
 
 "If he will not will not." 
 
 "Just so, my friend. If he Trill not, all hell can- 
 not move him. Self-mastery ! Every man has this 
 power. I have it; you have it. It is the common 
 inlu'ritunce of all men." 
 
 " An inheritance sold, alas ! too often for a mess 
 of pottage," Granger answered, bitterly. "And 
 when once sold, has it not gone hopelessly out of 
 our possession ?" 
 
 " No. Freedom to will is a birthright which no 
 man living can wholly alienate. He may at any 
 time re-assert his right of inheritance. You can do 
 it now can set your heel on this serpent of appetite, 
 and crush it beneath your tread. Be a man, Gran- 
 ger ! Let the higher things that are in you hold the 
 lower things in subjection. Let reason and judg- 
 ment rule the appetites and passions, as a master 
 rules his servants. This is the common order of 
 life, (}<)d lias given us reason as a ruler; and "we 
 must see that no usurper gain a foothold in our 
 kingdom." 
 
 As I spoke I saw the signs of strength and confi- 
 dence nnning into Granger's eyes. 
 
 " It is because you have let the sensual betray and 
 dethrone the rational that you are in so sad a plight 
 to-day. Will lias gone over to the wrong side." 
 
 " It shall come to the right side again, Mr. Lyon ! " 
 IT- WMQG lia 1 a clear ring. "I see just how it is.
 
 14 STEONG DRINK; 
 
 "Will went over to appetite instead of standing firm 
 by the side of reason." 
 
 "Yes; you state the case exactly as it stands," I 
 said. "It was an "abuse of freedom, so to speak. 
 You were not compelled to drink : for appetite has 
 no power above solicitation. It cannot move your 
 hand, nor place a glass to your lips. Only the will 
 has power over the actions, and so nothing can be 
 done without consent of the will." 
 
 "I see ! I see !" More light and strength coming 
 into his face. " It all lies with myself." 
 
 " All," I answered. " There is no help for you 
 outside of your own will. You stand self-centered, 
 or equipoised, with freedom to act in the direction 
 of any force that draws you, be it good or evil." 
 
 " Thank you for all this. I see wherein my peril 
 lies, and also the line of a new defence. I will con- 
 trol this dreadful appetite ! I will be a man." 
 
 " But, remember," I said, " that eternal vigilance 
 is the price of safety. Appetite is subtle, as well as 
 strong. It is an enemy that never really sleeps." 
 
 " I know, I know ! But is not safety worth eter- 
 nal vigilance ?" 
 
 There was in his countenance the glow of a rising 
 confidence. 
 
 " Ah, my friend," he added, as he took my hand 
 and held it tightly, "what would I not do or suffer 
 to be free from this awful slavery ; from this bond- 
 age to death and hell I" 
 
 " And the way is so plain and so easy," said I,
 
 THE CL'IISE AXD THE CURE. 15 
 
 -with all the encouragement I was able to throw into 
 inv voice. "Just to will to be free; and then to 
 stand up as a man. To say to appetite, ' So far and 
 no farthrr!'" 
 
 " It was my good angel who led ma here, and who 
 put these hopeful words into your mouth, my dear 
 old friend!" He spoke with much feeling. "I 
 haven't been home since yesterday. I was hi no 
 condition to meet my family last night ; and am in 
 little better condition this morning. You see, I've 
 not lost all shame and all consideration." 
 
 " You will go home now ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 I saw a shadow drifting over his face. 
 
 " Where are you living ?" 
 
 " Away up town ; but not as we used to live." 
 
 "Shall I go with you?" 
 
 He did not reply at once ; but the shadows were 
 deeper on his face. 
 
 " If you will." There was a returning depression 
 in his voice; and I saw that, his nerves, which had 
 grown steady under the pressure of new thoughts 
 and purposes, were giving way again. He drew a 
 hand across his forehead. It was trembling. 
 
 " You remember Helen?" he said. 
 
 "Oh, yes. How is she?" 
 
 There was something like a gasp, or quick catch- 
 of The breath. Then, with an dl'ort to control 
 flings: "Not as when you saw her la.-t. Ah! 
 sir, what a cruel devil this drink is I"
 
 1 (5 STEONO DRINK; 
 
 " Cruel as death," I responded, falling in with his 
 thoughts. 
 
 "As death? Oh, no! Death is an angel of 
 mercy ; but drink is a devil i My poor Helen !" 
 
 What grief and tenderness were in his voice as he 
 uttered the name of his wife. 
 
 "For her sake, Granger." 
 
 " For her sake !" He spoke with a sudden intense 
 earnestness, while a strong light flashed into his 
 eyes. "If I were to see a wild beast rushing down 
 upon her, do you think I would pause to question 
 about consequences to myself? Not for a single 
 instant ! What would I not do, and bear, and suffer 
 for her sake ! Ah ! sir, she has been a good wife to 
 me. So patient, so true, so tender always. And I 
 have tried so hard, and fought so hard, for her 
 sake." 
 
 "And now let the new life you are going to lead 
 find its highest strength in these three words For 
 her sake. Let the steady will and the better man- 
 hood be for her sake. Hold the brief sentence ever 
 against your heart; set it ever before your eyes. For 
 her sake, my friend 1" 
 
 "Yes, for her sake, God bless her!" His voice 
 shook, and I saw tears coming into his eyes. 
 
 "What higher strength than this. Surely you 
 will stand as a rock against which the maddest bil- 
 lows of temptation must break and dissolve into 
 foam and spray." 
 
 "For her sake I will stand ! For her sake, and
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cl'i:K. 17 
 
 f >r the sake of my wronged and humiliated children. 
 A VI uit a wretch I have been ! To fill the lives of 
 those I love with shame and sorrow ; and for what ? 
 Just to gratify an appetite !" 
 
 "Which, if you will to deny, must always stand 
 
 d. Keep ever in your thought the true order 
 
 of life, which is the subjection of the sensual to the 
 
 rational. If the sensual is suffered to rule, then will 
 
 anarchy and violence reign in the kingdom ; but if 
 
 n keeps her seat of power, order, and peace, 
 
 and happiness will prevail ; and the sensual will be 
 
 as a staff in the hand of Aaron, and not as a biting 
 
 serpent on the ground." 
 
 "Ah ! yes, it is growing clearer and clearer. All 
 d.uiiror lies in this infirmity of the will, in this heark- 
 ening to the lying voice of a serpent, instead of to 
 our God-given reason." 
 
 Granger was lifting himself with a more as- 
 sured air, and there was a growing strength in his 
 face. 
 
 " I must go home now," he said, rising. 
 
 " And I am to go with you ?" 
 
 Did I betray a doubt in my voice ? Perhaps ; for 
 away back and almost out of sight in my mind lay 
 a doubt of the new-born strength of this man's will. 
 It might endure until he reached his home, or it 
 miijit yield to enticement by the way. lie had not 
 yet r 1 his manhood. Was still weak, and 
 
 must walk for a time witli unsteady steps. All this 
 
 I felt rather than thought. 
 o
 
 13 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 He set Ills eyes on me with a keen look just for 
 an instant before replying. 
 
 " If you care to see what a poor and wretched 
 home it is." 
 
 " I care to give you what help and strength lies 
 in my power." I took my hat as I spoke, and we 
 went out together. 
 
 I had not seen Alexander Granger before for 
 nearly a year. He was a lawyer of fine abilities, and 
 in the first ten years of his practice at the bar had 
 risen steadily into notice, and been connected, as 
 counsel, with many important cases. But, unhappily, 
 his social nature led him too often out of the ways 
 of safety. It was the old, sad story which has been 
 told so many and so many times. Just in the very 
 prime of his life, the* subtle power of drink began 
 to bear him down. If he had taken alarm at the 
 first warning he received of the establishment and 
 growth of this power, and broken free from it in a 
 single resolute effort, all would have been well. 
 But here again it was the old story repeated. He 
 had faith in his own manhood ; in his ability to go 
 just so far and no farther ; to keep on the edge of 
 danger and never step across. And he held to this, 
 even in the face of one lapse after another, until he 
 became the slave of appetite. 
 
 It took years for all this ; for he had a strong, 
 tough brain, and great physical energy ; and his 
 steadily increasing practice at the bar held him in 
 earnest work, and for a long time out of the sphere
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 19 
 
 of apparent danger. But no brain can do its best 
 under the stimulant of alcohol. There must always 
 a loss of clearness. There may be an increased 
 activity, but this very activity, where the reason is 
 obscured and interests at the same time imperilled, 
 leads too often to disaster. It happened so to Gran- 
 ger. In the very height of his popularity he lost a 
 case of great importance. His client did not know 
 that on the previous night he had been over-free with 
 wine at a supper from which he did not get home 
 until after the small hours began ; and that before 
 coming into court to make his final argument, he 
 had been compelled to steady his nerves with a 
 glass of brandy. No, they did not know this ; but 
 what they did know was, that he failed to bring 
 out with logical clearness the strong point in their 
 case, and the one on which they chiefly relied. 
 Considered as a mere forensic display, it was one of 
 the most brilliant ever heard in the court-room, 
 and men listened to it breathlessly, admiring its 
 fine periods, its exhibition of learning, and its 
 wealth of imagery and illustration ; but, while it 
 extorted admiration, it failed in the chief essential 
 of a legal argument, working no conviction on the 
 minds of the twelve men with whom the decision of 
 tin- case rested. 
 
 It was Granger's first great failure. Did no 
 MMpicion of the real cause intrude itself upon his 
 thoughts? Yes ; but it was thrust out as false and 
 unworthy. His head was never cl<-aivr, nor his
 
 20 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 mind more active. So he declared to himself in 
 his quick rejection of the very truth it so much 
 concerned him to know. But the incident troubled 
 him; and in the face of his effort to look away 
 from the real cause of failure, and to count it as 
 nothing, he made an almost involuntary resolution 
 to abstain from any free use of stimulants for some 
 days before arguing another important case ; and 
 for more than a year he acted upon this resolution. 
 
 But his wine at dinner, his exchange of drinking 
 courtesies with friends, and his indulgence at sup- 
 pers and social parties, gradually depraved his 
 appetite, and it grew to be more and more exacting. 
 For awhile only a single glass had been taken with 
 his dinner. Then there was an occasional second 
 glass, and in time two glasses became the regular 
 custom. A third glass now and then marked the 
 Eteady growth of appetite. So it went on, with a 
 slow but sure increase, until it was no unusual thing 
 for Granger to drink half a bottle of wine every 
 day with his dinner ; and to finish the bottle before 
 going to bed. 
 
 Fame and fortune were just within his reach. 
 He was regarded as the ablest of all the rising men 
 at the bar of his native city, and many of the best 
 cases were coming into his hands, when the evidences 
 of blight and failure of power became visible. After 
 losing the case to which I have referred, he was on 
 guard for a long time ; but the steadily increasing 
 use of stimulants wrought its natural result on Ins
 
 TIIK LTRSE AXD THE Cl'lir. 21 
 
 , and liis second great failure in court was due 
 in all ]>n1 lability as much to a complete uK-tinence 
 from drink as the first was to its use and the 
 unhealthy excitement that followed. 
 
 This loss of mental clearness in consequence of a 
 loss of the usual brain-tonic, was a fact far more 
 j>:i tent to Granger's mind than had been the 
 other fact of loss of mental clearness through un- 
 usual stimulation, and he resolved not to risk 
 another experiment of the kind, but rather to give 
 his nerves a firmer tone by an exfra glass on the 
 eve of every specially important effort hi court. It 
 is surprising how men who are clear-seeing as to 
 cause and effect in almost everything else, can be so 
 blind about the ultimate result of repeated and in- 
 creasing stimulation on that wonderful and delicate 
 organism, the brain. It shows how subtle, and 
 strong, and self-deceiving is the sensual side of our 
 nature, if, instead of holding it in strict subordina- 
 tion to reason and the laws of order, we give it the 
 rein, and submit even partially to its rule. 
 
 After this second important failure, and Granger's 
 clear apprehension of the proximate cause, he did 
 not again venture on complete abstinence as a safe 
 1 'reparation for entrance upon a legal conflict in 
 which large interests hung on victory or defeat. 
 1 5ut, for all this, he was never able to bring to his 
 cases the clear logic and force of argument for 
 which he had once been distinguished. He had, in 
 fact, reached his highest point of success and n-pu-
 
 22 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 tation ; and as the causes which had checked his 
 upward movement were still in force, and his power 
 of resistance waning, it was not long before the 
 downward change became apparent to all. 
 
 And now, his nearest friends began to warn and 
 to expostulate. But only after some disgraceful fall 
 from sobriety, was heed taken, and efforts at reform 
 made. It was the old story, as we have said. Fall- 
 ing, falling slowly. Then a pause and a rallying of 
 strength, and an effort to move upwards again. And 
 then a yielding to the downward drag. He did not 
 at this time show himself to the world as a common 
 drunkard; and the people who met him on the 
 street, at his office, or in the court-rooms, rarely 
 saw him so much under the influence of liquor as 
 to betray the fact in any marked way ; and yet, all 
 could see that he was becoming the slave of drink, 
 and that his utter ruin was only a matter of time, 
 unless there should come a total change in his 
 habits. 
 
 Down, down, the descent becoming more rapid. 
 Sudden stoppages, as one strong influence after 
 another was brought to bear upon him ; solemn 
 promises, and pledges of reform ; firm standing for 
 brief periods ; and then, down, down again ! And 
 thus it went on for years ; and there came loss of 
 an honorable position at the bar ; loss of practice ; 
 loss of social status ; moral weakness and degrada- 
 tion ; poverty and wretchedness. And still, there 
 were intermitted struggles with the enemy, and
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 23 
 
 efforts to rise into a true manhood. A sad, sad 
 >ry, running through years of increasing dis- 
 aster, humiliation and sorrow, until he had reached 
 the level on which the reader finds him. 
 
 Yet, as has been seen, some hope and strength 
 were yet remaining ; some feeling of self-respect, 
 and an unextinguished love for his unhappy wife 
 and wronged and suffering children, for whom he 
 would have braved any physical peril even death
 
 CHAPTEK II. 
 
 66 T~ HAVE taken a dozen pledges," said Granger, 
 -L as we passed into the street ; " but they are as 
 flax to fire when this thirst seizes upon me." 
 
 " Because," I answered, " they are only external 
 bonds; and if the inner force be against them, they 
 will break should the force be stronger than the 
 bond. There is safety only in the strength of an 
 internal integrity. The will must be strong and 
 true. If, to change^the figure of speech, the will be 
 set to guard the door, no enemy can make a breach 
 unless the will be corrupted. So long as the will is 
 true, the man is safe. No, no. Put no trust in 
 pledges nor promises. They are things outside of 
 you, so to speak. Mere bonds, weak or strong, as 
 the case may be. You must trust in yourself in 
 the strength of your will in your manhood and 
 self-centered power. Here is your only true abiding. 
 The pledge may be well enough as a rallying point 
 where a first stand is made against the enemy ; but 
 the man must fight it out to the bitter end, and that 
 in himself and by himself. There is no other hope. 
 No arm but his own can save him." 
 
 We walked in silence for almost the distance of 
 24
 
 Till-: CfliSE AXD THE CURE. 25 
 
 a block before Granger made any reply. lie was, 
 '. i ntly, pondering what I had said. 
 
 " Xo arm but his own arm?" He stopped, and 
 turning, fixed his eyes steadily on my face, with a 
 look in them that I scarcely comprehended. 
 
 " If a man fight not for himself, who shall fight 
 for him ? This enemy is within, and the man him- 
 M -If must cast him out. I cannot fight the battle for 
 you ; nor can any one else. It is your own strong 
 right arm that must bring the victory." 
 
 " Is there no help in God ?" There was an eager 
 thrill in his voice as he put the question. 
 
 " Of course," I repliec^ a little coldly. " But we 
 must be careful not to confound things. A false, 
 or irrational trust, is worse than no trust at all, for 
 it will surely betray. God helps those who help 
 themselves ; who use in right and orderly ways the 
 strength He gives to every man. I know of no 
 ini a iis by which to get help from God but in the 
 right use of the faculties with which He has endow i < 1 
 us. They are, of course, God-given, for He is our 
 Maker. But He does not live for us, nor work for 
 us, nor fight for us. All these we must do for our- 
 selves." 
 
 I saw the light go slowly out of his face as he 
 dropped his eyes to the ground, and moved forward 
 a^ain. Something like a shadow and a chill came 
 upon my own feelings, and my mind seemed to pass 
 into an obscuring cloud. Had I spoken truly ? AVas 
 tlu-rc no other help hi God but this that I had said?
 
 26 STRONG DRISK; 
 
 It was all very clear to me while I was speaking ; 
 but, somehow, my strong assurance was all at once 
 broken, and I felt as one drifting to sea. I had 
 been laying out this man's course for him, and now 
 I was in doubt myself. 
 
 " You may be right about it, Mr. Lyon," Granger 
 said, after another long silence. " But it seems to 
 put God so far away, To take from Him all pity, 
 and tenderness, and love. He will help me if I try 
 to help myself; but, unless I do this, He will not so 
 much as reach out His hand, though the billows be 
 , going over me !" 
 
 Even above the noise of the street I heard the 
 sigh that came with the closing of this last sentence. 
 
 "Is not His hand always reached out?" I an- 
 swered ; " and is it not because we refuse to take 
 hold of it that we are not saved ?" 
 
 " I don't know."' He spoke in a dreary, depressed 
 tone of voice. " If one could see the hand, and be 
 sure it was God's." 
 
 " What is the hand of God but the power that is 
 within us from Him ? The power to will and to do 
 what is right ; to stand fast in the front of tempta- 
 tion ; to walk securely in the strength He gives us ? 
 We grasp His hand when we use this power." 
 
 " Doubtless it is so ; but our poor eyes have be- 
 come very dim-sighted." 
 
 He was silent again, and I began to feel troubled 
 about his state of mind, lest a depressing sense of 
 weakness should destroy that confidence in his own
 
 THE critSE AND THE CURE. 07 
 
 shvnijth of will with which I was seeking to inspire 
 him. 
 
 " We may be very sure of one thing, Mr. Gran- 
 I said, repeating my former proposition, 
 " the true order of life is the government of reason. 
 This must rule over all the lower things of sense. 
 The appetites and passions must be held in complete 
 subjection. God is with us, and in us ; gives us of 
 His strength, and keeps us in safety, so long as we 
 maintain this true order of life. If we will not 
 maintain it, He cannot do it for us; and the same 
 law must rule in restoration and cure as in normal 
 order. We must take the strength God is always 
 giving, and use it for ourselves. "We would be only 
 machines if He merely lived in us as the mainspring 
 of all our actions." 
 
 "No help, no love; only laws of order. "No 
 pitying face, nor tender voice, nor bending form. 
 No quick, grasping hand as we send out the de- 
 spairing cry, * Save, Lord, or we perish !' ' 
 
 "Don't let us talk any more about this, Mr. 
 Granger," said I. "It is troubling you and con- 
 fusing your mind ; and now, above all things, you 
 need to be calm and clear-seeing, for it is clear-see- 
 ing that makes safe walking." 
 
 We were not far from his home now, and in a 
 
 few minutes were at the door. What a poor little 
 
 home it was as compared with that luxurious one in 
 
 which I had many times been a guest in former 
 
 3, Little better than that of an humble day-
 
 28 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 laborer. I felt a chill and a heart-ache as my eyes 
 looked upon it, and I remembered the beautiful 
 home in which Mrs. Granger had once presided. 
 She was a woman of more than ordinary culture and 
 refinement. In stature below the common height, 
 with regular though not strikingly handsome fea- 
 tures. Her eyes made the fine attraction of her 
 face; they were large, and, in color, of a dark 
 hazel, with a perpetual changing of aspect and 
 a restlessness of movement that was very peculiar. 
 But you saw, in all these changing hues and as- 
 pects, that they were true eyes, and beautiful as 
 true. 
 
 Granger took a latch-key from his pocket as we 
 paused at the door. 
 
 "Shall I go in?" I asked. "It might not be 
 pleasant for Mrs. Granger." 
 
 He did not answer, but threw the door open, and 
 made a motion- for me to enter. There was a narrow 
 hall, covered with a worn and faded carpet. From 
 this we passed into a small parlor, in which were a 
 few articles of furniture, remnants of better days. 
 There were no pictures on the walls beyond a few 
 photographic likenesses and two fine miniatures of 
 Mr. and Mrs. Granger. Once they possessed many 
 rare paintings. Plain Holland shades hung at the 
 windows. Though everything was in order, there 
 was a certain chill and desolateness in the atmosphere 
 of the room that struck me sensibly. It might have 
 come from the contrast I saw between this and the
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. OQ 
 
 :ui(l luxurious parlor in which I had last met 
 this unhappy family. 
 
 But I had scarcely time to notice my surround- 
 . or to question my state of feeling, before quick 
 lid were heard on the stairs, and in a moment after- 
 wards Mrs. Granger stood at the parlor door with 
 wide-open, eager, questioning eyes; now fixing them 
 upon me, and now upon her husband. 
 
 ".Mr. Lyon; you remember him." 
 
 I reached out my hand as her husband gave my 
 name. A faint tinge of color rose to her pale face. 
 Ah, how changed and wasted ! 
 
 She did not repeat my name, and I was not cer- 
 tain that she recognized me. For a moment only 
 did her eyes rest on me; then they went swiftly to 
 her husband. I saw a throb in her throat, and a 
 flush and thrill quickening on her face. 
 
 "There is going to be a new order of life, Mrs. 
 (iran^er," said I, breaking the silence and panto- 
 iniiw 1 . "And the old days are coming back 
 again." 
 
 "A now life, Helen ! Yes, a new life, God help- 
 ing me ! And the old better days again." 
 
 'I saw the lips that had been closely shut, fall 
 apart, and the large eyes grow larger. There was a 
 statue-like stillness ; then a faint, smothered cry, and 
 a dropping down of the quivering face Oil Grai: 
 
 4. My eyes were dim with sudden tears, hut I 
 could seethe husband's arms fold themselves clos. -ly 
 ahoiit tln> -mall. li;, r ht form of that true, patient,
 
 30 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 long-suffering one in whose heart love had never 
 failed. 
 
 I would have gone out and left them so, but that 
 might not be well ; so I waited for this first strong 
 tide of feeling to ebb. They were still standing 
 Mrs. Granger's face hidden on her husband's breast, 
 and his arms clasping her tightly when the sound 
 of other feet on the stairs was heard, and in a mo- 
 ment after a beautiful girl stood, with startled eyes, 
 at the door of the little parlor. 
 
 "Oh, it's father !" she ejaculated. Then on seeing 
 me, she shrunk back a step or two, with a timid air, 
 the blood rising to her temples. 
 
 "Is anything the matter ?" she asked, in a panting 
 voice, as a scared expression came into her face. 
 
 "Yes, something good," I answered, quickly. 
 
 On hearing this, Granger withdrew one of his 
 arms from about his wife, and holding it out toward 
 the girl, said : " My daughter I" 
 
 Gliding past me with a rapid motion, she threw 
 herself within the extended arm, and mother and 
 child lay held in a single strong embrace. 
 
 So I left them, passing out with noiseless feet. 
 For stranger eyes all this was too sacred ; and I felt 
 that it was best for them to be alone. 
 
 Next day I called at Mr. Granger's office, and 
 found him at his desk, busy over some law papers. 
 Things about him had a look of new-made order, as 
 if there had been a recent general setting to rights ; 
 and something in his personal appearance gave the
 
 THE CrnSE AND THE CURE. 31 
 
 same impression. There was a bright flash in his 
 eyes as he lifted them in recognition, and I saw a 
 marvelous change in his face; and, indeed, in his 
 whole aspect. 
 
 "All right," I said, cheerily, as I grasped his ex- 
 tended hand. 
 
 "All right, thank God!" 
 
 "And right once for all," said I, in a confident 
 tone. 
 
 " Yes ; once for all. Somehow," he added, " I 
 feel stronger than I have ever felt before ; more self- 
 centered, and with a firmer grasp on the rein. The 
 ilu-t is, Lyon, you gave me a new thought yesterday, 
 and I've been looking at it and holding fast to it 
 ever since ; and the more I look at it, and the longer 
 I keep hold of it, the more assured do I feel. I see, 
 as I never saw before, where the danger lies. It is 
 tin weak will that betrays." 
 
 " Always," I made answer. " If the will be true 
 ami strong, the man is safe. Appetite can do noth- 
 ing if the will be firm in denial. Never forget this. 
 In the hour of temptation, it is the ' I will,' or the 
 ' I will not,' that determines everything. There is 
 not a devil in hell subtle enough to betray a man it' 
 In- HIM -i him with the all powerful 'I will not!" 1 
 
 "I believe you, my friend." 
 
 There was, I did not fail to notice, more confi- 
 deri'.-e in Granger's words than in his voice; and 
 tliis gave mi; a slight feeling of uneasiness. 
 
 " Hold on, as with hooks of steel, to your faith in
 
 32 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 yourself in the strength of your God-given man- 
 hood. If the tempter comes, say ' No !' as you will 
 always be able to say. It is the weak, the doubting, 
 the half-hearted who fall." 
 
 As we talked, a gentleman named Stannard came 
 in. On seeing the change in Granger's appearance, 
 he said : " Been turning over another new leaf, 
 I see. Glad of it from my heart. And now, 
 friend Granger, what is to be the first writing 
 thereon ?" 
 
 " / will not" was the firmly spoken answer. 
 
 " Good as far as it goes." 
 
 " What more ?" asked Granger. 
 
 " God being my helper" 
 
 " Is not God's strength in every true ' I will ' or 
 ' I will not ?" said I, speaking before Granger had 
 time to answer, for I was afraid of some confusion 
 being wrought in his mind. 
 
 " There is no good thing that does not come from 
 God," was the calmly-spoken answer. " In Him 
 we live, and move, and have our being." 
 
 "No reflecting man will deny that. But the 
 grave and practical question is, how does God be- 
 stow His good things ? What are the laws of order 
 by which He acts with men ?" 
 
 " Love is His great law," said Mr. Stannard. 
 
 "We all believe that; but love works through 
 orderly means. If a man wilfully close his eyes, 
 God cannot make him see. If he shut himself away 
 in a dungeon, God cannot give him light. If he
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 33 
 
 ' will not/ God cannot save him, though all day He 
 stretches fortli His merciful hand." 
 
 "No one will question that, I presume," was an- 
 swered. "But now we have the other proposition 
 under consideration. It is the 'I will not' of our 
 friend here as set against temptation. Now, under 
 what law is he to get God's help?" 
 
 " It will come to him in his effort to do right." 
 
 "'Ask and it shall be given unto you. Seek and 
 ye shall find. Watch and pray, lest ye enter into 
 temptation. Come unto me.' These are the Lord's 
 own words ; and do they not mean that we are to 
 do something more than what your answer indi- 
 cates. Will all the help needed come without the 
 asking ?" 
 
 "A.s if," I said, with a slight tremor of feeling in 
 my voice, " as if God held back for man's formal 
 asking? As if His infinite love were not forever 
 yearning to save? and forever flowing with divine 
 strength into every effort to fight against evil. It is 
 in man's will where he is truly potential ; and he 
 must set his will against allurement, and stand in 
 the strength of his true manhood." 
 
 " But suppose the will has become so sickly and 
 i ved that it cannot receive a just measure of life 
 and strength from God? When an organ in the 
 human body is diseased it is no longer able to do its 
 proper work, though the heart be perpetually send- 
 ing for its use a due portion of healthy blood. If 
 the wi|J were in order, we might trust to the, will ;
 
 34 STKONG DRINK; 
 
 but, alas! it is not. It is diseased; and without 
 help from the Great Physician, will fail in the work 
 of its office. Nay, nay, friend Granger, put no 
 faith in your '/ will not,' unless you write also on 
 the leaf of the new page you have turned, 'God 
 being my helper.' If this be not done all your good 
 .purposes will avail, I fear, but little." 
 
 "Anything to give our friend strength," I re- 
 plied. " It will do no harm for him to write as you 
 say ; only let him not lose faith in himself because 
 of his trust in God. It is just here that the danger 
 lies. It is the clear-seeing, as I have said to him, 
 that makes the safe-walking. If we do not know 
 the way, we are all the while in danger of stum- 
 bling." 
 
 "'I am the way, and the truth, and the life/" said 
 Mr. Stannard. " If we go to Him, shall we be in 
 any danger of losing our way ? I think not." 
 
 As we talked, Granger looked first at one of us 
 and then at the other, hearkening carefully to what 
 we said, and evidently weighing the import of our 
 words. That all was not clear to him, was evident 
 from his manner. I dropped the argument, in fear 
 that his mind might get confused, and that, while in 
 this unsettled state> his old enemy might rush in 
 upon him and bear him down ere he had time to 
 arrange his order of defence. 
 
 Mr. Stannard had called on a matter of business, 
 and on becoming aware of this, I withdrew from the 
 office and left liim alone with Granger. I carried
 
 Till-: CURSE ASD THE CURE. 35 
 
 aw.-iy with me an uneasy feeling. Mr. Stannard 
 was a man for whom I had great respect. He was 
 a prominent church member, and active in Christian 
 work ; and so far as my knowledge of him went, his 
 life among men was blameless. But my philosophy 
 of religion differed in some essential points from his. 
 We both held to the necessity of a pure life ; but 
 were not in agreement as to the means whereby this 
 purity of life was to be attained. He held to the 
 power of grace, through faith, as the only means 
 whereby man could be saved at least, so I had 
 understood him I to man's innate force of will, 
 into which strength would flow from God the in- 
 stant his will moved in a right effort. My fear now 
 was, that Mr. Stannard might undo the work I had 
 attempted, and destroy Granger's faith in himself, 
 leaving him to a blind confidence in some outside 
 help which might never come. This was the 
 ground of my uneasiness. 
 
 I did not see Granger again for several days ; and 
 then our meeting was in a public thoroughfare, and 
 for a few moments only. His face was clear and 
 bright, and his air manly and assured. 
 Ml right!" I said, as I took his hand. 
 
 "All right," he responded, giving me a strong 
 returning grip. 
 
 " Standing fast by ' I will not.' " 
 
 " Standing fast," was his answer, a slight change 
 in the expression of his countenance. 
 
 It was on my lips to say : " Don't forget that the
 
 36 
 
 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 will is the man; and that all hell cannot move 
 him if the will stand fast." But I held the sen- 
 tence back from an impulse I did not quite under- 
 stand. So we parted, each going his way.
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 . GRANGER was in church this morn- 
 ing," said my wife, on coming home, a few 
 Sundays afterward. 
 
 "Ah! How did she look?" 
 
 " The sight of her brought tears into my eyes. 
 How much she has changed. And she looked so 
 poor and humbled." 
 
 " Was any one with her ?" 
 
 I did not put the question that was in my thought; 
 but the one I asked would bring, I doubted not, the 
 answer I wished to hear. 
 
 " Yes ; a sweet young girl her oldest daughter, 
 Amy, I presume. The beautiful child has grown 
 almost to a woman since I saw her last" 
 
 " No one else ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 Though I had not been to church myself, and had 
 not much faith in Sunday religious services, judg- 
 ing of them by their influence on a majority of my 
 church-going acquaintances, I could not help feeling 
 regret at the fact of Mr. Granger's absence. Some- 
 how, the impression took hold of me that it would 
 have been better and safer for him to have gone to 
 37
 
 38 STRONG DRINK f 
 
 church ; and the fact that he had not accompanied 
 his wife left on my mind a vague sense of uneasi- 
 ness. Where had he gone ; and what were the in- 
 fluences which had been around him on this day of 
 freedom from daily work and the thought and care 
 of business ? 
 
 " Mr. Granger was not there," said I, wishing to 
 be altogether sure about the matter. 
 
 "No." Then, after a little silence, Mrs. Lyon 
 said, " I was sorry not to have seen him with his 
 wife." 
 
 It was on my tongue to express the regret I was 
 myself feeling, but as my wife and I were not wholly 
 in agreement on the subject of church-going, I did 
 not care to commit myself so far as to give an assent 
 to her view of the case ; and as I did not respond, 
 the subject was dropped. 
 
 After dinner I took a walk, and as I could not 
 get Granger out of my mind, nor rid myself of a 
 certain feeling of responsibility in regard to him, I 
 concluded to extend my ramble as far as the neigh- 
 borhood in which he lived and make him a call. 
 My ring brought his wife to the door. 
 
 " Is Mr. Granger at home ?" I asked. 
 
 I saw a slight shade drop across her face as she 
 answered : " No ; he has gone to take a walk in the 
 Park." Then, after a moment, " Won't you come 
 in, Mr. Lyon?" 
 
 I accepted the invitation. As I took a seat in the 
 plain little parlor, and looked at Mrs. Granger, I
 
 THE CURSE ASD THE CURE. 39 
 
 was painfully impressed with the changes a few 
 I had wrought in her appearance. Such lines 
 of suffering as had been cut into her brow and 
 around her lips! Such wasting and exhaustion I 
 It v,-;is very sad. 
 
 "I met your husband a few days ago," said I, 
 speaking at once, so that there might be no embar- 
 rassing pause, " and was glad to see him looking so 
 well." 
 
 She smiled faintly ; but not with the bright, al- 
 most radiant smile I was hoping to see. 
 
 " Yes ; he is doing very well." Her voice lacked 
 heartiness, I fancied. 
 
 " And is going to stand this time," said I, speak- 
 ing confidently. 
 
 " God grant it !" A reverent earnestness coming 
 into her manner. 
 
 " He has found a new element of strength." 
 
 She met my remark with a look of inquiry, keen 
 and searching. 
 
 "A true faith in himself in his manhood in 
 the native force of his own strong will." 
 
 " There is no sure help but in God, Mr. Lyon." 
 
 I seem to hear now her slow utterance of this 
 sentiment, and the strong emphasis given to the 
 words, "No sure help but in God" 
 
 " < iod is in every manly effort to do right," I an- 
 sw.-tvd. "He gives strength to the will that sets 
 iiisiiiist evil enticement. We trust in Him 
 wlu-n vv trust in the power He gives us."
 
 40 STEONG DRINK; 
 
 " What my husband says ; and it may all be so 
 in some way that I do not clearly understand." 
 
 I made an effort to explain myself more clearly ; 
 but, when I was done, she answered with simple 
 earnestness : " It is better to look to God than to 
 ourselves, Mr. Lyon. I am sure of that. Every 
 hour, every moment, even, we need His help and 
 care, for the enemies who are against us are very 
 malignant, very subtle, and very strong. I should 
 have a safer feeling about my husband if he had a 
 little less confidence in the strength of his own will, 
 and more in that Divine power which I believe can 
 only be had for the asking." 
 
 " As if God would stand away, coldly indifferent, 
 and let a striving soul perish because there was no 
 formal asking. Such a thought, in my view, dis- 
 honors Him. Would a father wait for his child to 
 call for help if he saw him drowning ?" 
 
 " No ; and I do not think that God ever holds 
 back from saving in the sense you seem to mean, 
 Mr. Lyon. If a father were reaching after his 
 drowning child, and calling to him, ' Give me your 
 hand, my eon !' and his child were to refuse the of- 
 fered help, and trust to his own strength, how could 
 the father save him ?" 
 
 She waited for my reply, looking at me steadily. 
 "What answer could I make ? The question seemed 
 to open a window in my soul and let in beams of 
 light ; but they were not yet strong enough to make 
 her full meaning clear.
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE 41 
 
 " Well, what more?" I queried. 
 
 "Our Heavenly Father is all the while reaching 
 
 out to save His perishing children, and His voice, 
 
 tender with compassion, and earnest with love, is 
 
 . T crying, 'Son, give me thy heart I' And if 
 
 the heart be not given, how can the soul be saved ?" 
 
 Mrs. Granger's further question almost startled 
 me. It gave a deeper significance to " being saved " 
 than I had yet comprehended. 
 
 She went on: "They that dwell in God dwell in 
 safety. Of that we may be sure. Can this be said, 
 confidently, of any others? Ah! sir, where so 
 much is at stake it will not do to risk anything in 
 doubtful trusts. A man's will may be very strong ; 
 but if the Spirit of God be within him, he will be 
 far stronger nay, invincible in the face of legions 
 of enemies. God is as a walled city about his peo- 
 ple, and as a rock of defence. He is a sure refuge 
 in the day of trouble." 
 
 Her face had kindled, and there was something 
 in the earnestness of her manner, and in the assured 
 tones with which she spoke, that seemed to bear me 
 away and set me adrift. I had nothing to say in 
 opposition. AVhat could I say ? There was truth 
 in every word she had uttered ; and if I had ques- 
 tioned or cavilled in anything, it would only have 
 been as to the exact meaning and practical application 
 of the truths she had spoken. And after all, might 
 she not have a clearer insight than myself into the 
 my.-tery of God's ways with man?
 
 42 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 "You must try to get Mr. Granger to go to 
 church with you. It will he hest for him, I am 
 sure," said I, speaking with a stronger conviction of 
 the truth of what J said than I was willing to admit 
 even to myself. 
 
 "If you would only urge him to go, Mr. Lyon. 
 He has great confidence in your judgment, and will 
 be influenced by what you say. You have helped 
 him greatly ; helped not only to lift him to his feet 
 again, but to set them going in the right way. Only, 
 Mr. Lyon and you will excuse me for saying it 
 you are leading him, I greatly fear, into a state of 
 false security. We may differ about this. But, sir, 
 the safest way is the best way ; and I am sure that 
 he who goes to God under a sense of weakness, and 
 prays for strength, will be stronger in the hour of 
 temptation, and safer under the assaults of his 
 enemies, than he who relies solely upon himself." 
 
 "Not solely upon himself," I returned. "I did 
 not mean that he should so understand me. We 
 have no life that is absolutely our own ; and no 
 strength that is absolutely our own; all are from 
 God. Still, the life and strength that God is per- 
 petually giving we must take and use as if it were 
 our own. I meant no more and no less. God gives 
 the strength to fight ; but we must overcome. He 
 does not work for us, nor fight for us, nor save us ; 
 for doing so would be to destroy what makes our 
 very life. We must do all this for ourselves ; using 
 the power He is forever giving to all who will use it."
 
 THE CURSE AND TUB CURE. 43 
 
 "And especially to all who call upon Him in 
 truth," said Mrs. Granger. " It may be very clear 
 to you, sir," she added, " how one may stand fast in 
 the strength God is always giving. But, if I read 
 my Bible aright there is a sphere of safety higher 
 and surer than this a more absolute getting, as it 
 were, into the everlasting arms ; and I shall never 
 feel at ease in regard to my husband until I feel 
 sure that these everlasting arms are round about 
 him." 
 
 I left the house more thoughtful and serious than 
 when I went in, and took my way to the Park, 
 hoping that I might meet Mr. Granger ; for, some- 
 how, his wife's sense of insecurity in regard to him 
 had left a like impression on my own mind. The 
 afternoon was clear and bright, and many thousands 
 of people were in the Park, walking, driving and 
 recruiting themselves in many ways ; some, I regret 
 to say, making too free use of the restaurants at 
 which, in defiance of Sunday laws, but under license 
 from the Park Commissioners, some of them churcli- 
 going men, all kinds of intoxicating drinks WITO 
 dispensed to the people. 
 
 I was sitting on the lawn near the largest of these 
 restaurants, from which could be seen the beautiful 
 river, placid as a lake, and the city with its spires 
 and domes in the distance, when I saw Granger in 
 company with two men, one of whom I recognized 
 as a lawyer of some standing at the bar, and the 
 other as a respectable merchant. They were cross-
 
 44 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 ing the lawn at the distance of twenty or thirty 
 yards from where I was sitting, and going in the 
 direction of one of the small refreshment tables that 
 stood in front of the restaurant. On reaching this 
 table, they all sat down and one of them beckoned to 
 a waiter, who, on receiving his order, went away. 
 In a little while he returned with two glasses of 
 some kind of mixed liquor and a bottle of soda wa- 
 ter. My relief was great when I saw this, for I 
 naturally inferred that the soda water was for Gran- 
 ger; and in this I was right. When they had 
 finished their glasses, one of them took from his 
 pocket a segar-case, and after each had lighted a 
 segar and smoked for a little while, they got up and 
 went leisurely strolling down one of the avenues, 
 taking a homeward direction. 
 
 Two or three times I had been on the point of 
 joining them, but the fear lest it should prove to 
 Granger an embarrassing intrusion, restrained me 
 from doing so. I was troubled at the occurrence. 
 This was going into danger ; taking unguarded rest 
 on the enemy's ground; inviting temptation. It 
 was scarcely possible, I saw, for Granger to sit 
 drinking with his friends, though he took only soda 
 water himself, without the odor of their glasses drift- 
 ing to his nostrils with its enticing allurement for 
 his denied appetite. Nor could he do so, without a 
 mental contrast of their freedom with his restraint. 
 In any view of the incident that I could take, it 
 gave me only regret and concern ; and I felt grieved
 
 THE CURSE ASD TUB CURK 45 
 
 almost to anger with the two friends who, knowing 
 as they did the man's weakness, and the great deep 
 out of which he had just struggled, should so set 
 temptation in his way as to make his fall again not 
 only possible, but imminent.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I DID not feel easy in my mind until I had called 
 at Granger's office on the next day. I found 
 him all right and busy at work. His eyes bright- 
 ened as he saw me, and he said, with genuine heart- 
 iness, as he grasped my hand : " I was so sorry you 
 called yesterday without finding me at home. Helen 
 told me of your visit. I had gone out for a stroll 
 in the Park." 
 
 While I was hesitating whether or not to say that 
 I had seen him there, he added, with a shade 
 of pride and self-confidence in his voice : " I had 
 an opportunity to test the native strength that lies 
 with every man, yesterday, and to prove the power 
 of a resolute 'I will not/ ' 
 
 "Ah? What were the circumstances ?" I wished 
 to get his own story, and so gave no intimation of 
 what I had seen. 
 
 He replied: "I met two friends while walking 
 near Belmont, and they invited me to join them in 
 a drink. My first thought was to say No ; but not 
 wishing to be disagreeable, I said, 'All right/ and 
 we went over to Proskauer's. I had just a little 
 fight with myself as we walked along ; but it was 
 soon over, and will stood firmly on guard. ' What 
 46
 
 'Soda-water for me." /"fi^e A7.
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 47 
 
 will you take?' asked one of them, as we sat down 
 in front of the restaurant. 'Claret punch/ said the 
 other. ' And you ?' looking at me. Will was all 
 right and on guard, as I have said, and ' Soda water 
 for me/ came without a shade of hesitation in my 
 voice. I never felt in greater freedom nor more at 
 ease and assured. Thank you from my heart, friend 
 Lyon ; you have helped me to get the full mastery 
 of myself." 
 
 "If a man only will to overcome in the day of 
 temptation, his victory is sure," said I, with renewed 
 confidence; for, was not the proof of this before 
 me ? "I am glad for your victory," I continued. 
 " It not only gives you increased assurance of safety, 
 but makes clear to your mind wherein this safety 
 lies. It is within ourselves that we must look for 
 help and strength. God is always giving us the 
 power to live right and to dwell beyond the reach of 
 our enemies ; but lie does not use that power for 
 us. This we must do for ourselves." 
 
 "All as clear to me as the sun at noonday," 
 Granger replied. " And how strong I fool in this 
 consciousness that If I will not, all hell, as you have 
 said, cannot move inc. To stand self-con to red is to 
 stand sure." 
 
 But for all his confidence and my own, I did not 
 fool that Granger was wholly safe. If there had 
 been no such thing as infirmity of the will, no sud- 
 den assaults of the enemy in unguarded moments, 
 no alluring enticements of the flesh, nor subtle
 
 48 STROXG DRINK; 
 
 reasonings of the sensual principle, which is so 
 ready to say when forbidden fruit is at the lip, "Ye 
 shall not surely die," I might not have doubted. 
 But I could not rule these considerations out of the 
 question. They were ever existing sources of dan- 
 ger and causes of anxiety ; and I knew but too well 
 that the history of moral defection was the history 
 of their dominion over the will of man. 
 
 " But, after all," I could not help saying, " is it 
 not safest for us to keep as much as possible out of 
 the way of temptation ?" 
 
 " Yes," he answered, in a tone that was almost 
 indifferent. " Safest, of course, to be in a sheltered 
 embrasure than out on the battle-field. But the 
 skill to fight, and the power to resist assault, cannot 
 be gained while one lies beyond the reach of danger. 
 We must be brave and strong, and ever ready for 
 the fight ; not so much seeking to avoid conflict, as 
 to be armed and ready, and quick to strike when 
 the foe appears. Does any man know his strength 
 until it is tried ? Is any man really strong until he 
 has met temptation and come out victorious ?" 
 
 There are truths which become changed into fal- 
 lacies because not considered in relation to other 
 truths ; or because of their too limited or too general 
 application. In the case of Granger, while I could 
 not deny the abstract truth of what he had been 
 saying, I felt that he stood in great danger of letting 
 it be to him little more than a betraying fallacy. 
 
 I saw him frequently after this, and observed him
 
 T1IE CURSE AND THE CURE. 49 
 
 ly. How fast the old strength, the old working 
 force and the old ambition were returning. And 
 witli all, how strong he seemed to be in the new 
 power which he had gained. 
 
 " My 'will not' is my sword and shield," he said 
 to me, many weeks after his new life began. " If 
 my enemy assault me from a distance, I catch his 
 arrows upon this shield ; if he fall upon me sud- 
 denly, I defeat him with this sword." 
 
 Time passed, and still Granger's feet were stand- 
 ing on solid ground. Business came flowing in, and 
 men who had important cases were again employing 
 him as counsel. He did not keep out of the way of 
 temptation as much as I thought prudent ; but his " I 
 will not" held him above the force of all allurement. 
 
 At home, the new aspect of things was like the 
 coming of spring after a long and desolate winter. 
 The poor, little, ill-attired house was changed for 
 one larger and more comfortfble, and furnished in 
 a style more befitting the tastes and habits of his 
 wife and children. Old social relations were in 
 many cases restored, and Mrs. Granger was seen 
 now and then in public places with her husband. 
 Heart-ache, deprivation, toil and humiliation had 
 made sorrowful changes in her face, and shadowed 
 her Iwautiful eyes ; but slowly the new spring-time 
 which opened upon her life wrought its sweet 
 changt-s, until you began to lose sight of the winter's 
 40S, and to find in tlu-ir >tra<l the pleasant signs 
 of a fast-coming and bountiful summer. 
 4
 
 50 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 For a whole year Granger held his ground, walk- 
 ing safely amid temptations that assailed him on the 
 right hand and on the left. His profession brought 
 him into familiar association with men who not only 
 used wine freely themselves, but made its offer to 
 their friends a social courtesy. Still, his steady 
 refusal to touch or taste was maintained. " I will 
 not" continued to be his tower of strength. 
 
 " I am prouder of this self-mastery," he said to 
 me one day, " than of any achievement in my life. 
 In the strength of this asserted manhood, I stand as 
 a rock, unmoved, though the billows dash madly 
 against me." 
 
 " He that ruleth his own spirit is better than he 
 that taketh a city," I replied. " The greatest of all 
 heroes is the man who conquers himself." 
 
 "Say, rather, he who, single-handed, meets the 
 infernal crew who would drag him down to death 
 and hell, and beats tl&m back," he replied. 
 
 There was a proud flash in his eyes as he lifted 
 himself to a statelier bearing. 
 
 " Have you seen Mr. Granger recently ?" asked 
 my wife, not many weeks afterwards. It was on 
 Sunday, and we were sitting at the dinner-table. 
 
 "No; why do you ask?" Something in Mrs. 
 Lyon's voice gave me a feeling of uneasiness. 
 
 " I saw Mrs. Granger at church this morning, 
 and she looked as if she had just come out of a spell 
 of sickness." 
 
 " Was she at church last Sunday?"
 
 THE CURSE AND TUB CURE. %\ 
 
 "Y 
 
 " Did you observe anything unusual in her ap- 
 pearance then ?" 
 
 - Xo." 
 
 " Was her daughter with her to-day ?" 
 
 " Yes ; and she looked almost as wretched as her 
 mother. There's something wrong, I'm afraid. Oh, 
 if Mr. Granger should have taken to drinking again, 
 would it not be dreadful ?" 
 
 My knife and fork dropped from my hands, and 
 I half rose from the table, so pained and startled 
 was I by this suggestion. 
 
 " Oh, no, no, that cannot be I" I replied, as I made 
 an effort to compose myself. " Mr. Granger is too 
 strong, and too well established in his reformation." 
 
 " From what I have heard you say," returned my 
 "I have been inclined to think him too self- 
 confident The boastful are not always the farthest 
 removed from peril ; and Granger has shown a 
 weakness in this direction. His 'I will not,' in 
 which you and he have put so great faith, may have 
 proven his stone of stumbling." 
 
 '* Why do you say that ?" I demanded, in a voice 
 meant to be assured, but into which came a betrayal 
 of weakness and fear. 
 
 "A man," replied my wife, "who has such a 
 fast faith in his * I will not/ as Granger possesses, 
 may fall through over-confidence in the power of 
 self-mastery." 
 
 "How?"
 
 52 STEONG DRINK; 
 
 "He may trust it too far." 
 
 "I do not get your meaning. "What is it?" 
 
 " Your friend is offered a glass of wine. The 
 sight and the odor kindle into a sudden flame the 
 old desire. He is conscious of strength, and with 
 an emphatic mental ' I will not !' turns from the 
 tempting glass. But, suppose, in his conscious, self- 
 centered strength, as you call it, he should say, ' I 
 will not taste but a single glass/ what then ? Is he 
 not as sure of himself after a single glass as he was 
 before ? Can he not say, l So far and no farther ?' ' 
 
 "You know that he cannot," I replied, almost 
 sharply, for her suggestion had struck me like a 
 blow. " That single glass would not only break the 
 strength of his will but give to appetite a new and 
 stronger power." 
 
 " But, suppose, in his self-confidence, he did not 
 believe this? When we are well and strong we 
 make light of over-strain, and the unseen but subtle 
 influences of miasma. Don't you see the perpetual 
 danger in which he would stand ?" 
 
 I did see it as I had not seen it before, though 
 many times fears and misgivings had troubled me. 
 
 " But about Mrs. Granger and her daughter ?" I 
 asked. " How did they look ?" 
 
 " I only saw them for a moment or two in the 
 vestibule of the church. At the first glance I 
 scarcely recognized Mrs. Granger. There did not 
 seem to be a particle of color in her face, which was 
 pinched, as we see it in those who are suffering acute
 
 TUB CURSE AXD TUB CURE. 53 
 
 pain. She did not look up at any one, and had the 
 manner of a person who wished to shrink away 
 without attracting observation. Depend upon it, 
 there is something wrong with her husband." 
 
 "Something wrong with her husband 1" It had 
 the sound of a knell in my ears. 
 
 After dinner, I called at Granger's residence and 
 asked for him, but was informed by the servant that 
 he was not at home. I then inquired for Mrs. 
 (J ranger, who sent word that she was not feeling 
 well, and asked to be excused. The servant's man- 
 ner was repressed and mysterious. I went away 
 with a heavy weight pressing on my heart, and 
 taking a car rode out to the Park, thinking it pos- 
 sible that I might find Granger there. I spent the 
 whole afternoon in the neighborhood of Belmont, 
 but saw nothing of him. In the evening, I called 
 at his house again, but was told, as before, that he 
 not at home. There was a look in the servant's 
 face, as she made this answer, which led me to 
 doubt its truth. 
 
 I made it my business to go to the lawyer's office 
 as early as ten o'clock on the following day. He 
 had not yet made his appearance. I returned at 
 twelve ; but he was still absent Then I visited the 
 court-rooms and inquired for him there ; but no one 
 n membered to have seen him within the last two or 
 three days. Late in the afternoon, I again visited 
 his office, but the door was still locked. 
 
 On tin- m-xt day, and on the next, my efforts to
 
 54 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 find Granger were no more successful. He still re- 
 mained away from his office. A week passed with- 
 out my seeing him. I had again and again called 
 at his residence, only to be informed that he was 
 not at home. 
 
 Sitting in my office late one afternoon, I heard 
 the door open, and turning, saw this man for whom 
 so great a concern was lying on my heart. Was it 
 all a dream, then, this year of reform and restora- 
 tion ? a bright, but cheating dream ? As I had 
 seen him, debased, nerveless, wretched, a year ago, 
 so I saw him now. Eyes blood-shotten, dress 
 soiled and disordered, face shorn of all manliness, 
 and marked in every lineament with debauchery 
 and excess ! 
 
 " Oh, Granger ! Granger I" I cried out, the sorrow 
 and pain which I felt going into my voice. " And 
 has it come to this ? All your strength gone all 
 your manhood trodden into the mire ?" 
 
 " All gone," he answered, in a moody, dogged 
 kind of way, as he shut the door and came a step 
 or two forward. I saw that he was considerably 
 under the influence of drink. 
 
 " I had hoped better things of you than this, Mr. 
 Granger," said I, with a measure of rebuke in my 
 voice. 
 
 " And I had hoped better things of myself," he 
 replied, as he sat down, or rather, dropped heavily 
 into a chair. "But I rather guess we reasoned 
 without our host, friend Lyon, built on a sandy
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 55 
 
 foundation ; and when the winds blew, and the rain 
 foil, and the floods came, down went the house, and 
 the fall thereof was great. Ha! Isn't it so? Don't 
 you remember that talk we had with Mr. Stannard 
 about the new leaf I had turned, and the writing 
 that was to go thereon. You and he differed about 
 it, 1 remember; and I took your view of the case. 
 But, d* you know, I've always had a notion that he 
 was nearest right." 
 
 " Then, in Heaven's name, try his way I" I ex- 
 clainu'd. " Anything to save you from this dread- 
 ful sin and debasement." 
 
 " That is, go and join the church." He gave a 
 short, ironical laugh. "Nice subject for the church!" 
 And he looked down at himself. "But, see here, 
 Lyon," his manner changing, " I'm all cleaned out. 
 Look I" and he held his pocket-book open. " All 
 <jonc, you perceive. Had more than a hundred 
 dollars when when I got on this confounded 
 ! Lend me a twenty. I want to buy a clean 
 shirt, and get a bath, and fix myself up before going 
 home." 
 
 "Will you fix yourself up and go home?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " Of course I will. But I can't meet Helen and 
 the children looking like this. I'd rather go ami 
 jump into the rivi-r." 
 
 I hesitated, not feeling sure of him. He was 
 under the influence of drink ; and the word of a 
 man in this condition c;m rarely, if ever, be trusted.
 
 56 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 " Honor bright, Mr. Lyon. I'm not going to de- 
 ceive you. I've set iny foot down, and don't mean 
 to drink another drop." 
 
 " Here are ten dollars," I said, taking a bank-bill 
 from my pocket-book ; " but before I give it to you, 
 I must have your word, as a man of honor, that you 
 will not spend a dollar of this money for liquor." 
 
 " My word and my honor, Mr. Lyon," and he 
 placed his hand over his heart. 
 
 In the next moment he was reaching out eagerly 
 for the bank-bill, which I let him take, though not 
 without many misgivings as to his proper use of the 
 money. He rose immediately and made a move- 
 ment to leave the office. 
 
 " Not yet, Mr. Granger. Sit down again. I wish 
 to have a little more talk with you." 
 
 " I'll call in to-morrow," he replied, not resuming 
 his seat, and showing considerable eagerness to get 
 away. " Haven't been home since day before yes- 
 terday, and they're getting worried about me. Good- 
 afternoon !" 
 
 And before I could make a movement to intercept 
 him, he was gone.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " FOUND Granger at Ins office on the next day. 
 
 - lie was writing, and did not turn to see who 
 
 had come in until I had waited for some moments. 
 
 His color heightened as he recognized me. There 
 
 ;i look of shame in his face, and considerable 
 
 embarrassment in his manner. 
 
 " Good morning," said I. 
 
 " Good morning," he responded, in a dull, cold 
 way. There was not the slightest invitation to 
 fYk'iidly confidence. I felt him pushing me off 
 almost as distinctly as if his action had been phy- 
 sical instead of mental. 
 
 "Just looked in to see how you were," I re- 
 marked. " All right, I hope?" 
 
 He turned a little from me, not making any 
 reply. While I was still in doubt as to what it 
 were best for me to do or say, a client came in to 
 consult him on business, which gave me an oppor- 
 tunity to retire from the office. I was glad of this, 
 for I was not sure as to Granger's real state of 
 mind ; nor half so confident as I had been a year 
 before that I could give the wise counsel a man in his 
 condition so greatly needed. That he had faithfully 
 57
 
 58 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 tried the prescription which I gave him then, I 
 knew ; and there was this to be said in its favor, 
 by its help he had stood firm for a whole year and 
 was not that a great deal ? True, but why had he 
 gained nothing in moral and spiritual power during 
 all this rule of the will over his sensual nature? 
 He should have been stronger, more self-centered, 
 more really invincible at the end of a year than at 
 the beginning ; and yet, the will off guard, in some 
 moment of assault, and he was again in the hands 
 of his enemy. 
 
 One conclusion forced itself upon me. This man's 
 condition was worse than before he made his reso- 
 lute and, for a time, successful effort to reform. The 
 will-power, in which he had trusted so confidently, 
 had failed in strength and vigilance, and left him a 
 prey to inrushing appetite. , Even if faith in him- 
 self were not destroyed, it must be a weaker faith 
 and less able to contend with appetite, which, 
 through another victory, had gained a new force. 
 
 All this, as I dwelt on the subject, grew clearer 
 and clearer to my mind. I could see how a reso- 
 lute will might hold a man above consent in any 
 and every temptation by which he might be assailed; 
 and I could also see how, if the will betrayed the 
 man, and he fell, he would be weaker for the full, 
 and more easily overcome in a new temptation. 
 AVI i;it then? What hope for him ? There would 
 be an inflowing of strength from God with every 
 subsequent effort the man might make to get free
 
 THE CURSE ASD TUB CURE. 59 
 
 from the dominion of evil ; but would not the re- 
 ception of this strength and the ability to use it, be 
 in a steadily diminishing ratio ; and would not the 
 power of appetite increase with every indulgence ? 
 
 My faith in man's will had received a shock. 
 There was an element of weakness somewhere. 
 Why should God fail to give the requisite strength 
 when the effort was sincere ? Did he indeed govern, 
 as many taught, by mere arbitrary laws ; affording 
 help to the weak and perishing only in the degree 
 of their compliance with certain legal conditions? 
 Or, were the conditions not arbitrary but essential and 
 in the very nature of things? If God be good and 
 wise loving and compassionate ever seeking to 
 save to the very uttermost, must not this be so? 
 God is love love. Heart and soul held to this. 
 But, how was the sustaining strength of this love to 
 make itself a living force in man? How? I could 
 not see it clearly. Once it had been very clear; 
 but my thoughts were in confusion now. 
 
 I had reached the door of my own office, and was 
 about entering, when a sudden movement in the 
 street attracted my attention. People were running 
 her, in an excited manner. 
 
 " Only a drunken row," said a man who was 
 standing near me. 
 
 " That all." And I passed into my ofiicc. 
 
 Only a drunken row I I had dismissed the inci- 
 dent as of little account when I was startled by the 
 sound (if tramping 1'cet and dissonant voices at my
 
 GO STRONG DRINK; 
 
 very door ; and in a moment after, three men en- 
 tered bearing the body of a man, deathly pale, and 
 with the blood streaming from a wound in his head. 
 I recognized him as a well-known and prominent 
 citizen. 
 
 A doctor was sent for, and after the wound was 
 dressed, the gentleman was removed to his own 
 home. 
 
 Only a drunken row! An effort was made to 
 keep the affair out of the newspapers, but not with 
 entire success. In one afternoon sheet this account 
 appeared : 
 
 "ASSAULT ON A PROMINENT CITIZEN. A das- 
 tardly assault was made this morning on our es- 
 teemed fellow citizen, Harvey Leonard, Esq., by a 
 ruffianly fellow named Groot. It occurred just in 
 front of Egbert's saloon. Mr. Leonard had just left 
 the saloon, when Groot dealt him a severe blow 
 from behind, knocking him down. In falling, his 
 head struck the curbstone, and he received an ugly 
 wound above the temple. Mr. Leonard was carried 
 into Frederick Lyon's office, where the wound was 
 dressed by Dr. Gerhard. He was then taken to his 
 own home. We learn that the immediate occasion 
 of this assault was a political argument into which 
 Mr. Leonard permitted himself to be drawn by 
 Groot, and in which both of them they had been 
 drinking rather freely, we are sorry to say got 
 angry and called hard names. Mr. Leonard had 
 the best of the argument, and Groot revenged him-
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. Ql 
 
 self, after the ruffianly fashion, by knocking him 
 down. He may thank his stars if he doesn't have 
 to stand a trial for manslaughter ; for no one can 
 t<-ll what may be the result of a severe concussion 
 of the brain. "\Vhen removed to his home, we under- 
 stand that Mr. Leonard was in a half-cometose state." 
 
 I had just read this account of the affair, and was 
 thinking of the mortification Mr. Leonard's family 
 must suffer should it happen to meet their eyes 
 there were grown-up sons and daughters when, to 
 my surprise, Mr. Granger entered my office. He 
 smiled faintly as he came in, the smile dying off 
 slowly, and leaving his face very grave. 
 
 " I want to have another talk with you, Lyon," 
 Tie said. u This is a shocking affair of Leonard's, 
 isn't it ?" 
 
 " Shocking and sad," I replied. 
 
 " I know this Groot. He's peaceable enough 
 when sober, but a devil incarnate when drunk. They 
 say that Leonard is in a dangerous condition." 
 
 " So the Telegraph intimates." 
 
 " I don't know when anything has given me such 
 a shock. It might have happened to me as well as 
 to Leonard. Why, only a few evenings ago I had 
 some sharp words with the fellow. I can remem- 
 ber the glitter of his angry eyes. He would have 
 struck me down if he had dared. Liquor makes 
 linids of some men who are as quiet and peaceable 
 as lambs when sober. I've often thought of that. 
 Can you explain it, Mr. Lyon?"
 
 (52 STKOXG DRINK; 
 
 " I have no settled theory of my own on the sub- 
 ject ; but in a book which I read not long ago, I saw 
 an explanation that set me to thinking." 
 
 "What was it?" 
 
 " The writer had been speaking of the terrible 
 transformations wrought in men by drink. How 
 the once tender and considerate husband became 
 changed often into a cruel fiend. How the loving 
 father grew indifferent or brutal towards his children; 
 the good citizen a social pest; and the esteemed 
 neighbor an offence. How in everything the order 
 of life was changed ; the goodly tree that once gave 
 such generous fruit becoming as a thorn or bramble. 
 He then said : 
 
 " * We marvel at these awful transformations, won-* 
 dering how inebriation can change men into fiends ; 
 how alcohol, a mere substance in nature, and with- 
 out moral force, can, through its action on the brain, 
 evolve a new moral quality intense, destructive 
 and infernal. The fact no one questions, for it 
 stands all the while confronting and challenging us 
 in a thousand terrible and disgusting forms ; and 
 yet, for all this, men dally with the subtle agent of 
 hell, giving it a lodgment in body and brain, and 
 suffering it to gain a large and still larger action 
 among the vital forces, which it never touches but 
 to work disorder. They see how it hurts their 
 neighbors ; but, strangely enough, do not fear for 
 themselves. 
 
 " ' There is a truth about this matter which few
 
 THE CURSE AXD TUB CURE. (J3 
 
 Mer a trutli tliat, if well understood, would 
 In 1 1 thousands upon thousands away from that so- 
 called moderate indulgence in alcohol which so 
 often betrays to utter ruin. We speak of man as 
 having rational freedom. The seat of this freedom 
 and rationality is the brain, the physical organism 
 through which it acts and influences the outer life. 
 If the brain is hurt or disturbed, the mind's healthy 
 action is at once lost ; and it is remarkable that an 
 evil force seems to get possession of the will as soon 
 as the rational e<iuij>oise is lost, 
 
 " ' Whatever disturbs a man's rational equipoise, 
 gives evil forces a power over him which could not 
 otherwise be obtained. Clearly, then, to disturb the 
 train's healthy action by the introduction of alco- 
 hol, through the blood, into that wonderfully deli- 
 organ, is for a man to change so far the true 
 heavenly order of his life, and to open the door for 
 an influx of disorder and evil. The change may at 
 first be very small, and the disorderly action scarcely 
 perceived ; but is it not clear to the dullest mind 
 that, if the introduction; of alcohol into the brain be 
 continued day after day, and with gradual increase, 
 the time must come when the man's rational control 
 of himself will be lost? And when this takes 
 place, he becomes subject to infernal influences.' " 
 
 " This goes deeper than I had thought," said 
 f 1 1 anger, as I stopped shaking, " and involves more 
 than I can now underhand or admit. S) much is 
 true, at least, that when the brain is disturbed by
 
 (34 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 drink, a man comes under baleful influences, and is 
 far more inclined to evil than to good. He is quick 
 to take offence, and too ofter grows passionate, cruel 
 and pitiless, hurting even his best beloved. Ah, 
 what a cursed slavery it is !" 
 
 A painful agitation disturbed his face. 
 
 " And the hardest to break of any into which a 
 poor mortal can unhappily fall," I said. 
 
 " Is there any hope, Mr. Lyon ?" An anxious, 
 half-terrified look had come into his eyes, as of one 
 who had felt himself borne helplessly away. "I 
 am almost in despair. My will, in which I thought 
 myself so strong, has failed, and I cannot trust it 
 again. It is weaker for my fall, and must grow 
 weaker and weaker every recurring fall. Do you 
 know anything about inebriate asylums ?" 
 
 He asked the question abruptly, and with the 
 manner of one who had forced himself to do some- 
 thing from which he had been holding back with a 
 strong reluctance. 
 
 " There are the Sanitarium at Media, and the New 
 York State Inebriate Asylum at Binghampton," I 
 answered. 
 
 " Do you know anything about either of them ?" 
 
 I did not. 
 
 " Did you ever hear of any one being cured at an 
 Inebriate Asylum ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 " Who ? Can you find me the man ?" 
 
 " No case has come under my personal observa-
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 5 
 
 tion; but I remember reading in a New York 
 paper not long ago a very strong report on the good 
 work which h:ul been done at the State Asylum." 
 
 "Do you know anything about the treatment?" 
 
 " Only in a general way. The patient is removed 
 from old associations, and out of the reach of temp- 
 tations which he had become too weak to resist; 
 brought under the influence of new social, moral 
 and intellectual conditions ; and this for a period of 
 time long enough to give him back the mastery over 
 himself which had been lost. I remember, now, 
 hearing a gentleman who had visited the Sanitarium 
 at Media, say, that Dr. Parish regarded the cultiva- 
 tion of the finest qualities of the head and heart in 
 his patients as the true basis of a permanent recov- 
 ery. He relied on that self-culture which promotes 
 self-respect, a sense of moral obligation, and the de- 
 velopment of a true manhood ; and when this con- 
 sciousness was realized, he considered the founda- 
 tions laid for permanent safety." 
 
 The eager expression which was on Granger's 
 face as I bewail my answer to his question, had left 
 it by the time I ceased speaking. 
 
 " All a delusion," he replied. " If they can offer 
 a man no other help, the number of their saved will 
 be few." 
 
 "They are many, I have been told." 
 
 He shook his head doubtfully and gloomily. 
 
 "New associations," said I, "the cultivation of 
 in \v more vigorous thinking in the ri^ht 
 
 5
 
 6(5 STRONG LRISK; 
 
 direction, a better understanding of the pathology of 
 drunkenness, and above all, the formation of better 
 habits, must help a man and give him a new advant- 
 age in the struggle with appetite. These he will 
 gain while under treatment in an asylum." 
 
 " Have I not had nearly all of these for a year, 
 standing by their help and that of my strong will 
 in the very face of temptation ? And yet there 
 came an hour in which they were as threads of flax 
 in a candle flame ! You don't know anything about 
 the wild rush this passion of drink will sometimes 
 make upon a man. It is like the sweep of an irre- 
 sistible flood. 
 
 " Look here !" He drew from his vest pocket a 
 slip of paper. " I cut this out of a newspaper to- 
 day. It has frightened me. God only knows where 
 I am drifting ! It may be to a fate as dreadful. 
 This slip of paper gives, briefly, a few facts in the 
 life of a man who once stood high as a clergyman, 
 and afterwards represented his State in Congress. 
 But drink cursed him and he fell to the lowest level. 
 Recovering himself, he enlisted in the temperance 
 cause and became not only one of its warmest cham- 
 pions, but rose to the head of the Order of Good 
 Templars in the State of Indiana. But he died ere 
 he had reached his fortieth year and from conges- 
 tion of the brain, caused by a relapse into intem- 
 perance !" 
 
 " Sad enough ! Does the slip give his name ?" 
 
 " Let me read it : ' Schuyler Colfax, in a recent
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. Qf 
 
 r referring to the death of J. J. Talbot, of In- 
 dianapolis, says : " He has made hundreds of elo- 
 quent and touching appeals for temperance all 
 over our State within the past two years, but told 
 me that the appetite would sometimes become so in- 
 satiate as to almost defy control, though he prayed 
 on bended knee for strength to resist it I remem- 
 ber the terrible picture of his own experience copied 
 in the enclosed article. He delivered it here, to a 
 crowded audience, hundreds of whom, like myself, 
 were in tears, and he uttered it in desponding tones 
 that seemed almost like the wail of the lost, and as 
 if lie felt his impending doom was inevitable." 1 
 
 " The extract referred to by Mr. Colfax, is as fol- 
 lows : ' But now that the struggle is over, I can 
 purvey the field and measure the -losses. I had po- 
 sition high and holy. This demon tore from around 
 me the robes of my sacred office, und sent me forth 
 churchless and godless, a very hissing and by-word 
 amon^ men. Afterward I had business, large and 
 lucrative, and my voice in all large courts was heard 
 pleading for justice, mercy and the right. But the 
 lust gathered on my unopened books, and no 
 foot-fall crossed the threshold of the drunkard's 
 office. I had moneys ample for all necessities, but 
 they took wings and went to feed the coffers of the 
 devils which possessed me. I had a home adorned 
 with all that wealth and the most exquisite taste 
 could suggest. This, devil crossed its threshold and 
 the light faded from its chambers; the fire went out
 
 (53 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 on the holiest of altars, and, leading me through its 
 portals, despair walked forth with her, and sorrow 
 and anguish lingered within. I had children, beau- 
 tiful, to me at least, as a dream of the morning, and 
 they had so entwined themselves around their 
 father's heart that, no matter where it might wander, 
 ever it came back to them on the bright wings of a 
 father's undying love. This destroyer took their 
 hands in his and led them away. I had a wife 
 whose charms of mind and person were such that 
 to see her was to remember, and to know her was to 
 love. * * * For thirteen years we walked the 
 rugged path of life together, rejoicing in its sun- 
 shine and sorrowing in its shade. This infernal 
 monster couldn't spare me even this. I had a 
 mother who for long, long years had not left her 
 chair, a victim of suffering and disease, and her 
 choicest delight was in the reflection that the lessons 
 which she had taught at her knee had taken root in 
 the heart of her youngest born, and that he was 
 useful to his fellows and an honor to her who bore 
 him. But the thunderbolt reached even there, and 
 there it did its most cruel work. Ah, me ! never a 
 word of reproach from her lips only a tender 
 caress; only a shadow of a great and unspoken 
 grief gathering over the dear old face; only a 
 trembling hand laid more lovingly on my head; 
 only a closer clinging to the cross ; only a more 
 piteous appeal to Heaven if her cup at last were not 
 full. And while her boy raved in his wild delirium
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 69 
 
 two thousand miles away, the pitying angels pushed 
 the golden gates ajar, and the mother of the drunk- 
 ard entered into rest. 
 
 " ' And thus I stand : a clergyman without a cure; 
 a barrister without brief or business ; a father with- 
 out a child ; a husband without a wife ; a son without 
 a parent ; a man with scarcely a friend ; a soul 
 without a hope all swallowed up in the maelstrom 
 of drink.' " 
 
 Several times, as he read, the voice of Mr. Gran- 
 ger gave way and he had to pause in order to recover 
 himself. His hand shook so that he was obliged to 
 lay the slip of paper down on my table to keep it 
 steady. His eyes were wet and his face strongly 
 agitated. 
 
 " Such a devil is the devil of drink !" he said, 
 bitterly, shutting his teeth hard and clenching his 
 hands. " Cruel as hell ; pitiless as the grave !" 
 
 " And knowing that he is so cruel and so pitiless, 
 Mr. Granger, why place yourself for an instant in 
 his power?" 
 
 He put his hand to his collar and drew it away 
 from his throat, as if he were choking. 
 
 " The case seems well nigh hopeless." There was 
 a mournful despondency in his voice. 
 
 " Say not so. That of Mr. Talbot is largely ex- 
 ceptional. There must have been with him an 
 inherited appetite." 
 
 I was looking at Mr. Granger, and noticed a 
 change pass over his face, which had become sud-
 
 70 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 denly pale. There was a startled expression in liis 
 eyes. 
 
 " A what ?" he asked, a little breathlessly. 
 
 " An inherited tendency." 
 
 '"You don't imagine there is anything in that, 
 Mr. Lyon?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly there is," not at the moment think- 
 ing of any application by Mr. Granger of my 
 remark to his own case. " The law of transmission 
 is well established. Children not only inherit the 
 physical likenesses and peculiarities of their parents, 
 but their mental and moral qualities also. A de- 
 praved appetite in a father will, if indulged, be 
 surely transmitted to his child." 
 
 "What hope for the child, then?" 
 
 " All hope, if he hold the appetite as a wild beast 
 sleeping. It cannot hurt him while it sleeps. But 
 let him beware how he awakens it with a taste of 
 blood on its tongue. No inherited evil can hurt us 
 until we give it a new life in ourselves. Until then 
 it is only potential." 
 
 No light came back into Granger's countenance. 
 There was about him a statue-like stillness and a 
 fixedness of look, as though he were gazing at some- 
 thing strange and almost fearful. 
 
 "This gives the case a new aspect, Mr. Lyon." 
 There was a forced quiet in his voice as he said this, 
 turning to me as he spoke. I saw another change 
 in his countenance, which now bore signs of con- 
 scious weakness. He gave me the impression of one
 
 THE CURSE AKD THE CURE. 7^ 
 
 svlio l::ul foiled his arms in the face of danger, all 
 confidence in effort gone. " A man may repent and 
 be saved from the curse of his own transgressions, 
 but if the sin of his father be laid upon him, what 
 hope is there of salvation ?" 
 
 The truth flashed on my mind. Here was a case 
 of inherited appetite; and the victim's first sus- 
 picion of the fact had destroyed in him, for the 
 time being, all remaining faith in the value of resis- 
 tance. 
 
 " The case is only the harder," I replied ; " but 
 not desperate. There must be a more vigilant watch 
 and ward; a more earnest and never-ceasing conflict; 
 a daily death-grapple with the foe, if need be. And 
 is not freedom from his infernal power worth all 
 this?" 
 
 " Worth it ? Aye ! Worth all a man may do or 
 dare!" 
 
 There swept into his face the flush and strength 
 of reviving confidence. 
 
 " Did the criminality of this thing never strike 
 you ?" I asked, determined to try the force of a new 
 incentive. 
 
 " Criminality ?" He gave a kind of start, and the 
 warmer color which had come into his face died 
 out. 
 
 " Nor the perpetual danger in which one who lets 
 the devil of drink get possession of his brain stands 
 of becoming a criminal before the law ? The deeds 
 of a devil are very apt to be devil i>h."
 
 72 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 He set his eyes on me with a fixed stare, waiting 
 my farther speech. 
 
 "Your profession makes you familiar with the 
 causes of crime," I continued, " and you know that 
 over seventy per cent, of the crimes and vicious acts 
 which the law punishes by fines, imprisonments or 
 death, are caused by inebriation." 
 
 He still gazed at me without speaking. 
 
 " Groot is an inoffensive man while sober, but a 
 brutal fiend when drunk. When sober, he would 
 not have injured a hair of Mr. Leonard's head 
 drunk, he made a cowardly and murderous assault 
 upon him." 
 
 Granger drew a deep, quivering breath, but made 
 no reply. I went on. 
 
 " No man who takes this devil into his brain, so 
 giving him the control of will and action, can tell 
 what may be the consequences. When he gets back 
 into himself again, there may be blood upon his 
 hand! Whose blood? Is the insane drunkard 
 careful in his discriminations? Is the beloved 
 wife, or sweet young daughter, or innocent babe, 
 in no danger? What say the records of our 
 courts ?" 
 
 I paused, for the face of the lawyer had become 
 intensely agitated, and there were beads of sweat on 
 his forehead. 
 
 " This criminal aspect of the case," I resumed, 
 seeing that he made no response, "is one of the 
 most serious that drinking presents ; and is not the
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cl'IlE. 73 
 
 man who, to gratify a mere appetite which he knows, 
 if indulged, will destroy his moral sense, and induce 
 temporary insanity, as guilty of the crimes he may 
 commit while intoxicated as if he had committed 
 them sober? A good citizen will see to it, that he 
 does not wrong his neighbor ; and a good husband 
 and father that his wife and children have care, pro- 
 tection and love. Is he a good citizen, or husband, 
 or father, who voluntarily transforms himself into 
 a cruel and destructive demon ? The crime and re- 
 sponsibility of this thing cannot be escaped, Mr. 
 Granger, and I press upon you, in all solemnity, 
 this view of the whole sad question. If you go away 
 from here, and, before reaching your home, suffer 
 appetite to draw you back again into the vortex 
 from which you are trying to escape, and on the 
 outer edge of which you are resting now, who 
 can tell whether to-morrow may not find you at 
 the bar of justice, with crime written on your fore- 
 head !" 
 
 Granger started to his feet and threw up his 
 hands with a bitter cry, then clasped them tightly 
 across his forehead. He stood for several moments 
 in this attitude, his manner that of one in swift 
 debate. 
 
 " N'o, Mr. Lyon, not that not that!" he said, 
 huskily, as he turned to me. " Not a criminal !'' 
 
 !!; sat down again, as if from sudden loss of 
 strength. I saw that he was trembling. 
 
 " I trust not, Mr. Granger. But there is no more
 
 74 STRONG DEINK; 
 
 immunity for you than for another. These drink- 
 devils are no respecters of persons. If you let them 
 in you become their slave, and no one can tell how 
 soon, nor how deeply, they may lead you into crime 
 and disgrace." 
 
 He gave an involuntary shudder. After this, we 
 talked more calmly. The idea of criminality be- 
 came a central one in his mind. It had never before 
 occurred to him. He was a man of sensitive honor ; 
 and this thought of crime against society, and 
 against his family, wrought with him strongly. Not 
 alone the crime of violence, as at first presented, but 
 the crime of robbery towards those who had a claim 
 on him for services and protection. I was careful 
 to go over the ground with him as widely as possible; 
 and especially to dwell on the great crime against 
 wife and children which a man commits who robs 
 them through the waste and self-wrought incapacity 
 of drunkenness. 
 
 Granger sat with me for a whole hour, gathering 
 up motive for a new struggle with his enemy, and 
 setting his mental forces in array. The idea of 
 criminality in drunkenness took, I was glad to see, 
 a deeper and deeper hold upon him. He was very 
 severe on himself, in referring to the wrongs his 
 family had once suffered; and did not hesitate to call 
 his conduct towards them an aggravated crime. 
 
 " You have helped me to my feet again," he said, 
 holding my hand tightly, as he was about leaving 
 my office, " and may God bless you ; not for my
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 75 
 
 sake only, but for the sake of ray wife and children. 
 A criminal ! No, no, no ! A good citizen, an hon- 
 orable man ; Alexander Granger will be all these 
 but not a criminal ! Good-bye ! I am your debtor 
 more than can be estimated in any count of gold. 
 Good-bye, and again, may God bless you 1"
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MY confidence in Granger's ability to control 
 his appetite by means of the new moral ele- 
 ment which had been summoned to his aid, was not 
 as strong as I could have wished. A serious ground 
 of fear lay in the fact, which had been fully admitted, 
 of his father's intemperate habits, for I clearly un- 
 derstood the subtle power of all transmitted inclina- 
 tions ; especially when by indulgence these inclina- 
 tions are lifted above the region of latent impulse 
 and become a living force, the hereditary and the 
 acquired acting in the same direction. How power- 
 ful had been their action in the case of Mr. Granger, 
 was manifest in his sudden fall after a whole year 
 of abstinence. In this renewed struggle, was he 
 not weaker, and these combined forces stronger, than 
 before? I could not get my mind free from the 
 depressing effects which were wrought in me by this 
 view of the case. 
 
 But my anxieties were apparently groundless. 
 Granger stood firm again ; and I had cause for 
 renewed and stronger hope in the permanence of his 
 reformation in the fact that he was less boastful as 
 to his strength, and more careful to keep as far away 
 from temptation as possible. I made it a duty to see 
 76
 
 THE CURSE AND THE Cl'ilK. 77 
 
 him frequently, and to give him all the moral sup- 
 port in my power. There were times when he 
 talked to me very freely about his old life, and about 
 the latent force of the old serpent of appetite on 
 which he had set his heel. 
 
 " I am painfully conscious," he said to me, one 
 d;iy it was several months after his sudden fall, 
 and quick recovery of himself again "that appe- 
 tite is only held down by force ; and that at any 
 moment it may give a vigorous spring and seek to 
 throw its slimy folds around me." 
 
 " And for this cause you are* always on guard," I 
 replied. 
 
 " Always." 
 
 " I Icivin lies your safety. You are stronger than 
 your enemies ; but, to be safe, must never unbuckle 
 your armor nor lay aside your shield." 
 
 "Always a soldier; always in front of the enemy; 
 always standing on guard ! It is a hard life for a 
 man t<> live. How I long, sometimes, for peace and 
 rest and safety !" 
 
 " Better to stand always in full armor than to give 
 the slightest advantage to your cruel foes. You 
 know too well what falling into their power 
 means." 
 
 " Alas ! too well. But," he added, with a serious 
 contraction of the brows, " is there no time in the 
 clays to come, when thc.se enemies shall be wholly 
 destroyed or cast out? Am I never to dwell in 
 safety?"
 
 78 STRONG DRINK;' x 
 
 He looked at me with strong and eager question- 
 ings in his eyes. 
 
 "Sometime, I trust." My reply had in it no 
 assuring quality. 
 
 " Sometime I When ? In this world, or only in 
 the next ? in Heaven, if I ever should be so for- 
 tunate as to get there ?" 
 
 " Your enemies will grow weaker the longer you 
 hold them down ; and will you not be a steady 
 gainer in strength for every day and year you keep 
 this mastery over them? Every day and year 
 dwelling more and more secure ?" 
 
 " What do you understand by dypsomania ?" he 
 asked, abruptly. 
 
 "It is a term used by some medical writers to 
 designate what they regard as confirmed inebriety 
 when the will-power is completely overthrown, and 
 the demands of the diseased organism for alcoholic 
 stimulus becomes so great that the man is literally 
 crazy for drink," I replied. 
 
 "What do they say about it? the medical 
 writers, I mean." 
 
 " They give but little ground for hope of cure in 
 one so demented." 
 
 " Demented ? Ah ! I can well believe it. Crazy 
 for drink ! I have seen men so." 
 
 "When this condition is fully developed, these 
 writers say, the brain has become deteriorated in 
 quality, and its functions impaired. All the higher 
 faculties are more or less weakened. Reason, judg-
 
 THE CURSE ASD THE CL'RE. 79 
 
 ment, perception and memory lose their vigor and 
 capacity. The will becomes feeble and powerless. 
 All the moral sentiments and affections become 
 involved. Conscience, a sense of accountability, and 
 of right and wrong, are all deadened, while the 
 lower propensities and passions are aroused, and ac- 
 quire a new strength. Another effect has been 
 observed : No influence can frighten or deter the 
 miserable subject from indulging his passion for 
 drink. To gratify it, he will not only disre- 
 <^anl every consideration of a personal nature 
 affecting his standing in society, his pecuniary con- 
 dition, or the well-being of his family, but the most 
 frightful instances of disasters and crimes, as the 
 consequences of drinking fail to have any effect 
 upon him. A hundred deaths from this cause, oc- 
 curring under the most revolting circumstances, fail 
 to impress him with an adequate sense of his own 
 danger. He would pass over the bodies of these 
 wretched victims without a thought of warning, in 
 onlcr to get the means of gratifying his own insa- 
 tiate thirst Such, according to medical testimony, 
 Ls the dypsomaniac ; or, as some say, the subject of 
 confirmed alcoholism ; and he is considered as mor- 
 ally insane." 
 
 "Fearful!" ejaculated Granger; "and we tamper 
 with a substance that can work such ruin to the 
 souls and bodies of men." 
 
 " There is something mysterious in the action of 
 this substance on the human body and its func-
 
 8Q STRONG DRINK; 
 
 tions," I replied. "So. seductive and pleasant in its 
 first effects so enticing and so alluring; yet so 
 deadly and destructive in the end. An almost in- 
 visible bond at the beginning and, and light as a 
 spider's thread, but at the last an iron fetter." 
 
 "I met with an extract from a medical journal 
 to-day that gave me a startling impression of inse- 
 curity," said Granger. "As you intimated, there 
 must be something occult and mysterious in the 
 way alcohol works its insidious changes in the human 
 economy. We know, alas ! too well, that here effect 
 does not cease with the removal of the cause. The 
 thirst, which increases the more it is indulged, is 
 not extinguished by prolonged denial. The man 
 never gets back to his normal state to a point where 
 a single glass of liquor will produce no more desire 
 for a second glass than did the first he drank in 
 youth or early manhood. One would suppose that, 
 after a longer or shorter period of abstinence, the 
 man would regain his old condition, and be able to 
 taste wine or spirits without immediate danger. 
 That the appetite, if indulged, would have only 
 gradual increase as before. But all experience and 
 observation testify that this is not so, and the extract 
 from a medical journal to which I have just referred 
 professed to give the pathological reason." 
 
 " And what is the reason so given ?" I asked. 
 
 " It startled me, as I have said," he answered. 
 "The statement alleges that a physician of some 
 eminence made careful examination, by dissection,
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 31 
 
 of the blood and internal organs of persons who, 
 before death, had used intoxicating drinks freely, 
 and found in these subjects an enlargement of the 
 blood globules, as well in the brain as in the other 
 organs, so that they stood, as it were, open-mouthed, 
 at hirst always, and eager for drink." 
 
 " But," I said, " abstinence from alcoholic bever- 
 ages must, in time, change this condition, and the 
 blood globules shrink to their old dimensions." 
 
 " The fact does not bear out the inference. It is 
 farther stated, that the physician referred to, after 
 clearly ascertaining the existence of this morbid 
 change, had the opportunity to dissect the brain of 
 a man who, after being a drunkard for many years, 
 reformed and lived soberly until he died. His sur- 
 prise was great when he discovered that the unnat- 
 urally large globules of the blood had not shrunk 
 to their proper size. Though they did not exhibit 
 the inflammation seen in the drunkard's brain, they 
 were enlarged, and ready, it seemed, on the instant, 
 to absorb the waited-for alcohol, and resume their 
 old diseased condition. The conclusion to which 
 the physician came was given in the brief article. 
 He believed that he saw in this morbid state of the 
 brain the physical part of the reason why a man 
 who has once been a drunkard can never again as 
 long as he lives, safely take one drop of alcoholic 
 liquor. He thought he saw why a glass of wine 
 put a man back in.-tantly to where he was when he 
 drank all the time. He saw the citadel free from 
 6
 
 32 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 the enemy, but undefended incapable of defence 
 its doors wide open, so that there was no safety 
 except in keeping the foe at a distance, away beyond 
 the outermost wall." 
 
 "If this be true, every reformed man should 
 know it," I said. "The statement is remarkable, 
 and great pains should be taken to ascertain, by 
 repeated examinations, whether it hold good in other 
 cases or not. That there is a change in the physical 
 condition of inebriates, we all know; and we also 
 know that this change is permanent. But whether 
 it be in the blood globules or not, the fact itself 
 should stand as a perpetual warning to men who 
 have at any time been the slaves of this appetite. 
 And I do not think, Mr. Granger, that you should 
 find in the philosophy of inebriation here educed 
 anything to discourage you, but rather a new motive 
 for keeping your foe at a distance, away beyond the 
 outermost wall, as has been said." 
 
 " But the citadel incapable of defence its doors 
 wide open ! Think of that, Mr. Lyon !" 
 
 " Yes ; but the enemy dislodged, and driven over 
 the frontier held in the far distance, and the man 
 able, if he will, to hold him there forever." 
 
 " Ah ! yes, yes. The old story. No safety but in 
 eternal vigilance." Granger spoke as one who felt 
 weary and despondent. 
 
 " But safety. Don't forget that, my friend ! Peace 
 and safety. Rich harvest-fields, and secure abiding. 
 Are not these worth all the vigilance one may give?"
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 83 
 
 "Yes, yes; his eternal vigilance!" He roused 
 himself as he spoke. "What a weak coward I am! 
 But I know my enemy, and the vantage ground he 
 holds." 
 
 " The vantage ground is yours, instead," I made 
 reply. " Don't forget that ; and let each new reve- 
 lation you get of your enemy's strength, alertness 
 and malignant hate, only act upon you as a new 
 motive for watchfulness. Let the resolute will that 
 held you safe for a whole year, add its strength to 
 the new motives and considerations which are in- 
 fluencing you now." 
 
 He withdrew his gaze from me, and remained in 
 thought for a considerable time. 
 
 " You are not a church-member ?" lifting his eyes 
 to my face. I noticed a new quality in his tone of 
 voice. 
 
 " No ; I have never connected myself with any 
 religious society." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " It might be difficult to assign a reason that would 
 be entirely satisfactory to any but myself, seeing 
 that I am a reverent believer in Holy Scripture and 
 in the divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
 Christ. But I do not find in the sphere of worship, 
 in the ordinary range of preaching, and in the 
 practical illustrations of Christianity seen in the 
 lives and conversation of most of the church-mem- 
 bers I happen to know, anything to awaken a desire 
 to cast in my lot with ' God's people,' as they are in
 
 84 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 the habit of styling themselves. They have too 
 much cant of Sunday piety and- too little week-day 
 charity to suit me. The teachings of Christ are 
 very explicit, and no man is a Christian, let him 
 profess what he may, who does not live according to 
 His divine precepts. To be a Christian, means a 
 great deal more than to be called by His name ; as 
 so many really seem to think. To join a church, 
 and take part in its worship and ordinances, doesn't 
 make a Christian. It may make a self-deceiving 
 Pharisee or hypocrite ; which is to be in a more 
 dangerous spiritual condition than that of honest 
 unbelief. I have too deeply-seated a reverence for 
 these things to enter into them lightly, or to make 
 of them a stepping-stone to influence and respecta- 
 bility, as I fear is so frequently the case." 
 
 Mr. Granger drew a long sigh as I stopped speak- 
 ing, and I saw a disappointed expression in his face. 
 
 " Have you thought of joining the church ?" I 
 inquired. 
 
 "Oh, yes! I've thought of everything." He spoke 
 with a slight disturbance of manner. " But the 
 question has always been, 'What help will the 
 church give me?' and so far the answer has not 
 been satisfactory. That case of Mr. Talbot, about 
 which we talked once, has been a source of consid- 
 erable discouragement. He was a clergyman, you 
 know, in the church, and one of its teachers ; and 
 yet the church did not save him from drunkenness." 
 
 " And you remember," I added, " that he used
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 35 
 
 often, as he said, to pray to God on bended knees 
 for strength to resist the demon of drink, but all 
 without avail." 
 
 " Yes ; I remember it" His voice despondent, 
 and a gloom settling over his face. 
 
 What did this mean ? The truth began to dawn 
 on me. There had been one reserve of hope left in 
 the mind of Granger. When all else failed, he 
 would go to God for help ; and in my seeming de- 
 predation of the church as a means of rescue, had 
 
 I not well nigh destroyed this hope? 
 
 " You do not believe in the value of prayer ?" 
 He put the question sharply. 
 
 " I must reject the Bible if I reject the value of 
 prayer. It is full of exhortation to pray. 'Watch 
 and pray, lest ye enter into temptation,' are the words 
 of our blessed Lord himself. But you will notice 
 that the first injunction was to 'watch;' this is the 
 
 II Kin's part If he be not watchful ever on guard 
 and ivudy to resist the tempter his prayers will be 
 oili-red in vain. In the clergyman's case, prayer on 
 bended knees could not have been supplemental 
 with a due degree of watchfulness. In far too many 
 cases prayer goes for nothing, I fear. Is a man 
 secure i i oin robbers if he only pray for protection, 
 and give no care to the bolting and barring of his 
 liou.-e'/ Or saved from drowning, if he put to sea 
 in a leaky vessel, trusting that God will keep the 
 wretched craft ailoat through the agency of prayer? 
 There must l>e praying and working, asking and
 
 86 STEONO DRINK; 
 
 doing ; the putting forth of our utmost strength, at 
 the same time that our cry for help goes up. This 
 is my idea of effective prayer." 
 
 There came back into Granger's face a more as- 
 sured expression. 
 
 " I see reason in that," he said. "And yet," after 
 a pause, " how much easier just to cry out, as Peter 
 did, * Save, Lord !' and be saved without an effort to 
 bear yourself above the engulfing water." 
 
 " Did Peter make no effort ?" I asked. 
 
 " None. He just cried out, * Lord, save me !' ' 
 
 " What was he doing ?" 
 
 "Trying to go to the Lord over the angry 
 waters." 
 
 " Walking, as steadily as he could, on the turbu- 
 lent billows. Walking, you see; trying to get to 
 Jesus ; doing his best. And this means, I think, 
 that we must do something in the way of going to 
 the Lord besides mere looking toward him and call- 
 ing upon Him. We must endeavor to walk that 
 is, to live right and the first step in right living is 
 to l cease to do evil/ He who thus tries to go to 
 Christ, over the tempestuous waves of sin that leap 
 about his feet, will, when his ' Save, Lord/ breaks 
 out in a half-despairing cry, find himself grasped by 
 one who is mighty to save." 
 
 The strength of his countenance increased. 
 
 " You have given me some light. Help does not 
 come to effortless weakness." 
 
 " Not the help that saves a man from the wretch-
 
 THE CURSE AND TUB CURE. 37 
 
 edness that sin lias brought upon him. He sinned 
 freely, and God did not hold him back from sin 
 with a force greater than his will, for that would 
 have been to destroy in him all that makes him 
 human, his rationality and his freedom. As he 
 sinned freely, breaking God's laws, so he must re- 
 pent and return freely. He must come back of 
 himself, as did the Prodigal Son ; but God will see 
 him afar off and run to meet him, and throw His 
 loving arms about him and rejoice over him. But, 
 in all this, He will not touch his freedom; will do 
 not 1 ling for him in which the man does not, as it 
 , do the things for himself, God being his 
 helper." 
 
 I saw Granger's countenance begin to fall again. 
 
 " If I could only see it clearly," he answered. "If 
 I only knew just how God saves to the uttermost all 
 who come unto Him." 
 
 " Don't let us talk any more about it just now," 
 I replied; "it is disturbing your mind, and that 
 isn't good. Hold fust where you now stand ; re- 
 sist all allurement; give no place to the enemy, 
 and whilt; keeping vigilant watch, pray for help 
 f ri)iii (Jo.l. You will be safer for this, I am 
 
 .SUIT." 
 
 I ! sat silent for a little while, and then, us he 
 arose, said, shaking as if to himself: " Except the 
 Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build 
 it; except the Lord keep the city, the watchman 
 
 :h in vain."
 
 88 
 
 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 I did not think it well to make any reply. He 
 stood for a few moments, as if waiting my resp'onse; 
 but as I gave none, he wished me a good-day and 
 retired.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 I HAD been drawn, in this interview with Gran- 
 ger, a little away from my old mooring ground 
 of thought, and I sat for a long time in deep reflec- 
 tion, trying to get many things clear that were veiled 
 in obscurity, and to discover just where I was drift- 
 ing. This question of prayer as an agency of 
 strength and salvation to weak, repentant, sin-bur- 
 dened souls, was one, I could see, of infinite import- 
 ance. There was, with a large class of pious people, 
 a loose way of talking about prayer, and a manner 
 of praying that was, to my mind, not only irrever- 
 ent, but foolish and utterly valueless. Of all the 
 Sunday services, the prayers to God, especially those 
 that were extempore, had been most distasteful to 
 md oftenest the repelling influence that kept 
 me away from church. There was a familiar way 
 of addressing God, and of using His name in vain, 
 that shocked me, for my reverence for the Divine 
 IVing, a reverence implanted in childhood, has 
 always been very strong, and I have never been able 
 to pronounce any of the names by which He is 
 called without a falling inflection of the voice which 
 
 Income instinct! v< . 
 
 I did not, as a consequence, have much faith in 
 89
 
 90 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 the prayers that I usually heard in public, too many 
 of which were mere bits of effective oratory, instead 
 of a humble submission of the will to God. How 
 often, as I listened wearily to one of these long 
 prayers, full of vain repetitions, has the divine sen- 
 tence, " God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him 
 must worship Him in spirit and in truth," come into 
 my mind, causing me to wonder that the preacher 
 had forgotten it. 
 
 And now there pressed in upon me the question, 
 in what does the power of prayer consist? Does it 
 change the Lord's attitude toward man, or only 
 man's attitude toward God ? Does it bring down 
 the sunlight into a darkened chamber, or only open 
 the windows that its beams may enter? How it 
 might change man's attitude toward God, I could, in 
 a measure see ; but not how it could change the un- 
 changeable, render the All-Loving more tender and 
 compassionate, or make the Infinite Father more 
 concerned for His sin-sick, lost and perishing child- 
 ren, for whom He had bowed the heavens and come 
 down. 
 
 I saw that in the right understanding of this sub- 
 ject lay momentous things ; and I was anxious to 
 reach a true perception of all that was involved in 
 prayer as a means of divine blessing and favor. My 
 thinking did not get me far beyond a rejection of 
 the idea that any change in God's purposes toward 
 man could be wrought in Him by prayer. If He 
 were infinitely wise and infinitely loving, He must
 
 T1IE CURSE AND THE CURE. 91 
 
 not only know better what external condition was 
 best for a man than the man could know for himself 
 but in the orderings of His providence must so 
 arrange all things that he would be kept there until 
 his changing state required, for his good, a new 
 position in life. 
 
 But in what way did prayer change man's rela- 
 tion to God ? I felt that the truth lay here, but 
 was not able to see it clearly ; and I thought and 
 thought until I grew weary and perplexed, and for 
 relief of mind turned myself away from the sub- 
 ject 
 
 Several months passed after this interview with 
 Mr. Granger, and though we met occasionally, the 
 subject about which we had talked so earnestly was 
 not renewed. I learned through my wife that he" 
 came to church with his family now and then ; and 
 the fact always gave me pleasure, for I had a grow- 
 ing impression that there was a sphere of safety 
 about the church, and especially for one like Gran- 
 ger. There was in the very fact of his going to 
 church an acknowledgment of weakness on his part, 
 and a certain looking to God for strength and pro- 
 teetion. And I had an old and well-settled convic- 
 tion which had come up with me from childhood 
 inwrought, I doubt not, through my mother's teach- 
 that in any and every turning of the soul to 
 . no matter how little the turning, it must 
 receive a measure, large or small, of strength to 
 resist the evils to which we are all so much inclined.
 
 92 STRONG DRIXK; 
 
 I had been going oftener to church myself of 
 late, and though my reason did not give assent to 
 all the preacher said, and I was shocked now and 
 then by his irreverent way of addressing God, and 
 his too frequent and needless use of Divine names 
 in order to give force to a sentence, or to make an 
 oratorical climax, I was still able to gather into my 
 thoughts many things that gave me light for clearer 
 seeing, and strength for steadier walking in the path 
 of life. I was growing less captious and critical 
 less annoyed at what I did not like, and more earnest 
 to obtain whatever good was to be had in the reli- 
 gious services that were held on Sunday. I found 
 myself taking a "new interest in the lessons which 
 were read from the Bible, many passages from which 
 "struck my mind with a singular power, and left an 
 impression of deeper import than I had ever before 
 seen in them. I often found myself pondering one 
 and another of these passages, and giving to them 
 an application which altered my thought of God 
 and of His ways with the children of men. I no- 
 ticed changes in my states of mind, when listening 
 to the Word of Sacred Scripture I had for some 
 years neglected reading it for myself that occurred 
 to me as remarkable. There sometimes fell upon 
 me a deep tranquillity, as if I had passed from the 
 unrest of this world into the peace of Heaven. And 
 there would come, at times, states of self-forgetful- 
 ness, and a desire to give my life for others. I often 
 dwelt on these things, wondering what they meant.
 
 THE CURSE AND THE Cl 93 
 
 there not a power in the Word of God, which 
 dil not appear in the sense of its letter, but which 
 flowed into the mind with that sense as a soul into 
 the body ? 
 
 The Word of God ! WTiat does this mean ? The 
 ion came to me one day with such force and 
 distinctness, that it seemed as though spoken by a 
 living voice. The Word of God! Could that be 
 like a man's word ; limited, feeble, finite ? Was 
 there any ratio between them ? I thought of the 
 many loose interpretations which I had heard ; of 
 the contentions and angry discussions about the 
 meaning of this and that expression in the letter; of 
 the divisions and uncharitableness, and persecutions 
 even, which were so sadly rife in the Christian 
 world, and all because men vainly imagined that 
 human reason was equal to the comprehension of 
 Divine wisdom; and set. the metes and bounds of 
 tiH-ir narrow doctrine about a Revelation from God 
 in which wen- divine and infinite things that must 
 remain forever above the reach of man's unaided 
 reason ; and which only the Spirit of God can make 
 known. 
 
 I marvelled often at the low range and dull 
 platitudes of the pulpit, at the stereotyped vague- 
 ness of exhortation, and at the small influence of 
 I'lvuchers. There were exceptions, of course; but 
 how few ! With the Word of God as the basis of 
 Christian teaching, and especially with the Word of 
 the New Testament, in which our Lord himself, in
 
 94 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 the human nature which He assumed in the world 
 and made divine, gives in no hidden forms of speech, 
 the laws of spiritual life, through the keeping of 
 which alone man can be saved ; with all this, how 
 strange to hear from the men who have been chosen 
 to stand as watchmen on the walls of the city, so 
 little about keeping the commandments in their 
 inmost spirit as the only way of salvation. " He that 
 keepeth my commandments, he it is that loveth 
 me.' 
 
 A dull, rambling sermon, or one in which the 
 preacher showed how much more he knew about 
 history, philosophy, poetry and art than he did 
 about divine things, would send me home disheart- 
 ened, and with a disinclination to go again, which 
 sometimes held me away from church service for 
 weeks. But there was in me a growing hunger and 
 thirst for things spiritual. . I wanted to gain a clear 
 and more rational idea of God's relations to and 
 dealings with man, and a knowledge of the exact 
 way in which He saved him. 
 
 The better influences of church-going on my own 
 mind gave me encouragement for Granger. I felt 
 sure that he would come within a sphere of protec- 
 tion ; that, somehow, he would be brought into new 
 associations as to his spirit, and be less in danger 
 when exposed to assault. 
 
 " I haven't seen Mr. Granger at church for three 
 or four Sundays," said my wife, one day. " I hope 
 there is nothing wrong with him again." I saw a
 
 TUB CURSE AND THE ClJftE. 95 
 
 of concern creep into her face. " He's been 
 atu-nding quite regularly in the past few months." 
 
 " I saw him on the street only a few days ago," I 
 replied. " There was nothing wrong about him then; 
 at least nothing that I observed." 
 
 An<l yet, as I said this, I remembered that I had 
 noticed in him something that left a vague question 
 in my mind. But it had passed away and been for- 
 gotten until my wife's remark brought it back again. 
 
 " I fancied it may only have been fancy," Mrs. 
 Lyon said, " that Mrs. Granger's face looked more 
 serious than usual." 
 
 " Only a fancy," I replied; but still I felt a weight 
 of concern settling down upon my feelings. It re- 
 mained with me all day and troubled me as I went 
 to my office on the next morning. I had made up 
 iny mind to see Granger during the forenoon, but 
 pressing business kept me at my office until two 
 o'clock, when I returned home to dinner. 
 
 " Have you seen Mr. Granger?" asked my wife, 
 as I came in. There was an air of suspense in her 
 manner. 
 
 " No. I intended calling on him, but had an 
 unusually busy day." 
 
 " If I'm not very much mistaken, I saw him," she 
 said. 
 
 - \Vhere?" 
 
 " Going into a saloon on Sansom Street." 
 
 " Xo; you must have been mistaken." 
 
 " I wish I could think so ; but if the man I saw
 
 96 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 entering a saloon, as I passed down Twelfth Street, 
 was not Mr. Granger, then there was a remarkable 
 likeness in the general appearance of the two men." 
 
 " Did you see his face ?" 
 
 " Only for an instant. He was at the door of the 
 saloon just as I came in sight of him, and in the 
 next moment had disappeared. His manner was 
 that of one who wished to avoid observation. I am 
 almost sure it was Mr. Granger." 
 
 I had but little appetite for my dinner. In the 
 afternoon I called at the lawyer's office, but did not 
 find him there. Next day I met him on the street. 
 His manner was not quite as frank and cordial as 
 usual ; but beyond this I saw no change in him. It 
 was plain that my wife had been mistaken. My 
 first impression was one of relief; but a feeling of 
 complete confidence did not return, and there was d, 
 weight on my heart which I could not throw off. 
 
 Granger was not at church on the following Sun- 
 day. His wife and daughter were in attendance as 
 usual, and there was now no mistaking the fact that 
 a portion of light had gone out of their faces. In 
 the afternoon I called to see him, but he was not at 
 home. About ten o'clock on the next day I dropped 
 into his office, and found him with a segar in his 
 mouth reading a newspaper. He had, apparently, 
 just arrived, for his green bag lay unopened on the 
 office table. He started up on seeing me, coloring 
 a little, and extending his hand with what seemed 
 to me an excess of cordiality. I looked for the color
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 97 
 
 to recede from his face until the skin was restored 
 to the old healthy clearness, but either my eyes de- 
 1 me, or the ruddy tinge did not fade out 
 entirely. 
 
 (i ranker was not completely at his ease, though 
 evidently trying to be so. I remained for only a 
 short time, as my call was not a business one. Our 
 conversation did not pass beyond the common-place 
 topics of the day. 
 
 "Call in again. I'm always glad to see you," he 
 said, with the same excess of cordiality which he 
 had shown on meeting me. 
 
 I was far from feeling satisfied. 
 
 " 1 low is our friend Granger?" I asked of a mu- 
 tual acquaintance not many days afterwards. 
 
 " Not doing right, I'm afraid," he answered. 
 
 "Why do you think so?" 
 
 " I've seen him two or three times of late when I 
 fancied him the worse for drink." 
 
 " May you not have been mistaken ?" 
 
 " Why did you fancy he had heen drinking?" 
 " There are signs which one rarely mistakes," he 
 
 " If he should get off again," I said, "there will, 
 I ar, be little hope for him." 
 
 " \Vry little. But he's been down and up a great 
 many times, you know." 
 
 "Yes; but in the very nature of things he must 
 grow weaker with every fall." 
 7
 
 98 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 " What is to be done about him ? It's dreadful 
 to see a man going headlong to destruction. Is there 
 no way to save him ?" 
 
 " None that I know of. When this appetite is 
 once established with a man, his case becomes almost 
 hopeless. Every step he takes is downward. He 
 may stop now and then, and hold himself back 
 against the downward drag, but when he moves 
 again the course is still down, down, until the gulf 
 of ruin is reached at last. Is it not frightful ?" 
 I felt a chill creep through my veins There 
 seemed in his words a prophecy of utter ruin for 
 Granger. 
 
 " He has stood firm, with only a single brief fall, 
 for nearly two years," I said. 
 
 " And he might stand to the end, but not if he 
 dallies with the fatal cup," was answered. " No man 
 in whom the appetite for drink has once been formed 
 can ever taste and be secure. Only in perfect ab- 
 stinence is there perfect safety. The old appetite 
 lies sleeping, but not dead. Rouse it with a glass of 
 wine, or beer, or spirits, and it will spring upon the 
 man with the old intense life, and he will be as a 
 feeble child in its grasp. If Granger is indulging 
 again, he will fall again. He may, through a reso- 
 lute will, hold himself for a little while above excess; 
 but every glass he takes is food to the old desire, 
 which will grow stronger and stronger until its mas- 
 tery is again complete."
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 99 
 
 "It doesn't seem right to hold ourselves away 
 from him in so momentous a crisis to leave him in 
 the sweep of the current and not make an effort to 
 save him," I said. 
 
 " I (ipubt if anything can be done. At your first 
 approach, he will either take offense, or utterly re- 
 1 ( t your intimation that he has been indulging 
 niruin. I know these men. Lying seems to be one 
 of the fruits of drinking. Liquor is almost sure, 
 earlier or later, to take the truth out of a man 
 especially in anything that relates to his cups, so 
 long as he yields to indulgence. Men will assure 
 you, even asking God to witness the truth of what 
 they say, that they have not taken a drop of liquor 
 for weeks, when its odor from their lips is rank in 
 your nostrils. I know of nothing that so takes truth, 
 and honor, and all that is good and true and noble 
 out of a man, as this alcohol. It is a very hell- 
 broth !" 
 
 I could not rest. To stand away from Granger 
 in this new peril, would, I felt, be little less than 
 criminal. How to approach him without giving 
 offense was the question I had to consider. The 
 opportunity soon came.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A DAY or two afterwards, as I stood talking 
 with a friend in the Continental Hotel, I saw 
 Granger pass into the bar. I moved to a position 
 from which I could observe him. He called for a 
 glass of ale, and drank U off at a single draught. 
 His manner was slightly nervous and a little hurried. 
 I threw myself in his way as he left the bar, and 
 noticed a start of surprise when his eyes rested on 
 me. 
 
 " Ah ! Lyon. Glad to see you !" The salutation 
 was given with heartiness. But he did not look me 
 steadily in the face. We walked out into the street, 
 both silent until we reached the pavement. 
 
 " I'm sorry about this, Granger," I said. 
 
 " About what ?" He affected not to understand 
 me. 
 
 "You cannot use ale and be safe. You know 
 this as well as I do." 
 
 His lips closed tightly, and his brows fell. We 
 walked for a little way, neither of us speaking. 
 
 " Come round to my office, and let us have a talk 
 about this matter," said I, as we reached the next 
 corner. 
 
 " Not to-day." He drew out his watch and looked 
 100
 
 THE CURSE ASD THE CURE. 
 
 
 at the time. " I have an engagement with a client 
 
 But don't give yourself any trouble about me, Lyon, 
 I'm all right." 
 
 " But to-morrow may tell a different story," I re- 
 plied. "No, no, Granger! You must not go a 
 step farther in this way. A precipice lies just be- 
 yond!" 
 
 "Another time; but now I must hurry to my 
 engagement." Saying which, he left me abruptly. 
 
 .My concern was great. That he could stand se- 
 cure feeding his old, fierce appetite with a glass of 
 ale now and then, I knew to be impossible, and he 
 knew it as well only, subtle desire was pressing for 
 indulgence, and blinding him with false assurances. 
 
 I did not see him again for two or three days, 
 though I had twice called at his office. At last I 
 found him in. It was late in the afternoon, and I 
 could see from the color of his face that he had 
 been drinking, though not to excess. He received 
 me with the old friendliness of manner, and without 
 any sign of embarrassment. 
 
 " You've come for that talk with me, I suppose," 
 he said, smiling, and with a twinkle in his eyes. 
 "All right You see I'm not down in the gutter, 
 for all the prophecy that was in your face the other 
 day." 
 
 There was a certain lightness of tone and manner 
 about him, that in view of the subject to which he 
 referred, almost shocked me. He must have noticed 
 this, for he added, in a more serious voice: "I
 
 102 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 t 
 
 know how you feel, Mr. Lyon, but let me assure 
 you that I am in no danger of falling back into 
 that wretched slough from which you helped to ex- 
 tricate me. I have too vivid a remembrance of its 
 suffocating mire and horrible foulness ever to let my 
 feet go near its treacherous margin again." 
 
 " What and where are the margins of this dread- 
 ful slough ?" I asked. 
 
 He did not answer. 
 
 " I saw you on one of these margins, your feet in 
 the very slime of the pit,*only a few days ago." 
 
 A smile broke over his face. 
 
 " Your way of putting it. But, seriously, Lyon, 
 I am not in the danger you think. How long do 
 you suppose it is since I've been using a little ale 
 every day ? More than two months. I was getting 
 run down from too close application to business, and 
 the doctor said I must have a tonic. ' Take a glass 
 of stout or bitter ale with your dinner/ he said. Of 
 course that couldn't be. My wife would have been 
 frightened to death." 
 
 " Did the doctor know anything of your previous 
 life ?" I inquired. 
 
 " Can't say about that. He may or he may not." 
 
 " Your regular family physician ?" 
 
 " No. Haven't had a regular doctor in the family 
 for three or four years." 
 
 "And you have followed his prescription ?" 
 
 " Yes ; only I don't take the ale with my dinner. 
 I've felt like another man ever since. Can do more
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE, JQ3 
 
 work with loss exhaustion. Have a cl oarer head, 
 and more elastic feelings. The ale simply gives a 
 needed tonic, which the system absorbs, and there 
 the matter ends." 
 
 "You think so?" 
 
 "I'm sure of it" 
 
 " With all your sad experience, Mr. Granger, to 
 take so fearful a risk !" 
 
 " I know how the thing looks to you, Mr. Lyon ; 
 and I know how it stands with me. I am not taking 
 this ale to gratify an appetite, but simply as a tonic, 
 which my system requires. Here lies my safety. I 
 am not off guard for a single moment I am not 
 only using the will-power which held me secure so 
 long, but motives of good citizenship, and love and 
 duty towards my family are more powerful than 
 ever. If appetite attempts to lift its head again, I 
 shall set my crushing heel upon it. I am standing 
 in the strength of a true manhood." 
 
 " I lave you forgotten," I said, " that testimony of 
 a physician in regard to the enlargement of the 
 blood globules in the habitually intemperate?" 
 
 Granger -made a slight gesture of impatience as 
 In- n -plk-d: "Nothing in it. I've talked with half 
 a <lo/rii physicians and scientific men on the sub- 
 
 " But, apart from that particular theory," I said, 
 
 "the fact remains, as you know, that in a man who 
 
 once been intemperate, certain changes in the 
 
 of the body have Uvn wrought, which remain
 
 104 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 permanent. Whether this change be in the blccd- 
 giobules or not, the imminent danger of the man, 
 should alcohol be introduced into his blood, is just 
 the same. The truth or falsity of the physician's 
 theory in no way touches the essential facts in the 
 case." 
 
 As I spoke, I saw a quick, startled motion of his 
 eyes, but it was gone in an instant. 
 
 "Have you forgotten Mr, Talbot?" I asked. 
 
 " Such cases are exceptional," he replied, with a 
 toss of the head. " We don't meet with them once 
 
 in an age." 
 
 "The history of intemperance is the history of 
 such cases," I replied. " You are deceiving your- 
 self. Thousands and thousands of such men go 
 down to dishonored graves every year. My dear 
 friend, you are taking a fearful risk !" 
 
 Granger drew a little away from me with a slight- 
 ly offended air. 
 
 " We shall see," he answered, somewhat coldly, 
 and then changed the subject. I tried to come back 
 to it again, but he pushed it aside with so manifest 
 a purpose not to continue the discussion that I had 
 nothing left but silence. 
 
 Every day I looked for his fall. But it did not 
 come suddenly, as I had feared. The usual business 
 hour found him at his office with each new morn- 
 ing, and his presence in court was as prompt and as 
 regular as usual. But there was not an observant 
 friend or acquaintance who did not see the steady
 
 THE CURSE AND THE Cl'RK 103 
 
 change that was in progress. It was slow, but sure. 
 The man was most warily on guard ; limiting his 
 appetite holding it down saying to it, "I am your 
 master. So much and no more. Enough for tonic 
 and strength, but nothing for indulgence." And yet, 
 from a single glass of ale a day, the concession to 
 appetite had reached, at the end of three months, to 
 as many as three or four, by which time the strong 
 will, and the motives of interest, honor and affection, 
 in which he had entrenched himself, were beginning 
 
 :iow signs of weakness. 
 
 I met him one day about this period of his declen- 
 sion. It was in the court-room. I had been drawn 
 thither through my interest in a case in which he 
 appeared as counsel for the defendant, a man on 
 trial for his life an old man, gray -headed, bent and 
 broken one of the saddest wrecks I had ever seen. 
 
 man had once been a successful merchant, and 
 the possessor of considerable wealth. I well remem- 
 
 !ie time when he occupied a handsome residence 
 on Walnut Street, and when his wife and daughters 
 moved in the best social circles of our city. But his 
 head was not strong enough for the wine that proved 
 his betrayer, and in the very prime and glory of his 
 manhood he began to fall. Methodical habits, and 
 the orderly progression of a long-established busi- 
 ness, kept him free from losses in trade for some 
 years after his sagacity as a merchant had left him. 
 1'iit the time came when the tide began to turn ad- 
 
 ly. Younger partners, who had new ideas of
 
 106 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 business, were impatient of slow gains. Into their 
 hands came a larger and a larger control of things, 
 and the opportunity for speculation. As in all other 
 kinds of gambling, trade speculations lead surely to 
 ultimate losses. Winning is the exception ; loss the 
 rule. It took only a few years to bring the firm to 
 bankruptcy. 
 
 The merchant never recovered himself. Capital 
 gone, and brain and body enervated by intemperance, 
 he did not even make a struggle, and at the age of 
 fifty-five dropped out of useful life, and became a 
 burden, a shame and a sorrow to his friends and 
 family. An income in her own right of a few hun- 
 dred dollars possessed by his wife, saved them from 
 utter poverty. There were two beautiful daughters, 
 as refined and intelligent as any you meet in the 
 most cultivated circles. Alas for them! The pleas- 
 ant places in which they had moved saw them no 
 more. 
 
 Ten years later, and the broken merchant, in a 
 frenzy of delirium brought on by drinking, struck 
 down his wife with a blow that caused her death. A 
 trial for murder was the consequence, in which Mr. 
 Granger conducted the defense. One of the saddest 
 and most painful features of this trial was the appear- 
 ance in court of the two daughters as witnesses, and 
 the evidence they were compelled to give. I can see 
 them now, with ten years of sorrow and humiliation 
 written in their pale, suffering faces, as they stood in 
 the witness-box, tearful and reluctant. Pity made
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE d'HE. 107 
 
 cvi n the lawyers tender and considerate in pressing 
 their examination; but enough came out to give the 
 heart-ache to nearly all who were in the court-room. 
 It was one of the most painful scenes I had ever 
 witnessed. 
 
 When all the evidence was in, and Mr. Granger's 
 turn came to address the jury in behalf of the 
 prisoner, the pause and expectation became breath- 
 less. The poor old white-haired man bent toward 
 him with a helpless, anxious face, and the two 
 daughters sat pale with suspense, their eyes riveted 
 on the man who was to plead for the life of their 
 father. 
 
 " Gentlemen of the jury." His subdued voice, in 
 which a slight tremor was apparent, made deeper 
 the silence of the hushed court-room. It was genuine 
 emotion that came thrilling in his tones, not the art 
 of the pleader. There was a waiting and a holding 
 of the breath for his next words. Turning slowly, 
 he looked at the old man and at the two white-faced 
 women his daughters and stretching out a hand 
 :-d them, said, his voice still lower than at iirst : 
 "The most sorrowful thing I have seen in this court- 
 room since my admission to the bar !" 
 
 There is no form of words by which to convey any 
 true conception of the pity and deeply moving pathos 
 that were in his voice. 
 
 "The most sorrowful thing, gentlemen of the 
 
 jury!" turning partly round to the jury-box. "I 
 
 ; not tell you what it means. The pitiful story
 
 108 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 has been fully rehearsed. You know it all. There 
 was once an honorable merchant, a tender husband, 
 a loving father. > The city was proud of him. His 
 name was the synonym for high integrity and gener- 
 ous feeling. His home was the dwelling-place of all 
 sweet affections. But an evil eye fell upon the mer- 
 chant -and his happy home. The locust and the 
 canker-worm found their way into his garden of 
 delight. Leaf withered and flower faded, and sing- 
 ing birds departed. Under the spell of this evil eye, 
 the generous merchant lost his wealth and his fine 
 sense of honor, the husband his tenderness and de- 
 votion, the father his love. A demon had taken 
 possession of his soul, subsidizing all its noble 
 powers, and making them the ministers of evil in- 
 stead of good. Shall I tell you the name of this 
 demon?" 
 
 He paused for a few moments. Then with a slow 
 utterance and deep impressiveness: " It was the 
 demon of strong drink! You all know him. You 
 cannot walk the streets of this great city this Chris- 
 tian city without feeling his hot breath strike into 
 your faces a hundred times an hour! His wretched 
 victims are every where about us; and the homes he 
 has ruined may be counted by tens of thousands all 
 over the land. Where has not the blight of his foul 
 breath fallen ? Whose home is free from the curse 
 of his presence? 
 
 "Look!" He turned to the prisoner and his 
 daughters. "All that the demon has left! Ah, gen-
 
 All that the Demon has left." Page 108.
 
 THE CURSE ASD THE CURE. 109 
 
 tlemen ! he is a pitiless demon, and without respect 
 of persons. 
 
 "And now what shall I say for my poor, unhappy 
 client? For this man whom the devil of drink has 
 held in chains for these many, many years, and made 
 the creature of his infernal will. Who wronged and 
 beggared his family the man, or the devil that was 
 in him ? The man was kind, and tender, and loving. 
 The man cared for his wife and his children, and 
 would have given his very life, if need be, for tlu-ir 
 y. Years of unselfish devotion to those he loved 
 bear him witness. You have heard tke testimony of 
 his daughters; and I think your eyes must still re- 
 main half-blinded by the tears with which their 
 touching story filled them. No, no! It was not the 
 man who dealt that cruel blow. lie would never 
 have laid on the dear and precious head of his faith- 
 ful wife a stroke as light as that of a feather's fall. 
 It was the devil who did it, and not the man. The 
 devil of drink. 
 
 leincn! You cannot find the man 
 guilty of murder. lie was only a passive instru- 
 ment, with no more responsibility for crime than the 
 club with which a ruffian fells aciti/.en, or the pistol 
 with which an a^sas^in does his fatal work. It was 
 tin- devil who did it. Ah! if the law could only 
 rearh this devil !" 
 
 The jury retired on the conclusion of Granger's 
 plea, and were not out for half an hour. The evi- 
 dence had been very direct an 1 clear. The pri-oner
 
 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 had developed in the past year an irritable and 
 lignant spirit, and would grow violent and threaten- 
 ing when his wife refused him money. It was 
 proved that he had struck her several times, and 
 that she had once carried the marks of a blow in 
 her face for many weeks. In the evidence bearing 
 on the cause of her death, it was shown that her 
 husband had been wrought into a paroxysm of 
 insane anger by her refusal to give him money, and 
 that in his blind passion he had knocked her down. 
 The blow was a violent one. When her daughters, 
 who had heard the heavy fall of her body, reached 
 the room and attempted to lift her from the floor, 
 she was dead. 
 
 At the end of half an hour, the jury came in 
 with a- verdict of guilty of murder in the second 
 degree, and a recommendation to mercy. Granger 
 had remained in the court-room while the jury was 
 out, taking part in another case that came up for 
 trial. I saw from his manner that a strong impres- 
 sion, from which he had not been able to break free, 
 had been left on his mind by the incidents of the 
 trial just closed. The two daughters of the prisoner 
 remained in the court-room, waiting for the verdict 
 in their father's case. More than once I noticed 
 Granger's eyes resting upon them with a pitiful, 
 almost sad expression. Was he thinking of his own 
 daughter and their mother, and of the demon that 
 might desolate their home and drag them down to 
 a fate like this ?
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 
 
 When the verdict came, and the wretched pris- 
 oner was removed, under a sentence of three years' 
 incarceration in the penitentiary, I saw Mr. Granger 
 go out with the two daughters, who moved through 
 tin; crowd with bent heads and slow, uncertain steps. 
 What a heartache the sight gave me ! As I reached 
 the street, I observed him enter a carriage with them 
 and drive away. I was touched by his considerate 
 and kindness. 
 
 "Ah," I said to myself, "if he will but take this 
 awful lesson to heart, and cast out once and forever 
 that devil of drink to which he made, a little while 
 ago, such an eloquent and telling reference." 
 
 I felt a strong hope that this would be so. That 
 the incidents of this trial, and his absorption into it 
 as counsel, would make so deep an impression on 
 ( i ranger as to cause him to start back in alarm from 
 the brink of the precipice on which he was stand- 
 ing, and over which he might at any moment 
 plunge. That he had been strongly moved was very 
 evident. It was not possible for him to look on the 
 -r<l and ruined family of the old merchant, or 
 uti mphite the awful tragedy which had been 
 enaete<l, without a shudder at the thought of such a 
 catastrophe reaching his own home. He was dally- 
 ing with the devil of drink, who might at any mo- 
 ment bind him hand and foot, as he had once before 
 bound him, ami make him a^ain the creature of his 
 will. 
 
 It was about eight o'clock in the evening, two
 
 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 days after the trial, that I was informed by a ser- 
 vant that a lady was in the parlor and wished to see 
 me. She had not given her name. On going down 
 J was met by Mrs. Granger. I saw the worst at a 
 single glance. It was written, alas ! too plainly in 
 her face. 
 
 " I would like to have some talk with you, Mr. 
 Lyon," she said. Her voice was low and steady ; 
 but I could detect an under thrill of feeling held 
 down by a strong effort. 
 
 " I am entirely at your service," I replied, using 
 the first form of speech that came into my mind. 
 "And if I can be of any use to you, command me 
 freely." 
 
 " You know about my husband." The firmness 
 went out of her voice. 
 
 " What about him ?" I had neither seen him nor 
 heard anything in regard to him since the day of 
 the trial. 
 
 " Haven't you heard ?" 
 
 " Heard what, Mrs. Granger ?" 
 
 " That he has " She could not finish the sen- 
 tence ; her voice breaking in a sob, that was followed 
 by a low, shivering cry. 
 
 " I am pained beyond measure to hear of this," 
 said I. " How long has it been ?" 
 
 "It has been coming on him for two or three 
 months past, and I've been in awful dread. Little 
 by little, day by day, his old appetite has gained 
 strength. What the end must be, I knew too well."
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 
 
 I saw him in court on the day of that murder 
 
 trial. He was all right then. 
 
 "He has never been right since. It was late in 
 the evening before he came home. His condition I 
 not describe." Tears, in large drops, were fall- 
 
 ing over her face. 
 
 "Has he been to his office since?" 
 
 " I think not," was answered. " He goes out in 
 tho morning, and does not return until late at night. 
 If I ask him a question, or venture a word of remon- 
 strance, he gets angry. Oh! sir; this must not go 
 on. I am helpless. He will hear nothing and bear 
 IK ttliing from me. It was not so once. But you are 
 his friend, Mr. Lyon. He has great respect for you; 
 and I know of no one who has more influence over 
 him." 
 
 "Any and everything in my power shall be done," 
 I replied. " My regret is tliat I did not know of 
 this earlier." I let more of hope and encouragement 
 L-> into my voice than I really felt. 
 
 " Oh ! sir. If you will only do your best for him." 
 The poor wife looked at me with a pleading face. 
 
 " Is he at home now ?" I asked. 
 
 " Oh, no, no. I haven't seen him since morning, 
 and it may be after midnight before he returns. 
 Oh ! isn't it dreadful, dreadful, Mr. Lyon, the way 
 this fearful appetite takes hold of a man ! I thought, 
 win -n he told me about that poor, old, broken-down 
 t, who, in a fit of drunken insanity, had 
 his wife, and whom he had to defend on a 
 8
 
 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 charge of murder, that he would take the terrible 
 lesson to heart. The case had drawn largely on his 
 sympathies, and his pity was great for the daughters 
 who were to appear in court and give evidence that 
 might send their father to the gallows. I have 
 rarely known a case to affect him so much. And to 
 think, Mr. Lyon, that he should go from this trial, 
 with all its warning incidents fresh in his mind, 
 and give himself into the power of the very agency 
 which had wrought so fearful a ruin that the very 
 sight of it sent a shudder through his soul ! There 
 is something awful and mysterious in all this, sir I 
 It passes my comprehension." 
 
 " And not yours only, ma'am. It is one of the 
 dark problems men find it difficult to explain. Into 
 all hurtful and disorderly things, evil forces seem to 
 flow with an intenser life than into things innocent 
 and orderly. There is violence, aggression, destruc- 
 tion or slavery in every evil agency. And it is 
 never satisfied under any limitation ; it must have 
 complete mastery, or work complete ruin." 
 
 "A terrible thought !" Mrs. Granger shivered as 
 she spoke. 
 
 " Will you try to find him to-night ?" she asked, 
 a moment afterwards. 
 
 " Yes. I will go in search of him at once." 
 
 She arose to depart. 
 
 "Wait for a moment; I will see you home 
 first." 
 
 " No, no, Mr. Lyon. I'm not afraid. Don't lose
 
 Tin: crii$E AXD THE CURE. 
 
 115 
 
 an instant. I want my husband found as soon as 
 possible." 
 
 And she went quickly from the room, passing into 
 the street before I could make another effort to de- 
 tain her.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 I' WAS not successful in my search for Mr. Gran- 
 ger, though I visited many of the principal 
 saloons, and met with several persons who knew 
 him; but no one whom I questioned had seen him 
 during the night. It was nearly twelve o'clock when 
 I gave up the search. I was debating with myself 
 whether to return to my own residence or to go, even 
 at this late hour, and ascertain whether he were at 
 home or not, when, on passing a small court in which 
 a tavern was located, a sudden sound of angry voices 
 struck my ears. As I paused I saw a man thrust out 
 of this tavern with violence. He fell with a dull, 
 heavy sound on the pavement; and was kicked as he 
 fell. The door shut in an instant afterwards, and the 
 man was left to all appearance unconscious or dead. 
 I found a policeman in the next block, and after 
 giving information as to what I had seen, was turn- 
 ing to leave him, when he detained me, saying that 
 if the man had received any serious injuries I might 
 be wanted as a witness. I took out a card, and writ- 
 ing my address on it, asked if that were sufficient. 
 He said yes. I had gone from him for only a few 
 paces when the possibility that the man I had seen 
 might be Granger flashed through my mind, arrest- 
 116
 
 'He fell with a dull, heavy sound 0:1 tin- pa vr-meni. and was kicked us 
 he Ml." Page lie.
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. H7 
 
 ing my steps, and causing me to turn about and hurry 
 baek to the scene of the outrage of which I had been 
 :or. The policeman was trying to raise the 
 man from the ground; but the latter was either so 
 stupified by drink, or so stunned by his fall on the 
 ] .aveinent, as to be unconscious of any effort to arouse 
 him. What was my pain and horror to see, as the 
 turned to the light, the features of Alexander 
 (1 ranger. There was a great bruise on one of his 
 temples from which drops of blood were creeping 
 out ; and his mouth was swollen as from a blow, and 
 bleeding. 
 
 By this time two or three men had come out of the 
 saloon ; and I noticed that one of them, on seeing 
 the }M>lieeman, dropped quietly from the court and 
 disappeared around the corner. The others assisted 
 to bear the unconscious man into the tavern. It was 
 a low, vile place; and the keeper a vicious-looking 
 fellow, in whose eyes you saw the cruel instincts of a 
 wild beast. He it was, as we learned, who had thrust 
 (i ranger out; but he denied having kicked him as 
 11. The cause for this violence was a drunken 
 dispute. An argument about something had arisen, 
 and the brutal logic of the bully had been used 
 ji gainst the lawyer, who was too much under the 
 power of drink for prudent self-restraint. His words 
 had been answered by blows; and the blows had 
 been very hard. 
 
 A physieian was sent for, but before his arrival, 
 (Jrunger had partially regained his consciousness.
 
 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 An examination of the wound on his head showed 
 nothing very serious. His mouth, however, had be- 
 come dreadfully swollen ; and the upper lip exhibited 
 so bad a cut that it had to be closed with a few 
 stitches and bands of adhesive plaster. 
 
 " There's a very sharp pain just here, doctor," said 
 Granger, after the lip had been dressed, placing his 
 hand to his side as he spoke. " I wish you'd see 
 what it means. There's something wrong, I'm 
 afraid." 
 
 " Wrong ! I should think there was," replied the 
 doctor, as soon as he had made an examination. 
 " Here's a rib broken !" 
 
 A groan escaped the lips of the suffering man. 
 Increasing pain was lifting him out of his drunken 
 stupor. 
 
 " He had better be taken home at once," said the 
 doctor. " I cannot attempt to set the broken bone 
 here." 
 
 " Oh, no. Don't take me home !" Granger an- 
 swered, quickly. " The station-house. Anywhere. 
 But not home." His countenance was strongly agi- 
 tated. 
 
 " To my house, then," I said. 
 
 " No ! no ! no ! It's considerate of you, Mr. Lyon, 
 but I will not be taken into any gentleman's house 
 while in this condition. Why can't the bone be set 
 here?" 
 
 " For reasons I will not attempt to explain," said 
 the doctor, speaking with decision. " I think, sir,"
 
 THE CURSE AND TUB CL'RE. 
 
 hddzeBBfflg me, " that you had better order a carnage 
 ami have him removed to his own house. I will 
 accompany you, or you can send for his family phy- 
 sician. In any case, take him home. The fracture 
 Is, I fear, a bad one, and will require careful treat- 
 ment." 
 
 Another groan came from Granger's lips. " If I 
 were only dead !" he ejaculated. 
 
 A carriage was sent for. While waiting for it to 
 come, Granger sat with closed eyes ; his face now 
 almost deathly pale, and with beads of sweat standing 
 all over it. lie made no resistance when the carriage 
 arrived, and entered it in silence, accompanied by the 
 >r, a policeman and myself. 
 
 \\ were some ten or twelve blocks from his resi- 
 dence, and it took over twenty minutes to make the 
 nee, as the driving had to be very slow. When 
 \\r ]i:id come within a few hundred yards of his 
 dwelling, he asked to have the carriage stopped for 
 a few minutes until I could go and break the news. 
 
 Leaving the carriage, I went rapidly in the direc- 
 tion of his house. A light was burning in one of the 
 upper windows. W hat should I say ? How should 
 I break this news to his poor, waiting wife? As I 
 near, I noticed a shadow on the wall of the 
 chamber in which the light was burning; a moving 
 shadow as of one restlessly walking the floor. As 
 the sound of my hurrying feet broke the silence 1 
 ;!ie shadow grow still for a moment, and then 
 quickly disappear. I had scarcely rung the bell ere
 
 120 STEOXG DRINK; 
 
 the door was drawn swiftly open, and Mrs. Granger's 
 pale, almost rigid face met mine. 
 
 "Mr. Granger! What of him? Oh ! Mr. Lyon, 
 have you found him ?" She had caught hold of me 
 in her eagerness and suspense. 
 
 " Yes, yes. I have found him," I replied. 
 
 " But where is he ? Why didn't he come home 
 with you?" 
 
 " He is coming. He will be here in a little while," 
 I said, trying to speak in a voice that would allay 
 her excitement. 
 
 " In a little while! What's the matter, Mr. Lvon ? 
 
 / 
 
 Don't deceive me ! Don't keep anything back ! Am 
 I wanted?" 
 
 I felt her hand close on my arm with a tight 
 grip. 
 
 " No no, Mrs. Granger. You are frightened for 
 nothing. You are not wanted. Your husband will 
 be home in a few minutes. I came first to tell you 
 and relieve your mind." 
 
 At this moment the sound of approaching wheels 
 was heard. 
 
 " Is that Mr. Granger ?" she asked, her face as 
 white as ashes. 
 
 " Yes," I replied. 
 
 I saw that the whole truth had not occurred to her. 
 She stood still, waiting until the slow-moving carriage 
 was at the door, and not stirring until she saw the 
 policeman step first to the pavement. Then there 
 was a start and a repressed cry. Next came the
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 
 
 r, and then, with the help of the policeman, 
 ( I ranker was assisted from the carriage. It was too 
 dark for his wife to see his face until the light of the 
 entry-lamp fell upon it as he was supported up the 
 steps to the door. 
 
 She did not faint, nor cry out in wild terror as she 
 saw that bruised, pain-stricken face ; but, as if she 
 had received a blow, staggered back a step or two, 
 but quickly recovered herself, coming forward and 
 saying, breathlessly, and in a hoarse whisper: 
 " What is it? What's the matter?" 
 
 " Nothing very serious," the doctor answered. 
 
 Y ur husband has had a fall, and there's a rib 
 broken. But he'll be all right in a short time. We 
 ct him up to his own room with as little delay 
 ossible." 
 
 In a moment all signs of agitation disappeared. 
 
 " This way," said the wife, calmly, moving back 
 along the hall, and then going lightly up-stairs and 
 leading the way to the chamber in front. I low 
 tender and pitiful she was in every word and act ; 
 yet with no sign of weakness. Love and duty 
 had lifted her into a sphere of calm self-posses- 
 sion. 
 
 I wondered as I observed her that night, moving 
 about with a quiet, almost cheerful bearing, acting in 
 concert with the doctor, ministering to her husband, 
 giving and taking directions with the coolness and 
 selt-jH>i>e of an exj>erienced nurse, what it meant? 
 I ha -ted a painful scene, with outbursts of
 
 122 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 uncontrollable mental anguish; and my surprise was, 
 therefore, the greater at what I saw. 
 
 It was between two and three o'clock before I left 
 Mr. Granger. By this time the broken bone had 
 been properly set, and he was not only free from 
 pain but sleeping quietly. 
 
 I did not see him for several days, though I made 
 frequent inquiries, and learned that he was doing 
 well. A brief notice of the assault from which he 
 had suffered found its way into the newspapers, 
 but his name was not mentioned. No effort was 
 made to arrest and punish his assailant, for that 
 would have been to make his own disgrace pub- 
 lic. 
 
 It was nearly a week afterwards that I received a 
 note, asking me to call upon him. He was greatly 
 changed, and looked broken, subdued and troubled. 
 His lip was still considerably swollen and very sore. 
 The wound had not healed readily, and the proba- 
 bilities were that a disfiguring scar would be left. 
 He held, my hand tightly for some moments before 
 speaking. 
 
 " I want to have another talk with you, Lyon," 
 he said, his voice trembling a little. " I shall be 
 out again soon, and then " He stopped, with a 
 strong movement of feeling in his face. " And then? 
 God help me, Lyon ! Is there no hope no escape 
 no way of safety ?" 
 
 His agitation increased. I did not reply. What 
 could I say ? He saw the doubt in my face.
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CTA'A 123 
 
 " There must be help somewhere. Men are saved 
 from this curse." 
 
 " A man may be saved from any evil if he will," 
 I replied. "But if he will not, as I have said to 
 you many times, even God cannot save him. If you 
 had kept away from the enemy's ground, he could 
 never have enslaved you again. You were free to 
 pass over or to remain within the lines of safety, 
 your own will you passed over." 
 
 " Poor, weak fool !" he murmured, bitterly. " Poor, 
 silly moth, Hying into the candle!" 
 
 " Let the days of weakness and folly pass forever. 
 Let there be no more parleyings with the enemy 
 no more venturing upon his domain." 
 
 lie shook his head gloomily. 
 
 "Of what value are all my good resolutions? 
 Will they save me in the future any more than they 
 saved me in the past? Are they stronger to- 
 day than they were last year or the year before? 
 There must be something more, Mr. Lyon. Some- 
 thing stronger to lean on, or I am lostJ" 
 
 " Lean on God," I answered. " Look to Him." 
 
 There was no brightening of his face. 
 
 "God helps those who try to get free from the 
 MM that d>tli so easily beset them." 
 
 " 1 >oes II, .' Haven't I tried ? Doesn't He know 
 that 1 have tried? But where is the help?" 
 
 " It cannot come to you except in your reasserted 
 manhood ; and it will come if you stand fast in that 
 manhood. God's strength will be your strength."
 
 124 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 He sighed heavily. 
 
 " Mr. Gross was here yesterday, and I had a long 
 talk with him about the New York Asylum at Bing- 
 hampton. He thinks very favorably of the course 
 pursued there, and spoke of several cases where 
 patients have come home radically cured. He 
 promised to send me the last report of the superin- 
 tendent. If I thought any good would come of it, 
 I'd drop business and everything else and go under 
 treatment there." 
 
 I said nothing to discourage the idea. There 
 might be influences brought to bear upon him at 
 this institution which would help to give him 
 the mastery over himself. I could not tell. 
 
 At a subsequent visit, I found that the promised 
 report had come into his hands, and that his mind 
 was fully made up to leave for Binghampton as soon 
 as he was able to travel, and spend as long a time 
 there as the resident physician and superintendent 
 thought his case required. 
 
 " It is a disease," he said, as we talked the matter 
 over; "and as clearly defined as any other disease; 
 and, moreover, as subject to remedial agencies. The 
 best minds in the medical profession have given to 
 this disease a most careful study, and it is known what 
 organs are affected by it, and the exact character of 
 the affection. Its treatment is based on true scien- 
 tific and pathological principles, and so conducted as 
 to give the patient a just knowledge of the means 
 whereby he may retain his health after a cure has
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 made. He is not left to grope in the dark, 
 every moment in danger of falling over some unseen 
 stumbling-block which may have been cast hi his 
 way." 
 
 I did not share in the new hope which had come 
 to Mr. (J ranger, but was careful not to offer a word 
 of discouragement. There might, as I have said, be 
 influences brought to bear upon him at the asylum 
 which would prove lasting. It was worth the trial 
 at least. 
 
 And the trial was made. Four montlis were spent 
 by Mr. Granger at the institution in Binghampton, 
 where the treatment for intemperance as a disease 
 was at the time up to the highest skill and intelli- 
 gence of the medical profession. The treatment 
 w;is moral as well as hygienic and sanatory. The 
 first thing gained for the patient was his removal 
 from the tainted atmosphere of common society, in 
 which are perpetually floating the germs of the dis- 
 from which he was suffering. This was a most 
 important gain, for it took him out of the region of 
 exciting causes. His next gain was in the sanatory 
 cire and treatment given by the institution to its 
 patients, through which a steady return to sound 
 physical health was secured. Supplementing this 
 was a thoroughly intelligent hygienic system, through 
 which the health so regained was steadily improved 
 and strengthened. 
 
 The moral and religious influences under whii-li 
 he came \\ero uf the most salutary kind. Free from.
 
 126 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 the morbid action of alcohol on the brain, his intel- 
 lect and moral perceptions were clear once more. He 
 could see and feel with a new intensity the obliga- 
 tions that were resting upon him as a man, and the 
 awful responsibility to which he must be held if he 
 did not keep them. There was a quickening of his 
 higher, purer and better feelings of honor, and a 
 sense of duty of all the tender social affections. 
 Love for his wife and children, and shame and 
 sorrow for the wrong and suffering he had brought 
 upon them, grew deeper and deeper as the cure went 
 on. He wrote to me several times while in the in- 
 stitution, and his letters were of the most satisfactory 
 character. He had gained wonderfully in health, 
 and felt, he said, no desire for alcohol whatever, and 
 was sure that he should never touch it again. 
 
 In the first letter that I received from him, he 
 spoke of the incidents attendant on his arrival at 
 the institution. I give a portion of this letter : 
 
 " On the second day," he wrote, " as I was sitting 
 by myself, feeling strange and ill at ease, a little, old 
 man, with a large head, clear blue eyes, and a kind, 
 cheery face, came into the parlor, and seeing me, 
 bowed with a courtly air, and said a pleasant ' Good 
 morning.' My response was somewhat cold and 
 distant, for I was greatly depressed in spirits, and 
 could not rally myself on the instant. He passed 
 through, and as he left the room I felt my heart 
 going out, as it were, after him. In about ten min- 
 utes he came back, and, drawing a chair, sat down
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CUKE. 
 
 ly mo, with the remark, 'This is one of our perfect 
 1 lave you noticed the peculiar softness of the 
 >ky ?' I tried to rouse myself to meet, in a becom- 
 ing way, his kind advances ; but did it, I fear, 
 almost ungraciously. It was only a little while, 
 however, before the frank and genial warmth of his 
 manner had completely won me, and I found my- 
 self talking with him as with a pleasant friend. 
 Almost before I knew it, he had led me to speak of 
 myself, and of my past life. There was about him 
 something that inspired confidence. I felt that no 
 idle sentiment of curiosity, but a genuine interest 
 in my welfare, had drawn him towards me, and that 
 as seeking to gain my friendly feelings, that 
 he illicit do me good. He had not spoken half a 
 dozen sentences before I recognized in him a man 
 of culture, and saw in his bearing the true grace of 
 a courtly gentleman. It was not long before we 
 were walking the floor of the parlor, his arm drawn 
 within that of mine, deeply engaged in a conversa- 
 tion, which we kept up for over an hour. At its 
 , I felt that I had found a new friend, as it has 
 proved, for this quiet, intelligent, refined and gen- 
 tlemanly old man is none other than our chaplain." 
 Again he wrote : " In Dr. Bush, our chaplain, 
 about whom I spoke in one of my letters, we have 
 a man of rare fitness for the office he holds in this 
 institution. I never pass an hour with him without 
 feeling Stronger for the interview. He said to me, 
 a day or two ago, ' In God and good health lie your
 
 128 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 only help and sure dependence. You must keep 
 the body sound, avoid all dangers, and take no risks. 
 With regular living, and healthy surroundings, and 
 a mind full of faith and hope in spiritual realities, 
 this sad disorder, with which you have been afflicted, 
 will, in time, die out.' In his unobtrusive and wise 
 way, he moves about among the patients, holding 
 them in conversation by such themes as touch their 
 tastes and habits of thinking most readily ; but al- 
 ways at some point turning their thoughts to spir- 
 itual things, and pointing them to Christ as their 
 surest refuge. He has great influence over all who 
 are here, and there are some who appear to rest on, 
 and cling to him as if all the strength they were 
 receiving actually came through his agency. The 
 more I see and know of him, and the more I talk 
 with him, the stronger grows my conviction, that 
 the saving power of the work that is being done 
 here is largely due to the influence this good man 
 has with the inmates." 
 
 In a letter written nearly two months after he 
 entered the asylum, Mr. Granger said : 
 
 " I had a long talk with our chaplain yesterday, 
 and he related many deeply interesting incidents 
 connected with his office in the institution. He has 
 a large correspondence, I find, with persons who 
 have been patients here; and his influence witK 
 many of them is still very strong. He encourages 
 them to write to him freely, and to tell him about 
 their surroundings and peculiar trials and tempta-
 
 THE CURSE ASD THE CUKE. 129 
 
 tion<, in order that he may send helpful advice and 
 
 -"Missel, if there should be need therefor. I 
 
 noti.v that while he speaks minutely of cases, he 
 
 ran-ly mentions names. But I refer to him now 
 
 :ise of some things which he said that reminded 
 me of a conversation I had with you. The line of 
 thought he pursued was very similar to yours, 
 though some of his premises and conclusions were 
 dilll-rent. 'All of our power to resist temptation 
 ami to live true and orderly lives/ he said, 'comes 
 from God. The gift of strength is from above; 
 the will to use it lies within ourselves. If we will 
 not u-- this strength, God cannot help us in times 
 of difficulty, nor save us in times of danger. But, 
 into our right endeavor, if it be resolutely made, 
 will come a divine power that shall enable us to 
 
 1 as a rock, though the floods of temptation 
 n<-ver so strongly against us. And here, my 
 fririid,' he added, laying his hand upon me, and 
 speaking with great earnestness, ' let me impress 
 upon you this thought, that it is only in the main- 
 tenance of true order in our natural and physical 
 that we come into such a relation to spiritual 
 laws and forces that they can protect and save us. 
 A true spiritual life cannot be established in any 
 
 90 long as his natural life remains in disorder. 
 If you want God's help in the new life you are now 
 living, you must, while asking spiritual aid, do your 
 part in the work of establishing .sound physical 
 health. 1 'raving will avail nothing if you do not 
 B
 
 130 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 tins also. When you go away from here you must 
 make it a religious duty to avoid over-strain in your 
 work, and the consequent nervous exhaustion that 
 will surely follow. All the laws of physical and 
 moral health must be strictly observed; and you 
 must be especially watchful lest you get over, una- 
 ware, upon the enemy's ground. If duty calls you 
 there, go with armor and sword, and you will find 
 no armor so impenetrable, and no sword so keen and 
 effective, as the armor of God's Holy Word, and 
 the truths that lie sheathed in its precious sentences. 
 yse these when the tempter assaults you, and he 
 will turn and flee.' You can see how good and 
 helpful all this is. ' Right thinking is one of the 
 surest ways to right acting,' we often hear him say. 
 ' If men would go right, they must know right,' is 
 another of his apt sentences. And he never tires 
 in his efforts to supplement the medical, social, san- 
 atory and moral agencies of cure that are so effect- 
 ive in many cases under treatment here, with the 
 soundest common sense advice, and the tenderest, 
 most heart-searching and deeply solemn ministra- 
 tions of a devoted spiritual friend and teacher." 
 
 At the end of three months, Granger considered 
 his cure so complete that he wished to return home 
 and resume the practice of his profession, which was 
 suffering greatly on account of his absence. In this 
 he was opposed by the superintendent, who urged 
 him to remain longer ; in fact, not to think of leav- 
 ing the institution until he had remained there for
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 at I ';ist six months. The superintendent understood 
 his case better than he understood it himself, and 
 knew that he was very far from being cured. Treat- 
 in ir intemperance as a disease of the physical organ- 
 ism, manifesting itself in a species of moral insanity, 
 and understanding enough of the pathology of 
 drunkenness to know that it wrought changes of 
 condition of singular permanency, and left a most 
 remarkable sensitiveness to exciting causes, he un- 
 derstood the great value of time in the work of 
 strengthening the system, so that it might, when 
 exposed to assault, be able to resist the encroach- 
 ments of disease. But he was not able to induce 
 Mr. Granger to remain at the institution for a longer 
 time than four montns. 
 
 I met him soon after his return home. Four 
 montlis under the new influences to which he had 
 lx en subjected had wrought in him a marked 
 change. I had never seen him in better physical 
 health. His eyes were strong and bright, his com- 
 plexion clear, his muscles round and tense. You 
 saw that life, mental and physical, had gained a 
 higher strength. 
 
 "I'm a new man, Lyon," said he, confidently, as 
 he grasped my hand at our first meeting. "A new 
 man," he repeated, "morally, mentally and physi- 
 cally. The lost has been found ; the sick man re- 
 stored to health ; the dead is alive again." 
 
 There was a certain uverglow of enthusiasm about 
 him to which I could not heartily respond. lie
 
 132 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 observed this, saying : " Wait and see, my friend. 
 This isn't the old, sick, miserable body that I took 
 away, with its relaxed pores standing open to drink in 
 every disease that floated in the air. Here is healthy 
 blood, and firm flesh, and high vital action; and 
 what is more, reason and will have regained strength 
 and dominion. I have found my lost manhood." 
 
 "And may God give you the strength to keep it," 
 I made answer, speaking from a conviction which I 
 could not repress, that only in God's help was there 
 any sure hope for this man. 
 
 " He has given it already," he replied. "And I 
 am taking it and using it. He is always giving ; 
 and we faint and fall by the way only because we 
 do not take of the measure we need. This is your 
 doctrine, I believe, Mr. Lyon." 
 
 " Yes," I returned, but not with any heartiness of 
 manner. 
 
 " Not skeptical here, I trust," said Granger, with 
 a slight lifting of his eyebrows. 
 
 " No. All our strength must come from God. In 
 Him we live and move and have our being. The 
 only question is, how are we to get this strength ? 
 And I will confess to you, Mr. Granger, that my 
 mind is not so well settled on this point as it was a 
 year or two ago. I had great faith in a man's wjll 
 then. It is weaker now. And, if I must say it, 
 out of your experience has come many of my doubts 
 and questionings." 
 
 ' Indeed." A shade of surprise in his manner.
 
 THE CURSE AND THE C77.'/'. 133 
 
 "You remember that turning over of a new leaf 
 a long time ago, and \vhat Mr. Stannard said to you 
 in ivgard to the writing thereon? About the* I 
 will not/ and ' By the help of God ?' " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "And how I said that we received God's help 
 only when we made an effort to do the right. That 
 His strength flowed then into our endeavor, and 
 only then ?" 
 
 " Yes ; and you said the truth." 
 
 " But you did not find it so, Mr. Granger." 
 
 A deeper shade of surprise on his face. " I did 
 not use the strength. That was all." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "The will failed, I suppose." 
 
 "Ah ! There it is. The will to take the strength 
 was lacking." 
 
 " Yes." A falling away from its firmness in his 
 voice. 
 
 " I've thought a great deal about this in the last 
 few months, Granger, and I'm afraid there's some 
 error in my reasoning about God's ways with man. 
 That in our efforts to do right, or resist evil, a divine 
 strength sufficient for our day will not always come. 
 It seems to me that it ought to come ; but does it 
 come ? What is your experience ?" 
 
 " I have had the strength to resist, as you know, 
 and have stood in that strength for long periods of 
 time," he answered. 
 
 " True ; but it failed at last Now God's power
 
 134 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 should never fail ; and I have a conviction that it 
 never does fail. "What then ?" 
 
 He did not answer me. 
 
 " There is one sphere of safety into which I think 
 it will be wise for you to come," said I. 
 
 " What is that?" he asked. 
 
 " The sphere of the church." 
 
 There was no warm response in his face. 
 
 " So far as my observation goes," he replied, 
 " church people are no better than others." 
 
 " More the shame for them," I answered. " But it 
 is possible that your observation in this direction 
 has been limited." 
 
 " Well, as you know, I've never taken much to 
 religion. I'm not one of that kind. I go to church 
 with my wife occasionally, but never get much in- 
 terested. Now and then I hear a sermon that sets me 
 to thinking ; but, for the most part, I find it dull work." 
 
 " I inferred, from some things said in your letters, 
 that you had become deeply impressed with the 
 value and necessity of divine help," said I. " Did 
 not Mr. Bush, the chaplain of whom you spoke so 
 warmly, urge you to join some church, and to come 
 within the sphere of its saving influences ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes. He spoke to me with great earnest- 
 ness on this very subject. But a man may trust in 
 God, even though he be not a church- member. 
 Christianity means justice, and honor, and right 
 living ; and I find as much of this outside as inside 
 of the churches."
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 135 
 
 " The Church," I replied, " has been established 
 by God. It is His kingdom on the earth ; and its 
 laws are divine truths revealed to us in Scripture. 
 These laws, as you know, are very pure, and based 
 on love to God and the neighbor. It is nothing 
 against the Church that some of its members do 
 not comprehend the spirit and meaning of its laws; 
 nor live in a true conformity thereto ; and nothing 
 against its power to protect us from evil, if we come 
 within the sphere of its influence." 
 
 " You may be right in all that, Mr. Lyon ; are 
 right, no doubt ; and I intend going to church with 
 my family more regularly than heretofore." 
 
 " Do so by all means. I had a long talk with Mr. 
 Stannard only last week on this very subject of 
 church-going ; and one or two things that he said 
 have made a strong impression on my mind." 
 
 " .Mr. Stannard is one of the best men I ever knew. 
 If all professing Christians squared their lives by 
 their doctrines as he does, Christianity would mean 
 something," remarked Granger. " What did he say?" 
 
 " If for no other reason, he said, we should go 
 to church to hear the reading of the Bible." 
 
 " We may read the Bible at home, if we will," 
 ( 1 ranger replied. 
 
 " True ; if we will," I returned. 
 
 ' And, then," he rejoined, "you know one may 
 read the Bible every day, and a dozen times a day 
 for that matter, and it will do him no good unU 
 obey its precepts."
 
 136 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 " A knowledge of the law must go before obedi- 
 ence. This is as true of divine as of human laws. 
 But I wish to bring to your attention one or two 
 things said by Mr. Stannard in regard to the power 
 of Holy Scripture, and the sphere of safety into 
 which it must bring every one who receives it into 
 his thought reverently, and lets it dwell there. They 
 were new to me. Being the "Word of God, the pre- 
 sence of any portion thereof in the thought, must, 
 he said, bring, in a certain sense, God within us, and 
 consequently nearer with His divine power to the 
 enemies of our souls who are ever seeking to gain 
 dominion over us ; so enabling Him to fight in and 
 for us by the power of His Word." 
 
 Granger sat reflecting on this for a considerable 
 time. 
 
 " If that be so," he said, at length, " there is a 
 saving power in the Bible beyond what I had 
 thought." 
 
 " And a use in going to church beyond what you 
 and I had imagined." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " For the reading of the Bible makes up a portion 
 of the services, and the sphere of reverence and 
 attention which we find in worshipping assemblies 
 adjusts the mind to hearing and opens it to deeper 
 impressions. The Word gets a firmer hold upon 
 us and remains longer with us. We take it 
 away in our memories; and when in temptation, 
 can bring it out therefrom as a weapon the
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 137 
 
 | 
 
 MY. ml of the Spirit with which to fight our 
 enemies. 
 
 " Mr. Stannard said," I continued, " that God's 
 Holy Word is sufficient for us under any circum- 
 stances of temptation; and that we have only to 
 resist the devil as our Saviour resisted when led of 
 him into the wilderness to be tempted, and he will 
 it from us." 
 
 " How did He resist?" asked Mr. Granger. 
 
 " By the utterance of truth from Scripture; and 
 the j)ower of this Divine AVord was so great that the 
 devil could not stand before it." 
 
 " Yc"s, that is so. ' It is written/ was the Lord's 
 answer. I never thought of its meaning before." 
 
 " In the very way that strength for victory came to 
 Him as 1 It- met the hosts of hell on the plane of His 
 i;i firm human nature, will it come to us and give us 
 thf victory also, said Mr. Stannard. From this view 
 of the case, the value of public worship is evident, 
 and I am sure, Mr. Granger, that you will stand safer 
 within.tlum without the sphere of the church." 
 
 " You may be right," he answered. " Nay, I am 
 sure you are right. I must see Mr. Stannard and 
 a talk with him. He is one of the men in 
 whom I believe."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Ij^OR awhile Granger went regularly to church ; 
 -- but after a few months his place in the family 
 pew was often vacant. 
 
 " I don't see you at church as much as usual," said 
 I, on meeting him one day. 
 
 " Well no," he replied, speaking with some hesi- 
 tation of manner, " and I don't know that I've any 
 valid excuse for staying away. But, the fact is, 
 
 Mr. is so intolerably dull and prosy, I get tired 
 
 to death. He doesn't seem to think at all ; but just 
 to open his mouth and let what happens to be in his 
 memory come out. Old stereotyped forms of speech, 
 and sentenpes that mean anything or nothing as you 
 choose to interpret them, make up the staple of his 
 sermons. You don't get an advanced idea from him 
 once in a month." 
 
 " Go somewhere else. To hear Mr. , for in- 
 stance. But don't stay away from church." 
 
 " I've been to hear Mr. a number of times. 
 
 But one tires of mere picture-painting, though the 
 artist have rare skill in his line. He says many 
 beautiful things in an eloquent way ; and so do the 
 orators and the poets. But a poor, tired and tempted 
 soul will get little help from his preaching. It is 
 138
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 139 
 
 pleasing and popular ; but aft IT that is said, about all 
 
 1. Ah, my friend!" his brows drew closely 
 
 <T, and his voice fell to a serious tone, "your 
 
 churches and your preaching are all well enough for 
 
 -y-going, good sort of people, with a kind of 
 natural heavenward drift ; but they don't do much in 
 the way of getting hold of us restless, challenging, 
 hardened fellows, who want to know about the reason 
 of things ; and who, unhappily, are in the drag of a 
 current that is bearing us down, down, down, it may 
 In-, to eternal ruin !" 
 
 There came a stern, almost angry expression into 
 his face. 
 
 ' You mustn't feel in that way Granger. It isn't 
 good. The preachers may not be all we could wish ; 
 but they are, for the most part, sincere men, and in 
 the effort to do the best they can for the salvation of 
 sou 
 
 "Oh, yes. No doubt of it But it rarely happens 
 that 1 find one who can feed my hunger." 
 
 Was it his own fault or the fault of the preacher? 
 Was he not hungering again for the flesh-pots of 
 
 .ypt, and loathing the manna and the quails? I 
 had my fears. What had been done for him during 
 his four months at the asylum ? It was a question of 
 UK mientous interest. Had there been a cure, or only 
 a temporary suspension of diseased action? Did he 
 not stand in as much danger to-day as before he 
 placed himself under treatment? Was not his fall 
 
 /in only a matter of time?
 
 140 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 These questions pressed themselves on my mind 
 and gave me much concern. Think as closely and 
 as earnestly as I could on the subject, I was not able 
 to see wherein lay his immunity. He was back 
 once more in an atmosphere tainted with disease. 
 Predisposition had not been eradicated, and old 
 exciting causes were acting again. As time went 
 on, and the fine health he had brought home with 
 him from the asylum gave place to the exhausted 
 nervous condition which is sure, sooner or later, to 
 follow excessive devotion to business, would not the 
 old hunger for stimulants arouse itself and become 
 irresistible ? 
 
 The more I considered this view of the case, the 
 more my concern increased ; and I felt that some- 
 thing far more radical must be done for Granger 
 than had yet been accomplished, ere his reform was 
 a thing assured. His drifting away from church in- 
 fluences was, I feared, only an indication of the 
 awakening of old desires, and the turning of his 
 thoughts downward to the things in which they had 
 once found gratification. 
 
 I was much relieved on the Sunday following to 
 see Granger in church. He sat for most of the time 
 during the services in an attentive attitude ; and it 
 struck me that his manner was unusually subdued 
 and serious. I noticed that while a particular lesson 
 from Scripture was read, that his eyes were not 
 taken from the clergyman for a single moment. It 
 was the one hundred and twenty-first Psalm: "I
 
 TUE CURSE AXD THE CT7. 1 /:. 
 
 will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence 
 ih my help. My help corneth from the Lord, 
 which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer 
 thy foot to be moved : he that keepeth thee will not 
 slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall 
 neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is thy keeper: 
 the Lord is thy shade upon the right hand. The 
 sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by 
 nil: lit. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: 
 lie .-hall preserve thy soul. The- Lord shall pre- 
 thy going out and thy coming in from this 
 time forth, and even forever more." 
 
 Other passages read or chanted during the ser- 
 
 vices, seemed as if especially designed to meet his 
 
 .UK! lead him to put a higher trust in God. 
 
 " They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount 
 
 Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth forever. 
 
 ic mountains arc round about Jerusalem, so the 
 
 Lord is round about His people from henceforth 
 
 oven fniwer." "The Lord is nigh unto all them 
 
 that call uj>on Him, to all that call upon Him 
 
 in truth. He will fulfil the desire of them that 
 
 Him: lie also will hear their cry, and will 
 
 ; hem." " Like as a father piticth his children, 
 
 ic Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For !!' 
 
 knoweth our frame; lie rcmembereth that we are 
 
 I "lid not get an opportunity to speak to Granger 
 
 church, hut 1 \v;i- .-truck with the seriousness 
 
 of hU face as he passed along the aisle. His eyes
 
 142 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 were cast down, and he did not notice any one as he 
 moved with the crowd. 
 
 " What do you think of Granger's case?" I asked 
 of Mr. Stannard, not long after this. 
 
 " I greatly fear for him," was replied. 
 
 " He has kept himself straight since his return 
 from the asylum." 
 
 " Yes ; but the saving power of such institutions 
 has its limits. They are good as far as they go, and 
 have helped to restore many men to good citizenship. 
 I say nothing against them. I wish their number 
 were increased. But there are cases in which they 
 rarely, if ever, make permanent cures ; and Gran- 
 ger's is one of them. The appetite for drink has 
 taken too deep a hold. For him, I fear, there is no 
 help in man. Only God can save him ; and if he 
 does not go to God, humbly and prayerfully, his 
 case is next to hopeless." 
 
 " I am sorry you take so gloomy a view of the 
 matter, Mr. Stannard. Will not God help him un- 
 less he pray to Him ?" 
 
 " Can He help him if he does not ?" 
 
 " I don't know. There's something just here that 
 I do not clearly understand." 
 
 " Can a mother feed her babe, though her breast 
 be full, if it turn its mouth away ? It may be faint- 
 ing with hunger, and the mother's heart may be full 
 of love and pity, but if it will not touch the paps 
 what can she do ? Prayer is not an arbitrary ser- 
 vice, but an attitude of the soul. A simple turning
 
 TUB CURSE AXD THE CURE. 143 
 
 of the spirit, conscious of its own weakness and sin- 
 iulness, to the source of all goodness and strength, 
 and Accepting what God is ever seeking to give; but 
 which He can only give to those who truly desire 
 to receive. God is always coming to us and seeking 
 to save us ; but unless we turn to Him, and look to 
 Him, our rescue is impossible. It is in ourselves 
 that we are lost; and if we will not come out of 
 cur-elves, wherein are all our pains and desolations, 
 ho\v can God save us?" 
 
 " I don't know. The way ought to be made very 
 plain and easy." 
 
 " It is plain and easy. Only to turn from self to 
 God. Only to take the hand that is forever reaching 
 down. Only to ask and receive," Mr. Stannard re- 
 plied. " God cannot give to those who will not take." 
 
 ' Yes, yes ; all doubtless true. But how shall one 
 turn from self to God? How grasp the hand that 
 is forever reaching down? How take what God 
 perpetually desires to give?" 
 
 44 Only when a man feels that in and of himself 
 In- can do nothing, and that unless help come from 
 alxve he must perish, can he really turn from self 
 to God. Before that he trusts in his own strength ; 
 aul so long as he does this, divine strength cannot 
 be given." 
 
 \Vhy not?" 
 
 "Can a man use what he will not take? So long 
 as one trusts in himself, he does not use the strength 
 of another."
 
 144 STRONG 
 
 "And so, until a man feel this utter helpless- 
 ness, God will not reach down and save him ?" said I. 
 
 " Of what avail is God's offered hand if the man 
 will not take it? Of God's strength if the man will 
 not use it ? Not until he is in utter despair of him- 
 self does he really accept help from above. Until 
 then he trusts to an arm of flesh, and not to the all- 
 conquering and all-sustaining power of God. In 
 the very moment that a man comes into this state 
 of despair and lifts thought and desire heavenward, 
 he prays effectually ; takes hold of God ; gets his 
 feet upon a rock; comes within the sphere of Divine 
 protection ; is saved from the power of his enemies. 
 Forever saved ? Yes, if he keeps his hold upon God 
 and remains within the sphere of His divine pro- 
 tection. How shall he maintain this hold ? Only 
 through steady looking and right living. He must 
 cease to do evilj and learn to do well. Must make 
 the laws of God the laws of his life. If this be not 
 done God cannot make him to dwell in safety." 
 
 " For a man like Granger, you think, there is no 
 security but in the church ?" 
 
 " Unless he dwell in God, he cannot dwell secure ; 
 and the church is God's kingdom on the 'earth." 
 
 "Does not Scripture say that the kingdom of 
 God is within us ?" 
 
 "Yes. God's kingdom is a spiritual kingdom, 
 and can have no real existence but in the souls of 
 men. But it is internal and external, because man 
 is internal and external; and has its internal sane-
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 as well as it external ceremonials and forms of 
 worship. The laws of this kingdom are the pre- 
 cepts of the Holy Word ; and only those who keep 
 these precepts in the heart and life are really the 
 suhjects of this kingdom. All such are free from 
 the power of hell ; for God dwells in them and 
 around them." 
 
 " Must, then, a man join the church to come into 
 God's kingdom?" 
 
 " I think he will find that kingdom by the way 
 of a church door more easily than in any other way. 
 We are none of us so strong that we can afford to do 
 without the help that comes from association with 
 our fellow-men. God did not make us to stand 
 alone, but in mutual dependence. This is as true 
 in spiritual as in natural things. And so the church 
 to be a power with men must be external as well as 
 internal." 
 
 " You may be right about all this," I made an- 
 . " Certainly I should feel more confidence in 
 (Iran --IT'S reformation if I knew that lie was oftener 
 at church. I was glad to see him there last Sunday. 
 But I have felt more concerned for him since tin 'ii 
 than usual. The reason may appear to you a little 
 ttnnge." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " I have never seen his face so serious, nor his 
 
 manner so al>s. >rl>e<l, as they were during the services 
 
 of the morning. While the l>-ns from Scripture 
 
 were read, his, eyes were scarcely turned for au in- 
 
 10
 
 146 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 stant away from the minister. In all the church 
 there was not, apparently, a more deeply interested 
 listener." 
 
 "A reason for hope rather than concern," said 
 Mr. Staunard. 
 
 " That depends on the cause of this unusual so- 
 briety of demeanor," I answered. "My thought 
 has been, that the long repressed appetite is begin- 
 ning to assault him once more ; and that, day by 
 day, the conviction is becoming stronger and stronger 
 in his mind that it will, sotmer or later, acquire the 
 mastery again. Plis coming to church, and espec- 
 ially his demeanor at church, may be the signs of 
 his sense of weakness and danger ; an effort to gain 
 help from higher influences a half-desperate reach- 
 ing out of his hands in the dark for something to 
 which he may cling when the waters that are moving 
 upon him rise higher and gain the force of a resist- 
 less flood." 
 
 "If this be so he is turning to the Strong for 
 strength, and seeking help where it can alone be 
 found." 
 
 " But don't you see, that if this be so, Mr. Stan- 
 nard, how desperate the case may be? The floods 
 are rising against him. He feels that his strength 
 is going. He is half-blind half-desperate. Will 
 he take hold of God ? If not, what then ? Ah ! 
 sir, I cannot but feel a low shiver of suspense as 
 I realize, in thought, this awful crisis for a human 
 soul."
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 147 
 
 " In \vliich it has only to cry out as it turns from 
 self to God; 'Save, Lord, or I perish!' to be lifted 
 from the flood." 
 
 " Hut if it fail in this? If it cannot, or will 
 not?" 
 
 " There is no such thing as cannot for a tried and 
 tempted soul. It can look to God, and take hold of 
 , if it will." 
 
 "But," I said, pressing the question, "if it will 
 not?" 
 
 The light went out of Mr. Stannard's face and it 
 grew very sober. 
 
 " It was because of this ' I will not,' " he replied, 
 "that the Lord, in His tender mercy, bowed the 
 heavens and came down into our very debased 
 humanity, that we might see Him as a Divine Man, 
 and feel the warmth of His compassion, and know 
 Him as our friend and Saviour, and that He might 
 inspire in us the ' I will,' by which He could lift us 
 back again into the pure and happy life which we 
 hud lost." 
 
 " But if this cannot now be inspired into the soul 
 of Mr. Granger," said I, "what then? Must he 
 fall in his hour of trial and darkness?" 
 
 " If the external strength which he has acquired 
 be not sufficient for him the considerations of honor 
 and good citizenship; of worldly ambition and pros- 
 perity ; of love and regard for his wife and children ; 
 i-rsonal well-being and happiness, and he will 
 nut take God's strength instead, what shall save
 
 148 STEONG DRINK; 
 
 him ? I know not. But let us hope that he is going 
 to God in the right way. I believe that he is." 
 
 " Ah ! if one co'uld know ! I feel that another 
 great crisis has come to our friend. If he should 
 not pass it safely, he may fall never to rise again." 
 
 " He can never fall so low," was answered, " that 
 God's love will not be still reaching down and seek- 
 ing to save him. All day long He will stretch out 
 His hands to him ; all day long call after him in 
 tones of love and compassion, 'Son, give me thy 
 heart !' and it will not matter how low he may fall, 
 nor how far away he may wander into the desert of 
 sin and shame, the moment he hearkens to that 
 voice and turns from himself to God, he will be in 
 the fold of safety. It is a good thing for Granger 
 that he is feeling his own helplessness, and begin- 
 ning to look for help from above. He may not find 
 it now, because he may not be ready to give his 
 heart to God ; but if, trusting in his own strength, 
 he should fall again, God will not forsake him, but 
 still go after him, and it may be find him so weak, 
 and helpless, and despairing, that he will no longer 
 hold back, but throw himself into the loving arms 
 of his divine Saviour. Then will be born in him 
 a new life from above ; and if he live this life he 
 shall never fall again ; for it is a heavenly life. Not 
 a mere life of faith and feeling, but of love to God 
 and good will to man, that continually shows itself 
 in a keeping of the commandments in the spirit as 
 well as in the letter."
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 14Q 
 
 ' It is your belief, then," said I, "that until Mr. 
 Granger becomes a religious man there is very little 
 hope for him?" 
 
 " Very little, I fear." 
 
 " He must unite himself with the church ?" 
 
 " It would be better for him. But joining the 
 church will not make him a religious man. That 
 is the effect of an internal change, not of an external 
 relation. There must be a new spiritual birth before 
 there can be a new man. * Marvel not that I said 
 unto thee, Ye must be born again.' " 
 
 "Ah! if we knew just what that meant," I caid. 
 
 " That which is born of the flesh is flesh," said 
 Mr. Stannard. " Let us rise higher in our thought. 
 The new birth is in the soul. It has been down 
 into the world, where it has gone by way of the 
 , and has lived the life of the world, which is 
 a selfish life, and evil because selfish. The more 
 intense this life, the more opposite to the life of 
 Heaven has it become. Now, unless a new life be 
 Imni in the soul, it can never come into Heaven, 
 which is a state of love to the Lord and the neigh- 
 bor. How this life is born is the great and import- 
 ant question. Let me make it as clear to your un- 
 derstanding as lies in my power. This new birth 
 is effected by means of Divine truth cast into the 
 mind as a seed, and the new spiritual birth has its 
 lining in the very moment that a man endeavors 
 earnestly and by the help of God to obey this truth. 
 For to do is to live. If the doing is in obedience to
 
 150 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 Divine truth, which teaches that a man shall not 
 only love God, but cease to do evil, then the new 
 man, a weak and almost helpless infant as yet, be- 
 gins really to live and grow ; and the Divine sphere 
 is round about it, and all the powers of Heaven are 
 arrayed for its protection. It is absolutely safe, this 
 new-born child, so long as it takes the sincere milk 
 of the Word, and lives thereby. But in danger the 
 moment it turns itself away therefrom, and attempts 
 to feed on the husks that can only sustain the lower 
 life of selfishness and sin. The spiritual man can- 
 not subsist on these. It must have heavenly 'food 
 or it will die." 
 
 " Then it is not the instantaneous washing and 
 purifying of the old natural man, but the birth of 
 a new spiritual man, which must live and grow until 
 it attain the full stature, as the apostle says, of a man 
 in Christ Jesus ?" 
 
 " The natural man is for this world. The spirit- 
 ual man for Heaven. We must come into the 
 Kingdom of Heaven as little children, not as full- 
 grown spiritual men. He called a little child and 
 set him in the midst of them, and said, ' Verily I 
 say unto you, except ye be converted, and become 
 as little children, ye shall not enter into the King- 
 dom of Heaven.' First a weak child, with the 
 angels that do always behold the face of my Father 
 close about Him ; afterwards a strong spiritual man, 
 ruling in righteousness over all the lower things 
 of natural life, and bringing them into heavenly
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE, 
 
 onli-r establishing the kingdom of God in the 
 natural man, and doing the will of God in the earth 
 as it is done in Heaven." 
 
 " Taking this view," I said, " is not the confident 
 state of mind we so often see in young converts one 
 of false security, and attended with great danger ? 
 A\Y hear them speak with the assurance of strong 
 men." 
 
 " While yet only babes in Christ Yes, this state 
 is one of false security, and, therefore, its dangers 
 are great No wonder that so many stumble that 
 so few keep to their first love. They use strong 
 meat instead of milk ; try to lift themselves to the 
 stature of full-grown men, and to walk with long 
 strides; are bold and confident But being only 
 little children, they fall ; having no root themselves, 
 they endure but for a while, and when tribulations 
 ami persecutions arise because of the Word, by and 
 by they are offended."
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 I II AD left my office a little earlier than usual in 
 the afternoon, and was on my way homeward, 
 when, on turning the corner of a street, I saw Mr. 
 Granger just in advance of me. He was walking 
 slowly, with his head bent slightly forward. Quick- 
 ening my pace, I soon joined him. As I laid my 
 hand on his arm and spoke, he gave a start, and 
 when I looked into his face I saw the color rising. 
 
 o 
 
 There was something in his eyes that gave me a 
 feeling of uneasiness. His manner was more re- 
 pressed than cordial. 
 
 We walked together for the space of a few blocks, 
 and then our ways parted. We had not, in our 
 efforts to talk, touched upon any subject in which 
 we found a mutual interest ; and therefore our brief 
 intercourse had been marked by constraint. What 
 followed our separation I learned long afterwards, 
 and from the lips of Mr. Granger himself. I give 
 the story in his own words : 
 
 " I had been fighting the old appetite desperate- 
 ly," said he ; " fighting it for weeks, and being often 
 on the very eve of defeat and surrender. But the 
 awful condition into which I would be cast if I fell 
 jnto the enemy's power held me to my post. I saw 
 152
 
 TIII-: CURSE AXD Tin: c: 153 
 
 my home desolated, my wife broken-hearted, my 
 children beggared and I so loved them! I saw 
 myself cast down again, and to a lower depth of 
 
 ;y and degradation than any into which I had 
 yet fallen. The horror that was before me was ap- 
 palling, and all the while I felt the peril increas- 
 ing my enemy growing stronger, and my power of 
 
 lanee weaker. 
 
 ' And now it seemed as if all hell were against 
 mo. I could not look this way or that go here nor 
 there, but temptation met me face to face. Men 
 who knew nothing of my past history, and some 
 who knew it too well, invited me to drink. At din- 
 
 . at social gatherings, at private interviews with 
 clients, at friendly meetings on the streets and in 
 
 s and stores, the glass was offered or the invi- 
 tation to drink given. I wearied of saying no, and 
 began to feel ashamed of the weakness that so 
 of; en brought on me a look of surprise when I 
 pushed the extended cup aside. Ill the street I 
 
 ! not walk for half a square without encounter- 
 ing a saloon which gave to appetite a reminder 
 through the sense of sight or smell. You may 
 think it strange, but I have gone out of my way 
 attain and auain, in order to avoid passing a certain 
 drinking saloon, the very sight of which, more tlia.i 
 any oiln-r, <jiiiek-ned my desire for liquor. 
 
 "Stronger and stronger K-eumc the pressure of 
 the downward current, and my sense of d:.: 
 
 i .ed this way and that for help, but
 
 154 STIiOXG DRINK; 
 
 saw no way of escape. All faith in my own man- 
 hood was fast leaving me, and I knew that the time 
 must come when some stronger sweep of the waters 
 would bear me away. 
 
 " It was this feeling that drew me to church some- 
 times. But I went, always, under a kind of protest, 
 and while there too often set " my thought against 
 what I heard, instead of opening my mind to the 
 sacred influences of the place. I shall never forget 
 the last Sunday on which I attended worship I tried 
 to stay away, and made many excuses to myself for 
 remaining at home. But none of them prevailed. 
 As I entered the church doors on that morning, I 
 was conscious of a new feeling. As if I had stepped 
 from an arena where I had been fighting for my 
 life, into a place of rest and safety. My heart was 
 touched and opened. The lessons from the Bible 
 particularly impressed me ; and many of the divine 
 words seemed as if spoken for my assurance. I felt, 
 as I had never felt before, that by the help of God 
 I might stand fast ; and I resolved to go to Him and 
 ask Him for aid and succor. 
 
 " I went out in the afternoon, saying to my wife 
 that I was going to see Mr. Stannard. I wanted to 
 have a talk with this good man about religion and 
 the church, for I had great confidence in him. But 
 I did not do as I intended ; and here was my fatal 
 error. When only a short distance from his house, 
 I met a couple of friends riding out, and weakly 
 yielded to their solicitations to go with them for a
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 155 
 
 drive in the Park. As I entered the carriage I was 
 l>le of an opposite impression to that which I 
 had frit in the morning. Then it seemed to me as 
 if I had passed from strife and peril into a place of 
 safety ; now, from a sphere of safety into one of dan- 
 ger. But it was too late for me to recede. The car- 
 riage was in motion again and I once more adrift 
 on a current too strong for my steadily lessening 
 powers of resistance. 
 
 " A drive for an hour in the Park with pleasant 
 friends, and then an invitation to drink at one of 
 the restaurants. I took only ginger ale; but the 
 smell of their stronger liquors was in my nostrils, 
 and I felt an almost irrepressible desire to taste them. 
 The very act of drinking with these friends, though 
 what I took might only be a harmless beverage, had 
 an evil influence on me. 
 
 "I would see Mr. Stannard in the evening, I 
 thought, as I entered the carriage; but when cven- 
 ing came, my state of mind had undergone so com- 
 plete a change, that the very thought of religious 
 things was distasteful. For the two or three days 
 that followed, it seemed as if I could not turn to the 
 right hand nor to the left without temptation. It 
 not greater than usual, perhaps; only I was 
 weaker and more open to assault The day at whose 
 I met you, as I was on my way homeward, had 
 marked not only by many incidents of warn- 
 ing, but by an unwonted numl>or of solicitations. I 
 ry and exhausted from incessant conflict;
 
 156 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 and what was worse, my mind was losing its balance. 
 I could not hold it to the high considerations of 
 honor, and duty, and love, which had hitherto in- 
 fluenced me. A cloud came down over it. Clear- 
 seeing was gone. I felt only an irresistible craving. 
 It was as if an evil spirit had taken possession of per- 
 ception and feeling, and held them to a single 
 thought and desire ; the thought of liquor and the 
 desire to drink. Was I not for the time insane and 
 irresponsible ? Could I help the fatal plunge I made ? 
 " You remember our brief meeting. Scarcely had 
 we parted when a client for whom I was conducting 
 an important suit, laid his hand on me, saying: 
 * Ah ! This is fortunate, Granger. I missed you at 
 your office. Some new facts, of great importance 
 in our case, have come into my possession, and I 
 wished you to have them with as little delay as pos- 
 sible.' He drew his arm in mine and we walked 
 for a short distance, trying to converse. But the 
 noise and confusion of the street interrupted us. 
 As we were passing a drinking saloon, he said : 
 ' Come ; we'll get a quiet corner in here, and talk 
 this matter over.' I went with him passively. "We 
 found a quiet corner. ' What will you have?' he 
 said. I made a feeble effort to get to my lips the 
 words, l Nothing for me,' but failed, and in their 
 stead, as if my organs of speech were controlled by 
 another, answered, * Not particular. Anything you 
 please.' Beer was set before me, and I drank. You 
 know the rest."
 
 THE CUPJSE AXD THE CURE. 
 
 His client did not find him at his office on the 
 morning, nor in the court-room when the trial 
 of his case, which had been opened on the previous 
 lay, was continued. The new facts which had been 
 givi-n to Granger were not put in evidence, and the 
 associate counsel had, in his absence, to meet the 
 issue without them. The result proved disastrous 
 the case was lost But that was of small considera- 
 tion in comparison with the loss of the man who 
 had been tempted at the moment when the power to 
 resist was almost gone. 
 
 I low rapid the fall which came. It was an almost 
 i long plunge. The whole man seemed to give 
 way. For over two weeks it was a perpetual de- 
 bauch with drink, and the end came only when the 
 ovcr-st rained nerves and organs gave way, and he 
 prostrated by sickness. His recovery was fol- 
 lowed by a speedy relapse into intemperance. As 
 far a.s could be seen, there was no longer any effort 
 on his part to resist the demon of appetite, or to strug- 
 gle against the stream that was bearing him down. 
 I n every conflict with this demon he had in the end 
 been beaten, and with each new rally there had been 
 loss of strength. What hope of victory in any new 
 battle? He felt that there was none, and weakly 
 abandoned himself to his fate. 
 
 Alas for the swift descent I Friends fell nv.-ay 
 from him. Clients removed their cases from his 
 hands. Business forsook his office. More than half 
 his time was spent in drinking-saloons, or in sleep-
 
 158 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 ing off the effects of drunkenness. Scarcely six 
 months had elapsed when, in passing his residence 
 on Spruce Street one day, I saw a bill on the door. 
 The house was for rent. In the following week he 
 moved away, his family dropping again out of the 
 old circles. 
 
 Occasionally, after this, I met him on the street. 
 The change in his appearance was sad to witness. 
 Excessive drinking had swollen and distorted his 
 face, robbing it of its fine intelligence. All the fire 
 had gone out of his eyes. Meeting him on one oc- 
 casion, I took his hand and said : " Granger, my 
 dear man, this is all wrong. You will kill your- 
 self." 
 
 A strange gleam shot across his face, and there 
 was a brief disturbance in his manner. Then, with 
 a short laugh, he replied : "All right. The sooner 
 it's over the better." 
 
 "No, no. It's all wrong. Come round to my 
 office. I want to talk to you." 
 
 " No, thank you. It won't be of any use ; and 
 besides, I've an engagement." 
 
 " It's never too late to mend," I urged. " Never 
 too late to stop " 
 
 " You don't know anything about it," he said, 
 with some impatience of manner, interrupting me. 
 " When the devil of drink gets you fairly in his 
 clutches, there's small chance left. Good-bye, and 
 God bless you !" There was a break in his voice in 
 the closing sentence.
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 
 
 Turning from me abruptly, he walked away. I 
 1, not long afterwards, that in order to keep her 
 two younger sisters at school, his oldest daughter, 
 Amy, a beautiful young girl, who made her appear- 
 ance in society about a year before, had assumed 
 the duties of a teacher in the seminary where they 
 being educated, and that Mrs. Granger was 
 trying to get music scholars. 
 
 Next it was said that Granger had become abusive 
 to liis family. I could not believe this, for I knew 
 something of the natural tenderness of his heart, 
 and the strength of his old love for his wife and 
 children. Even while under the influence of drink, 
 I did not believe that he would be anything but 
 personally kind to them. How great, therefore, was 
 my surprise and sorrow, when, a few months later, 
 the fact became known that his wife had left him 
 on account of ill treatment, and was living with her 
 three daughters in the family of a relative. 
 
 Granger still had his law office, and was occasion- 
 ally in court as counsel in some petty larceny or 
 assault and battery case, picking up a fee here and 
 tin TO, and managing to get money enough to supply 
 the demands of his insatiate and steadily increasing 
 appetite. ]>ut the time came when even this poor 
 resource failed. "When few, if any, were found will- 
 ing to trust even the most trifling case to a man who 
 might stand up in court on the day of trial so much 
 intoxicated as to U unable to tell on which side of 
 the case he was pleading.
 
 1(30 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 In less than two years from the date of his last 
 relapse into drunkenness, Granger had fallen so low 
 that to get money for drink he would stoop to any 
 meanness or falsehood. All shame, all sense of 
 honor, all regard for the truth, had died out of him. 
 lie had become a miserable beggar, making his 
 daily round among the law offices and through the 
 court-rooms, soliciting the loan of a trifle here and 
 a trifle there from old friends and acquaintances, and 
 taking rebuffs, curses, stern rebukes and pitiful re- 
 monstrances with but few signs of feeling. Promises 
 of amendment he would make without limit. If 
 the askcd-for loan were withheld under the plea 
 that he would spend it for drink, he would not hesi- 
 tate about making the most solemn asseveration that 
 he had taken no liquor for days, and only wanted 
 to get something to eat, not having tasted food for 
 twenty-four or thirty-six hours, as this or that period 
 happened to come to his lips. One lie with 
 him was as good as another, so that it served his 
 purpose. And there had been a time when he would 
 have felt his high sense of personal honor tarnished 
 by even a small prevarication ! So had the robber 
 demon of drink despoiled the man ! And not of 
 honor alone; every moral sense had been stolen 
 away, drugged into sleep, or wrested from him. 
 
 I saw a crowd in the street one day, and crossed 
 to see what it meant. As I came near, I observed 
 a slender girl, who had been drawn into the group 
 of men and women, moving back hastily, as if
 
 I -aw Alexander ( Jrantrer sitting on the pavement and leaning back asrahist 
 a d<(ir->ici> si> drunk that lie could scarcely hold his head up." I'uyi
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cl 
 
 
 
 shocked by what she had witnessed in the centre of 
 the crowd. A white, almost terror-stricken face 
 met my view as she turned. I was impressed by 
 something familiar in its contour and expression. I 
 saw it only for an instant, for the young girl fled 
 :ne as one affrighted and went hurrying down 
 the street. For a moment or two I stood looking 
 iiftrr In-r swiftly-retreating form, wondering where 
 1 had scon her. All doubts were settled when, on 
 ing forward, I saw Alexander Granger sitting 
 on the pavement and leaning back against a door- 
 step, so drunk that he could scarcely hold his head 
 iij> ; while a policeman was endeavoring to lift him 
 to his fee -t. The girl was his daughter, Amy. 
 
 A few hours afterwards, as I stood on the steps of 
 my own residence, about to enter, the door was 
 drawn open from within and I met the face of 
 Granger's daughter again. The whiteness had not 
 yet gone out of it. She gave a little start at sec-ing 
 
 lisa Granger, I believe," said I, with kind 
 familiarity in my voice, extending my hand at tho 
 same time. I felt a tremor in the small, soft palm 
 that was laid in mine for an instant and then with- 
 drawn. Tears were coming in the poor girl's eyes, 
 and I saw that her lips were quivering. I stepped 
 
 that she might pass, and in a moment she was 
 gone. 
 
 Inside the door my own precious daughter, just 
 Amy's age, met me, and laid her loving kisses on 
 11
 
 1(32 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 
 
 my lips. I could not trust myself to speak because 
 of the tearful pity that was in my heart for the 
 worse than fatherless girl who had just gone over 
 the threshold of my happy home. 
 
 " What did Amy Granger want ?" I asked, as, 
 with an arm about my daughter, we went from the 
 hall into the parlor. 
 
 " She's trying to get a place in the Mint, and she 
 called to ask mother about it, and to see if you 
 wouldn't sign her application." 
 
 " Why, of course I will. Did she leave it ?" 
 
 " Yes. And she asked mother to ask you if you 
 didn't know somebody else who would help her by 
 signing it." 
 
 "Poor child!" I said, pityingly. "To be so 
 robbed and wronged ! Of course I'll do all in my 
 power to help her. I'll see the Director of the Mint 
 myself, and if there's a place vacant, I'll not leave a 
 stone unturned but she shall have it." 
 
 " There's something so sweet about her," said my 
 daughter. " So refined and modest, and gentle. Oh! 
 it must be very hard. What an awful thing this 
 drunkenness is ! Why, father, dear," and the sweet 
 girl drew her arms about my neck and laid her 
 cheek against mine, " I should not have a moment's 
 peace if you drank wine or beer every day as some 
 men do." 
 
 " You'd have cause for trouble, my darling, if 
 that were so," I replied, " for no man who uses them 
 can be regarded as safe. I know of a dozen ruined
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 
 
 s that were once as secure and as happy as 
 ours. It was drink that desolated them. And I 
 know of many more that are in danger, and towards 
 which ruin is walking with slow but steady steps." 
 held her arms more tightly about my neck. 
 When she lifted her cheek from mine her eyes were 
 wet with tears. 
 
 My efforts to secure a situation in the Mint for 
 Ififfl Granger were not successful, another applicant 
 for the vacant place getting the appointment But 
 my interest and that of my family were thoroughly 
 awakened in behalf of the girl, who not only de- 
 sired independence for herself, but an opportunity 
 to help her mother and younger sisters. The best 
 that could be done for her in the beginning was to 
 secure the position of attendant in a photograph gal- 
 at four dollars a week. It was accepted with 
 thankfulness. Mrs. Granger, who had commenced 
 giving lessons in music even before her separation 
 from her husband, continued in the profession of 
 er, and had scholars enough to give her a mod- 
 income and keep her above absolute depend- 
 on the relatives who had so kindly offered her 
 a home in her sore extremity. 
 
 It was three or four months after we had succeeded 
 in getting a place for Amy Granger, that, on coming 
 home one day, I found her mother waiting to see 
 me. I did not know her on first coming into the 
 parlor, a year or two had so changed her, and when, 
 on my entrance, she arose and introduced herself, I
 
 1(34 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 could scarcely believe it possible that the wife of 
 Alexander Granger was before me. 
 
 " I've called to see you on account of my daugh- 
 ter," she said, after being seated again. Her manner 
 was much embarrassed ; and she was evidently try- 
 ing to hide the distress from which she was suffering. 
 
 " What about Amy ?" I asked. 
 
 " You were very kind in getting her into that 
 photograph gallery," she answered, " and we were all 
 so grateful." 
 
 " She hasn't lost her situation, I hope ?" 
 
 Yes, she had lost it ; I saw this in the mother's 
 face. 
 
 " How came it ?" I asked. " Didn't she give sat- 
 isfaction ?" 
 
 " Oh ! yes, sir. It was all right so far as that 
 went ; and they had increased her pay to five dollars 
 a week. But " I saw the tears flooding her eyes 
 as the quaver in her voice checked her speech. 
 " Amy couldn't come and tell you herself," she re- 
 sumed, as she recovered her self-possession. "It 
 was too hard for* the poor child. But she wanted 
 me to see you." 
 
 " Tell me all about it," I said, kindly. " I'm sure 
 it was no fault of hers, poor child !" 
 
 " Indeed it was not, Mr. Lyon. It made her sick. 
 She was in bed for two or three days ; and she looks 
 as if she'd come out of a long spell of sickness." 
 
 " She mustn't take it so to heart," I replied. " No 
 doubt it can all be made right again."
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cl'RE. 105 
 
 "Oh! no, sir. She can't go back there any 
 more." 
 
 " Why not, Mrs. Granger?" 
 
 "Because because " her voice breaking and 
 quivering ti^ain. Then she recovered herself and 
 said, with firmer speech: "It's on account of her 
 father."' 
 
 " It can't be possible," I spoke with some indigna- 
 tion, "that his misdeeds should stand in the way of 
 IHT honest efforts at self-support ! No one could be 
 so cruelly unjust toward her as that" 
 
 Then the truth came out. Let me give the story 
 as it came to me then, and follow out the sequel as it 
 came to me afterwards.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE shock of seeing her father in the condition 
 we have described, hurt deeply the sensitive 
 nature of Amy Granger. All affection for him, de- 
 based and degraded as he was, had not died in her 
 heart. Memory held too many sweet pictures of the 
 old, dear home Which she had lost, and of the tender 
 and loving father who had once been the light and 
 joy of that home. She could never walk the street 
 afterwards without a nervous fear of again encounter- 
 ing him. From this she was spared" for several 
 months after obtaining the place of an attendant in 
 the rooms of a photographer. 
 
 But one morning, just as she was at the entrance of 
 these rooms, she met her father face to face. He had 
 slept in a station-house, and had just been sent forth, 
 exhausted from want of food, and with every nerve 
 unstrung for lack of stimulants, wretched in feeling 
 and loathesome in appearance. The shocked and 
 half-frightened girl glided swiftly past him, and fled 
 trembling up the stairway leading to the gallery in 
 which she was employed, hoping that he had not 
 recognized her. But in this she was mistaken. 
 Scarcely had she reached the second floor ere she 
 heard him following her up the stairs, shuffling and 
 166
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 
 
 tumbling by the way. Retreating to the back part 
 of the room, she stood breathless and frightened, 
 until the awfully marred and distorted face of her 
 father looked in upon her from the door. The sight 
 almost broke her heart. But in an instant all thought 
 of herself was forgotten. The love which had been 
 trampled upon, bruised and broken, and wounded 
 almost to the death, lifted itself into the agony of a 
 new life, and threw out its arms wildly. In this 
 poor dismantled wreck of humanity, storm-beaten, 
 helpless and deserted, she saw the father on whose 
 -t she had once lain in sweet confidence. All the 
 happy past came back in a moment; pity and tender- 
 ness flooded her soul. Starting forward, she laid her 
 hands on him, saying in tones of the deepest com- 
 passion: "Oh, father! father!" 
 
 Weak, nerveless, helpless as a sick child, Granger 
 caught hold of his daughter with a half-despairing 
 eagerness, and held on to her as a drowning man to 
 some new and unlooked-for means of succor. 
 
 " Yes, it's your poor father, Amy," he said, in a 
 , rattling voice, scarcely a tone of which she 
 irni /<'!. "All that's left of him." 
 
 lie shivered; for the morning was cold, and his 
 iiarments were scant and thin. What could she do 
 y? Before her bewildered thoughts could un- 
 tangle themselves, he gave the prompting words. 
 
 "I haven't had anything to eat since yesterday, 
 Amy." I lis voice shaking as he spoke. 
 
 The child's }xx. ket-book warf in her hand ere the
 
 1G8 STRONG DRINK,- 
 
 sentence was finished. All it contained was fifty 
 cents. As she took the money out, Granger caught 
 it from her fingers, saying: "Oh, thank you dear! 
 You were always such a good girl." 
 
 The little crumpled bit of paper was scarcely in 
 the man's possession ere he turned away and went 
 stumbling down the stairs, his daughter listening in 
 painful suspense, every moment expecting to hear 
 him fall. But he reached the street in safety, and 
 made his way to the nearest bar-room he could find. 
 
 When Amy, who had kept all this from her 
 mother, reached the gallery next morning, she found 
 her father already there and awaiting her arrival. 
 His appearance was, if possible, more wretched and 
 disgusting than on the day before. He was sitting 
 near a table on which were a number of fancy photo- 
 tgraphs, stereoscopic views and small card-cases and 
 frames. The sight of him sent the color out of his 
 daughter's face, and the strength out of her limbs. 
 
 " Oh, father ! father!" she said, speaking in a low 
 voice, as she came up to where he was sitting. " It's 
 hard for me to say it, but you mustn't come here any 
 more. I shall lose my place if you do." 
 
 She saw something like a frightened look in his 
 eyes as he got up hastily. 
 
 " I'll go, then. I'll go right away," he answered, 
 in an abject manner. " But just give me a little 
 something with which to get my breakfast. I haven't 
 had a mouthful since yesterday." 
 
 She gave him the trifle of change that was in her
 
 THE CURSE J.V7) THE CURE. 1(59 
 
 ok, which he clutched with the same trem- 
 ,erness he had shown on the day before, and 
 :is hurriedly made his way to the street. The only 
 ss of this scene and that of the preceding morn- 
 was an errand boy. 
 
 " N that man your father, Jtliss Granger?" asked 
 the lad, as Amy turned from the door. 
 She could not answer him. 
 
 " 'Cause, if he is, you'd better not let him come 
 here any more. There'll be trouble for you if he 
 does. I thought 'twas your father, and so kept mum 
 until I could speak to you." 
 
 ' What do you mean?" asked Amy, as she turned 
 a scared face on the boy. 
 
 " I don't like to tell you, miss. But he stole one of 
 i small morocco cases. I saw him slip it into his 
 pocket" 
 
 The poor girl dropped into a chair, white as a 
 sheet. Everything grew dark about her, and it was 
 only by a strong effort of the will that she kept from 
 ng her consciousness and falling to the floor. 
 ' You are not well, dear," said Amy's mother, as 
 she looked into the face of her daughter on the 
 morning after Granger's first visit to the photograph 
 gallery. 
 
 ' My head aches a little," was the evasive answer. 
 
 Mrs. Granger was sitting in the room about an 
 
 hour after Amy left home, when she heard some one 
 
 come in and ascend the stairs. The footfalls were so 
 
 light as scarcely to give a sound. She waited, lid-
 
 170 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 tening ; but no one came to her door. Listening 
 still, she perceived a faint rustling of garments as of 
 some one passing up to the rooms above. Then the 
 door of Amy's room was opened and closed almost 
 noiselessly ; and all was still again. What did this 
 mean? She had a vague sense of mystery and fear. 
 For several minutes she sat with ear bent, and heart 
 beating heavily. 
 
 " Who came in just now and went up stairs ?" she 
 asked of one of her younger daughters who entered 
 the room where she was sitting. 
 
 " I heard no one," answered the child. 
 
 " Go and see if Amy has come home." 
 
 The child did as requested, but came back in a 
 few moments, with a frightened look in her eyes, 
 and said : " Oh, mamma ! Amy's lying on her bed ; 
 and she won't speak to me." 
 
 Mrs. Granger found her daughter as the child 
 had said. Her face was hidden. She looked as if she 
 had fallen across the bed hi utter prostration of 
 strength. 
 
 " Why, Amy, dear I What's the matter ? Are you 
 sick?" ' 
 
 There was no movement or reply. 
 
 Mrs. Granger bent over her daughter and tried to 
 lift her face so that she could look into it ; but Amy's 
 only response was a slight resistance and continued 
 hiding of her face. 
 
 " Amy, my child ! Why don't you speak to me ? 
 Has anything happened ?" The alarmed and anx-
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURR 
 
 mother pressed her questions rapidly; but no 
 reply coining, she drew her arm beneath the head 
 of her daughter and lifted and turned it so that she 
 could look into the hitherto hidden face. It was 
 j'.ilf and rigid, with signs of intense suffering about 
 the closely-shut mouth. A long time passed before 
 Mrs. Granger could gather from the unhappy girl 
 the story of her father's visits to the gallery, and the 
 shame and disgrace which they had brought upon 
 Her. 
 
 Many days passed ere Amy was able to rise out 
 of the deep prostration of mind and body into which 
 she had been thrown, and to turn her thoughts to 
 tlu- work and duty that were still before her. She 
 could not go back to the photograph rooms. That 
 question did not have a moment's debate, either with 
 herself or her mother. It was to get my advice and 
 help in this new and most distressing state of affairs 
 that Mrs. Granger had called upon me, as mentioned 
 in the preceding chapter. My sympathies were 
 strongly excited, and I assured her that I would do 
 all in my power to assist her daughter in getting 
 another place. 
 
 Meanwhile the proprietor of the photograph gal- 
 
 , who had met Amy on the stairs as she was 
 hurrying away and noticed the pallor and the wild 
 look in her face, had made inquiry of the lad as to 
 tin- meaning of her disturbed condition. On learn- 
 ing the truth, he became greatly incensed towards 
 
 :iger not so much because of the petty thdt
 
 172 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 which had been committed, as on account of the 
 humiliation and suffering which he had brought 
 upon his innocent daughter. Under the heat of his 
 sudden indignation he started out, and by the aid of 
 a policeman, succeeded in finding the miserable man 
 in one of the saloons not far distant. On searching 
 him the stolen article was discovered on his person. 
 His arrest and commitment by an alderman quickly 
 followed. As no one willing to go bail for him 
 could be found, he was sent to the county jail, where 
 he had been lying for two or three days when the 
 fact of his imprisonment first became known to me 
 through Mr. Stannard, a gentleman to whom brief 
 reference has already been made. 
 
 " Have you heard about poor Granger ?" he said, 
 as we met one morning on the street. 
 
 " What about him ?" I asked. 
 
 " He's in Moyainensing." 
 
 "For what?" 
 
 " Theft. He stole some trifle from a photograph 
 gallery, and was arrested and sent to prison." 
 
 " Better there than living a life of drunken vaga- 
 bondism on the street," I replied. 
 
 " I heard through the prison agent that he was 
 seized with mania soon after his commitment, and 
 had a hard struggle for his life. But he came 
 through after suffering the tortures of hell, greatly 
 prostrated in mind and body." 
 
 " Poor wretch ! It would have been better had 
 he not come through," I made answer, with less of
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 173 
 
 feeling in my voice than was really in my heart. 
 "A curse to himself and to all who, unhappily, 
 have any relationship with him, why should he con- 
 tinue to cumber the ground?" 
 
 1 -jx)ke more bitterly than I -felt, for I had old 
 
 mbrances of this man which drew upon my 
 sympathies, and softened my heart towards him. 
 There came to me, even as I spoke, a strong and 
 pitiful contrast between what he. had been in the 
 
 of his proud and honorable manhood, and what 
 he was now, debased, ruined, homeless, sick and in 
 prison. 
 
 " God knows best. With Him are the issues of 
 life." Mr. Stan nurd drew his arm in mine as he 
 .<. "And now, friend Lyon," he continued, 
 " as, in God's providence, this man and his dreadful 
 condition have been brought so clearly before us, 
 may we not regard the fact as an indication that it 
 is our duty to make another effort to save him ? He 
 
 'aehed a lower deep than any to which he had 
 hitherto fallen. May not the awful sense of loss and 
 degradation whieh he must feel, quicken into life a 
 
 and more intense desire to get free from the 
 horrible pit into which appetite has cast him? And 
 may not He who alone is able to save, find now an 
 <ntrar.ro which has been hitherto closed against 
 Hfanr 
 
 I was near my office when I met Mr. Stannanl. 
 A- lie drew his arm in mine we moved onward and 
 were soon at the door.
 
 174 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 " Come in. I shall be glad to talk with you about 
 Granger. If there is any hope of saving him, I 
 am ready to do all that lies in my power." 
 
 We sat down together and gave his case our most 
 earnest consideration. As for myself, I saw little if 
 anything to encourage a new effort to rescue this 
 fallen man. I had read and thought a great deal 
 about the evil of drunkenness in the last year or two, 
 and was satisfied that, in cases of what medical men 
 define as confirmed alcoholism, a permanent cure is 
 rarely if ever effected. It was a disease that might 
 be arrested for a time through the complete removal 
 of exciting causes; but one which, if predisposing 
 causes were once fairly established, could never be 
 radically cured. 
 
 " If there were no bar-rooms and no social drink- 
 ing customs," I said, as we talked, " we might hope 
 to reform a case like this. But one might as well 
 send a man who had just recovered from intermittent 
 fever back again into the miasmatic region from 
 which he had escaped, as a reformed drunkard into 
 the business and social world of to-day. There 
 would be small hope of escape for either of them." 
 
 Mr. Stannard drew a deep sigh, but did not an- 
 swer. 
 
 I continued : " What makes this case of Granger's 
 so discouraging, is the fact that every possible agency 
 of reform has already been tried. You know that he 
 was in the New York Inebriate Asylum for several 
 months."
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 175 
 
 
 
 " Yes, I am aware of that." 
 
 " He came home vastly improved ; and I had great 
 hopes of him for awhile. But old associations and 
 old influences set themselves against him from the 
 very day of his return home. It was a continual 
 pressure ; a continual dropping ; a continual allure- 
 ment. After awhile the old appetite, which had not 
 extinguished, began to show signs of life. You 
 know the rest He was not cured. And, from all I 
 can learn of this disease of drunkenness, no one is 
 < -v< T .so thoroughly cured as not to be in perpetual 
 lander of relapse. We may take Granger out of 
 prison, and set him on his feet again ; but will lie 
 stand ? Nay, will he not surely fall ? If I could 
 only see a reasonable hope. But to my mind there 
 
 IS 11HI1C." 
 
 " There is always hope in God," said Mr. Stannard, 
 his voice low but steady and assured. 
 
 My heart did not give a quick response to his 
 words. 
 
 " No man ever falls so low that Christ cannot lift, 
 him up and save him," he added. 
 
 " I believe that," was my answer. " But how does 
 
 II' save? How, for instance, can He save a man 
 
 like Granger? How can His Divine power reach 
 
 him, and lift him free from the curse of the terrible 
 
 :ite which has enslaved him? Men look to 
 
 God, and pray to Him, and yet are not savfl. Clran- 
 
 -nt to church for awhile, and tried to get a 
 
 higher strength, but it did not come. Why ? Did
 
 176 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 
 
 God hold himself away from him because faith was 
 halting and blind ? Did He make the measure of 
 this poor man's feeble mental effort the measure of 
 His mercy ? I cannot believe it." 
 
 " And you must not," Mr. Stannard said, gently, 
 " He knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we 
 are dust. Are not His words explicit ' Him that 
 cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.' Run- 
 ning through all the Divine Word, is there not a 
 perpetual invitation to look to Him and come to 
 Him for refuge, for safety, for strength, and for sal- 
 vation ?" 
 
 " But how is a man to come, Mr. Stannard ?" 
 " We begin to come the moment we repent of our 
 sins and look to the Lord for strength to resist and 
 put them away. We come nearer when we obey 
 His command, ' Cease to do evil.' Then, and only 
 then, do we put it into the Lord's power to save us. 
 ' His name shall be called Jesus, for He shall save 
 His people from their sins.' But if the people will 
 not quit the evil of their doing, how can He save 
 them from the love of evil doing which is the true 
 salvation ? ' Behold I stand at the door and knock. 
 If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will 
 come in to him.' Now what is it that shuts the door 
 against God ? Is it not sin ; the love of self and 
 the world ; the indulgence of evil passions and 
 appetites? He'cannot dwell in a heart where these 
 abide. They must be cast out, a? id then God's temple 
 in the human soul is prepared for His entrance."
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CT/.7.'. 177 
 
 "But," I said, "who can cast them out but God? 
 >t this the doctrine of the church ?" 
 
 ' Xone but a Divine power," Mr. Stannard an- 
 swered, " can remove the love of sinning. But first 
 man of himself must open the door which evil-doing 
 has barred against Godi" 
 
 " How can this be done?" 
 
 " There is only one way. He must cease to do evil 
 In cause it is a sin against God. Beyond this he has 
 no power over his corrupt nature. He cannot 
 clu'nge his inner vileness into beauty, cannot make 
 himself pure, cannot by good deeds enter the king- 
 dom of God. Over the external things of thought 
 and act he has power, but the Lord alone can change 
 his inner affection take away the heart of stone and 
 the lu art of flesh. But, ere this can be done, 
 man must not only repent of his evil deeds because 
 they are sins, but actually cease from doing them. 
 In the moment that he does this from a religious 
 principle that is because to do evil is contrary to 
 the Divine Law, and therefore a sin against God 
 and looks to the Lord to deliver and save him, in that 
 moment he opens the door of his heart for the Lord 
 to enter, and the Lord, who has been knocking there 
 by 1 1 is 1 )ivine Word and commandments, will surely 
 ci inic in. And so long as he shuns evils as sins in 
 the external of his. life, is just, and merciful, and 
 humble, God will abide with him and in him, and ho 
 shall walk as safely in the midst of temptation as the 
 three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace, because 
 12
 
 178 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 the Son of God is with him as He was with 
 them." 
 
 " Not of faith alone, nor of works, nor of merit," 
 I said. 
 
 " No, but of obedience. And in the degree that 
 obedience becomes perfected, will love become per- 
 fected. In the degree that a man shuns in thought 
 and act the evils that in any way hurt his neighbor 
 or do dishonor to God, in that degree will the Lord 
 remove from his heart the desire to do them, and 
 give the affection of good in their place." 
 
 " Going back now to Mr. Granger," I said, " why, 
 when he put away the evil of drinking for so long 
 a time, was not the desire for this sinful indulgence 
 taken away? Did he not open the door for the 
 Lord to come in ?" 
 
 " We open the door at which the Lord stands 
 knocking when we see and acknowledge the evils 
 in our lives that hold the door bolted and barred 
 against Him, and cease to do them because they are 
 
 sins." 
 
 " Because they are sins ?" 
 
 " Yes. If we cease to do evil from any other con- 
 sideration, we do not open the door." 
 
 " I am not sure that I get your meaning," said I. 
 
 " Take the case of Granger. Why did he shun 
 the evil of drinking ?" 
 
 " Because he saw that it was ruining him." 
 
 " That it was a sin against himself rather than 
 against God," said Mr. Stannard.
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 179 
 
 " What is sin against God ?" I asked. 
 
 "Any and everything that man does in opposition 
 to Divine order." 
 
 " The answer is too general," I said. 
 
 " The laws of this order as applied to man are 
 very simple and direct," he returned. " Thou shalt 
 love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy 
 neighbor as thyself. Now, in Mr. Granger's case, 
 did he make an effort to control his appetite for 
 drink because its indulgence was a sin against the 
 true order of his life and turned him away from all 
 just regard for God and his neighbor thus a sin 
 against God Himself or, did his thought reach 
 only to himself and to his worldly loss or gain ?" 
 
 " I scarcely think his motive went as far as you 
 suggest" 
 
 " If it did not, how was God to save him ? If it 
 was not the sin of intemperance that troubled him, 
 but only the consequences of that sin, there could 
 be no true repentance and humiliation before God. 
 And here let me say, Mr. Lyon, that no man can be 
 saved from any particular evil, as, for instance, that 
 of drunkenness, unless at the same time he resist 
 and endeavor to put away all other sins against God. 
 The whole man must be reformed and regenerated. 
 Everything forbidden in the Word of God must 
 be put away through the Divine strength given 
 to all who earnestly try to keep the command- 
 ments." 
 
 "I see your meaning more clearly," I replied.
 
 130 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 " There must be a new and better life in the whole 
 
 man." 
 
 "If not how can God abide with him and in 
 him?" 
 
 "Coming back again to the case of Granger," 
 said I, " and regarding it from your standpoint, is 
 there any possibility of a permanent reform ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " You speak confidently." 
 
 " Because I have faith in the Great Physician of 
 souls. There is a Divine healing power which all 
 men may have if they will." 
 
 " Nothing but a Divine power can cure him. Of 
 that I am satisfied." 
 
 "Shall we not, then, seeing that he has been 
 brought so low, make an effort to bring him under 
 the care of this Great Physician? I have been 
 thinking about it all day, and our conversation lias 
 only given strength to a half-formed purpose to visit 
 and make one more effort to save him." 
 
 " Let it be done by all means," I replied. 
 
 A gentleman who had known Mr. Granger came 
 into my office at this moment, and when he learned 
 of the utter debasement of the man, and of our pur- 
 pose to make a new effort to reclaim him, said: 
 " Why not place him in the new Reformatory Home 
 recently established in our city ?" 
 
 " Reformation without regeneration will avail 
 nothing in his case," returned Mr. Stannard. " The 
 best reformatory agencies known have been tried,
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 but tlu-ir influences proved only temporary. He was 
 at IJinghampton, you know." 
 
 " Yes, I am aware of that. But the institution to 
 which I refer, is not an asylum for the treatment of 
 drunkenness as a disease, but a Christian Home in 
 which, while all the physical needs of the inmates 
 are rightly cared for, an effort is made to bring them 
 under religious influences, and to lead them to de- 
 pend on God for safety." 
 
 " Is there an institution like that in our city ?" 
 asked Mr. Stannard, with much interest in his man- 
 ner. " I never heard of it before." 
 
 " It is scarcely a year old," was replied. " But 
 already the results obtained are quite remarkable." 
 
 " Too short a time to predict much on results," I 
 said. "The reformation of a drunkard that dates 
 back no farther than a year, gives little ground for 
 
 confidence." 
 
 " Much depends on the basis of the reformation," 
 remarked Mr. Stannard. " Here, it strikes me, is 
 the true basis, and I am ready to hope much. But 
 what is the name of this institution and where is it 
 located?" 
 
 " You will find it in the very centre of our city. 
 They call it the Franklin Reformatory Home for 
 Inebriates ; and from what I hare heard through one 
 of the managers, whose heart is very much in the 
 work, 1 am led to believe that in its treatment of 
 drunkenness it has discovered and is using the only 
 true remedy for that terrible disease which no medi-
 
 182 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 cine for the body can ever radically cure. Its first 
 work is to draw the poor, debased and degraded ine- 
 briate within the circle of a well-ordered and cheerful 
 home, and under the influence of kind and sympa- 
 thetic friends. All' these have been lost to him for 
 years ; so utterly lost that all hope of their recovery 
 has died in his heart. He is a stranger to gentle 
 words and loving smiles ; used only to rebuke and 
 blame ; to scorn and contempt ; is alike despised of 
 himself and the world. But here he finds himself 
 all at once an object of interest and care. His hand 
 is taken in a clasp so warm and true that he feels the 
 thrill go down into his heart and awaken old memo- 
 ries of other and dearer hand-clasps. His lost man- 
 hood and sense of respect are found again. New 
 purposes are formed and old resolves broken, alas! 
 so many times renewed once more. He finds him- 
 self encircled by sustaining influences of a better 
 character than he has known in many years. Hope 
 and confidence grow strong. 
 
 " But in lifting the fallen man to this state of life, 
 the Home has done only its first and least important 
 work of reformation. If it were able to do no more, 
 ' Failure* would ultimately be written on its walls. 
 It is organized for deeper and more thorough work- 
 is, in fact, a Church as well as a Home, and has its 
 chapel and its formal worship. When the man is 
 restored and in his right mind, an effort is made to 
 lead him' in to the conviction that in and of himself 
 he cannot successfully resist the appetite from whose
 
 T1IE CURSE AXD TUB CURE. 
 
 shivery ho has just escaped. That only in the Divine 
 power and protection is there any hope for him, and 
 that he must seek this Divine power and protection 
 through prayer and a living and obedient faith in 
 Chri.st, who saves to the uttermost all who come to 
 Him and keep His sayings. He must become a new 
 man. Must be saved not only from drunkenness, 
 but from all other evils of life. Must become sincere, 
 and humble, and just, and pure, as well as temperate. 
 So becoming steadfast and immovable." 
 
 A light had kindled in Mr. Stannard's face. Turn- 
 ing to me, he said : " There is hope for our poor 
 frk'iid. He may yet be saved. Is there not a provi- 
 dence in this thing?" 
 
 " I might say yes, if I believed in special provi- 
 dences," I returned. 
 
 " What kind of a providence do you believe in?" 
 Mr. Stan nard asked. 
 
 " In a general overruling providence," I re- 
 plied. 
 
 " Of a providence, for instance, that takes care of 
 a man's whole body, but not of his eye, or ear, or 
 heart, or any individual fibre, or nerve, or organ of 
 which his body is composed. That takes care of a 
 nation, but not of the individual men composing that 
 nation. To have a general providence, Mr. Lyon, 
 you must have a particular providence ; for without 
 particular! you cannot have that which is general. 
 Believe me, that God's care is over you and me and 
 every one, specially and at all times. It would |>e
 
 184 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 no providence at all if this were not so. Let us think 
 of it as round about us continually, and that if it 
 were intermitted for a single moment, we would 
 perish. Let us think of it as the infinite Love which 
 is forever seeking to save us, and forever adapting 
 the means to this eternal end." 
 
 " You think more deeply about these things than 
 I have been in the habit of doing, and may be nearer 
 right in your views than I am in mine. I waive, for 
 the present, all controversy on the subject. As for 
 Mr. Granger, let us get him into this Home, and 
 give him another chance. I believe in the church, 
 and in the power of God to save men from their sins. 
 And I believe more in this Home, from what I have 
 just heard of it, than in any and all of the reformatory 
 agencies in the land." 
 
 " Because it is a church, a true church, seeking to 
 gather poor lost and abandoned ones into the fold of 
 Christ?" 
 
 " Yes, if you choose to give that form to the propo- 
 sition," I replied. 
 
 "Is it not the true form ? Can the Church have 
 any higher mission than the one to which this Home 
 has consecrated itself?" 
 
 " None," was my answer. " And yet the Church 
 scarcely reaches out its hand to the perishing 
 inebriate. Nay, draws back from him her spot- 
 less garments, and leaves him to perish in the 
 mire from which her hands might have raised 
 him."
 
 THE CURSE AM> THE CURE. 
 
 " The Church learns but slowly," Mr. Stannarcl 
 replied, speaking with a shade of depression in his 
 voice. " It has been too busy with creeds and hair- 
 splitting differences in doctrine, and with rituals, and 
 robes, and things external, to give itself as it should 
 to charity. A better day is not far distant, I hope, 
 has been said, the Church is the heart and 
 lungs of common society, and if society is terribly 
 sed, spiritually as well as morally, is not the 
 Church at fault and responsible? A healthy heart 
 and healthy lungs should make a healthy body. 
 Before the Church can heal the world she must be 
 healed herself. She must rise into the perception of 
 higher and diviner truths, and come down into the 
 world with a more living power. It is difficult to 
 tell which has the larger influence over the other to- 
 day, the Church or the world. I sometimes fear it is 
 the world, the Church is so pervaded with its spirit, 
 and fashions, and ways of doing things, with its 
 pride and its vanities. But here, in this Home 
 of which we have been speaking, we have, thank 
 (ind, the beginning of a real, earnest, working 
 Church that knows the gospel of salvation, and 
 is seeking by its power to lift up the fallen, to 
 the broken-hearted, and to set the captive 
 
 Mr. Stannard had warmed as he spoke, and now 
 
 there was a glow on his line countenance. So inter- 
 
 '. had we all become in the Home about which 
 
 we- wen- talking, that his suggestion that we should
 
 186 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 make a visit an$ learn for ourselves what was being 
 done there, met with a hearty concurrence, and we 
 started at once to see and make ourselves better 
 acquainted with the character and work of the new 
 Institution.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ON the day following I met Mr. Stannard, by 
 agreement "We had made arrangements for 
 placing Granger in the new Home as soon as we 
 could get him released, and thus give him another 
 opportunity to recover himself. All my interest in 
 the man was reviving, and hope gaining strength 
 every moment. Our visit to the Reformatory Home 
 had been most satisfactory. We found the organi- 
 zation far more perfect than we had anticipated, see- 
 ing that the Institution was yet in its infancy. After 
 spending an hour with the president, who happened 
 to be there when we called, and obtaining from him 
 all the information desired, we made such prelimi- 
 nary arrangements as were necessary for the admis- 
 sion of Granger, and left with the new hope for the 
 fallen man, we were about making an attempt to 
 rescue, growing stronger in our hearts every mo- 
 ment 
 
 Before going to the prison, we called on the dis- 
 trict attorney, who, on learning our purpose, gave an 
 order for Granger's release, saying, as he did so : " I 
 \vi.~h, gentlemen, that I could feel as hopeful as you 
 seem to be in regard to the result But I'm afraid 
 the case is beyond cure. Poor fellow ! Our bar lost
 
 138 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 one of its brightest representatives in his fall. He 
 was a splendid orator. I can hear his voice, now, 
 ringing out in some of his grand periods. Ah, if 
 he had but let drink alone !" 
 
 " If men would only take warning by a fall like 
 this," said Mr. Stannard. 
 
 " Few fall so rapidly or so low," returned the dis- 
 trict attorney. " Some men are weak in the head 
 where liquor is concerned, while others can drink 
 on to the end, always maintaining a due modera- 
 tion." 
 
 " And every man who drinks believes that he can 
 always hold himself to this due moderation." 
 
 " Yes, that is the case with most men ; but a few 
 get over the line before becoming aware that they 
 have touched it." 
 
 " To find, like the too venturesome bather when 
 struck by the undertow, that return is next to im- 
 possible." 
 
 We went from the district attorney's office direct 
 to the prison, and were taken to the cell where 
 Granger was confined. He was lying on his bed, 
 apparently sleeping, but moved and turned towards 
 us as we entered. At first I though there had been 
 a mistake. Could that wasted, haggard face, and 
 those large, deep-set, dreary eyes be the face and 
 eyes of Alexander Granger ? It seemed impossible. 
 But he had recognized us at a glance, as I saw by 
 the quick changes in his countenance, and made an 
 effort to rise ; but sunk back weakly on his hard
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 
 
 , a feeble moan coming at the same time 
 through his lips. 
 
 [y poor, unhappy friend !" I said, in a voice of 
 tender sympathy, as I sat down on the bed and took 
 one of his hands in mine. 
 
 All the muscles of his face began to twitch and 
 quiver. He shut his eyes closely, but could not 
 hold back the shining drops that were already 
 passing through the trembling lashes. 
 
 I waited a little while before speaking again, but 
 kept tightly hold of his hand. 
 
 " Sick and in prison. My poor friend I" letting 
 my voice fall to a lower and tenderer expression. 
 
 He caught his breath with a sob. Tears fell over 
 his cheeks. All the muscles of his face were shaking. 
 1 waited until the paroxysm was over. How weak 
 mid wasted he was ! As I looked at him, my heart 
 grew heavy with compassion. 
 
 " There is still a chance for you, Mr. Granger," 
 1 I, putting hope and confidence in my voice. 
 
 There was no response ; not even a faint gleam 
 on his wretched face. 
 
 44 Will you not try again?" 
 
 " It won't be of any use, Mr. Lyon. It's very 
 good of you ; but it won't be of any use." He spoke 
 feebly and mournfully, moving his head slowly from 
 side to side. 
 
 " It will be of use. I am sure that it will," I said, 
 with still more confidence. 
 
 44 You don't know anything about it, Mr. Lyon."
 
 190 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 His voice had gained a steadier tone ; but its utter 
 hopelessness was painful. 
 
 " Here is Mr. Stannard," I said. " You remember 
 him." 
 
 " Yes. It's very good of you, gentlemen. But 
 I don't deserve your kindness." 
 
 " We are here as your friends," said Mr. Stannard, 
 coming close to the bed. " We are going to help 
 you to get upon your feet again, and to become a 
 new man." 
 
 He shook his head gloomily. 
 
 "I've done trying. What's the use of a man 
 attempting to climb a hill when he knows that his 
 strength must give out before he reaches the top, 
 and that he will get bruised and broken in the inev- 
 itable fall. Better die in the ditch at the bottom, as 
 I shall die." 
 
 He had raised himself a little, and was leaning 
 on his arm. 
 
 " You have been sick," said I, wishing to take his 
 mind away from the thought which was then hold- 
 ing it. 
 
 "Yes, worse than sick. I've been in hell and 
 among devils." 
 
 " But have escaped with your life." 
 
 "I'm not so sure. It's about over with me, I 
 guess. You see there's not much left to go and 
 come on." 
 
 He held up one of his thin, almost transparent 
 hands, but could not keep it steady.
 
 1 Yes, worse than sick, I've been In hell and among devils." Page 190.
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 " Don't say that There's to be a new life within 
 and without." 
 
 " Not for me. Not for Alexander Granger. Do 
 you know what I am here for?" A dark cloud fall- 
 ing on his face. " For stealing ! for petty larceny! 
 You see it's all over with me. The very shame of 
 the thing is burning my life out. A thief I No, no, 
 gentlemen. Even if I were able to stand against 
 appetite, I could not bear up under a disgrace 
 like this." 
 
 "It was not Alexander Granger who committed 
 this crime," answered Mr. Stannard, " but the in- 
 satiate demon who had enslaved him and made him 
 subject to his will. Let us cast out this demon and 
 give the true, generous-hearted, honorable man back 
 to himself and society again. It is for this that we 
 are here, Mr. Granger." 
 
 I Ie shook his head. " If, in the full vigor of man- 
 lux xl, I was not able to overcome and cast out this 
 
 n, what hope is there now?' It were folly to 
 make the effort. No, no, gentlemen. I give up the 
 strui:i:li>. All that is worth living for is gone. An 
 utterly disgraced and degraded man, what is left for 
 me but to die and be forgotten? And I shall be 
 
 r here, dying sober, than in the gutter or the 
 station-house, dying drunk." 
 
 II is voice trembled, and then broke in a repressed 
 sob. 
 
 " There is One who can and who'will save you, 
 even from the power of this strong appetite which
 
 192 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 has so cursed you, my friend," said Mr. Stannard, 
 speaking with' a gentle persuasion in his tones, and 
 at the same time laying his hand softly on Granger's 
 head. "He is very near to you now a loving 
 Shepherd seeking for His lost sheep in the desolate 
 wilderness, where it is ready to perish." 
 
 Then, kneeling, with, his hand still on Granger's 
 head, he prayed in a low, hushed voice : 
 
 "Loving Father, tender Shepherd. This Thy 
 poor wandering sheep is hungry and faint and ready 
 to die. His flesh has been torn by the thorn and 
 bramble; the wild beast has been after him, and 
 the poison of serpents is in his blood. No help is 
 left but in Thee, and unless Thy strong arm save 
 him he will surely perish. Draw his heart toward 
 Thee. Give him to feel that in Thee alone is hope 
 and safety. In his helplessness and despair, let faith 
 and trust be quickened. Thou canst save him from 
 the power of this demon of drink. Thou canst set 
 him in a safe way, and keep him from falling again. 
 Give him to feel this great truth, that if he cast 
 himself at Thy feet and cry from his sick and faint- 
 ing heart, ' Save me, Lord !' Thou wilt hear and save." 
 
 Can I ever forget the almost despairing cry for 
 help that was in Granger's voice as he repeated the 
 words, " Save me, Lord !" throwing his hands above 
 his head as he spoke, and lifting his eyes upwards ? 
 A strange thrill ran along my nerves. 
 
 (f He will save you," said Mr. Stannard, as he rose 
 from his knees. " Trust in Him, and He will give
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cl'llE. 193 
 
 you strength to overcome all your enemies. Though 
 your sins be as scarlet, He will make them white as 
 wool. They that trust in the Lord shall be as 
 Mount Zion which cannot be removed, but abideth 
 forever. As the mountains are round about Jeru- 
 salem, so the Lord is round about His people." 
 
 I saw a change in Granger's face. It was grow- 
 ing calmer and stronger. 
 
 " There is a new life before you, my friend ; and 
 if you will look to God, and trust Him, and keep 
 words, you can live that life in safety. Will 
 you try?" 
 
 " If I thought there was any use in trying. But 
 what can I do ? Where can I go ?" 
 
 There was a pleading expression hi look and voice. 
 
 "Will you try?" 
 
 " Yes, God helping me." He spoke with a kind 
 of trembling earnestness. 
 
 " We have a carriage outside," I said. You will 
 go with us?" 
 
 " I low can I go? I'm a prisoner." 
 
 "A prisoner no longer. We have brought you a 
 release." 
 
 " Is this only a dream?" he said, looking at us 
 with a gathering doubt in his face. " But I am sick 
 ;m<l weak. I cannot walk. I can scarcely stand. 
 I am not fit to go anywhere." 
 
 lie was taken to the carriage we had in waiting, 
 supported by two of the keepers. But few words 
 as we drove into the city and over the rattling 
 13
 
 194 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 streets to the institution where we had arranged to 
 place him. He was very weak, and almost in a 
 fainting condition when we reached our destination. 
 Beyond the door our care of him ceased ; but we 
 left money to procure clean clothing with which to 
 replace, after he had received a bath, the poor, 
 tattered and unclean garments that were on his 
 person. 
 
 " If this fail, all fails," I said to Mr. Stannard, as 
 we came away. 
 
 " I do not believe it will fail," he replied. 
 
 " I would gladly share your confidence, but confess 
 that I do not. The influences under which he will 
 now come, are, I can see, more favorable than any 
 that have heretofore been brought to bear upon him ; 
 but there has been so great a physical and moral 
 deterioration that I fear he can never get back the 
 strength required for safe standing and sure resist- 
 ance. 
 
 " He is stronger, in my opinion, to-day than he 
 has been at any time in the last ten years." 
 
 " I scarcely see the ground of your confidence," 
 said I. 
 
 " Stronger because all faith and all trust in himself 
 are dead. He had given up the struggle when we 
 found him in prison given up to die, and his ' Save 
 me, Lord !' came from the depths of his utter despair. 
 There will be no more trust in himself, I think ; no 
 more matching of his weakness against the giant 
 strength of an enemy before whose lightest blow he
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. J95 
 
 must surely fall. But a complete giving of himself 
 into the care and protection of One who is not only 
 mighty to save, but who saves to the uttermost all 
 who come unto Him. Herein lies the ground of my 
 confidence." 
 
 " In such a giving up, Mr. Stannard, what becomes 
 of the manhood ? Is it wholly lost ?" 
 
 " It is in this surrender of ourselves to God that 
 a higher and truer manhood is born. What is it to 
 be a true man ? To let the appetites and passions 
 rule ; or the reason, which, enlightened from above, 
 can see and determine what is just, and pure, and 
 merciful. Does the man possess himself so long 
 as he lets the lower things of his nature rule over 
 the higher? his appetites and passions over his 
 rational ? The whole order of man's life has been 
 reversed by sin. He has turned from God to him- 
 self, and vainly thinks that true manhood consists 
 in self-dependence and self-assertion ; as though his 
 inmost life were his own, and not the perpetual gift 
 of God. And so he tries to get as far away from 
 
 >d as possible, and to make a new life for himself; 
 and ILS this new life begins in self, it is in the nature 
 of things, a selfish life, and separates him from God 
 
 .-1 his neighbor. And he lives this life down in the 
 lower regions of his mind, where sensual things 
 reside the appetites, the passions and the con- 
 rii] licences. Is it any wonder that, so living, these 
 sensual things should gain dominion over him a 
 dominion that nothing short of Divine power can
 
 19(3 STEONG DRINK; 
 
 break ? Herein lies the loss of true manhood, which 
 can only be restored when we are willing to sell all 
 that we have of self in order to buy heavenly treas- 
 ures. Granger is not going to lose, but gain his 
 manhood." 
 
 "Ah, what a gain that would be !" I felt oppressed 
 with the inflowing pressure of new thoughts. I was 
 beginning to see, dimly, how two men might pray 
 to God to be delivered from evil, and the prayer of 
 one be answered, while that of the other proved of 
 no avail. Until a man is ready to give up his 
 selfish life, and turn wholly from the evil of his 
 ways, how can God help him to live the new and 
 diviner life which will give him power to hold all 
 the appetites and passions of his nature in due 
 subjection and control. I saw for the first time an 
 exact parallelism between spiritual and natural 
 things. A vessel must be emptied of one substance 
 before it can be filled with another. So must a soul 
 be emptied of evil and selfishness before it can be 
 filled with love to God and the neighbor. There 
 must be poverty of spirit before the riches of Divine 
 grace can be given. " Blessed are the poor in spirit : 
 for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven." The text 
 flashed upon me with a new and deeper meaning 
 than it had ever before brought to my. mind.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ON the following day I went to see Granger at 
 the Reformatory Home. I found him in a 
 clean, well-furnished and cheerful room. He was 
 in bed, looking very pale ; but his eyes were clear 
 and bright, and he welcomed me with a smile that 
 played softly over his wasted features, and gave 
 them a touch of their old fine quality. A book lay 
 open on the bed. I saw that it was a copy of the 
 Testament. His manner was very subdued, 
 and he did not speak until after I was seated ; and 
 then not until I had asked how he was feeling. 
 ni-wi r almost gave me a start, it was so uii- 
 cted. He spoke in a low but even voice. 
 " .Vs if I were standing just inside the gate of 
 
 ven." 
 
 I waited for a few moments before replying, for I 
 scarcely knew what to say ; then remarked : " I am 
 glad you feel so comfortable. This is better than 
 the station-house or the prison." 
 
 The light went out of his face, but came back 
 quickly. 
 
 " T>ut for you, my kind friend, I should now be 
 dying in the cell from which you and good -Mr. 
 brought me ycsu-nlay. It was <i<l who 
 
 197
 
 198 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 sent you ; and it seems as if I shall never be done 
 thanking Him. My poor heart broke all down when 
 Mr. Stannard prayed for me. It seemed as if God 
 were all at once bending right over me, and when I 
 cried out to Him in my helplessness, I had a feeling 
 as if His arms were reached out and I taken into 
 them. And I believe it was so." 
 
 " May they ever be round about you," I replied, 
 scarcely able to keep my voice steady, for I was not 
 prepared for this, and it affected me strangely. 
 
 " Nothing less can save me from the assaults of 
 my enemy," he said, his countenance growing more 
 serious. 
 
 I remained with him for half an hour, and when 
 I left, my confidence in this new effort at reforma- 
 tion was greatly increased. An incident of the visit 
 gave me large encouragement. As I sat talking with 
 him there came a rap on the door, and then a lady, 
 in company with the matron of the Institution, en- 
 tered. I knew her well by sight. She was related 
 to a family of high social standing ; and while a 
 woman of refinement and intelligence, and an orna- 
 ment to the circle in which she moved, was largely 
 given to good works. Her hand as well as her heart 
 were in many charities. She had often met Mr. 
 Granger and his wife in their better days, and was 
 among those who had been deeply pained at his 
 downfall. A member of the Auxiliary Board of 
 Lady Managers, she had learned on her visit to the 
 Home that Mr. Granger was there, and all her in-
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 199 
 
 terest was at once awakened. To save him and 
 restore him to his family and society, was something 
 to be hoped for, and prayed for, and worked for ; 
 and she lost no time in seeing him, and letting him 
 it vl the warmth of her interest in his welfare. 
 
 I was talking with Granger, as just said, when 
 this lady, whom I will call Mrs. Ellis, entered his 
 neat little chamber. He knew her, of course, and I 
 saw a slight tinge of color steal over his pale face as 
 she came to the bedside. 
 
 " I am right glad to see you here, Mr. Granger," 
 she said, with an interest so genuine that it affected me. 
 
 " And I am glad to be here, Mrs. Ellis," he re- 
 plied, in a voice subdued but earnest. " It is like 
 coming out of hell into Heaven." 
 
 " May it indeed be as the gate of Heaven to your 
 soul," she responded. " If that be so, all will be 
 well with you again. And I pray for you that it 
 may be so. Only look to the blessed Saviour and 
 trust in Him, and you shall be as Mount Zion, which 
 cannot be removed." 
 
 She remained only for a few minutes, but said as 
 she was going out: " You are now among true friends, 
 Mr. Granger, and they will do everything in tlirir 
 power to help you. Take heart ; it is all going to 
 i-uine out right again." 
 
 lie was much affected by this brief visit, and after 
 Mrs. Ellis had left the room said, in a half-wonder- 
 ing tone of voice: "I can hardly uiuk'rstand it all. 
 What Ls she doing here?"
 
 200 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 I explained to him that she was one of the Lady 
 Managers of the Institution, through whose constant 
 care and supervision the highest comfort of the in- 
 mates was secured. That the presence of these ladies 
 in the Home, as visitors and supervisors, enabled 
 them to gain an influence with the inmates that was 
 very helpful. They made themselves acquainted, as 
 far as possible, with the nature of their domestic re- 
 lations, if they had families, and i their families 
 were in destitute circumstances, visited them and did 
 whatever lay in their power to help them. Many 
 desolate homes had already been made bright and 
 happy through their agency. 
 
 Granger listened with half-closed lids while I 
 spoke of all this. A deep sigh* was his only response 
 when I ceased speaking. His thoughts had evidently 
 drifted out of the room in which he was lying, and 
 gone far away from the Home. I did not break the 
 spell of thought that was upon him, but waited until 
 he came back to himself again. 
 
 " It seems still as if I were only dreaming," he 
 said, lifting his eyes at length and looking at me with 
 a kind of wistful earnestness. "As if I would awaken 
 at any moment into the old, dreadful life." 
 
 " You may dream this dream to the end if you 
 will," I replied. 
 
 " God keep me from waking !" He gave a slight 
 shiver as he said this. 
 
 At my next visit I found Granger well enough to 
 be down stairs. He was in the reading-room talking
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 201 
 
 with an intelligent-looking man, whose face I recog- 
 nized as one with which I was familiar. I did not 
 at first know this man, but when he reached out his 
 hand and called me by name, his voice brought him 
 to my recollection. He had once been a merchant, 
 standing at the head of a firm doing a large busi- 
 ness ; but wine, the mocker, had betrayed him, 
 ami he had fallen into hopelessly dissolute habits. 
 When I last saw him he was staggering on the 
 street. 
 
 " Why, Lawrence !" I exclaimed, in pleased sur- 
 prise. "You here?" 
 
 " Yes, I am here, friend Lyon. And here is our 
 old friend Granger. You remember him." 
 
 " Of course I do," taking the hand of Mr. Gran- 
 ger as I spoke, who gave me back a silent pressure. 
 
 I looked at the two men, wondering at the change 
 which had been wrought in them; noticing, as I 
 have hud occasion to notice many times since, the 
 quick restoration of the face, after drink is aban- 
 doned, to something of its old, true character. 
 
 We sat down and had a long talk. Mr. Lawrence 
 informed me that he had been there about five 
 weeks, and was now holding the position of book- 
 in the store of one of the directors of the 
 Home, but still boarded in the Institution, as he felt 
 that he needed all the help it could give him. He 
 had been separated lor over two years from his wile, 
 who was now living in a distant city; but lie had 
 already written to her, telling the good news of his
 
 202 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 reformation, and of his purpose, by God's help, to 
 keep himself forever free from his old habits. 
 
 " And here's a letter from her that I received to- 
 day," he said, as he took an envelope from his pocket, 
 with an almost child-like exhibition of pleasure. 
 " And she writes that she'll be here in two weeks. 
 She was always so good and so true, and she stayed 
 by me until it was of no use. Poor Helen !" 
 
 I did not wonder at the dimness that came over 
 his eyes ; nor at the break and gurgle in his voice. 
 
 " But it shall never so be again," he went on, 
 after a little pause. " I trusted in myself, and did 
 not care for God. He was never hi my thoughts. 
 But I have found a better way since I came here, 
 and One who will keep me in that way if I look to 
 Him walking always by my side. So long as I 
 put my trust in Him, I shall be safe, but not for a 
 moment longer." 
 
 I was looking at Granger, and saw that his gaze 
 was fixed intently on Mr. Lawrence. His eyes were 
 a little dilated and there was a shade of sadness oil 
 his countenance. He did not take any part in the 
 conversation. When an opportunity came for us to 
 be alone, and I could ask more particularly about 
 him, his manner changed and brightened ; but was 
 more subdued than on the occasion of my previous 
 visit. 
 
 " You are looking so much better," I said, " and 
 are feeling, of course, as well as you look." 
 
 " I hope so," he answered, quietly. Then, after
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cmi:. 203 
 
 a slight ]);iuse: "If one could only stop tliinking 
 i.'times." 
 
 " Right tli inking is the way to right acting," I 
 replied, speaking in an aphorism, because I was not 
 sure as to what was in his thought, nor how my 
 Miight be taken. 
 
 " If it were as easy to do right as to think right, 
 living in this world would be safer than it is. But 
 that is not what I meant It is the trouble of un- 
 availing thought to which I refer. Ah! if I could 
 only stop this kind of thinking for awhile. If I 
 could only bury the past out of sight !" 
 
 " If your future be as the verdure of spring and 
 the fruitfuluess of summer, the past will ere long be 
 covered, as the earth after a desolate winter is covered 
 with greenness and beauty. The influx of life into 
 what is orderly and good is quick and strong. You 
 are already beginning to feel this influx, my friend. 
 .May it have steady increase." 
 
 A man came into the room where we sat convers- 
 ing, and, after taking a book from the library, went 
 out I noticed that he had an intelligent face, and 
 an air of refinement, but looked wasted and broken 
 as though just risen from a severe illness. 
 
 " That is Dr. 11 ," said Granger. " He had 
 
 a large practice in our city a few years ago, but lost 
 it on account of intemperance. His family was 
 broken up at last wife and children being com- 
 prlU-d to leave him. This breaking up of his family 
 and separation from his wife and children so atiected
 
 204 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 him that he quit drinking and started off for a 
 western city, in order to get away from old associa- 
 tions, there to begin life anew, and make for his 
 family another home into which the old blight and 
 curse should never come. But this change did not 
 take him out of the sphere of temptation, nor dimin- 
 ish the strength of his appetite. He fought allure- 
 ment and desire for awhile, and then yielded, little 
 by little at a time, still fighting, but steadily losing 
 the power to resist, until he was down again. That 
 was five years ago. Falling and rising ; now strug- 
 gling for the mastery over his appetite, and now in 
 its toils again ; now taking his place in respectable 
 society, and now rejected and despised; never stand- 
 ing firm for longer than a few months at a time 
 the years since then have passed. Two weeks ago 
 he came drifting back to his native city, a poor, 
 helpless, broken wreck, with a vague impression on 
 his mind that he was being impelled hither by a 
 force he could not resist. He came, as a drifting 
 wreck, wholly purposeless. Let me tell you the 
 story of what followed, just as he told it to me. I 
 give you his own words as near as I can remember 
 them. He said : 
 
 " ' A man in Pittsburg, to whom I told a plausible 
 story, in which was not a single word of truth, got 
 a pass for me on the railroad to this city, and gave 
 me two dollars with which to get something to eat 
 on the way. The first thing I did, after parting 
 from him, was to buy a bottle of whisky. With this
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CUIIK. 205 
 
 as my companion, I took my seat in the second-class 
 car to which my pass assigned me and started on my 
 journey eastward. The bottle was empty before half 
 the distance had been made. It was filled at one of 
 the stopping places, and emptied again before the 
 trip was completed. So drunk that I could not 
 walk steadily, I was thrust out of the car by a break- 
 man on the arrival of the train at midnight, and sent 
 into the street homeless and friendless. I still had 
 forty cents in my pocket, and might have procured 
 a night's lodging, but I preferred the station-house 
 to a comfortable bed, in order that I might have the 
 means of getting my drink in the morning. When 
 morning came, I made a narrow escape from a com- 
 mitment to the county prison for drunkenness and 
 vagrancy, but got off with a reprimand and a warn- 
 ing. At a cheap restaurant I spent fifteen cents for 
 a breakfast, and ten cents for something to wash it 
 down. In less than an hour afterwards the remain- 
 ing fifteen cents had disappeared, and I was the 
 
 ^ for three glasses of bad whisky. 
 " ' Aimless and miserable, I wandered about for 
 the whole of that day ; spending the greater part of 
 my time in bar-rooms, in the hope of being asked ly 
 somebody to drink. My thirst was growing intense. 
 I was beginning to feel desperate. Late in the af't< r- 
 noon I went into a saloon and going up to the bar, 
 called lor a glass of whisky, making a motion with 
 my hand as it' I were going to take money from my 
 pocket. The bar-keeper eyed me sharply for a mo-
 
 206 STRONG DRINK: 
 
 raent or two, and then gave me the liquor for which 
 I had called. It was at my mouth and down my 
 throat with the quickness of a flash. I knew by the 
 man's face that he would kick me out of the saloon, 
 but what cared I for that ! My fumbling in my 
 pockets, and turning them inside out, and my call- 
 ing on God to witness that I had money when I 
 came in, did not save me. I was collared and 
 dragged to the door, and then kicked into the street. 
 As I fell on the pavement, a crowd of boys jeered 
 me, and when I attempted to rise, pushed me over. 
 A friendly policeman saved me from their farther 
 persecutions. 
 
 " ' I was not drunk. The glass of whisky which 
 I had taken did nothing more than give a little 
 steadiness to my nerves. As I arose from the pave- 
 ment, assisted by the policeman, I saw on the opposite 
 side of the street a face that made my heart stand 
 still. A young girl had stopped, and was looking 
 across at me with a half-startled, half-pitiful expres- 
 sion. It was my own daughter, whom I had not 
 seen for five years. A little girl of twelve when I 
 last saw her, she was now a tall and beautiful young 
 lady in her eighteenth year. Her dress was plain, 
 but very neat, and she looked as if she might be on 
 her way home from some store, or office, or manu- 
 factory, in which she was earning a livelihood. 
 Scarcely had I recognized her, ere she turned and 
 went on her way. But it seemed as if I could not 
 let her go out of my sight. As though some strong
 
 TllK CURSE AND THE CURE. 207 
 
 invisible chords were drawing me, I started after 
 
 !;<< -pin so close that her form was always in 
 view. So I followed, now within a few paces, and 
 
 further behind, lest she might turn and recog- 
 
 nic, until we had gone for a distance, of seven 
 or eight blocks. Then she passed lightly up to the 
 door of a house, and after ringing the bell, turned 
 her face while she stood waiting, so that I could see 
 
 i in. It came to me like a gleam of sunlight. 
 But in a moment after the sweet vision was gone, 
 ami I stood in outer darkness. 
 
 " ' I lingered about the neighborhood until the 
 fast failing twilight was gone. Night shut in ; the 
 lamps were lighted, and the hurrying sound of home- 
 ward feet became almost silent. And still I lingered. 
 Inside were, I believed, the wife and children I had 
 once so loved and tenderly cared for ; and I stood on 
 the outside, an alien to the love which had once 
 been given me in lavish return. Twice I ascended 
 the steps and laid my hand on the bell, but turned 
 i acli time and went back without ringing it. I will 
 go away, I said, and make myself more fitted to 
 come into their presence. But where was I to go ? 
 
 iidless and penniless, soiled and tattered, who 
 would take me in? And then there rushed upon 
 
 'icli an overwhelming sense of helplessness :m<l 
 <lt-u r ra<lation, and of the utter folly of any new at- 
 tempt to lr;i<l a bettor lift-, that the very blackness 
 of despair came down upon my soul I Better die! 
 
 a voice within me. ie chances of
 
 208 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 the life to come than the certain misery of this. 
 God is more merciful than man. I hearkened 
 to this voice. A single plunge in the river, and all 
 would be over. I felt the waters closing about me, 
 and the rest and peace of their dark oblivious depths. 
 I was sitting on the curb-stone with my face buried 
 in my hands, when this purpose was reached, and 
 was about rising to put it into execution, when a 
 hand was laid on my shoulder, and a voice, whose 
 tones sent a thrill through me, said : " You seem to 
 be in trouble, my friend." It was the voice of a man 
 whose family physician I had been more than ten 
 years before, and its sound was as familiar to my 
 ears as if no time had intervened since I heard it 
 last. I could not move. A great weight seemed 
 holding me down. "Are you sick?" The voice 
 was even kinder than at first. " Yes," I replied. 
 " Sick with an incurable disease." 
 
 " ' He did not speak again for several moments. 
 Then he said, in a voice full of mingled compassion 
 
 and surprise ; "Dr. R ! Can it indeed be you ?" 
 
 " All that is left of me," I returned, not looking up 
 or attempting to rise. " Sick, but not with an in- 
 curable disease, Dr. II ," he said, after a brief 
 
 pause. "There is a Physician who can cure all 
 manner of sickness. He can make the lame walk, 
 the deaf hear, the blind see, and bring even the 
 dead to life. Come to this good Physician, my old 
 friend, and be healed of your malady." 
 
 " ' How strange and new this sounded almost as
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE 200 
 
 much so as if I had never before heard of this Phy- 
 Firian ; and in fact, so far as any conscious need of 
 Him was concerned, I never had. Sickness of the 
 soul and the healing of spiritual diseases had been 
 to me little more than figures of speech ; and my 
 Mca of a Physician of souls had rarely lifted itself 
 al>i>ve the thought of a vague symbolism that might 
 mi -an anything or nothing. But now there was in 
 it something tangible ; the impression of a real per- 
 sonality; and my poor, despairing heart began to 
 turn and lift itself, and to feel in its dead hopes the 
 fet-Me motions of a new life. And when he said 
 again, " Come, my old friend, come to this good 
 Physician," and drew upon my arm, I got up from 
 the curb-stone on which I was sitting, and stood 
 rini; and trembling in my shame and weakness, 
 dimly wondering as to how and where this Physician 
 was to be found. " And now, doctor," he said, " do 
 you really wish to be saved from the power of this 
 dreadful appetite?" "I would rather drown myself 
 than continue any longer in this awful bondage," I 
 replied. 
 
 " ' And then I told him how I had made up my 
 mind to gain deliverance through the desperate 
 means of suicide. " My poor friend," he ansu 
 " there is a safer and better way. Come with me." 
 
 " ' 1 did not hesitate, but went with him. A 
 walked, In- told me of this Christian Home, and said 
 that it' 1 would enter it and make use of all the 
 means of reformation to which it would introduce 
 14
 
 210 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 me, I might hope to be restored to myself, and gain 
 such power over my appetite as to hold it forever in 
 check. And here I am, with new hopes and new 
 purposes, and a trust in God for deliverance and 
 safety, that my heart and my reason tell me shall 
 not be in vain/ ' 
 
 After Mr. Granger had related Dr. R 's story, 
 
 he said : " If that man can be saved, and if I can be 
 saved, through trust in God, no one is so fallen that 
 he may not be lifted up, and his feet set in a secure 
 way." Then, after a slight pause, he added, in a 
 subdued and humble voice : " But in and of myself 
 I cannot hope to stand. When I forget that, my 
 imminent peril is niprh."
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A FTER two or three weeks, the change in Mr. 
 3tjL Granger's appearance was so great that I found 
 it difficult to realize the fact that he was the same 
 man whom we had, a little while before, taken from 
 the county prison. Nutritious food was rapidly 
 restoring muscular waste, and giving tension to 
 shattered nerves. Sound sleep was doing its good 
 work also. While above all, and vital to all, was a 
 new-born trust in God, and a submission of himself 
 to the Divine will and guidance. 
 
 I could see the steady growth of a new quality in 
 his face; the expression of which was becoming 
 softer, yet not losing the strength of a true manli- 
 ness. The old, confident ring did not come back to 
 his voice ; though it gained in firmness, and you felt 
 in its tone the impulse of a resolute will. 
 
 Up to this time I had said nothing to Granger 
 about his wife and children, nor had he referred to 
 them ; but I knew, from signs not to be mistaken, 
 that they were hardly for a moment absent from his 
 thoughts ; and I was sure that his hcurt was going 
 out to them with irrepressible yearnings. It could 
 not be otherwise, for he was a man of warm aillr- 
 tions. 
 
 211
 
 212 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 Nor had I said anything of this new effort at 
 reformation to Mrs. Granger, whom I had seen twice 
 since she told me of her husband's visit to the photo- 
 graph rooms. I had been trying ever since to find 
 another place for Amy, but so far was not successful. 
 Why should I keep the good news away from her 
 any longer ? I had withheld it so far, in fear lest 
 the hope and joy it must occasion might too quickly 
 be dashed to the ground. But now I was beginning 
 to have a more abiding faith in this last struggle 
 upon which Granger had entered ; because of the 
 new and higher elements of strength it was calling 
 into exercise. 
 
 For several days I debated the question, and then 
 dropped a note to Mrs. Granger, asking her to call 
 at my office. She came promptly, hoping that I had 
 succeeded in finding a situation for her daughter. I 
 had not noticed before how much her beautiful hair 
 had changed. It was thickly sprinkled with gray. 
 A shadow lay in her large brown eyes, which had 
 lost much of their former depth and brightness. 
 There was an earnest, expectant manner about her 
 as she came forward. I saw that she was troubled 
 and anxious, and half-regretted having sent for 
 her, not knowing, of course, how she might be 
 affected by the information I was about to commu- 
 nicate. 
 
 "Any good word for Amy ?" she asked, with an 
 effort to keep her voice from betraying the suspense 
 from which she was suffering.
 
 THE CURSE AND TIIE CURE. 213 
 
 ' Nothing certain, as yet," I replied. " But there's 
 something else that I wish to talk with you about." 
 
 Her large eyes widened a little. She asked no 
 question, but kept her gaze fixed upon me. 
 
 " Have you heard anything from Mr. Granger 
 since Amy was at the photograph rooms ?" 
 
 She shook her head, but did not remove her eyes 
 from my face. 
 
 " You did not know that he was arrested and 
 sent down to prison ?" 
 
 A slight negative movement of the head, and a 
 close, hard shutting of the lips. 
 
 "I heard of it, and went with a friend to see 
 him." 
 
 A start, a catching of the breath, and a receding 
 color. 
 
 " I think he must have died within twenty-four 
 hours if we had not taken him from the cell in 
 which we found him. Utterly broken down in body 
 uinl spirits, he had given up in despair." 
 
 The eyes of Mrs. Granger dropped swiftly from 
 my face. I saw a strong shiver run through her 
 body. Then she was motionless as a statue. 
 
 " Mr. Stunnard and I went to see him," I resumed. 
 " We had an order for his release, and took him to 
 the new Reformatory Home in Locust Street, where 
 he has been ever since." 
 
 Mrs. Granger raised her eyes and looked at me 
 a train. No li^lit had come into them. It' anything, 
 the shadow that lay over them was deeper. I was
 
 214 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 disappointed at this apparent indifference, and at her 
 failure to ask me any questions in regard to her 
 husband. 
 
 "Mr. Stannard and I feel very hopeful about 
 him." 
 
 She shook her head in a dreary way. " There is 
 no hope," she murmured, in a dead level voice. " It 
 was kind of you and Mr. Stannard, and you meant 
 well. But it will be of no use. If you had brought 
 me word that he was dead, I would have felt thank- 
 ful to know that his helpless, hopeless, wretched life 
 was over. It is hard for me to say this, Mr. Lyon, 
 but I can say nothing less. He is in the hands of a 
 demon whose strength, as compared with his, is as 
 that of a giant to a new-born infant." 
 
 " Is not God stronger than any devil ?" I asked, 
 speaking with quiet earnestness. 
 
 There was another quick, half-wondering dilation 
 of her large eyes, and a swift change in her counte- 
 nance. She waited for me to go on. 
 
 " There is no sin from which God cannot save a 
 man," said I. 
 
 " Except, I have sometimes thought, the sin of 
 drunkenness ; it so utterly degrades and destroys the 
 soul. It seems to leave nothing upon which men, 
 or angels, or even God Himself can take hold." 
 
 She spoke with some bitterness, but with more of 
 doubt and sorrow in her voice. 
 
 " Many men," I replied, " who had fallen quite as 
 low as Mr. Granger, have been saved from this
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CITJ:. 215 
 
 liul sin and curse by means of the Institution 
 win -re we have placed your husband, and are back 
 in their old social places again, and restored to their 
 once broken and deserted families." 
 
 A death-like paleness swept suddenly into her 
 face. She reached out her hands and caught the 
 table by which she was sitting, holding on to it 
 tightly, and trembling violently. 
 
 " Have you not heard about this Franklin Home?" 
 I asked. 
 
 She shook her head, her lips moving in a silent No. 
 
 " It is a Christian home," I said. " All its inmates 
 are brought under Christian influences. There is 
 daily readings of the Scripture, and also family 
 prayer in the chapel of the Institution. Every Sun- 
 day evening religious worship is held in this chapel, 
 and in the afternoon of Sunday there is a Bible 
 class. First and last the inmates are taught that 
 only by God's grace and help can they ever hope to 
 overcome completely the sin of drunkenness. They 
 must fight this, as well as all other evil habits and 
 inclinations, shunning them as sins against God, and 
 looking to Him for the strength that will give them 
 the victory ; so seeking to be saved from all sins, 
 and coming thereby completely within the sphere of 
 His Divine protection." 
 
 The manner of Mrs. Granger was that of one who 
 did not clearly understand what was being said to 
 her. There were rapid changed in her lace, lights 
 and shadows passing swiftly across it
 
 216 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 " For over three weeks your husband has been in 
 this Home, and the improvement is so great as to be 
 almost marvelous." 
 
 She laid her head down upon my office table, and 
 I saw that she was weeping. 
 
 " I have never had so great faith in your hus- 
 band's efforts at reform as I feel now. He has passed 
 below the limit of self-confidence; has lost all 
 faith in himself; knows that he cannot stand in his 
 own strength; that only God can help and save 
 him." 
 
 I heard the office door open, and turning, saw Mr. 
 Granger. As I uttered his name in a tone of sur- 
 prise, his wife sprang to her feet, and turned toward 
 him a face from which the color had gone out sud- 
 denly. The two gazed at each other for some mo- 
 ments, standing a little apart, their startled faces all 
 convulsed. 
 
 " Helen ! Oh, my poor Helen !" came trembling 
 from Granger's lips, as he saw the sad changes which 
 a few sorrowful years had wrought upon her. There 
 was an involuntary reaching out of his hands ; but 
 he held himself away. His voice was inexpressibly 
 tender and pitiful. Still, very still, she stood ; then 
 I saw a slight movement, and then, with a low cry, 
 " My husband I my husband !" she sprang forward 
 and laid her head on his bosom, his arms at the same 
 moment gathering tightly around her. I went out 
 and left them alone. When I came back, they \vere 
 gone.
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 217 
 
 I was concerned about this. Granger had been, 
 I ti It, too short a time at the Home to be safely re- 
 moved from its influence. I was not one of those 
 who believed that in an instant of time a sinner was 
 washed white and clean, and lifted wholly away 
 from temptation and danger. To be born again, 
 converted, renewed by the Spirit, had for me a dif- 
 ferent meaning. I had thought much about these 
 things of late, and held many conversations with 
 M r. Stannard, whose mind to me seemed peculiarly 
 enlightened. I believe that man must be a co-worker 
 with God. That there was no washing until after 
 repentance and the putting away of evils as sins ; and 
 that the "every whit clean," when applied to young 
 converts, was a fallacy, and in consequence a snare ; 
 that "He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed 
 in white raiment," and none others. I believed that 
 a change of heart was a gradual thing, progressing 
 with the new life of obedience to Divine laws, and 
 that as obedience was continued and perfected, the 
 new spiritual man became stronger and stronger, 
 until at last able to stand firm, though all hell were 
 in battle array against him. 
 
 Only a few weeks since we had lifted this man 
 out of the mire and clay ; only a few weeks of tin- 
 new and better life. Was he strong enough to leave 
 the safe harbor in which he had been anchored for 
 so short a time, and try the open sea again ? I did 
 not believe it. My fear was, that he had gone 
 hume with Mrs. Granger, and that lie would not re-
 
 218 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 turn again to the Institution in which we had placed 
 him. If this were so, I should tremble for his safety. 
 
 In the evening I went to the Home, and, to my 
 great relief, found Mr. Granger in the reading-room. 
 The whole expression of his countenance had 
 changed. There was a light in it which I had not 
 seen before. He grasped my hand and held it firmly 
 for a few moments without speaking. 
 
 " Coming out right very fast," said I. 
 
 " Yes, faster than I had dared to hope," he replied. 
 
 " Did you go home with your wife ?" 
 
 " No. We walked together for an hour after leav- 
 ing your office, and then I came back here. I am 
 too weak yet for any great trial of my strength. It 
 is easy enough to stand with all these helps around 
 me ; but I must grow stronger in myself before I 
 attempt to walk alone. And then I cannot be a 
 burden to my poor wife, who is already overtaxed in 
 her efforts to keep a home for our children. As soon 
 as possible I must get something to do that I may 
 come to her relief." 
 
 " Will you open a law office again ?" 
 
 " Law is my profession. I have no skill in any- 
 thing else. It is my only way of return to business 
 and profit. Yes, just as soon as I feel strong enough 
 to make the effort, I shall endeavor to get into prac- 
 tice. In passing along Walnut Street to-day, I saw 
 several small offices to let, any one of which would 
 suit me. My great drawback will .be the want of a 
 law library."
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 219 
 
 " Don't let that trouble you," I replied. " There 
 arc plenty of old friends in the profession who will 
 gladly let you have the use of hooks until you are 
 able to buy for yourself. As soon as it is seen that 
 you are in real earnest about getting on your feet 
 apiin, you will receive a warm welcome and the 
 p of many helping hands." 
 
 Within six weeks from the time Granger came 
 out of prison, he had a desk in the office of a promi- 
 nent lawyer, whose large practice enabled him to 
 throw considerable business in his way from the very 
 start He still remained at the Reformatory Home, 
 where, for a moderate price, he had a well-furnished 
 room and excellent board. He not only identified 
 himself with the Institution, but became deeply in- 
 terested in the work of reform. He had, himself, 
 been a cast-away on the desolate shore where so 
 many thousands are wrecked every year; and he 
 knew all the pains and horrors of such disasters. 
 Hi.- pity and his sympathy drew towards him every 
 new inmate of the Home, and prompted him to do 
 all that lay in his power to encourage, comfort and 
 help him to begin that new and higher life, in which, 
 as he never failed to urge, true and permanent safety 
 could alone be found. 
 
 " Have you ever attended religious services at the 
 Home on Sunday evening?" Mr. Stannard asked, 
 one day. It was about two months after Mr. Gran- 
 ger's admission. I had not. 
 
 " Come round to-morrow night. It will interest
 
 220 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 you. Rev. Mr. S is going to preach to the 
 
 men." 
 
 I went, and, to my surprise, found a little chapel, 
 which held about two hundred, so well filled that 
 only a few seats remained. There were quite as 
 many women as men; wives, mothers, sisters or 
 friends of the inmates. A little way hack from the 
 reading-desk I noticed Mr. Granger, and it almost 
 took my breath when I saw his wife sitting on one 
 side of him and his daughter on the other. There 
 was reading from the Bible, and one or two hymns, 
 in which the whole congregation joined heartily. 
 Then a most excellent sermon from one of the lead- 
 ing clergymen of the city. 
 
 It was a long time since I had been so much im- 
 pressed as by the services of this evening. I sat 
 where I could look into the faces of nearly all who 
 were present. Just in front of me was Mr. Gran- 
 ger, and beside him his wife and daughter, all at- 
 tentive listeners to the discourse. Not far from them 
 I recognized the person of Dr. II . He sat be- 
 tween two women, also, and I had no doubt from the 
 way they leaned towards him, or turned now and 
 then to look at him, that one was his wife and the 
 other the daughter whom he had followed for so 
 many blocks in the street, too sorely conscious of his 
 degradation to dare even to speak to her. And Mr. 
 Lawrence, who had written to his wife and received 
 the promise of her speedy return, was there likewise; 
 and by him sat a woman with a calm, strong, true
 
 THE CURSE AKD T11E CURE. 221 
 
 and I saw, with a throb of feeling, which sent 
 the moisture to my eyes, that she was holding one of 
 his hands tightly in one of hers. 
 
 There were nearly a hundred men present who 
 had been, or were now, inmates of the Institution ; 
 and wives, sisters and mothers almost as many more. 
 Sad, indeed, was the writing on nearly all of the 
 faces into which I gazed; but light mingled with 
 the shadows. There were men before me who had 
 been drunkards for over ten and twenty years 
 some for even a longer time and women who had 
 borne the awful sorrow of the drunkard's wife for 
 periods quite as long. 
 
 What followed touched me most of all. After the 
 benediction was said, and the congregration began 
 slowly to retire, I saw little groups of twos and threes 
 and fours gathering here and there, standing or sit- 
 ting, and soon comprehended what it meant. Here 
 you saw a husband and wife, who had lived apart 
 ir yi-ars, sitting close together in earnest conversa- 
 tion ; and there wife and children gathered about a 
 1 in-hand and father who had long been lost to them, 
 I MIL was now found again. What light, and even 
 joy, were to be seen in the faces of many, the women's 
 fan's especially. And it was allivtini; to notice .some 
 of the children little girls more particularly hold- 
 ing tightly to their father's hands, sitting close to 
 and leaning against them, or looking up lovingly 
 into their faces. There were many tender re-unions 
 that night in the little ehajMjl, above whose reading-
 
 222 STKONG DRINK; 
 
 desk a silken banner held the inscription, " BY THE 
 GRACE OF GOD, I AM WHAT I AM." 
 
 I made my way, as soon as the crowd had cleared 
 a little, to where Mr. Granger and his wife and 
 daughter were standing together. They looked very 
 happy yes, " happy " is the word and greeted me 
 with much cordiality. 
 
 " Is this the first time you have attended worship 
 in our chapel ?" Mr. Granger asked. 
 
 " The first time," I replied. " But I feel as if it 
 was not going to be the last. I have heard people 
 speak of the ' sphere of worship,' but never knew 
 what it meant until to-night." 
 
 " It is because," he answered, " there are very few 
 in the congregations that assemble here on Sunday 
 evenings, who do not feel that their only hope is in 
 God, and that without His grace they cannot stand 
 for a moment." 
 
 " Who are all the people I see around me ?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " About thirty of the men are present inmates of 
 the Home. Nearly all the rest were formerly in- 
 mates, and are standing firm. They come here on 
 Sunday evenings ; and those who have families bring 
 their wives, and many their children. If one absents 
 himself from these Sunday evening services, there 
 is a feeling of concern in regard to him ; for expe- 
 rience has shown, that the first sign of danger is a 
 manifest indifference to the things of religion. I 
 never look at that banner above the reading-desk,
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 223 
 
 without a new sense of my entire dependence on God 
 for strength to walk safely in the midst of tempta- 
 tion ; and I am sure that its silent admonition has 
 wrought a like influence with many others. It is 
 by God's grace that I am what I am." 
 
 Mrs. Granger's large eyes were fixed on her hus- 
 band's face while he spoke ; and I saw something of 
 their old charm coming back into them. A soft 
 smile was hovering like a faint gleam of sunshine on 
 In T lips. We moved back the chairs amid which 
 we were standing, making with them a small circle, 
 an 1 sat down together. 
 
 Iy last night in the Home," said Granger, after 
 a brief silence. His voice had lost some of its 
 steadiness. 
 
 " Indeed !" I betrayed a little surprise. 
 
 " Yes." He turned towards his wife, looking at 
 In T tenderly. We are going to set up our household 
 gods again." 
 
 The smile grew warmer on her lips. 
 
 " \V r e have taken a little home, and are going to 
 make a new start in life ; and there is going to be in 
 this home what was never seen in the old home. 
 Shall I tell you what that is, my good friend to 
 whom I owe so much ?" 
 
 I waited for him to go on. Hushing his voice, 
 and speaking reverently, he said : "A family altar." 
 
 Before the silence that followed was broken, we 
 were joined by the president and two or three 
 gentle-men who WLTU active in the management of
 
 224 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 the Home. While I was talking with them, Mr. 
 and Mrs. Granger, with their daughter, drew away, 
 and a little while afterwards I saw them separate at 
 the door of the chapel. 
 
 On the next day Granger left the Institution, and 
 went back into the old common life, to try, amidst 
 its thousand enticements to evil, the new sources of 
 strength in which he was now trusting for safety.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 STILL in the very prime of manhood, the springs 
 of action were yet strong. An orderly life 
 soon restored Granger to a measure of the old vigor, 
 and it was not long before cases of importance be^an 
 to come into his hands. And now my concern for 
 him be^an to grow again. If the engrossing cares 
 of his profession, and the worldliness that creeps in 
 
 :sily tli rough the door that prosperity opens, 
 should draw him into religious indifference, and 
 inspire him with self-confidence, would not the old 
 peril return? 
 
 One thing gave me much assurance. Granger 
 had identified himself with the cause of temperance, 
 and made frequent pulilic addresses. He took an 
 active part in all the movements designed to effect 
 
 ictive legislation, and was the author of several 
 able articles in which the magnitude of the liquor 
 trallic, and its attendant evils were set forth with 
 startling boldness. 
 
 Had the family altar been set up? Yes. I put 
 the question direct about six months after he had 
 left the Institution in Locust Street. He laid his 
 hand quietly but firmly on my arm as he replied: 
 "In my home and in my heart." 
 15
 
 226 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 His countenance softened, and his eyes grew 
 tender. I learned then for the first time that he had 
 become much interested in church work, and had 
 been chiefly instrumental in the establishment of a 
 mission school in a destitute part of the city ; and 
 that he did not confine his efforts alone to the poor 
 children who were gathered into this school, but 
 endeavored to reach with good influences their 
 parents, many of whom were sadly degraded, and 
 most of them intemperate. On expressing my 
 gratification, he merely said : " I would make a poor 
 return for all the good I have received, if I did not 
 try to do something for others. The heart that 
 closes itself to gratitude, closes itself to higher and 
 diviner things. If the love of God be in a man, it 
 must prompt him to help and save others ; and his 
 love is spurious of himself and selfish call it by 
 what name he may, if it does not do this." 
 
 " What about that old appetite ?" I asked on an- 
 other occasion. It was six months later. " Does it 
 trouble you ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Has it been extirpated ?" 
 
 He looked at me for a few moments, a serious 
 expression gathering on his face, and then replied : 
 " It would be about as safe for me to put a pistol to 
 my head as a glass to my lips. Appetite is not 
 dead ; it has only been removed from the seat of 
 power, and made passive and subordinate. I give it 
 no opportunity. I resist its slightest effort to rise,
 
 TIIE CURSE AND TUB CURE. 227 
 
 and hold its indulgence as a sin which I dare not 
 commit." 
 
 " When its motions are felt, how do you resist 
 them ?" 
 
 "As I would resist a temptation to steal or commit 
 murder or any other sin against God. I turn my 
 thought from the image or allurement, and hold 
 myself free from action. If temptation presses, I 
 lift my heart and say, ' Lord, deliver me from evil;' 
 and He does deliver me." 
 
 " Do you often have these temptations ?" I asked. 
 
 " Their assaults are growing less and less frequent, 
 and less and less violent. But I make it a rule to 
 keep away as far from the enemy's ground as possi- 
 ble. Invitations to public dinners, where liquor is 
 served, I rarely, if ever, accept. And I am as chary of 
 private entertainments, where wine is too often more 
 freely dispensed than water. Nothing would tempt 
 me to go inside of a drinking saloon, unless it were 
 in order to save some fallen brother, and then my 
 good purpose would be a panoply of defence." 
 
 " Do you never expect to have this appetite wholly 
 removed ?" 
 
 " What may come in the future is more than I 
 can say. But safe abiding to the end is what I 
 , and I do not mean to fail through any over- 
 weening confidence in the utter extinction of this 
 appetite." 
 
 " Do you not believe that God will take it away 
 in answer to prayer take it away by an act of
 
 228 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 grace, and without any resistance to the demands of 
 appetite, or co-operation of any kind on your part?" 
 " No, I do not believe anything of the kind. I 
 Lave met with some who held such a view, and who 
 spoke confidently as to themselves; but I have 
 always regarded them as being in more danger than 
 others. I cannot understand how it is possible for 
 God to save a man who makes no effort to save him- 
 self. I have seen quite a number of cases in the last 
 year, where men professed to be cleansed from all 
 sin, drunkenness included, in a moment of time, and 
 simply in answer to prayer. It did not take a great 
 while to make it manifest that the old Adam was 
 about as strong in them as before. Some of them 
 led better lives, and were able to keep free from 
 drunkenness ; but it was not because their evil in- 
 clinations had been removed in answer to prayer and 
 faith, but because they began fighting them, and 
 looking to God as they fought, and overcoming 
 through the Divine power that is given to all who 
 will take it. Regeneration is a slow and gradual 
 work ; not the sudden creation of a new spiritual 
 man with all of his affection in Heaven. This higher 
 life is not attained through faith and prayer, but 
 through combat against the evils that are in the hu- 
 man heart. The Church is militant. 
 
 " ' Must I be carried to the skies 
 
 On flowery beds of ease, 
 "While others fought to win Ihe prize, 
 Or sailed through bloody seas ?
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 229 
 
 'Sure I must fight, if I would reign ; 
 
 Increase my courage, Lord. 
 I'll bear the cross, endure the pain, 
 Supported by Thy Word.' 
 
 " Fight against what ? The world, the flesh and 
 die devil. Where? In our hearts; for nowhere 
 else can they assail or do us harm ; and with God 
 on one side, and the Divine power of His Word 
 from which to take sword and shield, we may be 
 invincible if we will Christian soldiers, fighting 
 our way to Heaven ; not weak spiritual babes, borne 
 thither in supporting arms, and of little use when 
 we get there." 
 
 Granger had been thinking, living and growing 
 more than I had thought I saw hi clearer light the 
 ground of his safety. He was not a mere professor, 
 trusting for salvation in some ideal purification, or 
 resting satisfied in simple church-membership ; but 
 an earnest inner-living and outer-working Christian 
 man, who could give a reason which other men's 
 reason might apprehend for the hope that was in 
 him. 
 
 From this time my concern for Granger decreased ; 
 for I understood better wherein his strength lay. He 
 was living a new life, obedient to Divine laws, in the 
 higher and more interior regions of his mind ; and 
 this new life, or new spiritual man, born from above 
 " of water and of the Spirit " was ruling over the 
 old natural life and holding it in orderly subjection. 
 With him, reason and faith had become harmonizc-d.
 
 230 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 He was not walking blindly, nor in any false secu- 
 rity, trusting in some dogma he could not under- 
 stand ; but in a clear spiritual light a thinking as 
 well as a believing Christian. With him, faith was 
 the " evidence of things not seen ;" and this faith, or 
 evidence, had two foundations to rest upon, the 
 Divine Law, and the reason which God had given 
 him for the apprehension of that Law. " A blind 
 faith is worth nothing is no faith at all," he would 
 say. " Is, in fact, spiritual blindness. But Christ 
 came to open the eyes of the spiritually blind that 
 they might see, and discern the weightier things of 
 His law judgment, mercy and faith in the keep- 
 ing of which salvation is alone to be found." 
 
 " The whole theory of religion is embraced in this 
 simple precept," he once said to me : " Cease to do 
 evil because it is sin, and therefore contrary to the 
 Divine Law. When a man does this, he makes an 
 effort to obey God ; and obedience is higher than 
 faith and more effectual than sacrifice. Just as soon 
 as a man begins to shun the evils to which he is in- 
 clined, because to do them would be sin, God begins 
 in him the work of purification, and gives him 
 strength for still further resistance. This is true 
 saving faith ; for it is the faith of obedience the 
 faith that looks humbly to God, trusts in Him and 
 seeks to do His will. The first effort may be very 
 feeble, but if it be a true effort, Divine strength will 
 flow into it ; and then he will have an almost imme- 
 diate sense of deliverance, followed by a season of
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 231 
 
 rest and pence. The clangers of this first state are 
 many. In the parable of the Sower, our Lord has 
 declared them. Only they 'which, in an honest and 
 good heart, having heard the Word, keep it, and 
 bring forth fruit with patience' the fruit of right 
 living can attain to the kingdom. Too many err 
 in mistaking this first delight, when the springing 
 blade feels the refresliing airs and warm sunshine of 
 heaven, for the later harvest time. With them the 
 good seed has fallen in stony places or among thorns. 
 Alas ! that we have so many of these." 
 
 Mr. Granger's interest in the cause of temperance 
 grew as he continued to devote all the time he could 
 spare from his profession to the work of its exten- 
 sion. When, two years after his reformation, that 
 remarkable movement known as the " Woman's 
 Crusade," began in Ohio, and spread with the 
 rapidity of a prairie fire from town to town and State 
 to State, until it reached almost every city and ham- 
 let in the land, he gave it such aid and approval as 
 lay in his power. I was surprised at this, and said 
 so frankly. 
 
 " It is a mere outbreak of wild enthusiasm," I re- 
 marked, " and will die as suddenly as it has flamed 
 up. And, moreover, those who are engaged in it 
 are acting in violation of law, and order, and the 
 sacredness of individual rights." 
 
 IK- waited for a little while before answering me, 
 and thru said: "I have watched this movement, 
 and thought about it a great deal, and I must own
 
 232 STRONG DRIXK; 
 
 that it has stirred my heart profoundly. There is 
 something deeper in it than I am yet ahle clearly to 
 comprehend. That its effects are marvelous no one 
 can deny and good as well as marvelous. If pray- 
 ing with and for saloon-keepers, in or out of their 
 bar-rooms, will induce them to abandon their deadly 
 traffic, then I say ' God-speed !' to those who see in 
 this way of lighting the common enemy their line 
 of duty. If praying will shut the doors of all the 
 saloons in a town, by all means let prayer be 
 tried." 
 
 " But is it really prayer that does the work ?" 
 
 " Prayer is certainly the chief agency. No one 
 can question that." 
 
 " You believe, then, that because a praying band 
 of women kneel down in a saloon and pray to God 
 to turn the heart of the keeper away from his evil 
 work and lead him to abandon it, that God answers 
 their prayers and converts the saloon-keeper ?" 
 
 " You have the facts of such conversions before 
 you ; and they are not a few. How will you explain 
 them?" 
 
 " I confess myself at fault. But I do not believe 
 that God was any the less inclined to convert the 
 saloon-keeper, and lead him to abandon his work of 
 destroying men, soul and body, before the women 
 prayed, than He was afterwards." 
 
 " Perhaps not. Indeed, I am sure He was not. 
 God's love for the human race is infinite, and cannot 
 therefore gain any increase through man's interces-
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 233 
 
 If He waits to be entreated, it is for the 
 entreaty that shall change man's attitude towards 
 Jliin, not His attitude to man. And herein I take 
 it lies the value and the power of prayer." 
 
 " Hut how can the prayers of a band of women 
 change a saloon-keeper's attitude towards God V" I 
 asked. " He doesn't pray, but actually sets himself 
 against prayer. Instead of looking to God, he re- 
 jects Him." 
 
 " All that is effected by prayer we cannot know," 
 Granger replied ; " for its influence is in the region 
 .of things invisible to mortal eyes. We understand 
 but little of the laws that govern spiritual forces ; 
 but that they are as unerring in their operations as 
 any law of nature, we may safely conclude." 
 
 Mr. Stannard joined us here, and, learning the 
 subject of our 'conversation, said: "If you will re- 
 flect a little, I think yon will see that there must be 
 a kind of spiritual medium or atmosphere on which 
 our thoughts and feelings pass in some mysterious 
 way from one to another, as light and sound are 
 transmitted by our common atmosphere. Let us 
 suppose, by way of illustration, that a mother is 
 thinking intently of her absent son, and her heart 
 at the same time going out lovingly towards him. Or, 
 let us suppose that she feels deep concern for his 
 Bpi ritual state, and is praying earnestly that he may 
 turn from the evil of his ways and give his heart to 
 God. Now, will not her thought of her son reach 
 him on some medium cf transmission too subtle to
 
 234 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 be perceived by our grosser senses, and so make her 
 present to his thoughts ? And will not the loving 
 concern which is affecting her so deeply reach him 
 at the same time, and open his heart to the heavenly 
 influences which have been waiting, it may be for 
 years, at the shut door, for an opportunity to come 
 in ? God has not changed. He has not waited for 
 the mother's prayers to reach Him before He will 
 save her son ; but the mother's prayers have affected 
 the son, and revived, it may be, old states of inno- 
 cence, or reverence for God, or thoughts of love and 
 duty into which angelic impulses might flow, and. 
 the Spirit of God take hold, and through them 
 quicken the sleeping conscience. 
 
 " There is a doctrine, which, if true and I think 
 it must be true throws a strong light on this sub- 
 ject, and explains the phenomena of what are re- 
 garded as answers to prayer. It is this : From 
 infancy up to mature years, the Lord continually 
 provides for the storing up in the memory of pure, 
 and true, and innocent things such as various states 
 of innocence and charity ; of love towards relatives, 
 brothers and sisters, teachers and friends ; of mercy 
 toward the poor and needy, and kindness towards all. 
 When infancy is passed, and the mind begins to 
 open, then, as far as it is possible to be done, the 
 Lord provides that some precepts of life be stored 
 up, as duty to the Lord and the neighbor, and also 
 knowelge of faith. These remain protected in the 
 inner memory, as the things by which the Lord can
 
 THE CURSE ASD THE CURE. 235 
 
 itc with man after he arrives at the age of free- 
 dom and rationality; and it is by means of these 
 that He lifts him out of his inherited evil affections, 
 and li-ads him heavenward." 
 
 "A most important doctrine, if true," I said. "But 
 I am not able to see how it explains the phenomena 
 of answers to prayer." 
 
 " Suppose," replied Mr. Stannard, " we take the 
 case of a saloon-keeper in whose memory, hidden 
 away and covered up for years, have lain some of 
 these innocent, and tender, and merciful states, 
 stored there in childhood through the loving care of 
 a mother. The Lord has been very watchful over 
 them ; and has kept them hidden and safe in some 
 closely-sealed chamber, lest the evil things of his 
 evil life should destroy them. Not one of these 
 states has been lost ; not a good or true precept erased 
 from the book of his memory they have only been 
 kept away from his consciousness while he immersed 
 himself in evil, so that they might not be rejected 
 and lost This man is in his bar-room. The door 
 opens, and half a dozen women enter. The moment 
 he sees them, his anger flames out, and he launches 
 frightful oaths and vile imprecations against them. 
 But the women are in earnest. They believe in the 
 power of prayer, and are going to try its influence 
 here. As they pass into the saloon, the clear, sweet 
 voice of the leader swells out, and for the first time 
 in a dozen years, it may be, there breaks on the 
 man's ears the words, 'All hail the power of Jesua'
 
 236 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 name !' It does not need the chorus of voices that 
 take up the words and music to drown his impreca- 
 tions. They have already died on his lips. What 
 a strange feeling has come over him! Where is he? 
 In the old village church, listening to his mother's 
 or sister's voice in the choir ? The Lord has ever 
 been very near to him, though unseen and unknown, 
 waiting for an opportunity like this. How still , he 
 stands, listening and bending a little forward towards 
 the singers ! And now, in the strange hush that 
 follows, the women kneel, and one of them lifts her 
 voice, speaking to God reverently, and asking Him 
 to touch and soften the heart of this man, who has 
 forgotten the loving precepts of his mother and the 
 God whom she served, and who has given himself 
 to the work of destroying his fellow-men. ' Have 
 pity on him, Lord !' she says, in pleading tones ; 
 ' for the hurt to himself will be deeper than the hurt 
 to his neighbor. By the memory of his mother's 
 love, of his pure and innocent childhood, of the 
 prayers that came once from his sweet, baby lips, 
 touch and soften his heart, and turn it to higher and 
 better and holier things.' Do you wonder, as the 
 women rise, and commence singing ' Nearer my God 
 to Thee,' that the bowed head of the saloon-keeper 
 is not raised ; that his eyes are dim, if not blinded 
 by tears ? Do you wonder that conviction of sin 
 strikes him to the heart; or that, under these influ- 
 ences, quickened and strengthened by the Spirit 
 of God, which has found an opportunity in this
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CTAA' 237 
 
 stirring of old memories and revival of old states, 
 he H lillcd with such a horror of his old life, and 
 such sorrow for the evil he has done, that he re- 
 solves, through God's help, to be a new and a better 
 m:m '.' 
 
 " Xow, what did prayer effect in this case? Did 
 God soften and change the heart of this man in 
 answer to the prayers that were offered in his saloon ; 
 or, were these prayers the agency by which God's 
 Spirit was able to reach his heart and vivify the 
 remains of innocent, and good, and holy things 
 which, through the Divine mercy, had been stored 
 up in childhood and youth, and kept hidden away 
 a n 1 .--a ft from destruction ? I cannot comprehend how 
 the first could be. The last is clear to my appre- 
 hension. The first makes God seem worse than 
 indifferent. Souls may perish by myriads if no one 
 will make intercession for them. He will not stoop 
 to save unless supplication be offered. But in the 
 latter virw, lie is forever bending down, merciful 
 and foni passionate; forever reaching out His hands ; 
 forever providing the means of salvation ; foi 
 seeking to save that which is lost. Prayer becomes 
 a more powerful agent, in so far as its rationale is 
 Faith is not diminished, but made stronger. 
 AVe need not ask God to be gracious; to turn away 
 His anger; to be pitiful and compassionate for lie 
 is as much more loving, and pitiful, and compas- 
 sionate, than any man or angel, as the infin" 
 greater than the finite. I'.ut we may feel sure, if we
 
 238 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 pray from the heart for submission to the Divine 
 will ; for patience, and humility, and strength for 
 duty and self-denial, that our prayers will be an- 
 swered, in the degree that they are offered in spirit 
 and in truth." 
 
 " But our prayers for others," said Mr. Granger ; 
 " what form of intercession shall we use for them ? 
 How shall we make them avail for good ? This is 
 now the important question." 
 
 " Let each pray out of the fullness of his heart," 
 Mr. Stannard replied. " If it be with those whom 
 we seek to influence and turn from evil to God, the 
 effect will be more marked, and often attended with 
 more favorable results than when we pray for the 
 absent and the unseen. Our voices and tones, and 
 the words we speak, are heard by those for whom we 
 thus pray, and more quickly penetrate the locked 
 chambers of the soul, where the Lord has been 
 keeping the remnant of precious things which has 
 been left from infancy and childhood, and by the 
 quickening and life of which, He can save their souls 
 from sin. And let us not fail to pray for the absent 
 in whom our interest has been awakened ; for our 
 beloved ones; for any and all towards whom our 
 hearts are yearning. And, as we pray, let us think 
 of them intently, so that we may come nearer to 
 them in spirit, and our thought of God bring the 
 thought of Him into their minds, so that He may 
 be able to stir in their hearts the motions of a better 
 life. The Lord is not waiting for our prayers to
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 239 
 
 avail with Him that lie may do this; but for our 
 gravers, it may be, as the only means by which 
 the doors of their hearts can be opened to let Him 
 
 come in."
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 " Crusade," as it was called, went on ; and 
 for awhile the whole country was in a state of 
 wondering excitement. Thousands of saloons were 
 closed, and in many towns the traffic in intoxicating 
 liquor ceased altogether. Brewers, especially in some 
 of the larger western cities, took the alarm, as well 
 they might, for the sale of beer had diminished so 
 rapidly that the fear of ruin began to stare them in 
 the face. At Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis, so 
 heavy a loss was suffered in the internal revenue 
 from malt liquors that Government officials became 
 much disturbed in consequence. 
 
 And still the Crusade went on. But now the 
 surprised and discomfited enemy began to rally his 
 scattered forces. In some of the smaller towns he 
 had fought desperately ; but only with partial suc- 
 cess in a few cases. Except in the larger cities, he 
 had been sorely hurt, or vanquished altogether. 
 But here, he was able to make his first sure stand, 
 and to begin striking back with an effective force 
 that restored his confidence. The aid of the press 
 was invoked ; appeals made to the law ; fines im- 
 posed, and the interference and protection of local 
 governments demanded. Praying in saloons was 
 
 210
 
 THE CURSE ASD THE CULT.. 241 
 
 declared to be a nuisance, if not a crime against 
 social order ; and the assembling of women in the 
 streets for singing and prayer was fordidden because 
 it led to riot. In Cincinnati, Cleveland and other 
 cities, disgraceful attacks were made by brutal men 
 on some of the praying bands ; and in a few cases 
 Christian women were arrested and sent to prison. 
 
 Almost as suddenly as this strange, intense and 
 irresistible impulse had risen, gained strength and 
 swept over the land, did it seem to die away ; and 
 the enemy said it was dead, and made rejoicings 
 over its obsequies. The wise ones who knew from 
 the beginning that it would speedily come to nought, 
 happy in their fancied prescience. As for 
 myself, the result was scarcely different from what I 
 had anticipated. The thing was abnormal, in my 
 view, and could not last. Merely an impulse wild 
 and strong which must die from exhaustion. But 
 my sympathies had been all on the side of the 
 movement ; and there were times when the irresist- 
 ible strength of its onward rush had led me to 
 question whether some new spiritual force had not 
 evolved, through the agency of these praying 
 women, which was destined to sweep this fearful 
 mrse of intemperance from our land. 
 
 But the seeming collapse of the movement left 
 my mind free to drift liaek among former ideas and 
 impressions, and even to take up the belief that as a 
 result of this wild imjuil.-e, there would follow a 
 corresponding indillereiiee and supine-ness. 
 16
 
 242 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 " What do you think of the woman's movement 
 now ?" I asked of Mr. Granger, who had made seve- 
 ral public addresses while the excitement was at its 
 height in our city, and in act, as well as speech, given 
 it both aid and sympathy. " I was afraid of this," 
 I added, before he had time to answer my question. 
 
 " Afraid of what ?" he inquired. 
 
 " Of its utter collapse. A little while ago, and it 
 was the great sensation of the day. The columns 
 of our most influential and most widely-circulating 
 newspapers were teeming with its marvels and its 
 achievements. To-day, there is scarcely to be found 
 in any of them so much as a paragraph an inch 
 long to tell of its dying throes." 
 
 "And yet," he answered, speaking with an earn- 
 estness that surprised me, " this woman's movement 
 was never so strong, and deep, and effective as it is 
 to-day." 
 
 " I do not see the evidence," I replied. 
 
 "There is more real strength in unobtrusive, 
 thoughtful, well-organized effort, than in the impetu- 
 ous sweep of high-wrought impulse," said Granger. 
 " In this great pioneer movement, this wild rush of 
 wronged, and in many cases, heart-broken and des- 
 perate women, as, losing faith and hope in man, they 
 sprang upon their deadly foe with a bitter cry to 
 God for help, there came to them a revelation of the 
 true sources of their power. The Lord answered 
 them in the still, small voice, that grew clear, and 
 sweet, and full of comfort and assurance as the noise
 
 THE CURSE AXD TUB CURE. 243 
 
 of the whirlwind which had rent the mountain grew 
 silent on the expectant air. In prayer they had 
 found a weapon which, if rightly used, would make 
 them invincible. Should they throw it away in 
 despair, because in the very first great trial their 
 hands had struck a little wildly, and the maddened 
 foe seemed pushing them in consequence to a small 
 disadvantage ? Not so. They had heard the still, 
 small voice, and knew it to be the voice of their 
 Lord. If the prayers of a few hundreds, or a few 
 thousands of Christian women could effect so much, 
 what might not be done through the united prayers 
 of tens and hundreds of thousands of such women, 
 going up in concert from every city, town, village 
 and neighborhood in the land? Here was a ques- 
 tion full of significance and large with promise; and 
 this is the question to which some of the best and 
 most thoughtful women of our country are giving an 
 earnest consideration to-day. But their hands are 
 not resting while they consider it ; nor is the sword 
 by which they mean to have the victory lying idle 
 in its scabbard. Neither prayer nor work among 
 saloon-keepers and their families, and among their 
 wretched victims, has ceased because the press no 
 longer makes record of the fact ; nor are the results 
 less wide and cheering because the general public 
 tins unadvised." 
 
 " Have you evidence of all this?" I asked, not 
 concealing my astonishment. 
 
 " Abundant"
 
 244 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 " And the work of praying in saloons still goes 
 on?" 
 
 " No. That has ceased almost entirely. It was 
 only a pioneer movement a first wild rush upon 
 the enemy and trial of his strength and resources. 
 He is not only able to guard himself in this direc- 
 tion, but to weaken and divide the forces of his as- 
 sailants if the advance is made upon him here. Or- 
 ganization, drill, discipline, wise generalship, a 
 knowledge of the laws that govern in attack and 
 defence ; all these are in progress and being gained 
 now." 
 
 " While the enemy, warned by his brief dis- 
 comfiture, will entrench himself more securely," 
 said I. 
 
 Granger smiled. " In war the resources of attack 
 gain perpetually on defense. To be invincible is to 
 be exceptional. Our women are already getting their 
 siege guns in position, and organizing their sappers 
 and miners. Their spies and scouts are busy ; weak 
 places are being discovered, and new modes of as- 
 sault adopted. Let me give you a single instance 
 connected with the present state of the war in our 
 own city, which has never been intermitted. There 
 was a certain saloon-keeper who had repulsed a 
 praying band with considerable rudeness. He had 
 a wife and two young daughters, and a son in his 
 twelfth year ; his family living a short distance from 
 his bar-room. A committee of twelve women were 
 selected to visit in the neighborhood, and do what
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CUKE. 245 
 
 lay in their power as well to repress the evil of in- 
 temperance as to guard the young from its fatal 
 allurements. To visit and pray in saloons was no 
 longer in their programme ; but to reach the saloon- 
 
 ers and get them to abandon their traffic was; 
 and to the work of doing this with the one I have 
 mentioned they set themselves in sober earnest. 
 Their first business was to learn all about him ; the 
 
 tcter of his family, and the nature of his home 
 relations. He was not a bad man, the neighbors said, 
 and, when he did not drink too freely, was kind and 
 indulgent A visit by a single one of the ladies was 
 now made. At first, the wife was cold and distant ; 
 but the visitor was a woman with so much of the mag- 
 
 n of Christian charity in her soul, and withal, 
 so wise and prudent of speech, that it was not long 
 before the heart of the saloon-keeper's wife opened 
 to her, and the mother's hidden concern for her boy 
 and two young daughters became manifest. After 
 a brief, carefully-worded prayer, the visitor went 
 away, but not without asking if she might not call 
 a--; i in, and receiving an invitation to do so. 
 
 " At her next visit, she got farther down into the 
 woman's heart and confidence, and was able to speak 
 to her with some freedom about the danger that was 
 in the path of her son a danger it was scarcely pos- 
 sible for him to escape if his feet continued therein. 
 The mother wept at the picture of peril the lady 
 drew, and said: 'Oh, if my hu>land were in some 
 other busine.^.' The boy, a fine-looking lad, came
 
 246 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 in while they were talking about him. The lady 
 took his hand and spoke to him kindly, then drew 
 her arm about him and asked if he went to Sundn y- 
 school. On his saying No, she told him that she 
 had a class of nice little boys, and would be glad to 
 have him among them. He was pleased with her 
 notice, and touched by her gentle kindness. On the 
 next Sunday the lad presented himself at school, 
 and was taken into the lady's class. He was very 
 attentive and orderly, and promised to come again 
 on the following Sunday. True to his promise, he 
 was there, conducting himself with as much decorum 
 and attention to his lessons as at first. A juvenile 
 temperance meeting was held at the close of the 
 school, and all who were not already members in- 
 vited to join. A little to the surprise, and greatly 
 to the lady's delight, the boy came forward and en- 
 rolled his name, receiving a card on which a pledge 
 not to drink intoxicating liquors, or to give them 
 away or traffic in them, was printed. At the bottom 
 he wrote his signature. 
 
 " Naturally a little anxious to know what effect 
 had been produced at home by this, and what the 
 prospect of the boy's being able to keep his pledge, 
 the lady called to see the saloon-keeper's wife near 
 the close of the week, when she heard the following 
 story : 
 
 " ' When John told me what he'd done, and showed 
 me his pledge, I was so glad ! And I kissed him, 
 and I said : " You must keep it forever and forever,
 
 THE CURSE AXD TIIE CURE. 247 
 
 John." And he said that that was just what he 
 nit -Miit to do. I kept it from his father; for I didn't 
 k ii. .\v just how he'd take it. It seemed like a reflec- 
 tion on him. "John," says his father, on Monday 
 morning, as he was leaving, "come along. I want 
 you in the bar to-day. Peter's going on an excur- 
 sion, and I can't be left all alone." John's face 
 became right pale. He hadn't moved when his 
 father got to the door; on seeing which, he called 
 out sharply: " Did you hear me?" "You'll have 
 to go, John," said I, in a whisper; for, you see, my 
 hu.-hand's quick, and I was afraid for the boy. So 
 tiny went out, and I was dreadfully troubled about 
 him. It was, maybe, an hour afterwards that John 
 returned, lie had a scared kind of look about him, 
 s he came in. "What's happened? Why have 
 you come home ?" I asked. " Father sent me home." 
 " What for ?" " Well, you see, mother, when Peter 
 went, father told me that I must tend bar in his 
 ; and then I said : 'I'm sorry, father, but I've 
 taken the pledge and can't drink, nor give liquors 
 away, nor sell it to anybody.' 'How dare you ! you 
 voting villain !' he cried out; and I was afraid he'd 
 knock me down, he looked so strange and wild like. 
 Then lie got red, and pale, and I thought once he 
 was going to strangle, lie breathed so hard, and thru, 
 
 as a customer came in, he said: 'Off home with 
 .... 
 
 I didn't >ee anything of my husband until late 
 that ni^ht,' e<>ntinued the saloon-keeper's wife. 'He
 
 248 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 was alone in the bar and had to stay till business 
 was over. I was sitting up for him, but John was 
 in bed. He didn't say a word ; but I noticed that 
 he hadn't been drinking, and that gave me a little 
 heart. In the morning he met John at the break- 
 fast-table. I had been dreading this meeting. He 
 didn't speak to him, but two or three times, as he sat 
 eating in a silent, moody sort of way, I saw him 
 steal a curious look at the boy's face. He hadn't 
 half-finished his breakfast, it seemed to me, when he 
 pushed his chair away, and says he : " John, I want 
 you !" and went out of the dining-room into the 
 passage. John got almost white, but went out and 
 shut the door after him. I felt dreadfully, for I 
 didn't know what was going to happen. In about a 
 minute John came back alone. The color was all 
 over his face now, and there was a great light in his 
 eyes. " Father says it's best now that it's done, and 
 that he'll expect me to keep it." I was such a 
 happy woman, and cried for joy. 
 
 " 'And that isn't all, ma'am,' she went on. ' Some- 
 how my husband can't get over it ; and he's spoken 
 so kind to John ever since, and only last night he 
 ^:ii<l : " Jane, I wish I could see my way clear out of 
 this business. I don't like it at all." Oh, if he 
 only could get out of it !' 
 
 " * Let us pray that the Lord will make all plain 
 before him,' said the lady visitor. And then she 
 knelt down with the woman and her two young 
 daughters, and prayed for the husband and father
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 249 
 
 with such earnestness of supplication that it seemed 
 to them that God must and would hear and answer 
 her prayers. And even while she prayed, led home 
 hy a Providence that was in this work, and governing 
 , the man stood at the very door of the room 
 in which the petition went up, and heard every one of 
 its carefully-chosen and reverently-uttered sentences. 
 Did he enter the room all broken down? No; he 
 went quietly away, giving no sign, but with an 
 arrow of conviction in his heart. God had found a 
 
 >f entrance, and was uncovering old memories 
 and quickening old states, and calling to him from 
 away down among the innocent things of his child- 
 hood. And he was hearkening, and repenting, and 
 
 ing a truer and better life than the one he had 
 been leading. It was not long before the change 
 came ; fur the good will is never long in finding the 
 
 way. In the work of destroying the souls and 
 bodies of men there was one less ; and in the work 
 of service and restoration one more. Nay, might I 
 
 iy many more for the duplication and increase 
 
 very man's good or evil work is often very 
 
 "And is there much of this kind of work going 
 on?' I asked. 
 
 ' Yes," he replied, "and it is being gradually 
 shaped into a system. Mistakes are being corrected; 
 and the blind enthusiasm of too impetuous and 
 strong-willed leaders repressed. The quiet intrusion 
 that takes the enemy oil' guard is surer <>f victory
 
 250 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 than the open attack for which the blast of a trum- 
 pet lias given warning to be ready. A besieged city 
 that is proof against assault, may be reduced to capit- 
 ulation through the cutting off of supplies. All this 
 is being seen and understood. If neither by direct 
 effort with a saloon-keeper, nor indirectly through 
 his family, he can be induced to give up his hurtful 
 business, then a thorough work of temperance re- 
 form will be inaugurated in his neighborhood, and 
 the profits of his business be reduced, and if possi- 
 ble destroyed, through the loss of custom." 
 
 " Temperance men and temperance organizations 
 have been trying to do this very thing for over fifty 
 years," I replied, " and the sale of liquor has in- 
 creased instead of diminishing. So long as you have 
 the saloons you will have the customers. My faith 
 in this thorough work of temperance reform of which 
 you speak, is not, I am free to say, very great. I 
 well remember the rise and progress of that first 
 great tidal wave of reform, known as Washington- 
 ianism, which went sweeping over the land. Hun- 
 dreds of thousands took the pledge in a brief period, 
 and we looked for a great percentage of diminution 
 in the traffic, if not its destruction altogether. But 
 taverns and bar-rooms went on flourishing as of old. 
 As that great wave began to subside, another, and a 
 feebler wave, that of Jeffersonianism, succeeded, and 
 broke upon the rock- bound shores of license, and 
 usage, and appetite, with scarcely a manifest im- 
 pression. Then the work of a more general organi-
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 251 
 
 zation be^an, and the order of the Sons of Temper- 
 ance was established, and set itself to the task of 
 resistance. The promise was very great. It looked 
 as if we were going to have, in every town and 
 neighborhood, and in every city ward, a working 
 force of temperance men, whose leading end and 
 eilnrt would be the extirpation of intemperance from 
 their midst. But it was not so. Good work was 
 done in many places ; and thousands were protected 
 and saved through pledges and associations, but the 
 lodge meetings fostered a love of social ease and en- 
 joyment, and steadily diminished the aggressive 
 force of the organization. Then the Good Templars 
 came to the front, and associated women in the work 
 ami administration of the order. But the same gen- 
 eral causes which had wrought their enervating effects 
 on the Sons of Temperance, were in operation with 
 the Templars and kindred organizations as well. 
 Love of office and of power and influence crept in, 
 a-; the -y usually do where there are titles and honors 
 and distinctions, and were of more account with 
 many than the high purpose of the order itself. 
 And so the work of temperance languished, and the 
 enemy went on increasing in strength and confidence. 
 What better promise now? What is to make this 
 movement any more permanent than those which 
 have gone before it? Human nature is the same. 
 Kntlitisiasm will die of exhaustion, and the weari- 
 ness in well-doing, which is sure to come, sooner or 
 later, make idle the hands that are now so bn-y.
 
 252 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 This reform work is so slow. We scarcely perceive 
 its progress, and are often in doubt whether the 
 movement be retrograde or onward. I must own to 
 having more faith in legal than in moral suasion ; in 
 Maine Laws than in pledges." 
 
 " You forgot the new element," said Granger. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Prayer." 
 
 " Yes, I had forgotten." 
 
 " This is a religious as well as a temperance move- 
 ment." 
 
 "True." 
 
 "And the effort is not merely to save men and 
 women from the sin of drunkenness, but from all 
 other sins. It is on a higher plane, and nearer the 
 true sources of power. There is less of self in it, 
 and more of God." 
 
 Granger spoke with great seriousness ; and I saw 
 that he had strong faith in the results of this new 
 effort to organize a force that should have larger 
 success than any which had hitherto set itself to do 
 battle with intemperance.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 TI I E work of " Gospel Temperance," as some 
 began to call this latest effort to weaken and 
 destroy the monster evil which had so long cursed 
 the land, had a steady growth. Pious women in all 
 the churches began to take part hi it, and to 
 strengthen its effective agencies. Prayer was inces- 
 sant, and trusted in with implicit confidence. There 
 was a literal acceptance of the promise, "That if 
 two of you shall agree upon earth as touching any- 
 thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them 
 of my Father which is in Heaven." They believed 
 in the faith that removes mountains; and in the 
 of Him who said, "Ask and ye shall receive; 
 and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened 
 unto you." And when they met in His name, they 
 had an assurance that He was in the midst of them. 
 They were consecrating themselves to the work of 
 saving souls that were well-nigh lost Souls so far 
 out of the reach of common Gospel influences, that 
 even the churches had practically ceased to rcgsird 
 them as within the pale of salvation, and knew that 
 God's power to save could be given them in the 
 largest measure ; for were not these souls, so fearfully 
 imperilled, as precious to Him as the souls of any 
 in His whole universe ? 
 253
 
 254 STEOXG DRINK; 
 
 Never had the poor, degraded, suffering drunkard 
 met, since his sad debasement, with such influences 
 as came to him now. " My brother " fell on his ears 
 in a voice so tender and compassionate, that feelings, 
 which had lain dormant for years, stirred in his 
 heart once more. A hand was laid on him so gently 
 and kindly, that it seemed like the hand of a sister, 
 or a wife, or a mother, felt in the long ago. And 
 when prayer was offered for him, and he felt him- 
 self borne up to the throne of grace on the sweet, 
 and tender, and pleading voices of gentle women, 
 he Jbrpke all down, and under the suddenly-kindled 
 hope of being rescued from his sin and misery, he 
 lifted his poor, broken spirit to God and prayed for 
 help, and mercy, and forgiveness. 
 
 Differ as we may about the philosophy of prayer, 
 and the true sources of its power, of one thing we may 
 be sure, that the ear of God is open to the cry of every 
 sin-sick soul, if it is made in sincerity and in truth. 
 As to the answer, that will depend on the measure of 
 the willingness to receive. The love and the boun- 
 tifulness are infinite The cry of the lips will bring 
 nothing; the cry of the heart everything it is capable 
 of receiving ; and its capacity will always be equal to 
 the displacement of evil in the life, because such evil 
 is contrary to God's will and Word, and obstructs 
 His influent love. The growth in grace, from the 
 first moment the soul turns to God in prayer, and 
 makes its first sincere effort to lead a new spiritual 
 life, will be in an exact ratio to its resistance and
 
 THE CURSE AND T1IE CURE. 255 
 
 conquest of evil on the plane of its natural life in 
 the world and among men. 
 
 I': aver, in the hands of these women, wrought 
 marvels. Men who had been drunkards for years, 
 stopped suddenly, professed faith in Christ, joined 
 the church, and became once more good and useful 
 eiti/.ens. So quietly was all this done, in the second 
 stage of this Gospel temperance work, that the 
 general public heard little about it, and knew less. 
 But the seed was being sown broadcast, and in due 
 time the promise of an ampler harvest than had yet 
 been seen was apparent on every side. Many men 
 who had become reformed through the ministry of 
 prayer, threw themselves into the work of rescuing 
 the fallen; going from town to town, and by their 
 eloquent appeals, stirring the hearts of the people, 
 and arousing them to a sense of their duty and their 
 danger. 
 
 And now, one after another, the slumbering 
 churches began to awake and to recognize the hand 
 of God in this work, and to give it countenance and 
 approval, if not the practical support it yet so largely 
 needed. But the work itself went on chiefly outside 
 of the churches, though in the hands of the most 
 active and earnest Christian men and women con- 
 nected with the churches ; for it was nearer to hu- 
 manity than to sectarian conservatism, and drew to its 
 aid those who had in them the larger measure of that 
 Christianity which stoops, as Christ stoops, to the 
 lowest and the vilest, if in so doing he may save them.
 
 256 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 " I do not understand this strange indifference of 
 the churches," said I, to Granger, one day. " In 
 temperance work, they are doing little or nothing ; 
 and they might be doing so much." 
 
 "There are signs of better things," he replied. 
 " Let us be patient for awhile. The time is not far 
 off, I trust, when every society that calls itself a 
 church, will have its special praying and working 
 band of women, and an open door for the lowest 
 and the vilest to come in ; when the heathen who 
 are perishing in the very shadow of its porches will 
 take precedence of the heathen afar off. We have 
 cheering intelligence from all sides. Almost every 
 day we hear of new workers coming into the field, 
 and of successes everywhere. In some places, from 
 one- third to two-thirds of the whole population have 
 signed the pledge, to the joy of good citizens and 
 the consternation of liquor-dealers." 
 
 " If we could have anything like that in our poor, 
 rum-cursed city !" I replied. " But hope is vain. In 
 smaller communities, where each is known to all, 
 and a chain of interest and personal influence holds 
 the people in nearer contact, a common sentiment or 
 impulse may bear them in a single direction. But 
 it is not so here. Set any force you please in motion, 
 and its impression can only be partial." 
 
 " We hope for a widely different result," Granger 
 made answer. "Next week a man whose power 
 with the people is almost a marvel and a mystery, 
 will come from the West to our city ; and then an
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE C77?/:. 0-7 
 
 effort will bo made, through daily and nightly relig- 
 ious meetings, to get up such a temperance revival 
 as has never been seen or heard of in the land." 
 
 I smiled at his ardor. He had become almost an 
 enthusiast on the subject of temperance. 
 
 " We shall see," was my doubting response. 
 
 And we did see. The man came this new apostle 
 of temperance. He was not learned, but had largely 
 the gitl of persuasion ; was not so eloquent as ready 
 of sjKMJch; not so logical as impassioned; moved his 
 audience's not so much by the clearness of a well- 
 1 argument, as by the force of fact and in- 
 cident. He was easy of manner, and at home with 
 the people; recognizing in the lowliest and most 
 lied a brother, and telling the poor drunkard, 
 whose hand he held so tightly, that he knew all 
 about the pit in which his feet were mired, and all 
 about the way of deliverance. "As God saved me, my 
 brother, He will save you," was ever spoken with 
 that sympathy and assurance which gives speech 
 a |> issage to the heart. From the very commence- 
 ment of his work, Frahcis Murphy exercised an 
 influence that to some appeared half-miraculous. 
 The halls in which his meefings in our city were 
 held, were crowded night after night to overflowing, 
 hundreds being unable to gain access. In the 
 conduct of these meetings, there were no particu- 
 larly remarkable features. They were opened with 
 the reading of Scripture and prayer, followed by 
 singing. T!i. n there would be addresses from 
 17
 
 258 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 clergymen and others, including Mr. Murphy ; and 
 speeches and experiences from reformed men the 
 whole interspersed with the singing of temperance 
 and revival hymns. During the progress of the 
 meetings, and at their close, invitations to come and 
 sign the pledge were given and responded to, very 
 many coming forward each night and taking the 
 pledge of total abstinence; the number soon in- 
 creasing from hundreds to thousands. Men would 
 enter the hall so badly intoxicated that they could 
 scarcely walk straight, and before leaving sign their 
 names to a pledge, and in many cases keep it. It 
 was not with poor, degraded wretches alone the 
 outcast and the abandoned that these meetings 
 had power. Men of standing and education, wlio 
 were beginning to feel the strength of an appetite 
 that too surely betrays to ruin ; lawyers, mer- 
 chants, physicians ; the representatives of all con- 
 ditions and classes alike felt the warning or the 
 persuasion that came to them, and alike took 
 heed. 
 
 " Will it last ?" was my question after the weeks 
 had begun gathering into months. 
 
 " Does not my good friend live too close to 
 Doubting Castle?" returned Granger, to whom I 
 had addressed the inquiry. He was already deeply 
 absorbed in the exciting movement. 
 
 " Perhaps. But we hear of things being too good 
 to last, you know." 
 
 " Things may be too bad to last ; but never too
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 259 
 
 good. It is only the good that is really substan- 
 tial," he returned, smiling. 
 
 " The good will last, of course. But how much 
 is really genuine in all this, and how much facti- 
 tious ? Of the scores who nightly sign the pledge, 
 and are pointed to God as the One who alone can 
 give them strength to keep it, how many do you 
 think will stand?" 
 
 " God only knows," he replied, a little soberly, 
 and with, I thought, a slight disturbance in his 
 manner. 
 
 "A suddenly inspired good resolution ; a cry to 
 God for help; the impression of an inner change 
 which may be nothing more than a feeling; the 
 signing of a pledge all the work of a minute, it 
 may be; are these to be relied upon with any well- 
 grounded assurance ?" I said. " The man is here to- 
 night in the sphere of an excitement that moves him 
 deeply. He sees, as he has not seen for a long time, 
 his sin and wretchedness ; the pain and loss to him- 
 self, and the wrongs and. sufferings of those who 
 love him or are dependent on him. And lie 
 too, a way of escape, and hands reached out with a 
 promise of help. He signs the pledge, and tries to 
 look up and pray. Hopeful words are spoken in 
 his ears. He is pointed, in a few words, to Christ 
 as his Saviour. And then he goes out alone, hungry, 
 it may be, and honu -Ic.-s, to sleep in the street or 
 station-house. AVhat hope for him, with hi.s ex- 
 hausted nerves and gnawing thirst? He wants more
 
 2GO STRONG DRINK; 
 
 than pledge or prayer ; he wants good food, shelter 
 and protection ; and, until he can stand alone, a 
 hand to hold him up ; and if these are not given, it 
 were about as well to let him alone." 
 
 As I spoke, I saw the shadows that were falling 
 over Granger's face grow deeper. 
 
 " We have not forgotten this," he replied. " We 
 have a relief committee, and are doing what we can. 
 Every Sunday morning, a breakfast is provided. 
 Clothing, as far as we are able to procure it, is dis- 
 tributed, employment obtained, and all the protec- 
 tion in our power to throw about the men who are 
 trying to reform. But the work is taking on dimen- 
 sions so far beyond what we had anticipated, that 
 we find ourselves without sufficient means for its 
 thorough prosecution. We give our time, our efforts 
 and our money; but we who are active in this move- 
 ment are few compared with the thousands who 
 stand looking on, wondering, approving, doubting or 
 criticising. 'What is a Sunday-morning breakfast?' 
 said a gentleman only to-day. * Can a man live on 
 a single meal a week?' But when I asked him to 
 give us money, that we might minister more largely, 
 his answer was that he knew where better to dis- 
 pense his charity. Perhaps he did, and I shall not 
 judge him. ' It isn't so much praying, as food and 
 clothing and employment that are needed,' said an- 
 other. ' If there were less talking and canting, and 
 more good, solid doing for these poor wretches, the 
 chances in their favor would be increased ten to one.'
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 261 
 
 And yet I could not so interest him in their behalf 
 as to get from him either personal or material aid." 
 
 There was an undertone of trouble in Granger's 
 voice, which fell to a heavy sigh in the closing words 
 of hi* hist sentence. 
 
 ' Prom four to five hundred destitute men seeking 
 aid," he resumed, " and our resources utterly inade- 
 quate to the demands that are made upon us hun- 
 gry, luilf-clothed, and in too many cases, homeless 
 men. We may arrest their feet by Gospel means; 
 but if we would turn their steps into the ways of 
 sobriety and hold them there, we must meet and care 
 for them on a lower plane. If we would lift them 
 into spiritual safety, we must .get the foundations of 
 natural life secure. An empty stomach, and soiled 
 and ragged and scanty clothing, with idleness super- 
 added, are not, I agree with you, favorable to the 
 growth of true piety. The struggle with this dread- 
 i'ul appetite is hard enough under the most favorable 
 conditions; and, therefore, our work must be re- 
 garded as only initiated when, by force of these new 
 spiritual influences, we have been able to draw the 
 unhappy victims of intemperance over from the 
 enemy's ground." 
 
 As we talked a man entered I was sitting in Mr. 
 Granger's office and came forward in a hesitating, 
 half-embarrassed manner. His clothing was poor 
 and soiled, Ills person unsightly, and his face that of 
 an exhausted inebriate. He stopped when a few 
 sj from us, and said : " You do not know me."
 
 2G2 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 We both recognized him by his voice. He had 
 been a conveyancer, and a man with some property; 
 but intemperate habits had done for him what they 
 too surely accomplish for nearly all who indulge 
 them. 
 
 " Yes, I know you, Hartley," Granger answered, 
 quickly, rising as he spoke, and grasping the man's 
 hand. He held it for some moments, looking in- 
 tently into his face. " Didn't I see you at the meet- 
 ing in Broad Street, last night ?" he asked, while 
 still holding his hand. 
 
 " Yes, I was there." 
 
 "And you signed the pledge ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. After I heard you speak, I said, if 
 God can save Granger, He can save me, and I'm 
 going to try this new way." 
 
 " God can and will save you, my friend," was 
 Granger's warm response. "Sit down and let us 
 talk about it." 
 
 He drew Hartley into a chair, and sat down in 
 front of him. 
 
 " Now, tell me all about yourself." There was a 
 genuine interest in his voice; and its effect upon 
 this poor wreck of a man, was to send a glow to his 
 face, and cause his dull eyes to kindle. " How is it 
 with you ; and what the chances are for getting on 
 your feet again. Tell me all about it. You signed 
 the pledge last night ?" 
 
 " Yes, I signed at the meeting in Broad Street. 
 And you were standing just in front of me, and
 
 THE CURSE ASD THE CURE. 2G3 
 
 looking at mo; and I hoard you say, 'Trust in God, 
 my brother. Look to Him, and pray to Him, and 
 will give you strength to keep this pledge.' You 
 .siid it to me ; but I saw that you didn't know me. 
 I wanted to speak to you, and to tell you who I was; 
 and I was pressing forward when some one drew you 
 away, and then I couldn't get near you again. I 
 waited at the door until you came out; but you were 
 till king with a gentleman, and while I hesitated about 
 interrupting you, you passed down the street, and I 
 was left standing alone." 
 
 " Where did you go after that?" asked Granger. 
 
 " I had nowhere to go. In this whole city, there 
 was no place that I could call my home no house 
 in which I could claim the right to lay my head. 
 My wife died three years ago ; and my only child is 
 with my mother, who lives in a neighboring town. 
 
 I am alone and friendless." 
 
 "No; not friendless," said Granger, his voice 
 Btruggling with his feelings. "There is One who 
 stu'ki'th closer than a brother. He is your friend." 
 
 The poor man looked down at his wretched gar- 
 ments in a way that it was not hard to understand. 
 
 II face did not brighten perceptibly under this last 
 assurance. 
 
 " Where did you sleep last night?" I inquired. 
 
 " I would have gone to one of the police-stations, 
 but was afraid of being sent to the House of Correc- 
 tion. You see I had taken the pledge, and in a new 
 way, and I was going to try to keep it, if God would
 
 264 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 indeed help me, as it kept coming to me that He 
 would. So I walked out to Fairmount, and as the 
 night was dark, I found it easy to hide awaj in a 
 place where the police wouldn't find me, and there 
 I slept till morning. I got some breakfast, and have 
 been trying ever since to find something to do. But 
 it's no use. I'm not a fit object to be in anybody's 
 place of business." 
 
 And again he cast down a dreary look at his un- 
 sightly clothing. 
 
 " Of course you are not," said Mr. Granger. " I'm 
 sorry you didn't speak to me last night. And now, 
 if you are in real earnest, Mr. Hartley, we'll see if 
 something can't be done for you." 
 
 " God knows that I'm in earnest, sir," he said, 
 with a sudden trembling eagerness. " I lay awake 
 so long last night, thinking over my whole life, 
 and many times asking God to help me to live 
 a better one in future. But I'm down so low 
 that it s"eems as if there was no way for me to get 
 up all by myself. I'm like a man in the. sea 
 who will drown unless somebody throws him a 
 rope." 
 
 " You shall have the- rope." Granger spoke in 
 no uncertain voice. 
 
 It was plain from Hartley's exhausted and nervous 
 state, that he was in no condition to enter at once 
 upon any employment. He wanted rest, quiet and 
 protection ; with healthy mental surroundings, and 
 a sufficient quantity of nutritious food. \Ve knew
 
 THE CURSE AyD THE Cl 2G5 
 
 of but one place in the city where these could be 
 secured; and there we took him. 
 
 Two weeks in the Franklin Home, and you would 
 known the man. Even before the lapse of 
 that time he had found employment in the office of 
 a conveyancer wlio had been with him as a boy, and 
 who now felt a deep interest in the welfare of his 
 old preceptor. 
 
 " I have had one of the sweetest passages of my 
 life," said Granger, whom I met a few weeks after- 
 wards. " I was in Chester day before yesterday, 
 win- re I went to make an address at one of the meet- 
 ings now being held in that town. In the audience, 
 and sitting close to the platform, I noticed an old 
 lady, and a young girl about sixteen years of age, 
 both plainly dressed, but with something in their 
 that caused my eyes to turn towards them fre- 
 (ju< ntly. There was a look of subdued and patient 
 trouble in the face of the elder; and a grave quiet 
 in that of the younger. While I spoke their eyes 
 did not seem to be off of me for a moment. During 
 my address I mentioned Hartley's case, referring to 
 him with some particularity. As I progressed, I 
 noticed that the old lady began to lean forward with 
 an air of deep interest, if not eager expectancy ; and 
 I fancied that the girl by her side was turning pale. 
 All at once it Hashed on me that these might be the 
 mother and daughter of the man whose rescue I was 
 riliin^, and the impression was so strong that I 
 held back the name of Hartley as it was coming to
 
 266 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 my lips, and closed my relation of the case with the 
 words : ' Another soul saved through the power of 
 that Divine strength which is freely given to all who 
 will receive it.' 
 
 "At the close of the meeting I saw that the two 
 women were lingering in their seats while the audi- 
 ence slowly retired; and that their eyes were turned 
 towards the platform where I remained talking with 
 some members of the committee which had the 
 meetings in charge. They were almost alone when 
 I came down and commenced moving along the aisle. 
 ' May I speak a word with you ?' said the elder of 
 the two ladies, laying her hand at the same time on 
 my arm. I saw a quiver in her face. * What is the 
 name ?' I asked. ' Mrs. Hartley,' she replied, softly, 
 and as if half afraid to utter her own name. Then 
 I knew it all, and my heart gave a sudden bound of 
 gladness. Dear old mother. I felt like putting 
 my arm about her and crying out : ' This thy son 
 that was dead is alive again !' But I kept a guard 
 on my lips, not knowing how the good news, if bro- 
 ken too suddenly, might affect her ; and taking her 
 hand, said : ' I am glad to meet you, Mrs. Hartley.' 
 ' I would like to ask you a question, sir,' she said, 
 beginning now to show considerable agitation. ' First,' 
 I replied, ' let me ask you one. Have you a son 
 named Lloyd Hartley ?' 
 
 " Her startled face became white as ashes ; and 
 she caught hold of me with a tight grasp of the 
 hand. ' Thank God for his deliverance,' I said, softly.
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE C / 2G7 
 
 1 1 1 ; slender form sunk down upon tlie seat by which 
 she was standing, and her head drooped over her 
 breast. She was very still, and I knew that her 
 heart was lifting itself in thankfulness to God. ' In 
 the strength of Him who conquered death and hell, 
 your son shall stand now as a rock/ said I, bending 
 to her ear. ' He is trusting no more in his own 
 weakness, but in the power of the Infinite and the 
 Almighty. I know what that dependence means ; 
 and because of this knowledge I have hope for your 
 son.' ' Blessed be the name of the Lord !' came in 
 a low, tender out-breathing of gladness from her 
 lips. Her head was still bowed and her face hidden. 
 Then, as she reached up one of her hands, she whis- 
 pered : ' Darling, where are you ?' and in a moment 
 after her arm was about the neck of her grand- 
 daughter; and the two clung together, weeping 
 silently. And all was so quiet and unobtrusive, that 
 the people passed out scarcely noticing anything un- 
 usual until we were left almost alone. 
 
 " ' I have been praying for him night and day 
 ever since the temperance revival began/ said tho 
 happy mother, as I sat with her that evening in her 
 home, replying to her questions, and giving her all 
 the assurances in my power. 'And ( Jod has an- 
 swered my prayers. And when He eaves, it is no 
 half work, but a true salvation. I have no hope in 
 anything else. My son has taken pledge after 
 pledge; has made and tried to keep good resolu- 
 tions over and over again ; but only to fall, and
 
 268 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 each time to a lower and a lower depth. If lie had 
 put his trust in God, if he had prayed for grace and 
 strength, and entered, as you tell me he is now 
 doing, upon a Christian life, it would have heen 
 far different. It is the Christian life that saves; 
 and it saves from drunkenness as well as from 
 every other sin ; for all sin must be removed be- 
 fore there can be a dwelling-place for Christ in the 
 soul.' 
 
 " I have felt happier and stronger ever since," 
 Granger continued. " It was really touching to see 
 this mother's confidence. She had been praying 
 and weeping before God night and day for weeks 
 pleading for this son that he might be turned from 
 the evil of his ways. She did not even know where 
 he was ; but she knew that her Lord and Master 
 knew. And now, when, as she believed, her 
 prayers had been answered in his conversion, she 
 rejoiced and was confident. The Everlasting Arms 
 were about him, and he would dwell secure." 
 
 " Happy faith !" I made answer. " May its 
 foundations never be removed." 
 
 "I think they never will," Granger said. "If 
 her prayers did not avail just in the order of her 
 belief, they still availed, and her son has been 
 brought within the fold ; and there is, in the spirit 
 he manifests, something that gives me confidence in 
 his stability." 
 
 " Have you told Hartley about this meeting with 
 his mother and daughter ?" I asked.
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 2G9 
 
 " Oh, yes. And they have been up to the city to 
 see him." 
 
 "A happy re-union." 
 
 " You would have said so if you had seen them 
 together. Dear old lady ! The love, and tender- 
 ness, and joy-subdued that were in her face as she 
 .sit and looked at her son, to whom much of the old 
 true manliness of expression and" bearing has al- 
 ready commenced coming back, was beautiful and 
 touching to witness. It will not be a long time, I 
 think, before there will be one home for them all, 
 and that a happy one." 
 
 And it was not long.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 OTKEKING cases of reformation, like the one 
 Kp related, yet -varying as to the incidents, were of 
 daily occurrence. Men who had been for years 
 regarded as hopeless drunkards, made a new effort 
 to struggle out of the swift waters that were bearing 
 them to ruin, and caught eagerly at the new means 
 of rescue that were offered. Families long sepa- 
 rated were united again ; and men who had been 
 dead weights and burdens upon society, became 
 once more good .and useful citizens. 
 
 "A glorious work !" was heard on all sides. But 
 the men who were in the midst of it who came 
 into direct contact with the scores and hundreds of 
 wretched creatures who had sounded the lowest 
 depths of misery and degradation, who were home- 
 less, friendless, penniless, and mentally, morally and 
 physically so enervated as to be scarcely capable of 
 an effort in the direction of self-recovery, found 
 themselves confronted with a task of almost appall- 
 ing magnitude. What was to be done with and for 
 these men, whose idle hands were held out in 
 piteous appeal for work, and whose hungry faces 
 and dirty and tattered garments .pleaded mutely for 
 relief? Nightly the great meeting hall was 
 270
 
 T11K CURSE AND THE CURE. 271 
 
 crowded to overflowing, and nightly the increase 
 went on. 
 
 " It is one tiling," I said to Mr. Granger, as I 
 walked home with him from one of these meetings, 
 "to reap this groat harvest, but quite another thing 
 to garner and preserve the grain. I sadly fear that 
 much of it will never be gathered out of the field. 
 The work is too much en masse, and too little in 
 detail. The. numbers who sign the pledge every 
 ni<;ht cannot be regarded as a measure of the good 
 that is being done." 
 
 " You must bear in mind," he replied, " that all 
 who sigh at these meetings are not the utterly desti- 
 tute and homeless ; nor of those who have lost the 
 power to control their appetites. The larger pro- 
 portion are men engaged in work or business, to 
 whom so strong a conviction of danger has come 
 that they take the pledge for protection and safety, 
 of these will find elements of strength and 
 encouragement in their homes and among friends." 
 
 "True; but if it be as was said to-night, that 
 there are from four to five hundred of the destitute 
 and friendless class who have signed the pledge, 
 and who must have something more to rest upon 
 than the singing, and talking, and exhortations to 
 stand fast, which they get at these nightly meet- 
 ings, is it not plain that the loss between the reap- 
 ing and the garnering is going to be very great?" 
 
 " You cannot feel the burden of that thought 
 more heavily than we who are in the heart of this
 
 272 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 work. But its growth has been more rapid than 
 we had anticipated, and its proportions have already 
 assumed a magnitude for which we were not pre- 
 pared. The people are looking on and wondering. 
 Crowds flock nightly to witness the progress of the 
 movement; but how few come up to our help. 
 "What would it be for a score of our rich citizens to 
 establish for our use a depot of clothing from which 
 we might draw at will, and so be able to take off 
 the rags of such men as we found to be in earnest 
 about reform, and send them . forth in sightly gar- 
 ments, that they might be in a condition to apply 
 for and get employment ? Or what for the churches 
 in our city over four hundred in number to do 
 the same thing ?" 
 
 " Is nothing really being done to help and save 
 these poor creatures ? When the last hymn is 
 sung, and the benediction said, and the lights put 
 out, does all care for them cease ? Is there nothing 
 more until to-morrow night and then only this 
 general work, which merely brings the individual to 
 the front for a little season, and then lets him drill 
 out of sight, his special needs unrecognized and un- 
 provided for?" 
 
 " If you will come to my office at three o'clock 
 to-morrow, I will try to give an answer to your ques- 
 tion," Granger replied. " I must now take the next 
 car that passes and get home as quickly as I can, as 
 it is growing late." 
 
 I called at his office at the hour mentioned.
 
 THE CURSE AXD TIIE CUIii:. 273 
 
 " There is other Christian temperance work going 
 on in our city besides that remarkable exhibition of 
 it whic-h is known as the Murphy movement," he 
 said. " Work about which the public knows little, 
 but which, in its influence on that particular class 
 about which we were speaking yesterday, is accom- 
 plishing a vast amount of good. I am going to 
 answer your question of last evening by showing 
 jou a phase of this work unobtrusive, yet very 
 fllirtive and when you see it, you will know that, 
 while the hands of the reapers are strong and the 
 harvest great, they who gather and garner are not 
 idle." 
 
 I walked with Granger for a number of blocks, 
 talking by the way. As we left his office he re- 
 marked : " You might have known that in a work 
 like this the hands of the women would not be idle ; 
 nor the spirit that moved the late 'Crusaders' dead. 
 There has only been a change of front, with a more 
 guarded movement upon the enemy, and less expen- 
 diture of war material. You do not find them 
 so much in the noisy front of battle, as where the 
 wounded are left on the field or gathered in tent and 
 hospital." 
 
 " Do you mean," I asked, " that there is another 
 movement, parallel to this one which is attracting so 
 much attention, now going on in our city?" 
 
 " Yes; wholly independent, yet in complete har- 
 mony therewith. Two sets of reapers are in the 
 same field ; but with one there are better facilities 
 18
 
 274 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 for gleaning and garnering than with the other. 
 Women draw more closely to the individual than 
 men ; have more pity, and sympathy, and faith in 
 humanity ; more practical trust in God, and a more 
 absolute belief in the power and efficacy of prayer. 
 There is a marked contrast between their meetings 
 and the vast assemblages you have attended. The 
 sphere is quieter, and the services held closer to the 
 order of religious worship. There are fewer spec- 
 tators, and, I think, a more complete singleness of 
 purpose with those who are giving themselves to the 
 work. What we, as men, are doing, is extra to our 
 common life-work. The largest part of our time 
 and thought is devoted to business or professional 
 duties ; and we can give only our odds and ends of 
 leisure to extra public service and the duties of chari- 
 ty. It is different with many of the women who 
 are taking the lead in this Gospel temperance work. 
 Heart and mind are absorbed in it. It is almost as 
 much their daily thought and care as business is to 
 the merchant, or the interests of his clients to the 
 lawyer. We can, by single strong efforts, move the 
 masses in this or that direction ; can influence and 
 direct public sentiment, and even set great tidal 
 waves of reform in motion ; but for the gathering of 
 results, we have little time, and, it may be, little in- 
 clination ; and results are too often left to take care 
 of themselves." 
 
 We talked until we came in front of a small 
 church in a thickly populated part of the town, when
 
 TUB CURSE AND THE CURE. 275 
 
 Granger paused with the words, " In here," and we 
 passed through a small vestibule to a room capable 
 of holding from two to three hundred persons. 
 Nearly every seat was occupied. We were conducted 
 to chairs set in the space fronting the reading-desk, 
 and on being seated I had an opportunity to look at 
 the audience, which was composed of men and wo- 
 men ; the men largely outnumbering the women. It 
 took but a glance to tell who and from whence most 
 of these men were. Lives of sin and suffering ; of 
 degradation and crime ; of abused and wasted man- 
 hood had left their disfiguring tokens on nearly 
 every countenance before me. Half a dozen women 
 occupied the small platform, on which the reading- 
 desk stood. They were singing 
 
 " Jesus, lover of my soul, 
 Let me to Thy bosom fly," 
 
 as we entered, most of the congregation taking part. 
 My eyes ran over the strange assembly, looking 
 from face to face, and trying to read each varied 
 expression. With scarcely an exception, you saw a 
 deep, and, in some cases, a most pathetic earnestness. 
 At the close of the hymn, one of the women arose, 
 and said, in an easy, familiar way, but with a tender, 
 penetrating solemnity in her voice : "And with such 
 a refuge, how safe ! Jesus, lover of my soul. The 
 love of Jesus I Of the all-compassionate and the 
 all-powerful. Think of it ! Come to this Saviour, 
 His arms are open to receive you. Comfort, support,
 
 276 STEONG DRINK; 
 
 defense ; all these shall be yours. Under the shadow 
 of His wing you shall dwell in safety." 
 
 There was a deep hush in the assembly ; a bend- 
 ing forward to hearken, and a profound solemnity 
 on most of the faces. You saw eyes grow wet, and 
 lips move in silent prayer. 
 
 "And now," said the gentle speaker, after a pause, 
 " we want to hear from as many of you as can bear 
 testimony to the saving power of Him who has taken 
 your feet out of the miry clay and set them upon a 
 rock. Speak with brevity that we may have a 
 multitude of witnesses." 
 
 She sat down and a man, whose face had been 
 holding my eyes for some moments, arose from his 
 seat. What could one with such a countenance have 
 to say about the saving power of Christ, I thought. 
 His voice trembled a little as he began : 
 
 " He has taken my feet out of the pit and set 
 them on solid ground ; blessed be His name. I've 
 been a dreadful hard drinker. Until six weeks ago, 
 I don't think I had drawn a sober breath for ten 
 years. My wife left me in despair more than three 
 years ago; and then I didn't care for anything. 
 When I heard about the Murphy meetings and what 
 wonderful things were being done, I thought I'd go 
 and see what it meant. Somehow, with the singing, 
 and the way Mr.' Murphy talked, I got all broken 
 up, and when he told us that if we'd take the pledge 
 and trust in God to help us keep it, we could stand 
 just as well as he had stood, I said, I'll try. And I
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURR 277 
 
 did try, and, blessed be God ! I've been able to keep 
 my pledge. I don't know how it might have been 
 if I hadn't come to these meetings. I've found work, 
 and I'm trying to make another home. It isn't 
 much of a home as yet only a single room but 
 my wife is so happy. And we've got something in 
 that home we never had before. Shall I tell you 
 what it is?" 
 
 He paused for a moment, then in a lower voice 
 said : " Our Saviour." 
 
 As he sat down, the leader of the music touched 
 the organ keys, and a single verse from a well- 
 known hymn was sung : 
 
 " Saviour, like a shepherd lead us. 
 
 Much we need Thy tender care ; 
 In Thy pleasant pastures feed us, 
 For our use Thy folds prepare ; 
 
 Blessed Jesus ! 
 Thou hast bought us, Thine we are." 
 
 As the singing ceased, I heard the voice of a 
 woman in the audience, and turned in the direction 
 from which it came. I saw a jv*orn and sallow luce, 
 and a slender form, plainly but cleanly attired. 
 
 " I want to tell you," said the speaker, " that I've 
 jot in v husband again, after having lost him because 
 of drink for years and years. And this time I'm 
 going to keep him, for God has converted his soul. 
 Oh, bless the Lord! Bless the Lord!" her vuv 
 rising into almost a pa-s innate outburst. 
 
 " Yes, bless the Lord, my sister," responded the 
 lady who had direction of the incrting. "For
 
 278 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 when He finds the lost ones, He can keep their 
 feet from wandering any more." 
 
 Another hymn, and then another short speech. 
 And so for an hour the speaking and the singing 
 went on, the interest not flagging for a moment. 
 Men told of the awful slavery from which they had 
 escaped through the power of God, and of the new 
 strength which had come to them in answer to 
 prayer, with a positiveness that had in it an ele- 
 ment of conviction for the intently listening hearers. 
 Some had been standing safe in the midst of tempta- 
 tion for only a few days, some for weeks, and some 
 for months. Many had already united themselves 
 with one or another religious society, and were 
 receiving that protection and strength which comes 
 from Christian fellowship. 
 
 "A good Christian brother has been holding on 
 to me ever since I took the pledge," said one. 
 " May God reward him ! If he hadn't held so 
 tightly, I don't know what might have happened ; 
 I was so miserable and helpless. But I'm getting 
 stronger and stronger, and now I'm trying to help 
 the weak ones." 
 
 Said another : " Thank God for these good Chris- 
 tian women. One of them found me not long ago 
 in the hands of a policeman. I'd been drinking in 
 a saloon, and got into a quarrel with the bur- 
 keeper, who called an officer. Just as I was dragged 
 out upon the pavement, a woman came by, and she 
 stopped and said to the policeman : ' What's the
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 279 
 
 mat: What's this man been doing?' She 
 
 spoke so gently, and yet with something so like 
 authority in her voice, that he let go of my collar. 
 'Drunk and quarrelsome,' he answered, gruffly. 
 'Oh, I see,' she returned. 'They've made him 
 cra/.y with drink, and then turned him. over to 
 you.' ' Something of that sort,' said the policeman, 
 speaking more respectfully. Then she said, ' Sup- 
 pose you let me have this case. I shouldn't won- 
 der if I could do a great deal better with it than 
 you can.' The officer stood for a little while look- 
 ing puzzled ; and I was puzzled, too, for the liquor 
 was beginning to go out of my head. * What will 
 you do with him ?' he asked. ' Try to make a sober 
 man out of him.' At this he laughed, and said, ' If 
 you can make a sober man out of Jack Brady, all 
 ri^ht. Go ahead and try. It'll be the hardest job 
 you ever took.' But she didn't find it so. .1 don't 
 know how it was, but the very minute I heard her 
 say that, I made up my mind to stop drinking. 
 
 policeman went on, and she stood and talked 
 to me for a good while, and told me about these 
 meetings, and how easy it would be to lead a better 
 life if I would come and try to get help from above. 
 I'd never been talked to like that before. It seenu-d 
 so strange to have anybody care for me, and to seem 
 s<> anxious about me. ' Please God, I'll come,' said 
 I. And I did come. It seemed as if I couldn't wait 
 for the hour next day. And when I entered that 
 
 . there stood the lady, just where she's standing
 
 280 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 now, by the reading-desk. She was speaking, and 
 as her voice fell on my ears like the voice of an old 
 friend, my heart began to beat heavy, and I got all 
 into a tremble. Would she know me ? I saw her 
 eyes go searching about the room as she talked, but 
 if she was looking for me she didn't make me out. 
 I went up as close to the desk as I could get, and 
 sat there while the singing and talking and praying 
 went on. Not for a minute did I take my eyes 
 away from her. All at once as she looked at me 
 hard I saw her face brighten up, and I knew that 
 she had seen me. In a little while she came and 
 sat down by my side and took my hand, and said, 
 just for my ear alone, ' I'm so glad to see you here, 
 Mr. Brady.' You see she hadn't forgotten my 
 name. * I've been looking for you ever since the 
 meeting opened. You're going to sign the pledge, 
 of course ; and, better still, give your heart to Jesus. 
 And then what a happy man you will be.' And I 
 did sign the pledge, and I did give my heart to Jesus. 
 And I'm one of the happiest men in this room to- 
 day." 
 
 As the meeting drew to a close, requests for prayer 
 were sent up in writing, or asked for verbally. A 
 mother asked for prayers for an intemperate son ; a 
 wife for an intemperate husband ; a sister for two 
 brothers who were in great danger of becoming 
 drunkards ; a reformed man that he might find his 
 wife and children, from whom he had not heard for 
 two years ; the wife of a tavern-keeper, that her
 
 THE CURSE AXD TITE'CURK 
 
 husband might be convicted of sin, and led to 
 abandon his dreadful business; for a sick wife with 
 a dnmken husband ; for a daughter whose father 
 was intemperate. 
 
 While these requests were being made, a young 
 woman she did not look over twenty-six or seven 
 years of age arose and said : " My heart is so full, 
 Christian friends, that I can't keep silent. I want 
 to tell what great things prayer can do. I've got a 
 husband and two little children. My husband took 
 to drinking, and it 'most killed me. He was so good 
 and kind before; but now he got cross and ugly, 
 and wouldn't bear a word from me. It was getting 
 worse and worse". He'd stay out late at night and 
 cume home so much in liquor that he didn't know 
 anything. One day I said to his mother, 'If Tom 
 s on in this way, I shall have to leave him and 
 iro home to father.' And then she cried, and said, 
 ' Don't do that, Mary. He'll go all to ruin if you 
 do.' And we both sat and cried for ever so long. 
 Yv'hile we were crying, a neighbor came in ; and she 
 said, ' Why don't you go round to the women's tem- 
 perance meeting and ask them to pray for him?' I 
 didn't see what good that was going to do; but she 
 talked so much about it that I said to myself, 'It 
 can't do any harm, that's sure.' So I put on my 
 things and came round here, and Tom's mother came 
 with me. I wrote on a piece of paper, 'Prayers 
 wanted for a young husband and father who is heini; 
 ruined by drink,' and sent it up. And when, sin-
 
 282 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 gling this out from all the rest, Mrs. W said, 
 
 in her prayer, 'This young husband and father, 
 Lord, who is being ruined by drink, oh, hear the 
 pitiful cry of his wife, and the cry that we are all 
 sending up to Thee now. Let Thy Spirit prevail 
 with him. Quicken in him the desire for a better 
 life ; turn him from the evil of his ways,' it seemed 
 as if the Lord had come down into this room, and 
 as if I had got right hold of Him. After the meet- 
 ing was over we went home, and my husband's, 
 mother waited until he came in to supper. He didn't 
 have much to say ; looked kind of troubled about 
 something, I thought. He usually went out directly 
 after supper ; but this time he sat for, maybe, half an 
 hour, reading a newspaper. Then he took up his 
 hat and went away. 'Don't stay out late, Tom, 
 please,' said I, as pleasantly as I could speak. But 
 he didn't answer me a word. His mother had gone 
 home by this time, and I was alone with my two 
 little children, and they were both asleep. I had a 
 strange feeling, as if so'mething was going to happen. 
 It might be bad or it might be good I couldn't tell. 
 My heart was trembling and starting. I couldn't 
 sew ; I couldn't do anything, but kept going about, 
 up and down-stairs, so restless and troubled that I 
 didn't know what to do with myself. At last I got 
 down on my knees and began to pray for my hus- 
 band. And then it seemed as if the blessed Lord 
 and Saviour had come into my little room ; and I 
 talked to Him as a friend, and pleaded for my hus-
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 283 
 
 band, and bogged Him to save him from the dread- 
 ful appetite that was ruining him soul and body. I 
 felt better after that. But I couldn't settle down to 
 doing anything. Then I got the Bible and read 
 two or three chapters. Tired at last, I laid my face 
 down upon the open book and fell asleep. I had a 
 sweet dream, but a sweeter waking up, for my hus- 
 band's arms were around me, and I heard his voice 
 wiving, '. Mary, dear !' in the old, loving way. * Oh, 
 what is it, Tom?' I cried out, as I started up. And 
 thm he kissed me, and said, 'It's going to be all 
 right again, Mary. I've been down to the Murphy 
 meeting, and signed the pledge, and, God helping 
 me, I'm going to keep it.' And he has kept it so 
 far ; and what's better, he's given his heart to Christ, 
 and we've both joined the church. Oh, I'm so 
 happy I" 
 
 My eyes were full of tears when this happy young 
 wife sat down. 
 
 Then the lady to whom she had referred, made a 
 few impressive comments on the incident just related, 
 adding two or three others as strikingly illustrative 
 of the value of prayer. One of these was quite re- 
 markuhle,and I was not able to trace, except remotely, 
 the relation between cause and effect. She said: 
 "At one of the Central Coffee-Room Thursday 
 evening meetings at which I was present, a gentle- 
 man arose and said, ' I want to ask your prayers for 
 the drunken son of a poor old mother. I don't 
 know who he is not even his name, nor wheic he
 
 284 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 lives. To-night, as I was coming here, I saw an old 
 woman standing on a corner, and she seemed to be 
 in trouble. I stopped and asked what was the mat- 
 ter, and she said, "Oh, dear sir, I'm in great distress. 
 I'm old and poor, and have nothing to depend on 
 but one son, and he's taken to bad habits, and spends 
 nearly everything he earns in drink ; and if I say a 
 word to him, he goes on dreadfully. He hasn't 
 been home all day ; and there's nothing in the house 
 to eat, and I've been going all about trying to find 
 him." And the poor old mother wrung her hands 
 and moaned so piteously that it made my heart ache. 
 I could do nothing for her but give her a little 
 money and tell her to go home and pray for her son. 
 And now I ask the prayers of all here to-night for 
 the son of this aged mother.' The case was very 
 blind. We did not know even the man's name, nor 
 the name of his mother ; how then were we to pre- 
 sent him to God? But it was not for us to put 
 limits to the Divine power of saving. $0 we laid 
 this unknown mother's sorrow, and this unknown 
 man's sin and desolation before the Lord and left 
 the case with Him. Well, on the next Thursday 
 evening the gentleman arose again, and said, 'I have 
 good news from the man whom I asked you to pray 
 for at our last meeting. He has been saved.' What 
 a thrill of joy went through me ! ' On the very 
 evening afterwards I met his old mother again. It 
 seemed almost as if she had dropped down in the 
 street before me ; and she told me this glad story :
 
 T1IE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 285 
 
 " A fter I saw you," she said, " I went home and 
 waited for my son, crying and praying, and in great 
 distress of mind. It was about half-past ten o'clock 
 when I heard him come in he never got home 
 much before twelve and it gave me a start Up- 
 stairs he came; not stumbling nor unsteady, but 
 every step distinct and firm. When he opened the 
 door, I saw something strange in his face. I didn't 
 know what it meant. Such a light in his eyes, and 
 such a soft, gentle look about his mouth. *O 
 John !' I cried out, almost catching my breath. Then 
 he said, * Mother, I've been to one of them great 
 mi -dings, and I've signed the pledge, and if God 
 will only give me the strength to keep it, I'll live 
 sind die a sober man.' -Oh, dear, how my poor old 
 heart did leap for joy. Then I got him round the 
 neck, and I said, 'Let us kneel right down here, 
 John, and pray that God will give you all the 
 strength you want.' And down we knelt ; and such 
 a prayer-meeting as we had together; it lasted till 
 almost morning." 1 
 
 " With such instances of the power of prayer for 
 our encouragement," continued the speaker, "and I 
 could give many more that have come under my 
 own observation quite as remarkable, let us not 
 hesitate in our petitions, but come confidently to 
 God. Among the written requests for prayer which 
 I now hold in my hand, is one that has moved me 
 deeply. Three young wives ask your prayers for 
 their intemperate husbands. Three young wives."
 
 286 STRONG DRINK: 
 
 Her voice falling on the words in low, pitying 
 cadences. "Think of it! Three young wives; 
 happy brides a little while ago, and with the sweet 
 grace and charm of girlhood still about them! 
 What an outlook upon life for these dear young 
 souls. They have met together, and each has told 
 to the others her sorrow and her fear. They have 
 seen their young husbands drifting, and drifting, 
 and drifting away, every effort to hold them back 
 in vain. They will be lost if some influence, greater 
 than it is their power to exercise, is not brought 
 to bear upon them. And now they ask our prayers. 
 Let us offer them in loving faith ; and not for these 
 only, but for all the special cases which have been 
 brought to us this day." 
 
 I had heard at one of the revival meetings, a 
 year or two before, a long list of requests for prayer 
 read off very much in the routine way of an entry 
 clerk reading off the items of an invoice ; and then 
 the prayers were offered up in a kind of wholesale 
 fashion that struck me as almost irreverent and 
 quite useless. 
 
 But the prayer that I now heard affected me very 
 differently. There was in it nothing of routine or 
 
 dead formality. Mrs. W , to whom the duty 
 
 of offering these requests to God had been assigned, 
 felt, it was plain, the troubled heart-beat of those 
 whom she represented in her petitions. Not a sin- 
 gle request, written or verbal, was forgotten. Each, 
 in turn, was offered before the Lord, and with such
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 287 
 
 ig and earnestness and individuality of need 
 and condition, that I was not only surprised at the 
 singular clearness with which she had apprehended 
 i-arh case, but deeply moved by the sphere of her 
 trusting and reverent piety. 
 
 At the close of this prayer and the singing that 
 followed, the pledge was offered to those who had 
 not signed, and all who felt the need of spiritual 
 counsel and comfort were invited to go into the 
 inquiry-room.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 " "[ TOW long has this been going on ?" I asked 
 J L of Mr. Granger as we walked away. 
 
 " For months," he replied. 
 
 "Are the meetings held daily ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And always crowded like this ?" 
 
 "Always." 
 
 "And as full of interest?" 
 
 " The interest never flags. You see how entirely 
 in earnest these women are, and how completely 
 they have thrown themselves into this work, which 
 has still another side." 
 
 "Another side?" 
 
 " Yes. Their faith in prayer is unbounded. Some 
 of them take the Bible promises so literally that they 
 verily believe a mountain could be removed and cast 
 into the sea if prayer and faith were strong enough. 
 * Spiritual forces are higher and more subtle than 
 natural forces, and spiritual laws above and superior 
 to natural laws/ I once heard one of them say, while 
 speaking of the power of prayer, ' and can suspend 
 or set them aside altogether, as in miracles ; and it 
 is because our faith is so weak, and we ask so often 
 amiss, asking selfishly, that marvels are not wrought 
 288
 
 THE CURSE ASD THE C" OgQ 
 
 by prayer which would astonish the world.' She 
 he-Id that if the Christian people of this city would 
 unite in one strong and persistent prayer to God, 
 IK- would set agencies in motion that would close 
 every liquor-saloon in our midst and cause wicked- 
 ness to cease. But there are those among them 
 who keep nearer to the earth, and who have faith in 
 other saving means beside that of prayer. Who 
 believe in feeding the hungry, and clothing the 
 naked, and building up and sustaining the natural 
 decree of life, so that the spiritual degree which has 
 just been vivified with grace from above may have 
 an orderly foundation upon which to rest. The 
 other side of this work to which I have referred, 
 ha- relation to the lower degree of life which rests 
 on the earth, and which must be in some degree of 
 health and order before it is possible for spiritual life 
 t-> have sustenance and growth." 
 
 " Women have a very practical side, and are quick 
 in their perception of wants and means," I remarked. 
 
 " Yes ; and what is more, are quick to act. When 
 (hey see that a thing ought to be done, they go about 
 doing it; and often while we are thinking and de- 
 bating, their will has found the way. You remem- 
 !iow it was at the beginning of the war. Soldiers 
 from the North who were landed from the ferry- 
 boats at the foot of Washington Avenue to await 
 farther transportation, were found hungry and 
 hausted, sitting on curb-stones and door-steps, or 
 lying a-!eep on the pavement, no provision having 
 19
 
 290 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 been made for feeding them on the way. What 
 happened ? While the men stood looking on, and 
 blaming the Government for neglect of provision at 
 this point, the women had their coffee-pots on the 
 fire, and out from the houses all along the line of 
 the street came quickly smoking cups and pitchers, 
 and plates of bread and meat, and baskets of re- 
 freshing fruit. You remember how this thing stirred 
 your heart at the time, and the hearts of all to whom 
 it was told the land over ; and how, from this good 
 beginning, the refreshment-saloons were started, 
 giving such abundance of good cheer to the hun- 
 dreds of thousands of soldiers who afterwards went 
 through our city the new recruits pressing forward 
 to the battle-fields, and the sick, and war- wasted, and 
 wounded returning home to recover their strength or 
 die." 
 
 " Yes, yes. I remember well. And the thought of it 
 after so many years gives my heart a quicker motion." 
 
 " Now, as then, the action of the women is direct 
 and practical. They do not stand looking on sor- 
 rowfully, and with folded hands, waiting for organ- 
 ized agencies. There are no strong appeals to the 
 public for help, and pauses for response. But in- 
 stead, an immediate taking hold of and use of what- 
 ever means lie close at hand. Food and clothing 
 are gathered and distributed, and cases of destitution 
 and homelessness met and ministered to. If not to 
 the full extent of the need, yet always to the extent 
 of ability."
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 201 
 
 " That is well," said I. " Prayers are good, but 
 they never take the place of potatoes. A hungry 
 man is a poor subject for religion ; and a dirty and 
 ragged one scarcely any better." 
 
 " Yes, we all understand this. And it is just here 
 that the great work of reform now going on in our 
 city finds one of its chief impediments," Mr. Gran- 
 ger answered. " What these devoted Christian 
 women are doing is as the first spontaneous efforts 
 which were made by loyal women to feed the hungry 
 soldiers who were passing through our city. There 
 was a great blessing in it, but the blessing was lim- 
 ibr lack of the larger supplies and more perfect 
 organization which came afterwards. So now, much 
 is being done with imperfect means; but, as the 
 work goes on, and its results become more widely 
 known, as interest deepens and sympathy grows 
 broader, I look for that liberal and substantial co- 
 oporation which is so essential to its success." 
 
 " The ardor that now attends this work," said I, 
 " will it not die out? There is a waste of energy in 
 enthusiasm. Of all excitements, none spend them- 
 -* more quickly than religious excitements, be- 
 cause they are so intense. The more permanent 
 forces are quiet and almost unobtrusive. In a few 
 wct-ks the heat of summer will be upon us, and Mr. 
 Murphy will go away. There will be no more 
 crowded halls, no more Sunday morning break;' 
 nor stirring appeals and moving invitations. What, 
 then, is to become of these weak, and tempted, and
 
 202 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 almost friendless ones who have just been lifted from 
 the slough ? It troubles me to think of it. Is the 
 entire cessation of these religious temperance meet- 
 ings for two or three months a well-considered 
 thing ? To retire from the field and leave the enemy 
 in full possession after such a series of victories as 
 you have had, can hardly be considered good gene- 
 ralship." 
 
 "There is going to be no abandonment of the 
 field," Granger replied. 
 
 " I understood differently." 
 
 " Do you suppose, for a single moment, that the 
 women who are in this battle are going -to ground 
 their arms, or leave the field for any cause ? ' How 
 often will you hold your meetings?' I asked of 
 
 Mrs. W ; and she answered quietly, " Three 
 
 hundred and sixty-five days in the year/ 'Xo 
 intermission this summer ?' ' None,' she replied. 
 'How could we leave these hundreds of pre- 
 cious souls, just rescued from the slavery of 
 drunkenness, some of them without homes, or 
 friends, or work, in the very midst of temptation ? 
 If any were lost through our neglect, or ease-seek- 
 ing, would not the stain of their blood be upon our 
 garments? Verily do we believe that God has 
 called us to this work of saving men who, because 
 of their utter degradation through intemperance, 
 have been rejected by society and abandoned by the 
 churches. Helpless, hopeless, lost but for the 
 agencies now raised up in the Divine Providence
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 993 
 
 for their rescue, shall we, to whom has been com- 
 mittal the great responsibility of using and direct- 
 ing these agencies, fold our hands and K rk for rest 
 and recreation, while so many feet are only on the 
 unsteady margin of the pit out of which they have 
 been dragged, and so many hands clinging to our 
 garments, lest, if their hold be loosed, they full 
 again ? No, no. There is too much at stake.' " 
 
 " Brave, true women J" I responded, with ardor. 
 " In all works of Christian charity they are ever in 
 the advance. But will nothing be done by the men 
 whose efforts have been crowned by such wonderful 
 results as we have seen ? Will they wholly aban- 
 don the work until their summer vacation is over ? 
 The enemy will surely be diligent in his work of 
 sowing tares in their field while they rest." 
 
 " Only this great public demonstration will cease," 
 Mr. Granger replied. "But you may be sure of 
 one thing, the enemy is not going to have it all his 
 own way. Faithful guards, and sentinels, and re- 
 serve forces will be left, and he will be held to the 
 lines back upon which he has been driven. When 
 the fall campaign opens, we shall have a more 
 thorough organization, and larger means. So far, 
 it has only been as a skirmish along the lines com- 
 pared to the battles that must be fought. We do 
 not make light of our enemy. He is not to be 
 vanquished by a single fierce onslaught, nor by a 
 single desperate battle. All hell is on his side; 
 and among men he draws his myriads of recruits
 
 294 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 from the young and the old who have inordinate 
 desires and evil passions, and selfish ends to serve 
 and gratify. Prejudice, and interest, and sensual 
 desire are on his side. He is intrenched behind 
 law, usage, fallacy and appetite. His friends and 
 emissaries are to be found everywhere. In the 
 halls of legislation, in courts of justice, in executive 
 and municipal offices, and, sad to say, often even in 
 the pulpit; though, thanks to the growth of a 
 higher Christianity, his representatives are fast 
 disappearing from the sacred desk." 
 
 " No mean enemy with which to engage in bat- 
 tle," said I. . "As to the ultimate victory, that is 
 very far off. It will hardly be seen in your day or 
 mine. The battle with hell has been raging for 
 thousands of years, and, for all we can see, will con- 
 tinue for thousands of years longer ; and if all hell 
 is on the side of the liquor traffic and intemperance, 
 all hell must be conquered before they will cease. 
 From this survey of the field the outlook is not, I 
 confess, a very hopeful one." 
 
 "It is as full of hope as Christianity," returned 
 Mr. Granger. "As that gains in strength and vital 
 power, temperance will have an equal gain, for the 
 very life of Christianity is to reject evil as sin 
 against God. An intemperate man cannot be a 
 Christian man in any true sense, because he is 
 selfishly indulging a depraved appetite which not 
 only hurts his body, but weakens and degrades 
 his mind, and so unfits him for that service
 
 THE CURSE AXD TUB CURE. 295 
 
 of GoJ and his neighbor which constitutes re- 
 ligion." 
 
 " Taking this view, intemperance becomes a sin." 
 
 " Is it the service of God or the service of self?" 
 ( I ranger asked. "The holding of appetite subject 
 to reason and the laws of health, or the giving of 
 lower and destructive things power over the higher 
 and conservative? Is intemperance a good or an 
 evil ? If evil, then it is sin." 
 
 " What of moderate drinking the temperate use, 
 as it is called, of wine and other stimulants ? Is 
 there sin in this?" 
 
 " Sin is the voluntary doing of anything that we 
 know to be hurtful to the neighbor, or contrary to 
 the law of God," Granger replied. 
 
 " Then I may drink wine or beer moderately, and 
 In- innocent There is no law of God which says, 
 * Thou shalt not drink wine or beer.' And it can- 
 not hurt my neighbor. If any one is hurt, it is 
 myself alone." 
 
 "Can you hurt yourself without hurting your 
 _ r hbor ?" 
 
 ' Not if my neighbor have any claim which this 
 hurting of myself prevents me from meeting." 
 
 "Has the body no claim on the hand or foot? 
 Can either of them say, I may hurt myself if I 
 choose that is my own affair ? Depend upon it, 
 Mr. Lyon, there is no man in human society, no 
 matter how weak, or obscure, or lowly he may he, 
 who has not a service to perform, in default of
 
 296 STRONG VPJXK; 
 
 which some other human being it may be many 
 human beings must suffer. Society is an organic 
 form, in which we all have our places and func- 
 tions ; and society is sick, and lame, and covered 
 with cancerous sores, only because it has so many 
 idle, useless, self-hurting and vicious members and 
 organs in its great social body. Under this view, 
 no one who selfishly indulges in any practice that 
 diminishes his power to serve those who have claims 
 upon him, can be free from sin." 
 
 " I see your broader view and your broader confi- 
 dence," I returned. " Whatever is gained for Chris- 
 tianity is gained for temperance." 
 
 "Any true gain to Christianity is a gain to tem- 
 perance ; for to be a Christian man means to be a 
 temperate man," he said. " There is no such a 
 thing as a tippling Christian, though there may be 
 a tippling professor ; for in so far as a man tipples, 
 moderately or immoderately, he is not a Christian 
 not a free spiritual man, but in bondage to the 
 flesh." 
 
 "There are many who would consider such a 
 declaration as uncharitable and unwarranted," I re- 
 marked. 
 
 "Do you?" he asked. 
 
 " My ideal of a Christian man is very high," I 
 returned. 
 
 " You would not have him a slave to any corpo- 
 real lust or appetite ?" 
 
 "He could not be; for in so far as one is not
 
 THE CURSE AM) THE CURE. 297 
 
 lifted above these, lie is not a Christian. Religion 
 cm scarcely be worth anything if it does not save- a 
 man from the dominion of his animal nature. It 
 must reform and regenerate the external as well as 
 the internal. His very feet, the lowest and most 
 ultimate things of his life, must be washed and made 
 clean." 
 
 " I could not express my own views more exact- 
 ly," Granger replied. As we were parting, he said: 
 "A few friends are to be at my house this evening. 
 I wish you would come round." 
 
 " Who are they ?" I inquired. 
 
 " Dr. Gilbert, from New York, will be there." 
 
 " I shall be glad to meet him." 
 
 "And Judge Arbuckle and his wife, from Colum- 
 bus. The judge and I were in the same class at 
 college, and warmly attached friends. It is nearly 
 twenty years since our last meeting. He is a man 
 of line qualities, both as to head and heart, with de- 
 rided opinions and considerable force of character. 
 You will enjoy an evening in his company, I am 
 smv ; and none the less, I think, from the fact that 
 there is likely to be an earnest encounter between 
 him and Dr. Gilbert." 
 
 " I ndeed ! On what subject ?" 
 
 " The judge, I am sorry to say, is not a temper- 
 ance man. He has always taken stimulants, and 
 believes their moderate employment to be useful." 
 
 " 1 lar he ever given the subject a careful investi- 
 gation?"
 
 298 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 " I presume not. Law and politics have claimed 
 his closer attention." 
 
 "A discussion between him and Dr. Gilbert, if it 
 should happen to arise, is likely to be a warm one." 
 
 " It will be earnest, but fair and courteous, for 
 both are gentlemen," said Mr. Granger. " I am 
 glad of the opportunity to bring these men together, 
 for after their meeting, my old friend Arbuckle will, 
 I think, be in possession of facts that must set him 
 thinking in a new direction. As for himself, I do 
 not greatly fear the serious encroachments of appe- 
 tite ; for he is an exceptionally well-balanced man, 
 with a cool, clear head, and finely-strung nerves; 
 and is known for his moderation and conservative 
 force of character. But his example and influence 
 cannot fail to be exceedingly hurtful, especially with 
 young men." 
 
 I promised to make one of his guests that even- 
 ing, and we parted.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 MR. GRANGER'S law business, which had 
 grown rapidly, was already giving him a 
 handsome income, and his family was again living 
 in a style of comparative elegance. His daughter 
 Amy had developed into a rarely attractive maiden, 
 and was greatly beloved and admired in the circles 
 where she moved. Her quiet grace and dignity 
 were in marked contrast with the free and jaunty 
 manners seen in too many of our young girls, and 
 lifted her above them in the estimation of all who 
 he-Id the sex in any high reganj, There were those 
 who sought to win her favor, but as most of the 
 young men whom she happened to meet in society, 
 took part in its drinking customs, she kept herself 
 on guard against their advances and held them at a 
 distance. The shadows which intemperance 
 had thrown over her early life rested too deeply on 
 her spirits to be wholly removed ; and the pain and 
 humiliation they had occasioned were things that 
 could never be forgotten. To see a glass of wine at 
 the lips of a young man was to lift between himself 
 and her an impassable barrier. She might esteem 
 him as a friend; but she locked the door of her 
 heart against him. If, as happened more than once, 
 
 299
 
 300 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 a warmer sentiment than friendship had commenced 
 forming, she smothered it out with a quick and reso- 
 lute hand on discovering the fatal impediment. 
 
 But love steals in by unguarded ways, and when 
 once within the citadel of the heart, holds to his 
 advantage and makes vigorous resistance should an 
 attempt be made to cast him out. It so happened 
 that a young man named Pickering, found favor 
 with Amy, and that almost before she was aware of 
 her danger, the citadel of her heart had been taken. 
 Handsome in person, pure in life, and true and 
 manly in his character, Henry Pickering was en- 
 tirely worthy of the love which she was not able to 
 keep from revealing itself in her eyes. 
 
 A few months after their more intimate acquaint- 
 ance, and when the young man's attitude towards 
 Amy left but little doubt as to his feelings and in- 
 tentions, they met at an evening entertainment, where 
 liberal refreshments were served. A sudden chill 
 and suspense fell upon the maiden's heart, as, with 
 her hand on Pickering's arm, she began moving 
 towards the supper-room; for the clink of gl; 
 and popping of corks could already be heard. She 
 had never until now met this young man at an 
 evening party ; nor had anything occurred in their 
 intercourse so far that gave her any intimation of 
 his attitude towards the too prevalent drinking 
 usages of society. In all her intercourse with him, 
 she had not seen the smallest indication of any in- 
 dulgence in wine or intoxicating drinks, and there
 
 Thank you; no wlnr fur nn-. 11 replied Amy. Papt SOI.
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 3Q1 
 
 had come to be with her a tacit and fond belief that 
 he was one of those who kept himself entirely free 
 from their use. 
 
 But now the hour of trial and proof had come, 
 and as they entered the supper-room, Amy's breath- 
 ing became constricted, and her heart beat with 
 heavy, almost suffocating throbs. She took her 
 place a little back from the table, which was liber- 
 ally supplied with glasses and bottles of wine, and 
 waited for her attendant to bring her some of the 
 refreshments that were being served. This was 
 speedily done. As Pickering handed her the plate 
 which he had filled, he said : " Will you have a 
 glass of champagne, or some sherry ?" 
 
 "Thank you; no wine for me," replied Amy, 
 with something in her voice that caused the young 
 man to look at her a little curiously* 
 
 " You would not have me drink alone?" he said. 
 . " I would not have you drink at all," she an- 
 swered, a low thrill of feeling in her other \vi.-e 
 v voice. 
 
 JILT'S eyes rested on hers for a moment or 
 two, after which he turned from her slowly, goiniz; 
 to the table and filling another plate with salad and 
 oysters. Then lie came back to his place by her 
 side ; but, as they stood eating, they were turned a 
 little away from each other. The young man, w ho 
 had been a resident of the city for only a year or 
 two, knew nothing at this time of Mr. Granger's 
 history.
 
 302 STEONO DRINK; 
 
 It soon became evident to Pickering that liis 
 companion was only making a pretence of eating. 
 
 " Let me get you something else," said he. "This 
 isn't to your taste. What shall it be ?" 
 
 But she replied, as she handed him her plate : 
 " Nothing more, I thank you." 
 
 He was looking full into her face now, and saw 
 with concern that the brows were slightly drawn, 
 and the color diminished. 
 
 "Are you not feeling well ? The room is very 
 warm. Let me bring you an ice ?" 
 
 But she declined anything more, and promptly 
 accepted the young man's invitation to return to the 
 parlor, where they took a seat near one of the win- 
 dows through which the fresh, cool air was coming. 
 The whole manner of the girl, as well as the ex- 
 pression of her face, had changed ; and Pickering 
 was troubled and at a loss to know the meaning of 
 this change which had come so suddenly. 
 
 " I'm afraid you are ill," he said. 
 
 " Oh, no, no," Amy replied, endeavoring to rally 
 herself. She was too truthful for any subterfuge. 
 
 " If not ill, then something has gone wrong, Miss 
 Granger ; and I am concerned to know what it is. 
 Have I done anything to disturb or offend you ?" 
 
 Amy's eyes, which had been on his face, dropped 
 to the floor, and she made no answer. The young 
 man's thought turned back hurriedly, and went over 
 the brief incidents of the supper-room. Was it 
 the offer of a glass of wine ? He would know, and
 
 THE CURSE AXD TUB CURE. 3Q3 
 
 at once put the question : " Do you object to 
 wine?" 
 
 " It is a dangerous thing," she replied. 
 
 " If carried to excess ; but not when used in 
 moderation." 
 
 " If never used in moderation, excess is impossi- 
 ble. No man is safe but he who lets it alone." 
 
 She spoke in a low, steady voice, in which the 
 young man noticed the same thrill of fe'eling that 
 in it when she answered him in the supper- 
 room " I would not have you drink at all." 
 
 " \\'hy, Miss Granger!" Pickering exclaimed, 
 trying to make light of the matter, " I didn't know 
 before that you were a little temperance enthusiast." 
 
 " It is not with me a matter of enthusiasm," she 
 replied, speaking soberly, " but of deep feeling and 
 d principle." 
 
 " Oh ! I was not aware of this before. If I had 
 known it, I should not have committed the rudeness 
 of oiVrring you wine; and I crave pardon for my 
 unfortunate blunder. You are, then, an advocate 
 of entire abstinence." 
 
 " Where the use of a useless thing is attended 
 with such awful perils as attend the use of wine, is 
 not he the wise man who lets it alone ?" 
 
 " I will not say no, Miss Granger. But your pro- 
 ion is very sweeping. I might take issue with 
 you on the word 'useless,' but am in no way inclined 
 to do so just now. Intemperance is, I am -well 
 awaiv, the great curse of our land.''
 
 304 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 "And no one who uses intoxicating drinks of any 
 kind, whether moderately or not, is safe from this 
 curse," said Amy. 
 
 " I should be sorry to believe that, Miss Granger. 
 I know of a great many men who take their wine or 
 beer every day ; but I do not think them in any 
 danger." 
 
 " Not one of them ?" Her voice was quiet, but 
 firm. 
 
 "All men are not strong alike, nor given to 
 moderation. Some are inclined to excess in every- 
 thing. There is always danger with such." 
 
 "And danger with all who use an article which 
 invites to excess the very moment you take it. It 
 is here, Mr. Pickering, that the great peril lies. 
 No man is safe who admits an enemy within his 
 fortress ; and alcohol is always an enemy." 
 
 " We were speaking of wine, not ardent spirits," 
 said the young man. 
 
 But Miss Granger was better informed than he 
 had supposed. 
 
 " What we call wine is, for the most part, only 
 diluted, drugged and flavored alcohol. Without 
 the character and quality given by alcohol, few 
 would care to drink it. It takes more wine than 
 brandy to give the required exhilaration; that is 
 all." 
 
 " You are booked on this subject, Miss Granger," 
 said Pickering, his brows arching slightly, and his 
 voice betraying some annoyance.
 
 TI1E CURSE AXD THE Cr/:/". 3Q5 
 
 " Whore such grave results attend the use of an 
 article, is it not well to examine carefully the ground 
 of its claim upon our confidence ?" 
 
 There was no excitement in Amy's manner ; yet 
 it did not escape the young man's observation that, 
 hidden beneath her quiet exterior, was a great deal 
 of repressed feeling. 
 
 " But the novel thing to me is, the fact that a 
 young lady like yourself should be posted on the 
 suhjcct of making and flavoring wines," returned 
 Pickering, rising into an air of banter. "According 
 to your view of the case, wine-drinking is only 
 another name for whisky-drinking." 
 
 " If," replied Amy, not moved from her serious 
 attitude, " the drink we call wine is acceptable as a 
 ;nge because of the temporary exhilaration its 
 alcohol produces, may it not be true that wine- 
 drinking is, as you say, another name for whisky- 
 drinking?" 
 
 " But is it, as you allege, Miss Granger, that alco- 
 hol gives to wine its chief acceptable quality ? I 
 have never studied the subject ; but it seems to me 
 that you must be in some degree of error." 
 
 " I have been in the way of hearing a great deal 
 about these matters, and from those who have con- 
 ducted their investigations with great care," said 
 Amy, "and I am just as certain, as I am of any 
 other declared result of chemical test and analysis, 
 that wine contains so large a proportion of alcohol 
 as to make its use exceedingly dangerous." 
 20
 
 306 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 " What proportion?" asked Pickering. His man- 
 ner had become more serious. 
 
 " I have heard it variously stated," was replied ; 
 "the percentage running from seven or eight to 
 twenty-five or six." 
 
 " So large ? I wonder how much alcohol whisky 
 or brandy contains ? You are, no doubt, informed 
 as to that also." 
 
 " From forty to sixty per cent., I am told." 
 
 " Then, if I drink two or three glasses of wine, I 
 get about as much alcohol as if I took a single glass 
 of whisky or brandy ?" 
 
 " The danger is that such will be the case." 
 
 The young man sat with a thoughtful air for a 
 few moments, and then looking up, said, with a 
 forced levity of manner : " This is almost comical, 
 Miss Granger." 
 
 " What ?" inquired his companion, her clear eyes 
 fixed steadily on him. 
 
 " Free-and-easy drinking in the dining-room, 
 and a temperance lecture in the parlor," he replied, 
 with a smile breaking into his handsome counte- 
 nance. 
 
 Ere Amy could reply, the sound of laughing 
 voices was heard at the parlor doors, and half a 
 dozen girls and young men came in from the hall 
 and dining-room in gayer spirits than when they 
 went to the refreshment-tables half an hour before. 
 As one and another returned to the parlor, it was 
 noticeable that a change had come over their spirits.
 
 TUB CURSE AND THE CURE. 3Q7 
 
 Many of the young girls laughed and talked in 
 louder tones, and were freer in their manners than 
 before ; sometimes to a degree that was unmaidenly; 
 while the conduct of some of the young men was 
 offensive to good taste for its rudeness or folly. 
 
 " When the wine is in the wit is out," said Pick- 
 ering, as, rising, he offered his arm to Amy, and 
 they moved down the parlor and mingled with the 
 company, adding, as they gained the lower end of 
 the room, " We might call this the application to 
 your little sermon." 
 
 "And the oftener the wine goes in will the wit go 
 out," returned his companion, speaking for his ear 
 alone, " until in the end it may come to stay out 
 altogether." 
 
 " I see how it is, Miss Granger," said the young 
 man. " Your thought has a habit of running to the 
 last result of things." 
 
 " Is not that wisest?" she asked. 
 
 " Doubtless. But the surprise with me is, that a 
 young huly should have such radical views on the 
 sul-jcct of drinking. You are in no danger. Nor 
 are these young ladies, for all the wine they get 
 at i aiiies. A little lightness in the head as 
 you see now, then a night's sleep, and all will be 
 
 OViT." 
 
 " 15ut what of the young men, their companions?" 
 
 1 Amy. 
 
 1'ick i -ring gave a slight shrug. 
 "Will it be all over, as you say, with them?
 
 308 STEONO DEINK; 
 
 Will the appetite be no stronger, and the power to 
 resist its enticements no weaker ?" 
 
 "I was speaking of the young ladies, and the 
 danger to them," said Pickering. 
 
 "Is no one hurt by intemperance but the men 
 who are its victims ?" inquired the girl. " If I am 
 not at fault in my observation, there are to be found 
 among them sons, brothers, husbands and fathers. 
 Have women no relation to these men? In their 
 wounding is there no hurt to the sisters and daugh- 
 ters, to the wives and the mothers ?" 
 
 Pickering felt again the old thrill in Amy's calm" 
 but earnest voice. 
 
 " If a young or middle-aged man should go home 
 from here to-night the worse for the wine he has 
 taken," she added, after a slight pause, " will there 
 be no shame or sorrow in any woman's heart 
 because of it ?" 
 
 His ear caught the sound of a faint sigh which 
 followed the closing words that fell from his com- 
 panion's lips. 
 
 " We won't talk about this any more," he said. 
 " The theme is too sombre for so gay and festive an 
 occasion." He spoke with some decision of manner. 
 "And now," he added, in"a lighter voice, "let us try 
 a little nonsense, by way of a restorative." 
 
 Amy had already said far more than it was in 
 her thought or purpose to say at the outset, and was 
 very willing to let the subject drop, even though far 
 from being satisfied with the young man's utterances
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 399 
 
 on the question, which, if his views were not in 
 accord with hers, must stand as an impassable barrier 
 lit-t ween them. One thing she had long ago settled 
 in her mind, and that was, never to give her hand 
 in marriage to one who did not wholly abstain from 
 the use of alcohol in any of its forms. She would 
 take no risks here. The danger, in her view, was 
 too appalling. Her answer to the question : " How 
 shall I be saved from the curse of strong drink ?" 
 was simple and direct. She would neither touch it 
 herself in any of its covert or enticing forms, nor 
 place her happiness in the keeping of one who did. 
 
 At the next meeting of the lovers, for so we must 
 cull them, though the ypung man had not yet made 
 a formal declaration of his sentiments, each felt that 
 a barrier had risen between them. In the mean- 
 time, Pickering had, in response to some inquiries 
 about Miss Granger's family, learned something of 
 its painful history, and of the sufferings and humil- 
 iation through which the girl had passed. This 
 made clear the ground of her prejudice against wine- 
 drinking. I say " prejudice," using the word as 
 Pickering used it at the time. One thing was plain 
 to him ; he saw that there would be little hope of 
 compromise with Amy in regard to the use of 
 intoxicating liquor in any of its forms. If he were 
 not prepared to stand on her ground, so far as this 
 question was concerned, he could hardly hope to 
 stand with her at all. 
 
 It was this conviction in the mind of Pickering,
 
 310 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 and the doubts and uncertainties as to his real atti- 
 tude in regard to the use of alcoholic drinks which 
 troubled Miss Granger, that raised the barrier too 
 plainly visible to each on their next meeting. Both 
 studiously avoided any reference to the subject, 
 though it was never absent a moment from the 
 thought of either. For the first time since their 
 more intimate acquaintance, Amy made an effort to 
 hold herself away, and even to close her heart against 
 him. Her reserve was so apparent that it hurt, 
 then piqued, and then partially offended the young 
 man. 
 
 "If love," he said to himself, "has no deeper 
 foundation than this, is it worth the name ? Is the 
 taking or refusing of a glass of wine to be the test 
 of its quality ? The love that I want is a love that 
 can take me for what I am, and trust me all in all ; 
 and if she cannot do this, it might as well be at an 
 end between us. To subject myself to any humiliating 
 pledges and restrictions, is simply impossible. I 
 hold my manly freedom too high for that." 
 
 An evening of embarrassed intercourse, followed 
 by a cold parting, was the result. They did not 
 meet again for over a week, during which time Amy 
 had striven hard, but vainly, to keep the thought of 
 Pickering out of her mind. With him the effort to 
 banish her image had been no more successful ; and 
 as day after day went by without seeing her, tender- 
 ness grew in his heart, and the conviction became 
 stronger and stronger that for him life would be
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 11 
 
 nothing if not shared with her. Taking all things 
 into consideration, he was beginning to feel more 
 sympathy with the girl in her extreme views. "It 
 is but natural," he said, " for a burnt child to dread 
 the fire. All that she has seen and suffered must 
 be set down in her favor." 
 
 A week of enforced absence was all that Picker- 
 ing could endure ; and when he met the sweet young 
 girl again the ardor of his feelings was too strong for 
 rq-ression. Love looked out from his eyes more 
 tenderly than ever, and betrayed itself more nearly 
 on his tongue. As for Amy, the gladness of heart 
 which she could not repress overflowed and revealed 
 itself in her blushing face. Before they parted on 
 that evening, the lover had spoken, and the maiden, 
 while not consenting in words, had left him in no 
 doubt as to the real state of her feelings. 
 
 Not the remotest reference was made to the subject 
 which had, only a little while before, come in be- 
 tween them with its warning shadow and its sepa- 
 rating wall. Was it forgotten by either of them? 
 Not so. But their hearts held it away from any 
 present influence. Love's fruition was for the mo- 
 ment too full for the intrusion of any remote ques- 
 tions of prudence. For love's sake all light impedi- 
 ments mu.-t disappear when the time came for their 
 consideration. 
 
 So they felt; but with each the feeling of confidence 
 had its ground in the fancied concession of the other. 
 If Henry Pickering really loved her, would ho
 
 312 STEOXG DRINK; 
 
 hesitate in a matter which she held to be of such 
 vital moment ? So the maiden thought, and took 
 the sweet assurance to her heart. " Amy loves me 
 too well to let a mere prejudice or fancy stand be- 
 tween us," said the young man, confidently, to him- 
 self. 
 
 But they erred in their conclusions. When the 
 young man pressed a closer suit, Amy referred him. 
 to her father, and Pickering found that there would 
 be no consent with either unless the question of his 
 attitude to the drinking customs of society was 
 clearly settled. 
 
 "Neither myself nor my daughter," said Mr. 
 Granger, " can afford to run so great a risk as is 
 here involved. For myself, I would rather see my 
 child with the angels." He betrayed considerable 
 emotion. 
 
 " I must infer from all this," said Pickering, un- 
 able entirely to conceal his disappointment and. 
 irritation, " that you think me in special danger." 
 
 " No ; only in the danger that comes to all who 
 w.alk in dangerous ways," was the seriously-spoken 
 reply. " If we know that robbers lie in wait along a 
 certain road, what immunity from attack have we 
 if we travel that road ?" 
 
 " Shall we be cowards, then ? or, like brave men, 
 fight our way through ?" 
 
 " If we have no business that requires us to go by 
 that road, we put our courage to a useless test," re- 
 plied Mr. Granger. "This way of drinking, my
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cl'liK. 313 
 
 young friend, is not an orderly appointed way in 
 It leads to no desirable result; has no goal of 
 fortune, or honor, or happiness. They who walk in 
 it are not exposed to the assaults of robbers alone, 
 who waste and plunder their substance, but fatal 
 miasmas lie along the marshes through which it 
 often winds. It has pitfalls in many of its smoothest 
 places, and steep precipices to which the road clings 
 treacherously. If a man propose to go in this way, 
 it is better that he should go alone, Mr. Pickering. 
 Love, surely, will not expose its object, needlessly, 
 to dangers like these." 
 
 "Frankly, Mr. Granger, I see more of hyperbole 
 in all this than a statement of what the real danger 
 said Pickering. 
 
 The irritation that betrayed itself in his manner 
 a little while before was all gone; and though his 
 speech was plain, it was not in the least disre- 
 ful. 
 
 "The direful effects that too surely attend on 
 excessive drinking, can scarcely be exaggerated by 
 any figures of speech that our language is capable of 
 forming," answered Mr. Granger. "I am many 
 - older than you, and have seen deeper into 
 vil of intemperance than it is possible for you 
 to have seen ; and such is my dread of its subtle 
 power that I never see a man with a glass of in- 
 toxicating liquor in his hand that I do not feel like 
 uttering a cry of warning. Depend upon it, Mr. 
 T, then- is no safe way lor a youn^ man, as
 
 314 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 he makes his entry into this world's busy, exciting 
 and, in too many cases, exhausting arena, hut that 
 of complete abstinence from beverages in which 
 alcohol is found." 
 
 "It certainly has its good as well as its evil 
 effects," said the young man. "Used in modera- 
 tion, it serves as a restorative in some cases, and as 
 a tonic and vitalizer in many others. And in cer- 
 tain forms of disease it is almost a specific ; at least, 
 I have so understood." 
 
 " I scarcely think you have studied this subject in 
 the light of more recent investigations and expe- 
 riences," remarked Mr. Granger. 
 
 " In truth, I have not studied it at all. But there 
 are facts which are commonly known and accepted, 
 and these scarcely warrant the complete banishment 
 to which our extreme temperance advocates would 
 subject all kinds of liquor, not excepting beer and 
 the lighter wines." 
 
 "There are many inferences, and loose sayings, 
 and unproved assertions in regard to the beneficial 
 effects of alcohol on the human body, as well in 
 health as in sickness," was replied, " but one after 
 another, they are being disproved, until the sub- 
 stance called alcohol has, by the ablest chemists and 
 pathologists, with only an exception here and there, 
 been set over to the side of poisons. It has no food 
 value whatever; and its disturbing and disorgan- 
 izing effects have become so well known in the 
 medical profession, that even the small number of
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 intelligent physicians who hold to its administration 
 in certain cases, the range of which grows narrower 
 every day, are giving it with great caution and in 
 very small doses." 
 
 " Is this really so ?" asked the young man, show- 
 ing some surprise. 
 
 " It is just as I have said," replied Mr. Granger. 
 "This whole subject is receiving the most careful 
 attention from the best medical experts; and the 
 day of guess work and loose generalization is over. 
 Nothing will now do for prudent men but rigid 
 analysis and clearly-established fact. Let me urge 
 upon you, in the outset of life, to give this question 
 of the true effect of alcohol on the human system 
 an impartial examination ; to challenge a substance 
 that works such fearful havoc among men, and 
 require it to answer in no uncertain speech. If it 
 be a friend of the people, there will be no difficulty 
 in establishing the fact; if an enemy, the case can 
 be made equally clear." 
 
 "Thank you for the suggestion, Mr. Granger," 
 said the young man. "There is reason in what 
 you say. I will look into this matter more care- 
 fully, and if I find it as you allege, I shall not 
 hM!:ite about my future attitude." 
 
 " I f you will come and see us to-morrow evening, 
 I think you will be likely to hear a discussion on 
 this subject that will interest you. A few friends 
 are coming in, among whom will be a Dr. Gilbert, 
 frum New York, who has given the subject of in-
 
 316 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 ebriation and the action of alcoholic stimulants on 
 the human body, a careful study for many years. 
 He is no temperance enthusiast, as the people are 
 too much inclined to call such men as I am, but a 
 cool-headed observer, who will be satisfied with 
 nothing in relation to this subject which the most 
 perfect methods of chemical analysis and physio- 
 logical investigation have not settled. You will be 
 impressed with him as a man who knows whereof 
 he speaks." 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Granger. I shall certainly 
 avail myself of the opportunity. It is clear seeing 
 that makes right action. But to act where the 
 judgment is not convinced is never wise. And this 
 is the cause of my hesitation now. I might pro- 
 mise you that I would never take wine or brandy ; 
 but if I did not think it wrong, for some clearly- 
 seen reason, to use these articles, my promise would 
 ever after be an annoying impediment, and might 
 be broken. But if my promise rests on principle ; 
 if I abstain from prudence and judgment ; my atti- 
 tude towards the drinking customs of society will 
 express my true sentiments, and I shall stand firm 
 on the solid ground of my convictions." 
 
 " Which will be far better," returned Mr. Granger.
 
 CIIAPTER XXII. 
 
 OX arriving at Mr. Granger's, I found a small 
 but select company. There were Dr. Gilbert, 
 and Judge Arbuckle and his wife, whom I had been 
 particularly invited to meet. Mr. Stannard was 
 tin-re also; and a Mrs. K , one of the represen- 
 tative women who were actively engaged in the work 
 of Christian temperance reform. I had not before 
 seen young Henry Pickering, and was attracted by 
 his face and bearing ; and particularly so, as it was 
 plain, from unmistakable signs, that he was more to 
 Amy Granger than an ordinary acquaintance. But 
 I did not fail to observe that there was in the atti- 
 tude of these young people towards each other a 
 < Ttain reserve that was almost embarrassment 
 During the conversation that ensued, and which 
 soon drifted into a discussion of the claims of alco- 
 hol to have any nutritive or therapeutical value, I 
 was struck by the intentness with which Amy 
 watched the young man's face, as if trying to read his 
 thoughts; and there was, at times, a restlessness in 
 her manner that was particularly noticeable, with 
 occasional swift changes in the expression of her 
 countenance. You saw it light up suddenly wln-n 
 some strong point was made by Dr. Gilbert ; and 
 317
 
 318 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 this was always accompanied by a glance towards the 
 young man who was seated by her side. 
 
 Dr. Gilbert, whom I had not met before, was a 
 man about fifty, with a quiet, thoughtful face. You 
 saw in his eyes, which were a dark gray, that steady, 
 intent expression which comes of earnest thought. 
 His mouth was firm, its character harmonizing with 
 what you saw in his eyes. You recognized him at 
 once as a man with whom neither fancy nor impulse 
 could have much influence. 
 
 Judge Arbuckle was another style of man alto- 
 gether. He was taller, with a finer muscular de- 
 velopment, and a larger head. His eyes were 
 darker, and so was his complexion. All his features 
 broke into a quicker play, and you perceived at once 
 that he was a man of sentiment and feeling as well 
 as of intellect and perception, and that in any direc- 
 tion in which he might throw himself he would 
 display both mental vigor and force of 1 will. 
 
 It was curious to see these two men meet in the 
 discussion I had come prepared to hear. But I 
 knew enough of the results of recent investigations 
 in regard to alcohol, to be very well satisfied about 
 the issue, if Dr. Gilbert was as well posted in facts 
 and results as I had reason to believe. 
 
 I will not hold the reader in any of the prelimi- 
 nary phases and drifts of conversation into which 
 the company fell, but bring him in contact therewith 
 where the points of interest were clear, and bore 
 with distinctive force on the main subject under
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 319 
 
 ;-sion, which was the affirmation on one side 
 that alcohol, if used in moderation, was beneficial, 
 and the declaration on the other that its action on 
 the human body, except in some very unusual con- 
 ditions, was always hurtful. 
 
 " I claim," said Judge Arbuckle, " that wine, and 
 in many cases brandy, are necessary articles, both 
 in diet and medicine. They assist nature in the 
 work of digestion, and give tone to weakened nerves. 
 I have seen many lives saved, under conditions of 
 extreme prostration, by the use of spirits. In 
 typhoid fevers, brandy, as you well know, is the 
 physician's sheet-anchor. Without it, three out of 
 every five of his patients would die from simple lack 
 of heart-power, which can only be restored through 
 active stimulation. In sudden attacks of illness, as 
 in faintings, cholics, a suspension of heart-action, or 
 exhaustion from fatigue or cold, there is nothing 
 that will act so quickly as a glass of brandy. I 
 
 r think of leaving home without a supply ; and 
 should regard myself as culpable were I to do so. 
 I can point to scores of instances in which a timely 
 draught of brandy has saved me' from a spe.ll of 
 sickness, if it has Hot saved my life. There is one 
 
 that should never be overlooked. Society is 
 not in a normal condition. It is overworked. There 
 is a strain upon everything, and a consequent ex- 
 haustion of strength. Nature, always quick in her 
 instinct of danger, has, at the same time, as quirk 
 a perception of the remedy needed ; and her iiidica-
 
 320 STROXG DRINK; 
 
 tion is unmistakable here. It is stimulation that is 
 required. All men feel this; and the universal 
 resort to stimulants of one kind or another is but 
 the natural and necessary response to the demands 
 of our exhausted and failing vital forces." 
 
 The judge spoke with considerable warmth of 
 manner, and with a tone and emphasis which ex- 
 pressed his firm conviction that the assertions he was 
 making were unanswerable. 
 
 " Facts and experience are stubborn things, doc- 
 tor," he closed by remarking ; " and these we have 
 in abundance. But men who have pet theories" 
 he smiled pleasantly as he said it " are wonderfully 
 skilled in the art of explaining away both." 
 
 Dr. Gilbert did not seem to be in any haste to 
 controvert the judge's assertions. His first response 
 came in the form of a question. 
 
 " If you were to find a man benumbed with cold, 
 what would you do for him ?" 
 
 " Pour a glass of brandy down his throat as quickly 
 as possible." 
 
 " For what purpose ?" 
 
 "To heat him up, of course. Heat is life; cold 
 is death." 
 
 " Suppose I were to tell you that alcohol lowers 
 instead of raising the temperature of the body." 
 
 " I would say that you were jesting." 
 
 "And yet the assertion is true." 
 
 " Did you ever take a swallow of brandy ?" 
 
 "Yes."
 
 THE CURSE ASD THE CURE. 321 
 
 " Did it make you feel cold or warm ?" 
 
 " I felt a sense of warmth." 
 
 " Burning up even to your face ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Is heat cold, doctor ?" The judge spoke as one 
 who had closed the controversy in a single sentence. 
 
 " Does heat cause the thermometer to fall ?" asked 
 Dr. Gilbert. 
 
 " I do not see the drift of your question," replied 
 the judge. 
 
 "After the most carefully conducted experiments, 
 often repeated," said the doctor, " the fact has been 
 clearly established that alcohol, instead of imparting 
 warmth to the body, actually lowers its tempera- 
 ture." 
 
 Judge Arbuckle shook his head in a decided 
 negative. " If I take glass of wine or brandy, I 
 come into an immediate glow. It doesn't do to tell 
 me that I feel cold. Experiment may prove what 
 it can ; but it certainly cannot prove this at least 
 not to my satisfaction. There is such a thing as 
 ( .1- >r blindness ; and a like defect may exist in some 
 of the other senses. Feeling with some may be 
 blind also, and mistake heat for cold." 
 
 "A young lady blushes," said the doctor, in reply. 
 "You will hardly suy that because her cheeks have 
 become hot the temperature of her whole body has 
 been raised; but rather infer that the equilibrium of 
 heat Las been disturbed, or that tlie capillaries have 
 become relaxed and suffused. An impulse of feeling 
 21
 
 322 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 has disturbed the heart's action, and made its bents 
 more violent. Suppose this temporary engorgement 
 of. the minute blood vessels of the skin were to take 
 place, with a sense of heat all over the body, would 
 there not be an increased radiation of heat from all 
 the surface, and a consequent lowering of the body's 
 temperature, especially with the interior organs?" 
 
 " But what has the blushing of a young lady to. 
 do with the colorific or refrigerant effect of a glass 
 of brandy ?" asked the judge. 
 
 " The phenomenon observed in both cases is due 
 to the same cause," said the doctor. "Alcohol re- 
 laxes the minuter vessels so that they are unable to 
 return the blood promptly to the circulation ; cuta- 
 neous engorgements follow, with an increase of sur- 
 face heat, and accelerated radiation. The effect on 
 the extremities of the nerves is that of a warm glow, 
 such as is felt during a reaction from cold. Instead 
 of there being an actual increase in the general 
 temperature of the body, as the result of alcoholic 
 stimulant, a reduction takes place, as has been 
 proved over and over again by the thermometer." 
 
 " You take me out of my depths here, doctor. I 
 have never given much attention to physiology," 
 answered the judge, a little less confident in his 
 manner. 
 
 " But you know what common sense is ; and how 
 to deduce conclusions from well-established facts. It 
 is the habit of your mind to weigh evidence. Now, 
 for the sake of the truth, which is as dear to you as
 
 THE CURSE ASD THE CURE. ' 303 
 
 to any man living, will you not, for a little while, 
 take the place of a judge in this controversy, and 
 give to the evidence I shall bring against alcohol as 
 nn enemy to the human race, the grave considera- 
 tion it should have ?" 
 
 " I accept the office to which you so gracefully 
 
 assign me," replied the judge, smiling. " But as I 
 
 my client without an advocate, I shall claim 
 
 the right to say a word in his behalf if I think you 
 
 treat him unfairly." 
 
 "As many words as you please. If there is any 
 good in him I should like to know it; but I am free 
 to say, that the more carefully I investigate his 
 claim to be, in any sense, a friend to the human 
 race, except for what service he may give in chern- 
 i.-try and the arts, the more complete are my convic- 
 tions that he is only an enemy. I cannot find a 
 single thing in which the harm of his presence is 
 not greater than the good. 
 
 " But we were talking about the heat-producing 
 quality of alcohol. Now, heat is generated through 
 tin- union of oxygen with carbon, by which the latter 
 is consumed. There are certain articles of food, such 
 as the fat, starches and sugars, which are known as 
 -producing and force-generating, and chemistry 
 i- at no loss in regard to them. Their value has 
 been determined with the greatest accuracy. The 
 amount of heat that each of these substances will 
 when takrn into the body has been carefully 
 measured, and is known to all in our profession.
 
 324 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 But in regard to alcohol, so long held even by med- 
 ical men, to be a heat-producer, animal chemistry 
 has not yet been made to detect any evidence of ox- 
 idation, the blood showing none of the usual results 
 of this process. And now, since we have been using 
 the thermometer as a test of the internal temperature 
 of the body, in order to ascertain the heating value 
 of foods, or its thermal condition under various dis- 
 turbing influences, we find that when alcohol is 
 taken there follows a marked reduction of heat. 
 The best medical writers now agree on this subject ; 
 and some practitioners have even gone so far as to 
 administer it in fever as a cooling agent. 
 
 "Even before science had made this discovery 
 of the non-heat-generating power of alcohol, arctic 
 navigators had learned from experience that the use 
 of spirits lessens a man's ability to withstand cold; 
 and now the extreme northern voyager avoids its 
 use altogether, in order to retain sufficient heat to 
 sustain him under the intense cold to which he is 
 subjected. In the voyage made in search of Sir 
 John Franklin, no alcoholic stimulants were used ; 
 and the northern whaler employs them very spar- 
 ingly or not at all." 
 
 " Do you remember," said Mr. Stannard, at this 
 point, "a Pole named Lemonowsky, who, some 
 twenty years ago, gave lectures in this country on 
 Napoleon ?" 
 
 Some of us remembered him very well. 
 , " I mentioned him because of a lecture he gave on
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE (TRE. 325 
 
 temperance, the facts of which fully corroborate what 
 the doctor has just been saying. Lemonowsky, who 
 had been an officer in Napoleon's army, stated, that 
 when about leaving home, as a boy, his father placed 
 his* hand upon his head, and after declaring that 
 intoxicating drinks were the great curse of mankind, 
 solemnly conjured him never to touch or taste them; 
 and that he gave his father a promise that he never 
 would. And all his life he remained true to that 
 promise. He took the ground, that the use of alco- 
 hol in extreme cold, extreme heat or extreme ex- 
 haustion, was dangerous, and often fatal, and, in 
 proof of his position, made three statements of re- 
 markable facts which had come within his own ob- 
 servation and experience. 
 
 ' I/emonowsky accompanied Napoleon in his in- 
 u of Russia. He said, that among his imme- 
 diate associates in the army were about thirty who, 
 like himself, wholly abstained from ardent spirits, 
 and that while men who drank freely were dying 
 almost like sheep from gangrene and other diseases, 
 brought on from exposure to the intense cold, every 
 one of these thirty abstainers were in good health, 
 and every one came back from that disastrous cam- 
 . In Egypt, when heat was enervating the 
 army, and death rapidly reducing its numbers, the. 
 mm who refused to drink ardent spirits still retained 
 thi-ir health, and suffered from thirst and heat far 
 less than their companions." This intelligent Pole 
 thm went on t<> ivlutf how, after the battle of
 
 326 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 Waterloo, and the delivery by the allies of Marshal 
 Ney and many of the officers to the French at Paris, 
 he, with a few others, effected their escape, and put 
 to sea in a boat, from which they were taken while 
 in the British Channel by a vessel bound to 'the 
 United States. Subsequently this vessel was wrecked 
 in a storm, and Lemonowsky found himself again 
 upon the sea in an open boat, with nine companions 
 and only a small supply of provisions and water. 
 These were soon used up, and for many days they 
 had nothing to eat or drink. When finally rescued, 
 by a vessel bound to Philadelphia, they were in 
 such an extreme state of exhaustion that they had 
 to be literally carried on board. 'Immediately/ 
 said the narrator, ' on being placed in a berth, the 
 ship's doctor brought me a glass of hot whisky and 
 water, and placed it to my lips. But I refused 
 to drink it.' ' Y.ou must, or you will die,' he said. 
 * Then I told him I would die, for I never had and 
 never would drink intoxicating liquor. He got 
 angry, and swore at me, and called me a fool. But 
 I wouldn't touch his whisky. Well, gentlemen 
 and ladies, I recovered ; but of the nine who were 
 taken with me out of the boat, and who took the 
 doctor's stimulating draught, hot even though it 
 was, every one died. So, you see, that in extreme 
 cold, or heat, or exhaustion, alcohol, so far from 
 being useful, is one of the most dangerous sub- 
 stances a man can take into his system.' ' 
 
 "A very striking experience, certainly," said Dr.
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cl'i:K. 
 
 Ciilln-rt, "and one that is entirely in the line of 
 jnate results, as proved by the latest and most 
 carefully-conducted experiments. There was a time 
 when, if I had heard this story of Lemonowsky's, I 
 would have pronounced it a bit of fancy work, or, 
 at least, an exaggeration of an isolated case or two 
 which were but exceptions to a rule, the action of 
 which was all on the other side. But I can well 
 believe, now, that the sturdy old Pole gave truthful 
 evidence of which he knew.' 1 
 
 "If I understand the case," remarked Judge 
 Arbuckle ; " I am on the bench, you see, and am 
 considering the evidence the result of some recent 
 experiments, and the evidence of a few isolated facts 
 are held to disprove the beneficial effects of a sub- 
 stance which medical men have used efficiently for 
 rations, and which every head of a family has 
 administered with success in scores, if not hundreds 
 of instances of sudden sickness." 
 
 "The new and exhaustive testa to which this 
 substance has been subjected," replied Dr. Gilbert, 
 " have nearly all been conducted within the last ten 
 S and so conclusive have been the results, that 
 in the International Mqdical Congres*s, which met 
 vear in Philadelphia, at which over six hun- 
 divd delegates from this country and Europe were 
 assembled, a report was adopted in which alcohol 
 was declared to have no food value whatever, and to 
 be so deleterious in its effects on the human organism, 
 as to leave a grave doubt whether, even as a medi-
 
 328 STRONG DRINK; . 
 
 cine in the most extreme cases, it did not do more 
 harm than good." 
 
 " Not unanimously adopted, certainly." 
 "The facts are simply these. The National 
 Temperance Society sent a memorial to this im- 
 portant Congress, asking from it a public declara- 
 tion to the effect that alcohol should be classed with 
 other powerful drugs, and that when prescribed 
 medicinally, it should be with conscientious caution 
 and a sense of grave responsibility. That it should 
 declare it to be in no sense a food for the human 
 system, and that its improper use is productive of a 
 large amount of physical disease, tending to dete- 
 riorate the human race ; and further, to recommend 
 to their several nationalities, as representatives of 
 enlightened science, a total abstinence from aloholic 
 beverages. The consideration of this memorial was 
 referred to the * Section on Medicine,' in which the 
 questions proposed were discussed with marked 
 ability and earnestness, resulting in the almost 
 unanimous adoption of an elaborate report by Dr. 
 Ezra M. Hunt. In this report alcohol is declared 
 to have no food value, and to be of doubtful utility 
 as a medicine. Indeed, its therapeutic value is 
 limited almost exclusively to that of a cardiac 
 stimulant in certain extreme cases which often 
 admit of substitutions. Of its evil and destructive 
 action on the body and brain, a frightful exhibit is 
 given. This report, as transmitted by the ' Section 
 on Medicine' to the General Congress, was ordered
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 329 
 
 by that body to be sent to the National Temperance 
 Society as an answer to its memorial." 
 
 I was observing the face of Judge Arbuckle while 
 Dr. Gilbert was speaking. The grave, almost puz- 
 /!! expression that came creeping over it, was 
 curious to see. The judge had a respect for science, 
 I* .1 ruing and authority. The testimony of the old 
 Pole, Lemonowsky, went for almost nothing. But 
 here was an International Medical Congress of over 
 six hundred eminent physicians, representing, of 
 course, the highest intelligence of the profession, 
 littering its grave condemnation, and at a word 
 selling up the bottle from which he had been 
 drawing his favorite medicament, and declaring its 
 use to be hurtful in nearly every case of adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 " I don't know, doctor," he said/ " whether I am 
 really awake or not; all this is so new and im- 
 probable. I shall expect to hear, presently, that a 
 teak has its hidden dangers, and that coffee 
 will poison as surely as arsenic." 
 
 "Hy their fruits ye shall know them; and it so 
 happens that, in regard to alcohol, there is no diffi- 
 culty about the fruit," returned the doctor. 
 
 " None whatever in regard to its abuse," returned 
 the judge. " That is admitted by every one. But 
 we are talking of its moderate use as a beverage, and 
 ortts value as a medicine. Take me, for example. 
 I have used more or less wine and spirits for over 
 twenty-five years. Few men enjoy better health.
 
 330 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 Except some torpor of the liver, winch I believe is 
 hereditary." 
 
 Dr. Gilbert looked steadily into Judge Arbuckle's 
 face for a few moments, as if making a critical 
 examination. Then reaching out his hand, he 
 said: "Let me feel your pulse, judge." 
 
 There was a deep pause and silence. 
 
 " With some slight disturbance of the heart occa- 
 sionally," remarked the doctor, quietly. 
 
 "Very slight. Nothing to speak of," replied 
 the judge, with the manner of one who felt a little 
 disturbed. 
 
 "A sinking sensation after exertion, or anxiety, or 
 abstinence from food ?" . 
 
 " Yes, sometimes." 
 
 " Which all comes right after a good, strong glass 
 of brandy?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " You find this occurring oftener than it did a few 
 years ago ?" 
 
 "Well, yes. I'm getting older, you see, and 
 any organic trouble one may have generally 
 increases with age. But, fortunately, I know 
 what to do, and have my remedy always at 
 hand." 
 
 " In some form of alcoholic stimulant ?" 
 
 " Exactly." 
 
 " How often do you resort to this remedy ? E^ry 
 day?" 
 
 I saw a change of expression in the judge's face,
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 33^ 
 
 and a contraction of his brows, as he replied: "Al- 
 most every day." 
 
 " Especially in the morning before you have taken 
 fool 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, now, Judge Arbuckle," said the doctor, 
 with a grave smile on his face, " did it never occur 
 to you that the remedy you are taking for the relief 
 of this trouble is the very agent by which it has 
 been produced ?" 
 
 Judge Arbuckle shook his head in a decided 
 manner. 
 
 " And that your torpid liver is only another evi- 
 dence of organic deterioration produced by this 
 favorite remedy or shall I say beverage to which 
 you resort so frequently ?" 
 
 "Organic deterioration, doctor!" There was a 
 covert alarm in the judge's voice. 
 
 *' There is no substance used by man which pro- 
 duces so many and such serious organic deterioration 
 as alcohol," replied the doctor, speaking soberly. 
 " There is not an organ, or delicate nerve, or mem- 
 brane, or iluid, or vessel, that it does not hurt by 
 contact, or deteriorate if the contact be continued. 
 Tin- In-art, which is the centre of life, is subjected to 
 an excess of strain so long as it is in the system, be- 
 cause, being a substance that is never digested, or 
 conviTifd into food or force, it hurts and disturbs 
 until elimination takes place. But this strain, or 
 overwork, is the least of the evils which come from
 
 332 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 the presence of alcohol. The changes and deteriora- 
 tions of structure, and in the condition of the blood, 
 which take place in consequence of the presence of 
 alcohol, are of a most serious character. Let me try 
 to make this plain. The whole surface of the body, 
 and every particular organ, muscle, nerve, blood- 
 vessel, and even the bones, are enveloped in sheaths 
 or coverings called the membranes. Besides the first 
 apparent use of these membranes, many of which 
 serve as enveloping bandages, by which all the 
 structures are held together in perfect order, they 
 have a still more important use in the animal econo- 
 my. They are the niters of the body, and without 
 them there could be no building of the structures 
 they line or enclose. The food we take contains all 
 the various things required for the life and health of 
 the body ; albumen, caesin and vegetable film for 
 tissue building ; fat, sugar and starch for the produc- 
 tion of heat and force ; water as the general solvent, 
 and salt for constructive and other purposes. These 
 have, after digestion, to be arranged in the body, 
 which is done by the membranes, through which 
 nothing can pass which is not, for the time, in a state 
 of aqueous solution. "Water passes freely through 
 them, and so do soluble salts ; but the constructive 
 albuminous matter does not pass until it is chemi- 
 cally decomposed. Upon their integrity all the 
 silent work of building up the body depends. If 
 these membranes are rendered too porous, and let 
 out the tissue-building fluids of the blood, the body
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 333 
 
 dies gradually, as if it were being slowly bled to 
 death ; if, on the contrary, they become condensed or 
 thickened, they fail to let the natural fluids pass 
 through them, and the result is either an accumula- 
 tion of fluids in a closed cavity, or the contraction 
 of the substance enclosed within the membrane, or 
 a dryness of membranous surfaces which ought to 
 be freely lubricated and kept apart. 
 . " Now, the most carefully-conducted experiments 
 
 educed the fact that upon all the membranous 
 structures alcohol exerts a direct and perverting 
 action. It produces in them a thickening, a shrink- 
 in u r and an inactivity that reduces their functional 
 power. That they may work rapidly and equally, 
 they require to be at all times charged with water to 
 saturation ; and an agent that deprives them of any 
 portion of this water interferes with their work, and 
 
 ;lic foundation of structural derangements and 
 deteriorations that an- often fatal in the end. Alco- 
 hol i :i n ajynt which possesses, in a high degree, 
 this jx)wer of absorbing water; and as soon as it is 
 
 n into the body it begins the work of absorption. 
 Dr. Hunt, in his report to the Medical Congress, 
 says : ' The power alcohol has of drying secretions, 
 anl congesting membranes, is unsurpassed by any 
 known remedy in general use;' and Dr. Richard- 
 son, in his Cantor Lectures on Alcohol, dwells par- 
 ticularly on this point in his startling exhibit of the 
 destructive cll<rts of alcohol when taken into the 
 human l>ody."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 almost take my breath away, doctor !" 
 exclaimed Judge Arbuckle, affecting a 
 lightness of tone that did not wholly conceal the 
 more serious impression which these charges against 
 alcohol, as an enemy to the animal organism, had 
 produced on his mind. " I was going to ask you in 
 what specific manner this substance affects the heart 
 and the liver ; but I'm half afraid." 
 
 " The best way to deal with any danger, is to look 
 it steadily in the face, and measure its power for 
 evil," replied the doctor. " Let us take the heart, 
 which, by its propelling force, sends the blood along 
 the arteries. One of the first effects of alcohol is a 
 temporary relaxation or paralysis of the minuter 
 blood-vessels, which shows itself often, as I said a 
 little while ago, in a sensation of heat. This causes 
 the heart to beat more quickly. The vessels through- 
 out the whole body become dilated, and are held in 
 a state of unnatural relaxation and unnatural tension. 
 If the use of alcoholic drinks is continued, the per- 
 sistent pressure causes, in the course of time, a change 
 in the diameters of these vessels, and the whole mar- 
 velous web- work of blood, upon which the organs of 
 the body are constructed, is deranged. Soon the 
 334
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 335 
 
 functions of the heart become perverted for it 
 cannot escape the effects of stimulation. If, to-day, 
 under the excitement of wine or spirits, it gives 
 twenty-five thousand strokes in twenty-four hours 
 more than its usual number, it cannot to-morrow 
 sink back to the old rate without experiencing some 
 disturbance, some feebleness, or some hesitation. 
 And is it not fair to conclude that an organ which, 
 by its own stroke feeds its own substance with 
 blood, must be among the first to suffer from irregu- 
 lar supplies of blood ? As stimulation goes on in- 
 creasing, the heart, whipped to greater efforts, 
 gradually enlarges, as the arm does by excessive use ; 
 its exquisite valves, subjected to prolonged strain, 
 are drawn out of their fine proportion ; the orifices, 
 through which the great currents of blood issue in 
 their course, are dilated ; the minute chords which 
 IK ld the valves in position and tension are elon- 
 1 ; and the walls of the ventricles are thickened. 
 All thi.s is, of course, very gradual, and nature, ever 
 on the alert for defense or repair, holds her own, as 
 far as possible, against the enemy that is assaulting 
 her, and disputes the ground inch by inch, and for 
 a long time so successfully, that but few outward 
 HLMIS of the evil work that is going on make them- 
 selves visible. Hut the time comes when her power 
 of resistance fails, ami when deteriorations of organic 
 W8 lx-in. The membranous envelope and 
 lining of the heart thickens, becomes cartilaginous, 
 and even bony. To this may siuree-l degenerative
 
 336 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 changes in the muscular tissues of the heart, by 
 which the power of contraction may be reduced, or 
 fatty cells may begin to replace the muscular struc- 
 ture. So insidiously do these organic changes 
 progress, that those who are suffering from them 
 are scarcely aware of the mischief until it is far 
 advanced. They are for years conscious of a failure 
 of central power, which they try to restore by the 
 very stimulation that produced the failure, until, in 
 the end, the remedy ceases to act ; whip and spur 
 can do no more, and the poor, jaded, overworked 
 heart gives up the hopeless struggle." 
 
 "And the man dies," said the judge, in a half- 
 incredulous voice. But his manner was very grave. 
 
 "That event may be long delayed; for nature 
 never yields an inch of ground so long as she can 
 defend it, and when forced to retire, usually does it 
 slowly, fighting as she retreats. It often happens 
 that, before the heart gives up the struggle, other 
 vital organs are subdued the brain, the liver or 
 the lungs. Sometimes paralysis or apoplexy ends 
 the contest. Indeed, death comes from a wide range 
 of diseases, which have their origin in alcoholic 
 deteriorations. No man, who uses the substance 
 habitually is a sound man. He cannot bear ex- 
 posure, or sudden changes of the temperature, or 
 the subtle invasion of epidemics, near so well as the 
 man who never permits the poison to enter his 
 system." 
 
 "You think my torpid liver comes from the
 
 THE CUl^i: AM) THE CUBE. 337 
 
 iice of alcohol in my system?" said the 
 judge. 
 
 " I have very little doubt of it ; for it is on that 
 organ that alcohol most frequently works structural 
 changes/' replied Dr. Gilbert "The liver has a 
 remarkable capacity for holding active substances in 
 its cellular parts. In cases of poisoning from arsenic, 
 strychnine and other substances, we turn at once to 
 the liver as the place of chief deposit for foreign 
 matter. Alcohol finds its way there promptly ; and 
 we might say that, with the free drinker of ardent 
 spirits, it is almost continually saturated with it. 
 The effect of alcohol on the liver is to retard free 
 secretion and the passage of fluids. The organ 
 enlarges at first from the distension of its vessels 
 and the thickening of its tissues. Afterwards there 
 follows a contraction of membrane, and a slow 
 shrinking of the whole mass of the organ in its 
 cellular parts. Dr. Richardson, in his Cantor Lec- 
 tures, to which I have referred, clearly describes 
 this process. Of course, as in other alcoholic poi- 
 soning, the change is slow, and the subject of it 
 rarely suspects the cause of his trouble. When the 
 liver has become a shrunken, hardened mass, 
 dropsy in the lower extremities appears, and the 
 >ii us hopeless. Sometimes, in these ex- 
 treme changes, a fatty degeneration takes place." 
 
 I saw the judge glance down at his feet and move 
 them, I thought, a little uneasily, when Dr. Gilbert 
 spoke of dropsy in the lower extremities; and I 
 22
 
 338 STEONG DRINK; 
 
 fancied that the face of Mrs. Arbuckle changed 
 suddenly. There was a pause, which no one seemed 
 for awhile inclined to break. 
 
 "If all this be so, doctor," Judge Arbuckle's 
 brows were drawn closely together, " what are we to 
 do with the fact that in typhoid fevers brandy is 
 relied upon almost as much as if it were a specific 
 for that disease ? If alcohol is such an enemy to 
 the human body, how can it act as a friend here ? 
 Poison is poison, and works destructively, whether 
 he who takes it be sick or well." 
 
 " Does your physician make free use of brandy 
 in typhoid fever ?" 
 
 " He did as late as six months ago," replied the 
 judge. " But now, that we are talking on this sub- 
 ject, I recall the fact that since then one of my 
 neighbors, whose daughter was down with this 
 fever, sent him away and called in another physi- 
 cian, because milk punch was interdicted. My 
 neighbor would not take the risk of any experi- 
 ments with his child. He had always seen milk 
 punch given freely in typhoid fever, and as Dr. 
 
 D refused to let it be given, on the ground 
 
 that he had adopted some new theory of cure, he 
 
 was discharged, and the case given to Dr. L , 
 
 who held strictly to the old mode of treatment." 
 
 " What was the result." 
 
 " It was a very bad attack. I remember it all 
 
 now. Dr. D was severely blamed by the family 
 
 for his treatment of the case while it was in his
 
 THE CURSE AXD TUB Cl'llK. 339 
 
 hands. He let it sink so low for lack of stimula- 
 tion, that when brandy was given it was too late to 
 produce any reactive effect." 
 
 " And the patient died?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Killed by the brandy, most likely. Nature had 
 all that she could do to fight single-handed with her 
 enemy. To give him a recruit was to make his 
 victory sure." 
 
 You speak very confidently, Dr. Gilbert." 
 
 " Because I speak from the stand-point of accu- 
 rate knowledge in regard to the action of alcohol, 
 as well as from the experience and observation of 
 the most enlightened men in our profession. No 
 physician, who has kept pace with the advance of 
 medical science in the past few years, would now 
 due to risk the life of his patient, or to retard his 
 cure, by giving him alcohol freely in any serious 
 illness. If administered at all, it would be in very 
 small doses, and with an exceeding close observation 
 of its effects. If I had you in my library, I could 
 refer you to the recorded testimony in medical jour- 
 nals, treatises and text-books of the most distin- 
 guished and trustworthy members of the profession 
 in this country and Europe, on the subject of the 
 use of alcohol in disease ; and with scarcely an ex- 
 ception, it is unfavorable. Where its use is now sanc- 
 tioned at all, it is under the strictest limitations, and 
 with the greatest injunctions of caution. Prof. 
 Loomis, of New York city, who does not entirely
 
 340 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 exclude alcohol in his treatment of typhoid fever, 
 says, that in this disease the experience of very few 
 physicians is such as to enable them to determine 
 from the patient's appearance, when the administra- 
 tion of stimulants should be commenced, and that 
 where there is reasonable doubt as to the propriety 
 of giving or withholding, it is better to withhold 
 them. He admits a possible value, but admonishes 
 the physician when prescribing alcohol to his pa- 
 tient in this disease to see him at least every two 
 hours, and to watch the effect with the greatest care. 
 Dr. Hunt, while approving this extremely guarded 
 use, says, that many excellent practitioners rely 
 wholly on ammonia, ethers and foods in such 
 
 cases." 
 
 " The evidence against my client continues to ac- 
 cumulate," said the judge, with something like a 
 grim smile on his face. "Anything more, Dr. 
 Gilbert?" 
 
 " The testimony, if all were taken," replied the 
 doctor, "would require this court to remain in session 
 for weeks, and if printed, would fill many volumes. 
 There are a few things more which I would like to 
 say, if you have patience to hear them. The pris- 
 oner at the bar, your honor, is an exceedingly dan- 
 gerous fellow ; and it may be well to permit those 
 who know him best, and who understand his hidden 
 and subtle ways, and the evils that are wrought by 
 his hands, to offer still further evidence against him. 
 Kichardson says of alcohol, that it dries the liver,
 
 the stomach and the lungs ; and even steals moisture 
 from the corpuscles of the blood ; and more than any 
 other article in common use, initiates degeneration of 
 important organs. A claim has been made for al- 
 cohol that it fattens the body, if that be a desirable 
 iv.- u It. Many beer-drinkers certainly do become 
 i'at ; but as a substance which contains no fatty ma- 
 terial cannot produce fat, investigation may naturally 
 seek for a reason in the pathological effects of alco- 
 hol. It is found that the individual so fattened in- 
 variably diminishes in physical activity, and in the 
 power of endurance in proportion to his increase of 
 weight ; and this is held to be due to a degenerative 
 change in the more actively vital materials of the 
 body, and the slow accumulation of un eliminated 
 carbonacious material. It is really disease and not 
 health ; the product of a degenerative and not a 
 normal process. If alcohol can serve the human 
 body no better than this, the body might well dis- 
 pense with its service. 
 
 "As a digester, alcohol has a wide reputation. 
 Men take it before a meal to prepare the stomach 
 for its work, and with and after a meal to assist it in 
 doing its, work. Now, what has the medical pro- 
 fession to say on this subject ; and what is the re- 
 sult of careful test, analysis and observation ? One 
 authority drclares that alcohol, when added to the 
 digestive fluid, * produces a white precipitate, which 
 susjM-nds digestion;' and Rirhardson dtvlans that 
 of all the systems of organs that sulli-r from the use
 
 342 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 of alcohol, two, viz : the digestive and the nervous, 
 are effected most determinately. The stomach, he 
 remarks, being unable, because of the presence of 
 alcohol, to produce, in proper quantity, the natural 
 digestive fluid, and also unable to absorb the food 
 which, in consequence, is but imperfectly digested, 
 becomes affected with anxiety and irritation, or op- 
 pressed with nausea, or with a sense of distension, 
 or with a loathing for food, or an unnatural craving 
 for drink. This self-inflicted disease, as it becomes 
 confirmed, is called dyspepsia ; and the sufferer, in- 
 stead of giving up his wine, or spirits, takes pills, or 
 pours into his poor abused stomach floods of effer- 
 vescing and mineral waters ; does, in fact, a hundred 
 foolish things by which he is made worse. Between 
 his drinking and his medicine, he increases his indi- 
 gestion, until it takes on a chronic form, and all 
 enjoyment of life is over." 
 
 " One might infer from all this," the judge here 
 remarked, " that our prisoner at the bar is responsi- 
 ble for all the ills that flesh is heir to." 
 
 " His responsibility," replied the doctor, " has a 
 far wider range than most people imagine. The 
 consumption of spirits, wine, ale and beer reaches, 
 annually, in this country, the enormous amount of 
 over three hundred millions of gallons. Is it possible 
 for the people to consume this vast quantity of a bev- 
 erage containing from two or three to over sixty per 
 cent, of a substance which, in the words of Dr. 
 Hunt, is ' beyond dispute, fraught with the most
 
 THE CUJISE AND THE CURE. 343 
 
 prevalent and direful results to the physical struct- 
 ure,' without a serious impairment of the puhlic 
 health in the reduction of vital power, and in func- 
 tional derangements, which lay the foundations of 
 
 :-es which too often baffle the physician's skill ? 
 
 iv nothing of the ills that afflict our social 
 life, which are more terrible, even, than the ills 
 from which our bodies suffer. One medical writer 
 says of alcohol : ' It helps time to produce the effects 
 of age ; it is the genius of degeneration/ Another 
 says : ' Practical medicine tells us that three-quarters 
 of all diseases in adults who drink at all are caused 
 thereby/ and farther, that, ' the capacity of the 
 alcohols for impairment of functions and the initia- 
 tion and promotion of organic lesion in vital parts, 
 is unsurpassed by any record in the whole range of 
 medicine ;' these facts being so fully granted by the 
 profession as to be no longer debatable. But why 
 continue to accumulate evidence? If what I have 
 stated be not sufficient to convict the accused, it 
 would be a waste of time to bring other allegations 
 against him." 
 
 Judge Arbuckle's fine face lighted up as he 
 grasped the hand of Dr. Gilbert, and said : " I must 
 declare the evidence to be complete ; and confess, at 
 tin- -ame time, that I have been too much prejudiced 
 against temperance reformers, as a class, to give this 
 subject the careful and honest investigation it should 
 long ago have received at my hands. "NVe cling to 
 old prejudices sometimes with an unreasoning tenari-
 
 344 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 ty, you know. But is the statement just made by 
 you taken from official returns ? the one in regard 
 to the enormous consumption of intoxicating drinks 
 in this country?" 
 
 "It is from Dr. Hargreaves' important work, 
 ' Our Wasted Resources/ which ought to be care- 
 fully studied by every intelligent man who feels an 
 interest in the welfare of his country, and in the 
 well-being of the people. The statements given are, 
 of course, authentic. And let me refer you, also, to 
 the exhaustive report on 'Alcohol as a Food and 
 Medicine/ made to the recent Medical Congress, by 
 Dr. Ezra W. Hunt, which has been published in a 
 volume of nearly a hundred and fifty pages ; and 
 to Dr. Richardson's able lectures on alcohol. These 
 works are candid, honest and thorough, and offer 
 abundant means for an examination of this great 
 subject, on the right treatment and adjustment of 
 which hang such vast results of good or evil. I shall 
 feel that a cause which my judgment approves, and 
 in which my feelings are deeply interested, has 
 gained a large accession of strength, if you, Judge 
 Arbuckle, should, from conviction and principle, 
 range yourself upon the side of its friends. That 
 cause is known as Total Abstinence." 
 
 The light which had come breaking into Judge 
 Arbuckle's face, as he grasped the doctor's hand, 
 faded out slowly, a sober, thoughtful, indeterminate 
 expression coming in its stead. "Total abstinence!" 
 Ever since he could remember, these two words 1-a'l
 
 THE CURSE AND THE <THE. 345 
 
 . in his mind, the synonym for ignorant and 
 meddlesome fanaticism ; and he had felt something 
 like contempt for men who could let the glass of 
 rous wine pass them untasted. He must be a 
 poor milk-sop, or cold, mean and unsocial, who 
 could do this, he thought. In standing consciously 
 above this class, in his use of " a beverage fit for the 
 gods," the judge had enjoyed a feeling of superiority, 
 and a sense of more affluent manhood. It is no 
 cause of wonder, then, that his countenance became 
 exceedingly grave and thoughtful. Had thape men 
 been the really wise ones ? Had they been of the 
 prudent, who, foreseeing the evil, hide themselves, 
 while he, passing on with the simple, had been pun- 
 ished ? I saw that a great conflict was going on in 
 his mind ; and I saw, too, that his wife was watching 
 him with an intensity of interest which she made 
 no effort to conceal. 
 
 "Total abstinence, doctor!" The judge shook 
 his head. " I believe in moderation. And all you 
 have said as to the bad effects of the alcohol con- 
 lined in wine and spirits, only makes moderation 
 the more imperative." 
 
 The judge had risen to his feet. In doing so, I 
 noticed a slight stiffness of movement He straight- 
 en. ! himself up rather slowly, placing one hand 
 tightly above his right hip, and holding it there for 
 i\ ti -W moments. Then he stepped out and walked 
 across the room. There was, at iir-i, a perceptible 
 limp in one leg ; but it was soon gone.
 
 346 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 Dr. Gilbert smiled, as he said : " Getting a little 
 stiff, judge?" 
 
 " Yes," was answered good humoredly. " We are 
 none of us as young as we were twenty years ago." 
 
 "A man ought to be called young at fifty," re- 
 plied the doctor. "And neither you nor I have 
 gone far, if at all, beyond that age." 
 
 " Fifty-one," said the judge. 
 
 " In advance of me less than a year. This should 
 be the age of full vigor. Every organ and function 
 in the Jpody, if there has been no overstrain, nor 
 exposure to morbific causes, ought to be in their 
 highest activity. The filtering and lubricating 
 membranes that line and inclose the joints, should 
 be in perfect health ; and so should the membranes 
 that sheathe the muscles and nerves, and enfold and 
 line the vital organs. It is too soon for age to 
 impair the action, or to dry the fluids of any part 
 of the body's wonderful mechanism." 
 
 " I don't know about that, doctor," returned the 
 judge. " I am acquainted with a; great many men 
 who have reached fifty, and there is scarcely one of 
 them who is not beginning to show signs of ap- 
 proaching age." 
 
 " What about their habits ? Are they strictly 
 temperate men? Total abstinence from alcoholic 
 drinks, I mean?" 
 
 " No. They are for the most part, good, gener- 
 ous livers, but not given to excess, except, perhaps, 
 in a few cases."
 
 THK CURSE AND THE CURE. 347 
 
 Dr. Gilbert smiled, as he said : " The effects cf 
 arsenic, when taken into the stomach moderately, 
 have been carefully observed and recorded, and are 
 so well known to the physician, that he rarely, if 
 ever, mistakes them. Now, if he were called to see 
 a patient who had been indulging in the moderate 
 use of arsenic, and found all the indications of 
 arsenic poison about him, would he not fairly con- 
 clude that it was arsenic, and not old age or any- 
 thing else that was working the mischief. The 
 case with your friends is in exact parallel with this. 
 The effects of alcoholic poison have been as carefully 
 noted and recorded as that produced by arsenic. 
 \Ve know just what it does in the human body, and 
 how it does it, and what the indications of its health- 
 destroying actions are. And when we see a man 
 who regularly uses alcohol in any of its forms, 
 suffering from the troubles which we know alcohol 
 produces, we naturally assign the cause of his ail- 
 ments to the poison he has taken. If we find him 
 troubled with sciatica, and know, as we do, that 
 alcohol perverts the membranous coverings of the 
 nerves, and gives rise to pressure within the sheath 
 of the nerve, and to pain in consequence, we 
 natually infer that the origin of his trouble lies in 
 the poison of alcohol. If the neuralgia is in the 
 face, commencing at some point where a nerve 
 ymrn through an opening in the bone, as near the 
 centre of the chin, or in front of the lower part of 
 the ear, or over the evr, and we know that alcohol
 
 348 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 thickens, as I have shown, the sheath of the nerve, 
 we do not hesitate to conclude that this thickening 
 has gone oa until the bony openings have become 
 too small, and congestion and intense suffering are 
 the consequence. If one of our moderate-drinking 
 patients has any of the troublesome forms of indi- 
 gestion, we refer the cause to the alcohol contained 
 in his favorite beverage, for we know that alcohol 
 not only retards instead of promoting digestion, but 
 weakens and diseases the stomach. If he is afflicted 
 with insomnia, we see in this most serious condition 
 the result of the relaxation of the blood-vessels of 
 the brain, caused by the presence of alcohol, and 
 their consequent inability to return the blood 
 promptly to the heart ; or if his sleep be heavy and 
 apoplectic in character, we know that this relaxation 
 of the blood-vessel is so great as to result in en- 
 gorgement and danger. If there is fatty degenera- 
 tion of the heart, or kidneys, or liver, we know that 
 alcohol will do this very thing. If we find Bright's 
 disease, we know that the action of alcohol is to 
 deteriorate the lining membranes of the kidneys, by 
 which they may lose their power to retain and 
 rightly dispose of the albuminous material out of 
 which the tissues of the body are constructed, and 
 let it pass through and be drained from the system, 
 which, in the end, is certain death. I could go on 
 and show how nearly every organic disease with which 
 our poor bodies are afflicted, may have its origin in 
 the deteriorations or obstructions caused by alcohol."
 
 TUB CURSE AND THE CURE. 349 
 
 "But, doctor, we have 'tic,' and sciatica, and in- 
 somnia, and allmminuria, and all the diseases you 
 mention in persons who make no use of wine, or 
 beer, or spirits." 
 
 " Of course we have," was replied. "I did not 
 mean to say that only alcohol causes these maladies. 
 I was speaking of persons who were habitual 
 drinkers; and the conclusion I wished to press was, 
 that as alcohol would produce the diseases from 
 which they were suffering, it was but fair to assume 
 that alcohol was the responsible agent in their spe- 
 cial cases of suffering." 
 
 "There are hereditary tendencies to many dis- 
 eases, you know, doctor," said the judge, speaking 
 with the manner of one who was being driven from 
 ntrenchments, and with little more than a sug- 
 >n in hia voice. 
 
 "The greater reason why we should carefully 
 avoid everything that will excite these tendem 
 returned the doctor. "If there be one substance 
 which, above all others, in common use among 
 men, disturbs the vital functions, and works 
 unhealthy changes in every particular thing in 
 the Ixxly which it touches, will not that substance 
 be sure to give to all hereditary susceptibilities 
 to disease a quickening force? It cannot be other- 
 wise." 
 
 The judge returned to his chair; and as he sat 
 down, drew his handkerchief from his pocket and 
 wije<l away the pcivpiratioii which had collected on
 
 350 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 his forehead. The expression of his countenance 
 was still more thoughtful and serious. 
 
 " Passing from the physical to the mental," said 
 Dr. Gilbert, " and we come to the higher and more 
 appalling forms of disaster which spring from the 
 drinking customs of society. Are you at all familiar 
 with these, Judge Arbuckle ?" 
 
 " I am aware that many cases of insanity are at- 
 tributed to intemperance ; and I can easily see that 
 confirmed drunkenness must tend to impair the 
 mental as well as the bodily powers," returned the 
 judge. 
 
 " Is it not clear," resumed the doctor, " that a 
 substance which attacks and injures every functional 
 structure in the body, must seriously affect that 
 delicate and wonderful piece of mechanism, the 
 brain ? The moment you disturb this organ, you 
 disturb the mind. You may hurt the hand, or the 
 foot, or almost any other organ or member of the 
 body, and yet thought may remain clear, and the 
 intellect balanced ; but touch the brain congest its 
 finer blood-vessels, thicken its delicate membranes 
 and impair the quality of the nervous matter they 
 inclose, and a new peril begins. Before, it was only 
 the physical man that was in danger; now it is the 
 rational and the moral man. A deterioration of 
 brain-structure has commenced, which, if not ar- 
 rested, may terminate in insanity. That it does so 
 terminate we know, for of the inmates of our insane 
 asylums, from fifteen to twenty per cent, have been
 
 TllK CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 reduced to their melancholy condition through in- 
 temperance. The percentage would be placed much 
 higher, if we included all the cases wherein the 
 l>ra in had been so much injured by alcohol as to be 
 unable to bear the shock of misfortune, bereavement 
 or humiliation, by which the reason, has been de- 
 throned. 
 
 " Men who are in good health rarely break down 
 and lose their reason in consequence of business dis- 
 S keen disappointments or domestic afflictions. 
 I do not hesitate to affirm and, as a physician, I 
 know of what I speak that no man who regularly 
 uses any beverage in which alcohol is present, is, or 
 can be, in perfect health, or in the full and undis- 
 turbed possession of his mental faculties. He is, in 
 the decree that he uses this substance, sound neither 
 in mind nor body, and is exposed to more imminent 
 dangers than men who abstain from its use alto- 
 gether. He cannot endure the same amount of 
 physical or mental strain that he might have done 
 if there had been no impairment of function or 
 faculty. Now, a point that I wish to urge, is this: 
 while we are not responsible, as moral beings, for 
 the sins of our fathers, there is laid upon us, under 
 the law of transmission, a sad heritage of diseased 
 tendencies, both of body and mind, coining down to 
 us through many generations arrested and modified 
 in one, and inten.-ilied, it may be, in another. A> me 
 take this legacy, it is only in the form, of a latent 
 force. If our lives be strictly in the line of natural
 
 352 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 and spiritual laws ; if we shun excess of every kind, 
 and hold the appetite and passions in check, we may 
 keep that latent force inactive and harmless. But 
 if, on the contrary, we indulge our appetites and pas- 
 sions, and disobey the laws of natural and spiritual 
 health, then we come into the possession of this evil 
 legacy, and into the disorders and sufferings it en- 
 tails; transmitting it with an intenser vitality, it 
 may be, to the generation that comes after us. Just 
 what this legacy of evil tendencies may be in your 
 case or mine, neither of us can know until we violate 
 some law of natural or spiritual health, impelled 
 thereto, it ^ may be, by its hidden motions. Then it 
 first begins to gain power over us. There may be 
 an inherited taint of insanity, intemperance or con- 
 sumption, which an orderly life and good health 
 may keep from ever showing itself. But let such 
 a health-disturbing element as alcohol get into the 
 body and brain, and who may foretell the conse- 
 quences."
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 TOURING the whole of this time, scarcely a re- 
 -L-' mark had been . made by any one except the 
 judge and Dr. Gilbert ; but all were attentive listeners; 
 none more so than young Henry Pickering and Amy 
 (i ranger. My attention had been drawn towards 
 them from the first, and the impression soon came to 
 me that the young man's attitude towards the question 
 under discussion had not been altogether such as the 
 maiden approved. But it was plain now, that Dr. 
 ( Jilbert's evidence, so clearly stated, had made a deep 
 impression on his mind. He turned to Amy, as 
 the doctor closed his remarks, and spoke to her very 
 earnestly for a few moments. The effect was strik- 
 ing. Her face lighted up gradually until it was as 
 if a sunbeam hud fallen over it, while her beautiful 
 eyes became almost radiant. 
 
 " For one," said Mr. Stunnard, the first to break 
 the silence that followed, turning to Dr. Gilbert as 
 he spoke, " I must express my thanks for the clear 
 explanation you have given us of the physical effects 
 of alcohol. We, the people, need instruction on 
 this subject. It is because of our lack of reliable 
 information here, that HO muny go on impairing 
 health, and laying the foundation of incurable 
 
 303
 
 354 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 diseases. If this were all ; if the use of a substance 
 so destructive to the body did not lead, as you have 
 just intimated, to other and more appalling disas- 
 ters. Among these, you have referred to insanity. 
 Ah ! if there were nothing else, this would be bad 
 enough. But among the evils that it inflicts on our 
 race, insanity, I had almost said, is among the light- 
 est. Of its agency in making criminals, Judge 
 Arbuckle is, perhaps, as well informed as any one 
 present." 
 
 The judge, who had been sitting with his eyes 
 bent to the floor, almost started at the mention of 
 his name, his absence of thought had been so great. 
 
 "What vere you saying?" he asked, glancing 
 towards Mr. Stannard. 
 
 "Only that you were probably better informed 
 than any one present as to the direct agency of al- 
 cohol in making criminals." 
 
 "There is no gainsaying the fact," replied the 
 judge, with much gravity of manner, " that a very 
 large number of the crimes for which men are tried 
 and punished, have their origin, or secondary ex- 
 citing cause in liquor-drinking." 
 
 " Statistics," remarked Mr. Granger, " tell a sad 
 story as to the crime, destitution, suffering and pau- 
 perism which spring from this one source. The 
 figures are indeed startling. I have looked at the 
 hundreds of poor wretched creatures who gathered 
 nightly at our meeting on Broad Street, and read 
 in their faces the sad story of their fall and degra-
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 355 
 
 dation; my thought has gone to the homes made 
 desolate ; to the broken-hearted wives and mothers ; 
 to the abused and neglected children, that must be 
 counted in as a part of the ruin involved in what I 
 saw before me. At a single glance, I have taken in as 
 many as from three to five hundred of these wretched 
 1 eiiigs, with faces and forms so marred and disfigured 
 that it made my heart ache to look at them ; and for 
 every individual I saw before me, somewhere, away 
 out of sight and observation, were from one to half 
 a score of wronged and suffering ones, who, but for 
 the debasement of these men, might have been 
 living in comfort and happiness. This is the 
 thought that intensifies our pity and stirs our com- 
 passion when we look at even a single one of these 
 wrecks of humanity. 
 
 " But when we begin to aggregate these human 
 disasters, the result becomes appalling. We take 
 an isulated home. It is the dwelling-place of sweet 
 content. But the demon of drink comes in, and 
 beauty fades, and peace retires, and sorrow, and 
 pain, and unutterable woe take up their abode in 
 the desolate habitation ; or it is thrown down and 
 utterly destroyed. How sad we grow over a single 
 case like this, when it comes clearly before us. 
 What, then, is the fearful aggregate? Statistics 
 place the great army of drunkards in this country 
 at six hundred thousand! It may be more, it may 
 be less. Do we place the average too great when we 
 that, for every one of the^e, live persons are
 
 356 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 hurt in some way fathers, mothers, wives, children, 
 sisters, brothers or dependents ? Three millions of 
 persons involved in the debasement and ruin of 
 these six hundred thousand ! What an awful ag- 
 gregate, when we comprehend just what this debase- 
 ment and ruin means and involves ! Then statistics 
 tell us that, from two to three hundred thousand 
 children are yearly deserted, or orphaned, and sent 
 to poor-houses, or bequeathed to private and public 
 charities, in consequence of intemperance; to say 
 nothing of the little ones who perish from neglect 
 and cruelty. Of the crimes committed, our news- 
 papers and our police, our courts and prison records 
 make perpetual advertisement, until the awful facts 
 become so familiar that the public grow hardened 
 and almost indifferent. In a single year, in the 
 State of New York, according to one of the reports 
 of the Prison Association, not less than from sixty 
 to seventy thousand persons, men, women and 
 children, were committed to the jails of that com- 
 monwealth, and seven-eighths of these commitments, 
 according to the estimates of the prison -keepers, 
 were due either directly or indirectly to the use of 
 intoxicating liquors. The estimates of leading tem- 
 perance writers as to the number of men and women 
 who are yearly sent to prison in consequence of 
 using strong drink, give the figures at one hundred 
 thousand ; but taking the returns of New York as 
 a basis of calculation, and they swell to more 
 startling numbers.
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cl'llK. 3,57 
 
 "The mortality of drunkenness is another a.- 
 of the case fearful to contemplate. Sixty thousand 
 are said to die annually in this country from the 
 t effects of inebriety; and where epidemics 
 attack a community, the intemperate, and those who 
 use alcoholic drinks regularly, are the first to yield 
 to their malign influences. A remarkable instance 
 of this is given in a letter written to the Boston 
 Jf'flical Journal, in 1853, by Dr. Carnwright, of 
 X \v Orleans. The yellow fever, he said, came down 
 like a storm on the devoted city, sweeping off five 
 thousand intemperate men, before, so far as he was 
 able to get at the facts, a single sober man was 
 t< inched by the epidemic. A Liverpool coroner 
 made public declaration, that gin caused him to 
 hold annually a thousand more inquests than would 
 otherwise have been the case; and he said, farther, 
 that he had seen, since holding the office of coroner, 
 so many murders by poison, by drowning, by hang- 
 ing and hy cutting the throat, in consequence of 
 drinking ardent spirits, that he was astonished that 
 the legislature did not interfere to stop the sale of 
 intoxicating liquor. It was his belief, that from ten 
 to fifteen thousand persons died annually in that 
 metropolis from the effects of gin-drinking. 
 
 " Looking beyond the questions of health, mor- 
 tality and personal suffering involved in the use of 
 intoxicants, the loss to the whole people in material 
 prosperity is something startling. If, as has bren 
 established over and lin by the testimony of
 
 358 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 judges, grand juries and prison-keepers, from sixty 
 to eighty per cent, of the heavy cost of maintaining 
 courts, prisons and almshouses, is due to the crime 
 and pauperism engendered by drinking, we have in 
 this item alone a vast drain upon the productive 
 industry of the country. What this drain is may 
 be seen from a single fact. In Ulster County, New 
 York, a committee was appointed to ascertain from 
 reliable sources, the percentage on every dollar of 
 tax paid to the county which was required for the 
 support of her paupers, and the prosecution and 
 maintainance of her criminals; and, after careful 
 examination, it was announced, that on every dollar 
 of tax paid, sixty-three cents was the penalty ex- 
 acted from the people for permitting the liquor 
 traffic to be carried on in that county. But this is 
 only a single item. The loss in productive labor 
 suffered through the voluntary or enforced idleness 
 of six or seven hundred thousand drunken men, 
 paupers and criminals, to say nothing of the reduced 
 power of work and production that inevitably attends 
 moderate drinking, as it is called, adds an additional 
 drawback to the general prosperity. There is yet 
 another view of this case. Hundreds of thousands 
 of bushels of grain, instead of going to feed the 
 people, are annually used for the production of bev- 
 erages which injure the health of all who drink 
 them, and create an army of paupers and criminals. 
 The amount paid for these beverages by those who 
 drink them, is from eight hundred to a thousand
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 359 
 
 millions of dollars every year, or more than the 
 value of all the flour, cotton goods, boots and shoes, 
 woolen goods, clothing, books and newspapers pro- 
 duced in the whole country. A government of the 
 people, by the people, and for the people, can hardly 
 be called, in all things, a wise government, so long 
 as it fosters and protects, by legal enactment, and 
 draws a part of its revenue, from a traffic like this, 
 which offers no good to the people, but mars their 
 industry, corrupts their politics, and sows crime, 
 pauperism, disease and death broadcast over the 
 land. Is it not time that the citizens of this great 
 nation called a halt ; and time that every man who 
 holds in regard the well-being of his neighbor, and 
 the happiness and safety of his children, should 
 come out from among the friends of so monstrous 
 an evil, and set himself resolutely to the work of 
 its repression?" 
 
 "The work of repression is a very slow and 
 halting work," came in the clear, calm voice of a 
 woman, and I turned towards Mrs. K - , who had 
 U ( n silent up to this time. Judge Arbuckle, who 
 had been listening with a grave, judicial attention 
 to Mr. Granger, almost started at the sound of her 
 voice, and looked at her with a lifting of his eye- 
 brows, and awakened surprise on his countenam r. 
 " Its progress, if there be really any progress at all, 
 except in one or two exceptional States," she went on, 
 "ia so slow as to be utterly disheartening, 1 
 
 noiuj of the t'il'ortd which are being made to
 
 360 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 restrict the traffic and warn the people against the 
 use of a substance which yields no single benefit, 
 but curses with unutterable woes every one on whom 
 its blight falls they all have their measure of good 
 but, while we wait for the agencies of repression, 
 thousands, and tens of thousands are perishing 
 around us. Shall we stand off and see these wretched 
 men and women so perish while we seek to influence 
 legislation, and wait for a new public sentiment that 
 shall lessen the evil in some far-off time to come ? 
 Shall a man, whom an effort on my part might save, 
 die at my door, and I be guiltless ?" 
 
 " There are many agencies of reform and means 
 of rescue in active operation, as you are well aware 1 , 
 
 Mrs. K ," said Mr. Stannard. " Our inebriate 
 
 asylums and reformatory homes are saving a large 
 number of men.'* 
 
 " For every man that is so saved, I thank God, 
 and bless the agency that saved him," was answered. 
 " But what impression can less than a score of such 
 institutions, scattered here and there over the land, 
 excellent as they are, make upon the six hundred 
 thousand drunkards Mr. Granger has just told us 
 about ? Are these to be left to perish, while we are 
 trying to establish more asylums for their treatment 
 and cure ? There must be quicker, readier and less 
 costly means for more than four out of five of these 
 six hundred thousand, or they are lost forever." 
 
 " You, and the noble women who are at work 
 with you in the cause of reform and restoration,
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 
 
 an- giving us, I trust, a solution of this great 
 problem." 
 
 " God is giving the solution," replied Mrs. K , 
 
 in a low, subdued voice. " In our blindness we went 
 lim, and He showed us the way. "We called 
 upon Him in our weakness and our despair, and He 
 heard and answered us." 
 
 Mrs. K spoke with a confidence of manner 
 
 that brought a look of wonder to the face of Judge 
 Arbuckle, and caused him to lean a little forward in 
 his chair. 
 
 " You men may continue to fight this foe 6f intem- 
 perance with carnal aids to warfare, if you will, but 
 we have found in the Sword of the Spirit the most 
 eilertive weapon that we can use against him," Mrs. 
 
 K continued, a soft smile just touching her 
 
 lips, to show that she did not mean any discourtesy 
 by her form of speech. 
 
 " \Vhat do you mean by the Sword of the 
 Spirit, madam?" asked the judge, as he leaned 
 towards Mrs. K , and looked at her still curi- 
 ously. 
 
 " Prayer and faith," she replied. 
 
 " Oh ! I see," he returned, with a slight betrayal 
 of amused incredulity in his voice. "Prayer and 
 faith are used as a kind of exorcism by which the 
 devil of drink is cast out." 
 
 "If you choose to put it in that form, judge," the 
 lady answered, with a smile still lingering on her 
 gentle lips.
 
 362 STRONG DRINK f 
 
 " And you really believe, madam, that prayer will 
 make a drunken man sober ?" 
 
 " No, I do not believe anything of the kind." 
 
 "What then?" asked the judge. 
 
 "I believe that God will do it in answer to 
 prayers." 
 
 " In answer to your prayer ?" 
 
 "If," asked Mrs. K , "there lived in my 
 
 neighborhood a man who had become miserably 
 drunken; who wasted his earnings in liquor, and 
 neglected and abused his wife and children ; and I, 
 pitying his state, and earnestly desiring to save him, 
 should go to the Lord and present his case, and 
 pray that His Holy Spirit might strike conviction 
 to his soul, and give him not only to see the dreadful 
 sin he was committing, but lead him to repentance ; 
 and suppose that, after I had so presented him to 
 the Lord, for a single time, or for many times, he 
 should repent, and turn from his evil course, and 
 be gathered into the fold of Christ, what would you 
 say?" 
 
 " Have you ever known such a case ?" asked the 
 judge. 
 
 " Yes ; and not only one, but many, each, of 
 course, with its peculiar aspects and incidents, but 
 all quite as remarkable as the one I have given." 
 
 " There is something more in this than appears 
 on the surface," remarked the judge. " I do not 
 believe that God was waiting for your prayers before 
 He would lead the man of whom you speak to
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 
 
 repentance and reformation of life. -What is your 
 view of the case?" 
 
 " I know," replied Mrs. K , " that all things 
 
 are promised to those who pray, believing ; and I 
 know, that after I had prayed, in the case I have 
 instanced, and in many other such cases, God has 
 brought conviction and repentance. Just how it 
 was all done, I do not pretend to know. I am not 
 so much interested in the philosophy of this salva- 
 tion as in the glorious fact And I am not alone, 
 Judge Arbuckle, in my experiences. Hundred^ of 
 pious women in this city, and thousands more all 
 over the land, are saving poor drunkards by scores 
 and hundreds through the power of faith and 
 prayer. If you could be with us in our daily 
 meetings, and see the men whom we are rescuing, 
 and hear them speak of the power of Divine grace 
 in setting them free from the slavery of appetite, 
 your heart would be so stirred within you that you 
 would accept the fact of the value of prayer, and leave 
 the philosophy to be discussed and settled hereafter." 
 
 "If you can lead a man to pray for himself, and 
 he then gain, through prayer and intercession, the 
 power to resist and control his appetite, I can see a 
 clear relation between cause and effect," said the 
 judge. " He comes voluntarily into a new attitude 
 towards the Lord, who can now give him grace and 
 strength, because he is ready to receive it. But 
 how the prayer in which he IKLS no part can have 
 any avail, passes my comprehension."
 
 364 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 " We who are in the midst of this great Gospel 
 temperance work are so crowded with surprising 
 instances of the effect of our prayers for others- 
 even for men and women whom we have not seen, 
 whose names often we do not know, nor sometimes 
 their places of abode that doubt is no longer possi- 
 ble," Mrs. K replied. "And when, at our 
 
 daily afternoon prayer and experience meetings, we 
 make requests of God for those who ask for our in- 
 tercession in their behalf, we do it in full confidence 
 that we shall be heard and answered, though noth- 
 ing of the result should, in many cases, ever come 
 to our knowledge." 
 
 The deep calmness of a settled conviction was seen 
 in the countenance of Mrs. K , as she spoke. 
 
 " We know so little of the spiritual world that 
 lies in and around us," said Mr. Stannard, at this 
 point of the conversation, " and of the laws which 
 govern therein, that we must not be surprised if some 
 of its phenomena are found difficult of explanation. 
 We cannot, knowing as we do, that God is infinite 
 and essential love, and that His compassion is so 
 great that our compassion in its tenderest move- 
 ments bears no ratio to it whatever, believe that He 
 withholds His saving power from any sin-sick and 
 perishing soul until we ask Him to be gracious. 
 But rather that, in our prayers for and thought of 
 the individual for whom we pray, spiritual forces or 
 influences, whose action is above the region of our 
 knowledge, are set in motion, as the atmospheres
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 are set in motion by the concussions we call sound, 
 and so thought and feeling be stirred and acted 
 ujon, and he for whom we pray be led to turn to 
 the Lord, whose ears are always open to His chil- 
 dren's cry for help, and whose hands are always 
 stretched out to save." 
 
 " Be that as it may," remarked Mrs. K , " I 
 
 am not wise enough to say whether Mr. Stannard's 
 view be right or wrong ; but this I know, wonder- 
 ful results follow the prayers we offer to God, and 
 nu'ii whom we are asked to pray for to-day 
 drunken, debased and evil men ; husbands, sons, 
 brothers, for whom our prayers are asked by wives, 
 mothers and sisters often, within a day or a week, 
 present themselves at our meetings, or at other 
 places where Gospel meetings are held, and sign the 
 pledge, and give their hearts to Christ. And so 
 long as we women see these results, we should con- 
 tinue to pray mightily to God." 
 
 A few moments of thoughtful silence, and then 
 
 Mr. Stannard said, addressing Mrs. K : "I 
 
 know all about what you are doing in this city, and 
 the great success of your work; and I see in the 
 ni/.ation of a kindred work in every city, town 
 and neighborhood all over our country, the largest 
 and most eiil ctive agency of temperance reform ever 
 known in our liquor-cursed land. My only fear is, 
 that yon may depend so completely on prayer, and 
 faith, and Divine grace, in the work of saving 
 drunkards, that you will fail to use the natural
 
 366 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 means of reform and restoration that are as essential 
 to permanent cure as the others." 
 
 "A woman's instincts are swift and true, Mr. 
 Stannard," was the reply. " We know that a man, 
 with hunger gnawing at his stomach, is in a poor 
 condition for effective praying ; that if he be home- 
 less and idle, he is especially exposed to temptation, 
 and the feeble spiritual life he may have found will 
 be almost sure of extinguishment in its foul breath. 
 We know that health must come back to the body, 
 and its orderly life be restored, if we would keep 
 down the old craving desire, and give to spiritual 
 forces an unobstructed sphere of action. While we 
 believe in prayer, and the grace of God, and a 
 change of heart, we believe also in the saving power 
 of natural and physical health, and order as well. 
 The man to be truly saved must be saved within 
 and without. But, with God's grace in his heart, 
 he will find the work of keeping his outer life in 
 order a far easier task than if he tried to do it in 
 his own strength. And herein it is that our work 
 is meeting with such large success. We point the 
 poor, exhausted inebriate, who comes to us in his 
 rags and defilements, to Him who is able to save, 
 and urge him to cast himself upon His love and 
 mercy. To make new resolves and new pledges; 
 but with this difference from the old resolves and 
 pledges, that now prayer is added to the new reso- 
 lutions, and spiritual strength asked humbly and 
 trustingly from God. We take him to the church-
 
 THE CURSE AND THE Cl'Ili:. 3(57 
 
 door, and invite him to enter and cast in his lot 
 with religious people ; helping him to form a new 
 nal, as well as a new internal life. He is 
 thus removed from old, debasing associations, and 
 brought into fellowship with pious people, who take 
 him by the hand, and if he have any ability for 
 ( 'hristian work, find him something to do in the 
 Sunday-school, in the prayer-meetings, in the tem- 
 perance work of his neighborhood, or in anything 
 else that is good and useful." 
 
 "And this is what you mean by Gospel temper- 
 .'' said Judge Arbuckle, his fine face lighting 
 up beautifully. 
 
 " It is one of its phases," answered Mrs. K . 
 
 "And the best and most promising phase, I'll 
 warrant you," returned the judge, with rising en- 
 thusiasm. " Why this is church work ! I'm a good 
 churchman, you see, madam ; and believe, with our 
 excellent bishop, that all saving reforms should 
 originate in, and be fostered and carried on by, the 
 church." 
 
 " What if the church, in its organized form, 
 neglects, or wholly ignores temperance work even 
 Gospel temperance work what then? Shall we 
 wait for the church and let the poor drunkard perish 
 because she neglects her duty ?" 
 
 " God forbid !" responded the judge. " There is 
 no monopoly in the work of lifting up fallen hu- 
 manity." 
 
 " Nor in soul-saving," said Mr. Stunnanl. " But
 
 368 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 this drift which the subject has taken, brings us face 
 to face with the church and its great responsibilities. 
 It has something more to do than the provision of 
 a Sunday service for the people. The preaching of 
 the Gospel is one thing, and the doing of Gospel 
 work another. The building of stately church edi- 
 fices, with costly finish and exquisite ornamenta- 
 tion, into which so much of the pecuniary means of 
 a congregation are absorbed, as to leave it too often 
 with a sense of poverty and an excuse for drawing 
 the purse-strings more closely, when suffering or 
 destitute humanity stretches forth its pleading hands, 
 may be all well enough ; but worship in a less 
 expensive and ostentatious building, and a more 
 Christ-like concern for the sick and perishing souls 
 that lie helpless, it may be, within the sound of its 
 choir and organ, would, I think, be far better and 
 more acceptable to God." 
 
 "You do not approve, then, of the splendid 
 churches and grand cathedrals which, in all Chris- 
 tian countries, have been erected to the honor of 
 God and dedicated to His worship?" said Judge 
 Arbuckle. 
 
 " Not if they are built and maintained at the cost 
 of human souls." 
 
 " I am not sure that I reach your meaning, Mr. 
 Stannard." 
 
 " Let me give an illustration. We will take the 
 case of a congregation which has built for itself a 
 splendid marble or brown-stone church at a cost of
 
 THE CURSE A3D THE CTA//. 3(J<J 
 
 one, or two, or three hundred thousand dollars, into 
 which the people come twice every Sunday to hear 
 the service and preaching, and once or twice a week 
 for evening prayers or a lecture. This elegant 
 structure is an ornament to the neighborhood, and 
 the people who have built it feel proud of their fine 
 edifice, and not a few of them contrast it, a little 
 dt preciatively, it may be, with the achievements of 
 certain sister churches in the same line, and take 
 credit to themselves for having thrown these just a 
 trifle into shadow. Now, as to the spiritual value 
 of all this and no good is gained in any church 
 work unless it be a spiritual good there may be 
 serious doubts. Has the creation of a grand temple 
 for the worship of God wrought in the minds of 
 those by whom it was erected that state of receptive 
 humility which is the dwelling-place of Him who 
 says, ' I am meek and lowly of heart ?' Are they 
 1 nimble, more teachable, more self-deny ing, more 
 M ! i-ibrgetting, more given to good works than 
 before? What if, like a wise corporation, one of 
 these congregations had invested in their land, 
 building arid required church machinery, just one- 
 half of the sum they had in possession, and reserved 
 the other half for working capital ? Don't you see 
 how differently the case would stand ? Here is a 
 church that cost two hundred thousand dollars. 
 , if it had cost but one hundred thousand ; and 
 a building just as large and just as comfortable could 
 have been erected for that sum all the excess is 
 24
 
 370 STRONG DRIXK; 
 
 but imposing display and ornamentation that con- 
 gregation could have established and maintained, 
 with the other one hundred thousand dollars, a 
 reformatory home for inebriates, like the Franklin 
 Home of our city, and been the means of saving 
 from fifty to a hundred fallen men every year. Or, 
 it could have placed in the hands of its pious 
 women, who, like Mrs. K and her sister work- 
 ers in this Gospel temperance movement, which has 
 already wrought such marvelous results, the money 
 required to give healthy food, and sightly clothing, 
 and safer and better surroundings to the poor, 
 nerveless, appetite-cursed men they are seeking to 
 save. I instance but these ; there are many other 
 ways in which the reserved working capital of this 
 church might be used for the good of souls. Think! 
 How would it be if our blessed Lord were to stand 
 some day in the midst of that congregation ? Would 
 they hear from His lips, as His eyes took in the rich- 
 ness and grandeur of the temple they had built to 
 His honor, and then, penetrating its stately walls, 
 went searching among the poor, desolate homes, and 
 wretched hovels, and dens of vice and crime that 
 lay in the very shadow of its beauty, and saw His 
 lost sheep perishing there, with none to pity or to 
 succor would they hear from his lips the words, 
 'Well done?' I fear not" 
 
 " You have struck the key-note of the great ques- 
 tion that lies at our door to-day," said Mrs. K , 
 
 speaking with a rising earnestness of manner. "Are
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 37} 
 
 the churches, established for the salvation of souls, to 
 remain content with one or two Sunday services, 
 and a week-night prayer-meeting or lecture, main- 
 tained, in many cases, at an expense of from five to 
 fifty thousand dollars a year ? Can you find in any 
 i iii-re secular calling so large an investment with 
 such meagre returns? The theory seems to be that 
 the work of the chuch, as a body of Christian men 
 and women, is limited to Sunday, and may be inter- 
 mitted for six days." 
 
 " Let us be careful that we are not unjust," Mr. 
 Stannard replied. "I stated my case strongly, in 
 ( >n ler to illustrate my views. Many of our churches 
 are active in good works, and are doing much for 
 the spiritually destitute. They have their mission 
 si 1 tools, and visiting committees, and laborers among 
 the j>oor ; but with most of them their usefulness is 
 restricted for lack of means. It takes so much to 
 maintain Sunday worship that but little is left for 
 anything else." 
 
 " To seek and to save that which was lost. It was 
 
 for tliLs that Christ came." Mrs. K spoke in a 
 
 low, earnest voice. "Ah ! if our churches all over 
 the land would give themselves to this seeking and 
 saving of the lost of those who have fallen so low 
 that, to common eyes, their case is hopelt ->. Would 
 go out into the wilderness, like the Good Shepherd, 
 seeking for and bringing back the lost sheep. These 
 six hundred thousand drunkards, of whom over a 
 thousand die every week; what hope for them if
 
 372 ST&OSG DRINK; 
 
 the church comes not to their rescue ? for the church 
 alone can lead them to the sure refuge of Christ. 
 The world knows Him not. Only in a few cases is 
 a human hand strong enough to save. If the larger 
 number be not led to take hold upon Christ, they 
 must perish in their sin and degradation. Think 
 what joy there would be in Heaven, if all the 
 churches in the land, singly, or in union with near 
 sister churches, were to establish Gospel temperance 
 meetings, and draw into them these six hundred 
 thousand men and women or as many of them as 
 felt their slavery and wretchedness and wished to 
 escape therefrom. The very thought makes my 
 heart stir within me." 
 
 The evening had worn away, the hours passing 
 with little heed from any of us, until it was time 
 to separate. The judge had risen to his feet, 
 
 and Mrs. Arbuckle and Mrs. K were moving 
 
 from the parlor in order to make ready for 
 going away, when Mr. Granger, who had been 
 silent for most of the time, said, in a voice that 
 at once gave him an attentive audience: "I 
 would like, before we part, to say one or two 
 things that have come crowding into my mind this 
 evening. All good work is from the Lord. Every 
 effort, of whatever kind, perfect or imperfect, which 
 has for its end the saving of men from evils and 
 disorders, has in it a heavenly power and the 
 approval of God ; and we must, therefore, be 
 careful that, while we magnify the means of salva-
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 373 
 
 ti<m, which to us seem most effective, we do not 
 depreciate or throw hindrances in the way of tho-e 
 who labor in different fields, and with methods 
 different from our own. This work of saving the 
 people from the curse of drink, in which we are all 
 BO deeply interested, has many aspects, because men 
 differ not only in personal character and tempera- 
 ment, but in their external conditions and the ways 
 of thinking and habits of life, which grow out of 
 these conditions. The influences that will power- 
 fully affect one, may have little weight with another. 
 Our panacea, in which we have such an abounding 
 faith, may fail in many cases where another remedy 
 would work a cure ; while cases of failure under a 
 diverse treatment from ours may find a quick 
 restoration on coming into our hands. Let us, then, 
 be watchful over ourselves in this matter, and be 
 readier to give a 'God speed* to methods different, 
 and, it may be, less efficient than our own, than to 
 depreciate them by comparison, or hurt their influ- 
 ences by direct condemnation. Whatever tends, in 
 i-v.-n the smallest degree, to abate this curse, must be 
 recognized as good work. It may be through re- 
 strictive laws, or bindingj)ledges, or social organiza- 
 tion, or appeals to the people by the press and the 
 platform, or the opening of cheap coffee rooms. It 
 may be in Christian work and prayer, and direct 
 spiritual help from God through these appointed 
 means, in which I have the strongest faith. It may 
 be in the establishment of inebriate asylums and
 
 374 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 reformatory homes, where, while seeking to cure by 
 medical, sanitary, moral and religious means, the 
 pathology of drunkenness is carefully studied, and 
 the skill and wisdom of the medical profession 
 brought to the examination and cure of one of the 
 most fearful diseases which man, by self-indulgence, 
 has brought upon himself; involving in disorder, as 
 it does, his physical, moral and spiritual nature. 
 Tolerance of views and harmony of action are what 
 we need in this work. If I think my methods are 
 best, let me pursue them with all zeal and confi- 
 dence, doing what good I can ; only let me be 
 careful not to depreciate my brother's methods, of 
 the scope and value of which I may know far less 
 than I imagine." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Granger !" came with a hearty 
 
 utterance from the lips of Mrs. K , who had 
 
 turned back into the parlor, from which she was 
 passing when our host began his remarks. " You 
 have said the right thing in the right way. The 
 temptation to magnify our own particular work, 
 because its fruit is so near our hands, is very great. 
 But, apart from this ; are not some ways of doing a 
 thing better than other ways ? In the work of sal- 
 vation, is not a Divine Hand more certain to save 
 than a human hand ?" 
 
 I saw a light break suddenly from within into 
 Mr. Granger's face. 
 
 " If we can lead the man, in whom inebriation 
 has almost, if not entirely, destroyed the will-power,
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CTA'F. 375 
 
 to Him who is able to cure him of all diseases, if 
 he will accept the means of cure," continued Mrs. 
 
 K , " may we not hope to do more and better 
 
 fr him in this than in any other way?" 
 
 " Yes, yes, I believe it, and I know it," replied 
 Mr. Granger. " When all other means fail, this 
 May be held as sure ; for God's strength, if we take 
 it and rest upon it, never fails." 
 
 " But, after all," spoke out Judge Arbuckle, " is 
 not the work of warning and prevention better than 
 the work of cure? Of all that I have heard this 
 evening, and much of it has been deeply interesting, 
 nothing has impressed me like the evidence brought 
 by Dr. Gilbert against alcohol. It may be only 
 imagination," and he smiled a little dubiously as he 
 said it ; " but I've recognized in my sensations more 
 than half a dozen symptoms of its deleterious effects 
 since he described its action on the tissues, nerves 
 and organs of the body." He stretched his arms 
 upwards, then drew them down again slowly, 
 pressed one hand against his forehead, and then 
 held it against his right side. 
 
 " The fact is," going on, after a few moments of 
 rclKrtivc silence, "I have an unpleasant impression 
 that I'm not quite as sound as I thought myself. 
 This torpidity of liver is something, I'm afraid, more 
 serious than 1 had supposed. And my head," giving 
 it a shake, " isn't as clear as it ought to be. Th 
 often a hi-iivy, confused feeling about it which I 
 don't like.'' As lie stepped out to move across the
 
 376 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 room, I saw him limp. "One of my knee-catchers 
 again." The judge made a slight grimace. 
 
 "A diminished supply of sinovial fluid," remarked 
 Dr. Gilbert 
 
 "One of the effects of old age," said the 
 judge. 
 
 "Anticipated, most likely, by the alcohol in your 
 wine and brandy," returned the doctor. "You 
 know that, of all substances taken into the body, 
 none absorbs water like alcohol, and that its first 
 action on the membranes is to rob them of as much 
 of this fluid as it has the power to appropriate. 
 That more or less torpor and stiffness of the joints 
 and limbs should come in consequence of the con- 
 tinued use of this substance is not at all surprising ; 
 nor that the liver, heart and brain, and some of the 
 more important nerve centres, should suffer from 
 disturbances growing out of unhealthy structural 
 changes." 
 
 " Not at all not at all," answered the judge. "The 
 thing stands to reason. What I wish to say, is, that 
 as prevention is better than cure, how more effect- 
 ually can the cause of temperance be served, than 
 by the most thorough dissemination of the truth in 
 regard to the action of alcoholic drinks in deterio- 
 rating the body and laying the foundation for painful 
 and too often fatal diseases ? Why, sir, do you think 
 that, if I had known as much about this matter 
 when I was twenty-one years of age, as I do now, 
 that I would have joined the great army of moderate
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 77 
 
 drinkers? No, sir! It was because I believed, 
 with thousands of others, that these enticing bever- 
 ages were good and healthful, when not taken in 
 excess, that I used them. Now I see that there is a 
 double peril. That, besides the risk of becoming 
 their slave, he who uses them is surely laying the 
 foundation for troublesome, painful, and, often, fatal 
 diseases." 
 
 " It is in consequence of the physical deteriora- 
 tions wrought by alcohol in the stomach and brain," 
 said the doctor, "that appetite increases, and the 
 will so often loses power over it For this reason, no 
 one is safe who drinks at all ; for a double disease 
 moral, as well as physical is almost sure to be the 
 result; and this is the hardest to cure of all dis- 
 
 eases." 
 
 "And yet the easiest," spoke out Mrs. K , in 
 
 her clear, sweet voice, " if one will only come to the 
 Great Physician, and be healed by the touch of His 
 hand." 
 
 The judge let his gaze rest, for a moment or two, 
 on the speaker's calm face and slightly upturned 
 eyes, and then, as he withdrew them, said, gravely : 
 " Pn -v ntion is best, my friends. Don't forget the 
 boys and the young men, while you are trying to 
 the unhappy fallen. Conservation is in the 
 line of true order. And, remember, that it will 
 cost less of time, effort and money to keep ten from 
 falling than to lift up and restore one who is down. 
 Don't forget to provide safeguards for the ninety-
 
 378 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 and-nine, while you are going after the one lost 
 sheep." 
 
 " I think," said Dr. Gilbert, as he laid his hand 
 upon Judge Arbuckle's arm, " that we may count 
 you as upon our side of this great question." 
 
 " I should not wonder if it were so," replied the 
 judge, " for I regard the argument, so far as pre- 
 sented by you, as complete ; and, until I am satisfied 
 that you are in error, I shall take no more risks. 
 Too much of comfort, and use and happiness depend 
 on good health, to put it lightly in jeopardy. My 
 wine may be very pleasant and exhilarating, but if 
 there be really poison in the cup, I must, as a wise 
 and prudent man, let it pass untasted, or acknowl- 
 edge myself the slave of an appetite that will have 
 indulgence at any cost." 
 
 "And you, Henry?" It was the voice of Mr. 
 Granger. He spoke with a quiet cheerfulness that 
 concealed any suspense or concern, if either existed. 
 Young Pickering, who was bending towards Miss 
 Granger, and talking to her, in low tones, turned 
 his handsome face towards the speaker. " On 
 which side of this question shall we count you ?" 
 
 "On the right side, of course," said Amy, not 
 waiting for her lover's reply, a happy smile rippling 
 over her face as she spoke. His answer I did not 
 hear ; but that it was entirely satisfactory, I had the 
 assurance a few weeks later, when the fact of their 
 engagement became known to the friends of the 
 family.
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 379 
 
 And here our story must end, if so meagre a plot 
 and so light a thread of narrative can. be called a 
 story. Whatever interest has been felt in the char- 
 acters, must give place now to the profounder con- 
 victions we have sought to awaken. In the curse 
 and cure of drunkenness lie problems, to the solution 
 of which we must bring neither prejudice, nor pas- 
 sion, nor partisan feeling, but the truth, if we can 
 but find it ; and in all questions that concern man's 
 moral and spiritual life, as well as his natural and 
 physical condition, we shall be more apt to find the 
 truth, if we consider the action of moral and spiritual 
 laws, in their connection with the effects that lie 
 lower and more on the plane of common observa- 
 tion, than if we made light of them, or ignored them 
 altogether. 
 
 There is one fundamental doctrine of Christianity, 
 without which all the rest must go for nothing. 
 AVe have it from the mouth of the Lord Himself: 
 " Ye must be born again." Differ as we may about 
 the means of attaining this new spiritual birth, all 
 Christiana agree that it involves an inner change 
 tli rough the gift, or grace, or co-operative agency of 
 the Spirit of God, by which man's evil nature, with 
 all of its depraved and debasing appetites, is either 
 taken wholly away, or removed from the centre to 
 the circumference of his life, and there held in 
 complete subjection. There is no condition of de- 
 pravity or wickedness from which a man may not 
 .ve.l in this new birth; and there is no power
 
 380 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 in all hell strong enough to bear him back into his 
 old evil life,, if he use the new spiritual strength that 
 has been born in him from above. 
 
 On this fundamental law of spiritual life, all Chris- 
 tian believers stand ; and it is being more and more 
 widely accepted as the one on which we can most 
 surely depend in our efforts to save men from the 
 curse of drink. It is on this conviction that what is 
 known as the Gospel temperance movement is based ; 
 a movement in which the old, tireless workers in the 
 great cause of reform find new hope and encourage- 
 ment. Heretofore the churches have held themselves, 
 in too many instances, aloof from active participation 
 in the cause of temperance, leaving it to be dealt with 
 by legal enactment, or moral suasion. But now 
 they are beginning to see that this work is really 
 their work, and that to them has been given the 
 special means for its prosecution. In most, if not 
 all, of our inebriate asylums and homes of reforma- 
 tion, the value of spiritual aid is fully and practi- 
 cally recognized ; and in some of the larger institu- 
 tions they have their chaplain as well as their 
 physicians; and we are very sure that where the 
 physician of the body and the physician of the soul 
 unite in their efforts to cure a patient who is sick of 
 an infirmity that has exhausted his body and en- 
 slaved his will, his case is far more hopeful that if 
 he were left in the care of either alone. 
 
 And now, what need to write another sentence? 
 We cannot make clearer, by any new illustrations,
 
 TUB CURSE AXD TUB CURE. 
 
 thi-: leading thought of our story, that in coming to 
 God through sincere repentance and earnest prayer, 
 refraining, at the same time, from drink and all 
 other evils of life, as sins, there lies for the inehriate 
 a road to reformation, in which he can walk safely, 
 and which will hear him farther and farther from 
 danger with every step he takes therein. Some 
 have fallen so low alasy for the number! that 
 every way except this has been closed ; but all will 
 find it the safest, the surest, and the easiest by which 
 to reach an abiding self-control.
 
 PART II. 
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 "TTN writing the second part of this book, the author found 
 1 himself embarrassed from the beginning, because of the 
 large amount of material which came into his hands, and the 
 consequent difficulty of selection and condensation. There is 
 not a chapter which might not have been extended to twice its 
 present length, nor a fact stated, or argument used, which 
 iiii^ht not have been supplemented by many equally pertinent 
 and conclusive. The extent to which alcohol curses the whole 
 people cannot be shown in a few pages : the sad and terrible 
 history would fill hundreds of volumes. And the same may 
 be said of the fprse which this poisonous substance lays upon 
 the souls and bodies of men. Fearful as is the record which 
 will IHJ found in the chapters devoted to the curse of drink, lot 
 the reader bear in mind that a thousandth part has not been 
 told. 
 
 In treating of the means of reformation, prevention and 
 cure, our effort has been to give to each agency the largest possi- 
 ble credit for whnt it is doing. There is no movement, organi- 
 zation or work, however broad or limited in its sphere, which 
 has for its object the cure of drunkenness in the individual, or 
 the suppression of the liquor traffic in the State, that is not 
 contributing its measure of service to the great cause every 
 true t. in],, ranee advocate has at heart ; and what we largely 
 need is, toleration for those who do uot sec with us, nor act 
 with us in our special methods. Let us never forget the Di- 
 vine admonition " Forbid him not : for he that is not against 
 us is for us." 
 385
 
 386 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Patience, toleration and self-repression are of vital import- 
 ance in any good cause. If we cannot see with another, let us 
 be careful that, by opposition, we do not cripple him in his 
 work. If we can assist him by friendly counsel to clearer 
 seeing, or, by a careful study of his methods, gain a large effi- 
 ciency for our own, far more good will be done than by hard 
 antagonism, which rarely helps, and too surely blinds and 
 hinders. 
 
 Our book treats of the curse and cure of drunkenness. How 
 much better not to come under the terrible curse ! How much 
 better to run no risks where the malady is so disastrous, and 
 the cure so difficult I 
 
 To young men who are drifting easily into the dangerous 
 drinking habits of society, we earnestly commend the chapters 
 in which will be found the medical testimony against alcohol, 
 and also the one on " The Growth and Power of Appetite." 
 They will see that it is impossible for a man to use alcoholic 
 drinks regularly without laying the foundation for both physi- 
 cal and mental diseases, and, at the same time, lessening his 
 power to make the best of himself in his life-^prk ; while be- 
 yond this lies the awful risk of acquiring an appetite which 
 may enslave, degrade and ruin him, body and soul, as it is de- 
 degrading and ruining its tens of thousands yearly.
 
 CONTENTS OF PART II. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 The Curse of Strong Drink, 389 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 It Curses the Body, 399 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 It Curses the Body Continued, .... 417 
 
 ^ CHAPTER IV. 
 trees the Soul, 431 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Not a Food, and very Limited in its Range as a 
 
 Medicine 451 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 The Growth and Power of Appetite, .... 471 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 Means of Cure, . 493 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Inebriate Asylums, 503
 
 CONTENTS. , 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Reformatory Homes, ...... 527 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Tobacco as an Incitant to the Use of Alcoholic Stimu- 
 lants, and an Obstacle in the way of a Perma- 
 nent Reformation, 561 
 
 . CHAPTER XI. 
 The Woman's Crusade, 569 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Woman's National Christian Temperance Union, 583 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Reform Clubs, 605 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Gospel Temperance, 617 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Temperance Coffee-Houses and Friendly Inns, . . 630 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 Temperance Literature, 639 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 License a Failure and a Disgrace, .... 647 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Prohibition, 660
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE CURSE OF STRONG DRINK. 
 
 are two remarkable passages in a very 
 old book, known as the Proverbs of Solomon, 
 which cannot be read too often, nor pondered too 
 deeply. Let us quote them here : 
 
 1. "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and 
 whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. 
 
 2. ""Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath 
 contentions ? who hath babblings ? who hath wounds 
 wii hout cause ? who hath redness of eyes ? They that 
 tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed 
 wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, 
 when it giveth his color in the cup, when it moveth 
 itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent 
 and stingoth like an adder." 
 
 It is many thousands of years since this record 
 w.as made, and to-day, as in that far distant age of 
 the world, wine is a mocker, and strong drink raging; 
 and still, as then, they who tarry long at the wine; 
 who go to seek mixed wine, discover that, "at the. 
 " it biteth like a serpent and stiugeth like an 
 adder. 
 
 This mocking and raging! These bitings and 
 These woes and woundings I Alas, for 
 3H9
 
 390 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 the exceeding bitter cry of their pain, which is 
 heard above every other cry of sorrow and suffering. 
 
 ALCOHOL AN ENEMY. 
 
 The curse of strong drink! Where shall we 
 begin, where end, or how, in the clear and truthful 
 sentences that wrest conviction from doubt, make 
 plain the allegations we shall bring against an 
 enemy that is sowing disease, poverty, crime and 
 sorrow throughout the land ? 
 
 Among our most intelligent, respectable and in- 
 fluential people, this enemy finds a welcome and a 
 place of honor. Indeed, with many he is regarded 
 as a friend and treated as such. Every possible 
 opportunity is given him to gain favor in the house- 
 hold and with intimate and valued friends. He is 
 given the amplest confidence and the largest free- 
 dom; and he always repays this confidence with 
 treachery and spoliation; too often blinding and 
 deceiving his victims while his work of robbery goes 
 on. He is not only a robber, but a cruel master ; 
 and his bondsmen and abject slaves are to be found 
 in hundreds and thousands, and even tens of thou- 
 sands, of our homes, from the poor dwelling of the 
 day-laborer, up to the palace of the merchant-prince. 
 
 PLACE AND POWER IN THE HOUSEHOLD. 
 
 Of this fact no one is ignorant ; and yet, strange 
 to tell, large numbers of our most intelligent, re- 
 spectable and influential people continue to smile 
 upon this enemy ; to give him place and power in
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 their households, and to cherish him as a friend ; 
 but with this singular reserve of thought and pur- 
 pose, that he is to be trusted just so far and no far- 
 ther. He is so pleasant and genial, that, for the 
 sake of his favor, they are ready to encounter the 
 risk of his acquiring, through the license they afford, 
 tin- vantage-ground of a pitiless enemy ! 
 
 But, it is not only in their social life that the 
 people hold this enemy in favorable regard, and 
 give him the opportunity to hurt and destroy. Our 
 great Republic has entered into a compact with him, 
 and, for a money-consideration, given him the 
 
 FREEDOM OF THE NATION ; 
 
 BO that he can go up and down the land at will. 
 And not only has our great Republic done this; 
 but the States of which it is composed, with only 
 one or two exceptions, accord to him the same free- 
 duin. Still more surprising, in almost every town 
 and city, his right to plunder, degrade, enslave and 
 destroy the people has been established under the 
 safe guarantee of law. 
 
 Let us give ourselves to the sober consideration 
 of what we are suffering at his hands, and take 
 measures of defense and safety, instead of burying 
 our heads in the sand, like the foolish ostrich, while 
 the huntsmen are sweeping down upon us. 
 
 ENORMOUS CONSUMPTION*. 
 
 Only those who have given the subject careful 
 consideration have any true idea of the enormous
 
 392 STRONG J)RINK; 
 
 annual consumption, in this country, of spirits, 
 wines and malt liquors. Dr. Hargreaves, in " Our 
 Wasted Resources," gives these startling figures : 
 It amounted in 1870 to 72,425,353 gallons of do- 
 mestic spirits, 188,527,120 gallons of fermented 
 liquors, 1,441,747 gallons of imported spirits, 
 9,088,894 gallons of wines, 34,239 gallons of spirit- 
 uous compounds, and 1,012,754 gallons of ale, beer, 
 etc., or a total of 272,530,107 gallons for 1870, with 
 a total increase of 30,000,000 gallons in 1871, and 
 of 35,000,000 gallons in addition in 1872. 
 
 All this in a single year, and at a cost variously 
 estimated at from six to seven hundred millions of 
 dollars I Or, a sum, as statistics tell us, nearly equal 
 to the cost of all the flour, cotton and woolen goods, 
 boots and shoes, clothing, and books and newspapers 
 purchased by the people in the same period of time. 
 
 If this were all the cost ? If the people wasted 
 no more than seven hundred millions of dollars on 
 these beverages every year, the question of their use 
 would be only one of pecuniary loss or gain. But 
 what farther, in connection with this subject, are we 
 told by statistics? Why, that, in consequence of 
 using these beverages, we have six hundred thou- 
 sand drunkards; and that of these, sixty thousand 
 die every year. That we have over three hundred 
 murders and four hundred suicides. That over two 
 hundred thousand children are left homeless and 
 friendless. And that at least eighty per cent, of all 
 the crime and pauperism of the land arises from the
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cl'llK. 393 
 
 eoosamption of this enormous quantity of intoxica- 
 ting drinks. 
 
 In this single view, the question of intemperance 
 assumes a most appalling aspect. The 
 
 POVERTY AND DESTITUTION 
 
 found in so large a portion of our laboring classes, 
 and their consequent restlessness and discontent, 
 come almost entirely from the waste of substance, 
 idleness and physical incapacity for work, which 
 attend the free use of alcoholic beverages. Of the 
 six or seven hundred millions of dollars paid an- 
 nually for these beverages, not less than two-thirds 
 are taken out of the earnings of our artisans and 
 laborers, and those who, like them, work for wages. 
 
 LOSS TO LABOR. 
 
 But the loss does not, of course, stop here. The 
 consequent waste of bodily vigor, and the idleness 
 that is ever the sure accompaniment of drinking, 
 rob this class of at least as much more. Total ab- 
 stinence societies, building associations, and the use 
 of hanks for savings, instead of the dram-sellers' 
 hanks for losings, would do more for the well-being 
 of our working classes than all the trades-unions or 
 labor combinations, that ever have or ever will e.\i.-t. 
 The laboring man's protective union lies in his own 
 good common sense, united with temperance, sell- 
 denial and economy. There are very many in our 
 land who know this way; and their condition, as 
 compared with those who know it not, or knowing,
 
 394 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 will not walk therein, is found to be in striking 
 contrast. 
 
 TAXATION. 
 
 Besides tlie wasting drain for drink, and the loss 
 in national wealth, growing out of the idleness and 
 diminished power for work, that invariably follows 
 the use of alcohol in any of its forms, the people are 
 heavily taxed for the repression and punishment of 
 crimes, and the support of paupers and destitute 
 children. A fact or two will give the reader some 
 idea of what this enormous cost must be. In " The 
 Twentieth Annual Report of the Executive Com- 
 mittee of the Prison Association of New York," is 
 this sentence : " There can be no doubt that, of all 
 the proximate sources of crime, the use of intoxi- 
 cating liquors is the most prolific and the most 
 deadly. Of other causes it may be said that they 
 slay their thousands ; of this it may be acknowl- 
 edged that it slays its tens of thousands. The com- 
 mittee asked for the opinion of the jail officers in 
 nearly every county in the State as to the propor- 
 tion of commitments due, either directly or indi- 
 rectly, to strong drink." 
 
 The whole number of commitments is given in 
 these words : " Not less than 60,000 to 70,000 [or 
 the sixtieth portion of the inhabitants of the State 
 of New York] human beings men, women and 
 children either guilty, or arrested on suspicion of 
 being guilty of crime, pass every year through these 
 institutions." The answers made to the committee
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 395 
 
 by the jail officers, varied from two-thirds as the 
 lowest, to nine-tenths as the highest ; and, on taking 
 the average of their figures, it gave seven-eighths 
 as t lie j iroportion of commitments for crime directly 
 a.-ri -ibed to the use of intoxicating drinks ! 
 
 Taking this as the proportion of those who are 
 made criminals through intemperance, let us get at 
 some estimate of the cost to tax-payers. We 
 find it stated in Tract No. 28, issued by the Na- 
 tional Temperance Society, that " a committee was 
 appointed by the Ulster County Temperance So- 
 ciety, in 1861, for the express purpose of ascertain- 
 ing, from reliable sources, the percentage on every 
 dollar tax paid to the county to support her paupers 
 and criminal justice. The committee, after due 
 examination, came to the conclusion that upwards 
 of sixty cents on the dollar was for the above pur- 
 pose. This amount was required, according to law, 
 to be paid by every tax-payer as & penalty, or rather 
 as a rum bill, for allowing the liquor traflic to be 
 carried on in the above county. What is said of 
 Ulster County, may, more or less, if a like examina- 
 tion were entered into, be said of every other county, 
 not only in the State of New York, but in every 
 county in the United States." 
 
 From the same tract we take this statement : " In 
 
 a document published by the Legislature of the State 
 
 of New York, for 18(>J, being the report of the. 
 
 -tary of the State to the Legislature, we have the 
 
 following statements: 'The whole nuinbei of puu-
 
 396 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 pers relieved during the same period, was 261,252. 
 During the year 1802, 257,354.' These numbers 
 would be in the ratio of one pauper annually to 
 every fifteen inhabitants throughout the State. In 
 an examination made into the history of those pau- 
 pers by a competent committee, seven-eighths of 
 them were reduced to this low and degraded condi- 
 tion, directly or indirectly, through intemperance." 
 
 CUESING THE POOR. 
 
 Looking at our laboring classes, with the fact before 
 us, that the cost of the liquor sold annually by retail 
 dealers is equal to nearly $25 for every man, woman 
 and child in our whole population, and we can 
 readily see why so much destitution is to be found 
 among them. Throwing out those who abstain 
 altogether ; the children, and a large proportion of 
 women, and those who take a glass only now and 
 then, and it will be seen that for the rest the 
 average of cost must be more than treble. Among 
 working men who drink the cheaper beverages, the 
 ratio of cost to each cannot fall short of a hundred 
 dollars a year. With many, drink consumes from 
 a fourth to one-half of their entire earnings. Is it, 
 then, any wonder that so much poverty and suffer- 
 ing are to be found among them ? 
 
 CRIME AND PAUPERISM. 
 
 The causes chat produce crime and pauperism in 
 our own country, work the same disastrous results 
 in other lands where intoxicants are used. An
 
 THE CURSE AND THE Cl'llK. 397 
 
 English writer, speaking of the sad effects of in- 
 tern {>erance in Great Britain, says : " One hundred 
 million pounds, which is now annually wasted, is a 
 sum as great as was spent in seven years upon all 
 the railways of the kingdom in the very heyday 
 of railway projects; a sum so vast, that if saved 
 annually, for seven years, would blot out the na- 
 tional debt!" Another writer says, "that in the 
 year 1865, over 6,000,000, or a tenth part of the 
 whole national revenue, was required to support her 
 pati{)ers." Dr. Lees, of London, in speaking of 
 Ireland, says: "Ireland has been a poor nation 
 from want of capital, and has wanted capital chiefly 
 because the people have preferred swallowing it to 
 ;ng it." The Rev. G. Holt, chaplain of the 
 Birmingham Workhouse, says: "From my own 
 experience, I am convinced of the accuracy of a 
 statement made by the late governor, that of every 
 one hundred persons admitted, ninety-nine were 
 reduced to this state of humiliation and dependence, 
 either directly or indirectly, through the prevalent 
 and ruinous drinking usages." 
 
 Mr. Charles Buxton, M. P., in his pamphlet, 
 " How to Stop Drunkenness," says : " It would not 
 be too much to say that if all drinking of fer- 
 mented liquors could be done away, crime of every 
 kind would fall to a fourth of its present amount, 
 and the whole, tone of moral feeling in the 1- 
 <>rder might be indefinitely raised. Not only 
 this vice produce all kinds of wanton mischief, but
 
 398 STROSQ DRINK; 
 
 it has also a negative effect of great importance. 
 It is the mightiest of all the forces that clog the 
 progress of good. * * * The struggle of the school, 
 the library and the church, all united against the 
 beer-shop and the gin-palace, is but one development 
 of the war between Heaven and hell. It is, in short, 
 intoxication that fills our jails; it is intoxication 
 that fills our lunatic asylums ; it is intoxication that 
 fills our work-houses with poor. Were it not for 
 this one cause, pauperism would be nearly extin- 
 guished in England." 
 
 THE BLIGHT EVERYWHERE. 
 
 We could go on and fill pages with corroborative 
 facts and figures, drawn from the most reliable 
 sources. But these are amply sufficient to show the 
 extent and magnitude of the curse which the liquor 
 traffic has laid upon our people. Its blight is 
 everywhere on our industries, on our social life ; 
 on our politics,, and even on our religion. 
 
 And, now, let us take the individual man him- 
 self, and see in what manner this treacherous enemy 
 deals with him when he gets him into his power.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 IT CURSES THE BODY. 
 
 T7URST as to the body. One would suppose, from 
 the marred and scarred, and sometimes awfully 
 di- figured forms and faces of men who have indulged 
 in intoxicating drinks, which are to be seen every- 
 where and among all classes of society, that there 
 would be no need of other testimony to show that 
 :ilo)hol is an enemy to the body. And yet, strange 
 to say, men of good sense, clear judgment and quick 
 ption in all moral questions and in the general 
 affairs of life, are often so blind, or infatuated here, 
 as to affirm that this substance, alcohol, which they 
 use under the various forms of wine, brandy, whisky, 
 gin, ale or beer, is not only harmless, when taken in 
 moderation each being his own judge as to what 
 " moderation " means but actually useful and nu- 
 tritious! 
 
 Until within the last fifteen or twenty years, a 
 large proportion of the medical profession not only 
 favored this view, but made constant prescription of 
 alcohol in one f..nn or another, the sad results of 
 which too often made their appearance in exacerba- 
 tions of disease, or in the formation of intemperate 
 399
 
 400 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 habits among their patients. "Since then, the chemist 
 and the physiologist have subjected alcohol to the 
 most rigid tests, carried on often for years, and with 
 a faithfulness that could not be satisfied with guess 
 work, or inference, or hasty conclusion. 
 
 ALCOHOL NOT A FOOD AND OF DOUBTFUL USE AS A 
 MEDICINE. 
 
 As a result of these carefully-conducted and long- 
 continued examinations and experiments, the medi- 
 cal profession stands to-day almost as a unit against 
 alcohol ; and makes solemn public declaration to 
 the people that it "is not shown to have a 
 definite food value by any of the usual methods 
 of chemical analysis or physiological investiga- 
 tions;" and that as a medicine its range is very 
 limited, admitting often of a substitute, and that it 
 should never be taken unless prescribed by a phy- 
 sician. 
 
 Reports of these investigations to which we have 
 referred have appeared, from time to time, in the 
 medical journals of Europe and America, and their 
 results are now embodied in many of the standard 
 and most reliable treatises and text-books of the 
 medical profession. 
 
 In this chapter we shall endeavor to give our 
 readers a description of the changes and deteriora- 
 tions which take place in the blood, nerves, mem- 
 branes, tissues and organs, in consequence of the 
 continued introduction of alcohol into the human 
 body ; and in doing so, we shall quote freely from
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 4Q1 
 
 medical writers, in order that our readers may have 
 the testimony before them in its directest form, and 
 so be able to judge for themselves as to its value. 
 
 DIGESTION. 
 
 And here, in order to give those who are not 
 familiar with the process of digestion, a clear idea 
 of that important operation, and the effect produced 
 when alcohol is taken with food, we quote from the 
 lecture of an English physician, Dr. Henry Monroe, 
 on "The Physiological Action of Alcohol." He 
 says: 
 
 " Every kind of substance employed by man as 
 food consists of sugar, starch, oil and glutinous 
 matters, mingled together in various proportions; 
 these are designed for the support of the animal 
 frame. The glutinous principles of food -fibrine, 
 (tllmmen and casein are employed to build up the 
 structure ; while the oil, starch and sugar are chiefly 
 used to generate heat in the body. 
 
 "The first step of the digestive process is the 
 breaking up of the food in the mouth by means of 
 the jaws and teeth. On this being done, the saliva, 
 a viscid liquor, is poured into the mouth from the 
 salivary glands, and as it mixes with the food, it 
 performs a very important part in the operation of 
 (liiM'stion, rendering the starch of the food soluble, 
 and gradually changing it into a sort of sugar, after 
 whii-li the other principles become more miscible 
 with it. Nearly a pint of saliva is furnished every 
 26
 
 402 STEONO DRINK; 
 
 twenty-four hours for the use of an adult. When 
 the food has been masticated and mixed with the 
 saliva, it is then passed into the stomach, where it 
 is acted upon by a juice secreted by the filaments of 
 that organ, and poured into the stomach in large 
 quantities whenever food comes in contact with its 
 mucous coats. It consists of a dilute acid known to 
 the chemists as hydrochloric acid, composed of hy- 
 drogen and chlorine, united together in certain 
 definite proportions. The gastric juice contains, also, 
 a peculiar organic-ferment or decomposing substance, 
 containing nitrogen something of the nature of 
 yeast termed pepsine, which is easily soluble in 
 the acid just named. That gastric juice acts as a 
 simple chemical solvent, is proved by the fact that, 
 after death, it has been known to dissolve the 
 stomach itself. 
 
 ALCOHOL RETARDS DIGESTION. 
 
 " It is an error to suppose that, after a good din- 
 ner, a glass of spirits or beer assists digestion ; or 
 that any liquor containing alcohol even bitter 
 beer can in any way assist digestion. Mix some 
 bread and meat with gastric juice; place them in a 
 phial, and keep that phial in a sand-bath at the 
 slow heat of 98 degrees, occasionally shaking briskly 
 the contents to imitate the motion of the stomach ; 
 you will find, after six or eight hours, the whole 
 contents blended into one pultaceous mass. If to 
 another phial of food and gastric juice, treated in
 
 TUB CURSE AND THE CURE. 4Q3 
 
 the PMTMO way, I add a glass of pale ale or a quantity 
 of alcohol, at the end of seven or eight hours, or 
 even some days, the food is scarcely acted upon at 
 all. This is a fact; and if you are led to ask why, 
 I answer, because alcohol has the peculiar power of 
 chemically affecting or decomposing the gastric 
 juice by precipitating one of its principal constitu- 
 ents, viz., pepsine, rendering its solvent properties 
 much less efficacious. Hence alcohol can not be 
 considered either as food or as a solvent for food. 
 Not as the latter certainly, for it refuses to act with 
 the gastric juice. 
 
 " ' It is a remarkable fact,' says Dr. Dundas 
 Thompson, ' that alcohol, when added to the digest- 
 ive fluid, produces a white precipitate, so that the 
 Html i.s no longer capable of digesting animal or 
 vegetable matter.' ' The use of alcoholic stimulants,' 
 say Drs. Todd and Bowman, ' retards digestion by 
 coagulating the pepsine, an essential element of the 
 gastric juice, and thereby interfering with its action. 
 < ! it not that wine and spirits are rapidly ab- 
 sorbed, the introduction of these into the stomach, 
 in any quantity, would be a complete bar to the 
 -lion of food, as the pepsine would be precipi- 
 tated from the solution as quickly as it was formed 
 by the stomach.' Spirit, in any quantity, as a dietary 
 adjunct, is pernicious on account of its antiseptic 
 qualities, which resist the digestion of food by the 
 absorption of water from its particles, in direct aii- 
 to chemical operation."
 
 404 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 ITS EFFECT ON THE BLOOD. 
 
 Dr. Richardson, in his lectures on alcohol, given 
 both in England and America, speaking of the 
 action of this substance on the blood after passing 
 from the stomach, says : 
 
 " Suppose, then, a certain measure of alcohol be 
 taken into the stomach, it will be absorbed there, 
 but, previous to absorption, it will have to undergo 
 a proper degree of dilution with water, for there is 
 this peculiarity respecting alcohol when it is sepa- 
 rated by an animal membrane from a watery fluid 
 like the blood, that it will not pass through the 
 membrane until it has become charged, to a given 
 point of dilution, with water. It is itself, in fact, so 
 greedy for water, it will pick it up from watery 
 textures, and deprive them of it until, by its satura- 
 tion, its power of reception is exhausted, after which 
 it will diffuse into the current of circulating fluid." 
 
 It is this power of absorbing water from every 
 texture with which alcoholic spirits comes in con- 
 tact, that creates the burning thirst of those who 
 freely indulge in its use. Its effect, when it reaches 
 the circulation, is thus described by Dr. Richardson : 
 
 " As it passes through the circulation of the lungs 
 it is exposed to the air, and some little of it, raised 
 into vapor by the natural heat, is thrown off in ex- 
 piration. If the quantity of it be large, this loss 
 may be considerable, and the odor of the spirit may 
 be detected in the expired breath. If the quantity 
 be small, the loss will be comparatively little, as the
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cl'M. 
 
 spirit will l>e held in solution by the water in the 
 blood. After it has j.asscd through the lungs, and 
 has been driven by the left heart over the arterial 
 circuit, it passes into what is called the minute 
 circulation, or the structural circulation of the 
 organism. The arteries here extend into very small 
 yessels, which are called arterioles, and from these 
 infinitely small vessels spring the equally minute 
 radicals or roots of the veins, which are ultimately 
 to become the great rivers bearing the blood back 
 to the heart. In its passage through this minute 
 circulation the alcohol finds its way to every organ. 
 To this brain, to these muscles, to these secreting or 
 excreting organs, nay, even into this bony structure 
 itself, it moves with the blood. In some of these 
 parts which are not excreting, it remains for a time 
 diffused, and in those parts where there is a large 
 percentage of water, it remains longer than in other 
 . From some organs which have an open tube 
 for conveying fluids away, as the liver and kidneys, 
 it is thrown out or eliminated, and in this way a 
 portion of it is ultimately removed from the body. 
 The rest passing round and round with the circula- 
 tion, is probably decomposed and carried off in new 
 ion us of matter. 
 
 " When we know the course which the alcohol 
 takes in its passage through the body, from the 
 period of its absorption to that, of its elimination, we 
 aiv the better ahle to judge what physical changes 
 it induces in the different organs and structures
 
 406 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 with which it comes in contact. It first reaches the 
 blood ; but, as a rule, the quantity of it that enters 
 is insufficient to produce any material effect on that 
 fluid. If, however, the dose taken be poisonous or 
 semi-poisonous, then even the blood, rich as it is in 
 water and it contains seven hundred and ninety 
 parts in a thousand is affected. The alcohol is 
 diffused through this water, and there it comes in 
 contact with the other constituent parts, with the 
 fibrine, that plastic substance which, when blood is 
 drawn, clots and coagulates, and which is present in 
 the proportion of from two to three parts in a thou- 
 sand ; with the albumen which exists in the propor- 
 tion of seventy parts ; with the salts which yield 
 about ten parts ; with the fatty matters ; and lastly, 
 with those minute, round bodies which float in 
 myriads in the blood (which were discovered by the 
 Dutch philosopher, Leuwenhock, as one of the first 
 results of microscopical observation, about the mid- 
 dle of the seventeenth century), and which are called 
 the blood globules or corpuscles. These last-named 
 bodies are, in fact, cells ; their discs, when natural, 
 have a smooth outline, they are depressed in the 
 centre, and they are red in color ; the color of the 
 blood being derived from them. We have disco- 
 vered in recent years that there exist other corpus- 
 cles or cells in the blood in much smaller quantity, 
 which are called white cells, and these different cells 
 float in the blood-stream within the vessels. The 
 red take the centre of the stream; the white lie
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 4Q7 
 
 rnally in-ar the sides of the vessels, moving less 
 quickly. Our business is mainly with the red cor- 
 puscles. They perform the most important func- 
 tions in the economy ; they absorb, in great part, 
 the oxygen which we inhale in breathing, and carry 
 it to the extreme tissues of the body ; they absorb, 
 in great part, the carbonic acid gas which is produced 
 in the combustion of the body in the extreme tissues, 
 and bring that gas back to the lungs to be exchanged 
 for oxygen there ; in short, they are the vital in- 
 struments of the circulation. 
 
 " With all these parts of the blood, with the water, 
 fibrine, albumen, salts, fatty matter and corpuscles, 
 the alcohol comes in contact when it enters the 
 blood, and, if it be in sufficient quantity, it produces 
 disturbing action. I have watched this disturbance 
 very carefully on the blood corpuscles ; for, in some 
 an i mala we can see these floating along during life, and 
 we can also observe them from men who are under the 
 effects of alcohol, by removing a speck of blood, and 
 examining it with the microscope. The action of 
 the alcohol, when it is observable, is varied. It may 
 cause the corpuscles to run too closely together, and 
 to adhere in rolls; it may modify their outline, 
 making the clear-defined, smooth, outer edge irregu- 
 lar or crenate, or even starlike ; it may change the 
 round corpuscle into the oval form, or, in very ex- 
 treme cases, it may produce what I may call a 
 truncated form of corpuscles, in which the change 
 is so great that if we did not trace it through all iU
 
 408 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 stages, we should be puzzled to know whether the 
 object looked at were indeed a blood-cell. All these 
 changes are due to the action of the spirit upon the 
 water contained in the corpuscles ; upon the capacity 
 of the spirit to extract water from them. During 
 every stage of modification of corpuscles thus de- 
 scribed, their function to absorb and fix gases is 
 impaired, and when the aggregation of the cells, in 
 masses, is great, other difficulties arise, for the cells, 
 united together, pass less easily than they should 
 through the minute vessels of the lungs and of the 
 general circulation, and impede the current, by 
 which local injury is produced. 
 
 "A further action upon the blood, instituted by 
 alcohol in excess, is upon the fibrine or the plastic 
 colloidal matter. On this the spirit may act hi two 
 different ways, according to the degree in which it 
 affects the water that holds the fibriue in solution, 
 It may fix the water with the fibrine, and thus 
 destroy the power of coagulation ; or it may extract 
 the water so determinately as to produce coagulation." 
 
 ON THE MINUTE CIRCULATION. 
 
 The doctor then goes on to describe the minute 
 circulation through which the constructive material 
 in the blood is distributed to every part of the body. 
 "From this distribution of blood in these minute 
 vessels," he says, "the structure of organs derive 
 their constituent parts ; through these vessels brain 
 matter, muscle, gland, membrane, are given out from
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 tin- blood by a refined process of selection of material, 
 which, up to this time, is only so far understood as 
 to enable us to say that it exists. The minute and 
 intermediate vessels are more intimately connected 
 than any other part with the construction and with 
 the function of the living matter of which the body 
 is composed. Think you that this mechanism is 
 left uncontrolled ? No ; the vessels, small as they 
 are under distinct control. Infinitely refined 
 in structure, they nevertheless have the power of 
 contraction and dilatation, which power is governed 
 by nervous action of a special kind." 
 
 Now, there are certain chemical agents, which, by 
 their action on the nerves, have the power to para- 
 lyze and relax these minute blood-vessels, at their 
 extreme points. "The whole series of nitrates," 
 says Dr. Richardson, "possess this power; ether 
 possesses it ; but the great point I wish to bring forth 
 is, that the substance we are specially dealing with, 
 alcohol, possesses the self-same power. By this 
 influence it produces all those peculiar effects which 
 in every-- lay life are so frequently illustrated." 
 
 PARALYZES THE MINUTE BLOOD-VESSELS. 
 
 It paralyzes the minute blood-vessels, and allows 
 them to become dilated with the flowing blood. 
 
 " If you attend a large dinner party, you will 
 observe, after the first few courses, when the wine 
 is beginning to circulate, a progressive change in 
 some of those about you who have taken wine.
 
 410 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 The face begins to get flushed, the eye brightens, 
 and the murmur of conversation becomes loud. 
 What is the reason of that flushing of the counte- 
 nance ? It is the same as the flush from blushing, 
 or from the reaction of cold, or from the nitrite of 
 amyl. It is the dilatation of vessels following upon 
 the reduction of nervous control, which reduction 
 has been induced by the alcohol. In a word, the 
 first stage, the stage of vascular excitement from 
 alcohol, has been established. 
 
 HEAET DISTURBANCE. 
 
 " The action of the alcohol extending so far does 
 not stop there. With the disturbance of power in 
 the extreme vessels, more disturbance is set up in 
 other organs, and the first organ that shares in it is 
 the heart. With each beat of the heart a certain 
 degree of resistance is offered by the vessels when 
 their nervous supply is perfect, and the stroke of 
 the heart is moderated in respect both to tension 
 and to time. But when the vessels are rendered 
 relaxed, the resistance is removed, the heart begins 
 to run quicker, like a watch from which the pallets 
 have been removed, and the heart-stroke, losing 
 nothing in force, is greatly increased in frequency, 
 with a weakened recoil stroke. It is easy to account, 
 in this manner, for the quickened heart and pulse 
 which accompany the first stage of deranged action 
 from alcohol, and you will be interested to know to 
 what extent this increase of vascular action proceeds.
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cl'IlK. 
 
 The information on this subject is exceedingly curi- 
 ous and important." 
 
 * * * * * * * * 
 
 " The stage of primary excitement of the circu- 
 lation thus induced lasts for a considerable time, but 
 at length the heart flags from its overaction, and re- 
 quires the stimulus of more spirit to carry it on in 
 its work. Let us take what we may call a moderate 
 amount of alcohol, say two ounces by volume, in 
 form of wine, or beer, or spirits. What is called 
 strong sherry or port may contain as much as 
 twenty-five per cent, by volume. Brandy over fifty; 
 gin, thirty -eight; rum, forty-eight; whisky, forty- 
 three; vin ordeinairc, eight; strong ale, fourteen; 
 champagne, ten to eleven; it matters not which, if 
 the tjtiantity of alcohol be regulated by the amount 
 present in the liquor imbibed. When we reach thy 
 two ounces, a distinct physiological effect follows, 
 hading on to that first stage of excitement with 
 which we are now conversant. The reception of 
 tli spirit arrested at this point, there need be no 
 important mischief done to the organism ; but if 
 the (juantity imbibed be increased, further changes 
 quickly occur. We have seen that all the organs 
 of the body are built upon the vascular structures, 
 and therefore it follows that a prolonged paralysis 
 of the minute circulation must of necessity lead to 
 disturbance in other organs than the heart.
 
 412 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 OTHER ORGANS INVOLVED. 
 
 " By common observation, the flush seen on the 
 cheek during the first stage of alcoholic excitation, 
 is presumed to extend merely to the parts actually 
 exposed to view. It cannot, however, be too forci- 
 bly impressed that the condition is universal in the 
 body. If the lungs could be seen, they, too, would 
 be found with their vessels injected ; if the brain and 
 spinal cord could be laid open to view, they would 
 be discovered in the same condition ; if the stomach, 
 the liver, the spleen, the kidneys or any other vas- 
 cular organs or parts could be exposed, the vascular 
 engorgement would be equally manifest. In the 
 lower animals, I have been able to witness this ex- 
 treme vascular condition in the lungs, and there are 
 here presented to jou two drawings from nature, 
 showing, one the lungs in a natural state of an 
 animal killed by a sudden blow, the other the lungs 
 of an animal killed equally suddenly, but at a time 
 when it was under the influence of alcohol. You 
 will see, as if you were looking at the structures 
 themselves, how different they are in respect to the 
 blood which they contained, how intensely charged 
 with blood "is the lung in which the vessels had 
 been paralyzed by the alcoholic scirit. 
 
 EFFECT ON THE BRAIN. 
 
 " I once had the unusual, though unhappy, op- 
 portunity of observing the same phenomenon in the 
 brain structure of a man, who, in a paroxysm of
 
 THE CURSE ASD THE CUKE. 4J3 
 
 alcoholic excitement, decapitated himself under the 
 whirl <>f a railway carriage, and whose brain was 
 instantaneously evolved from the skull by the crash. 
 The brain itself, entire, was before me within three 
 minutes after the death. It exhaled the odor of 
 spirit most distinctly, and its membranes and 
 minute structures were vascular in the extreme. It 
 looked as if it had been recently injected with ver- 
 milion. The white matter of the cerebrum, studded 
 with red points, could scarcely be distinguished, 
 wlien it was incised, by its natural whiteness; and 
 the pia-mater, or internal vascular membrane cov- 
 ering the brain, resembled a delicate web of coagu- 
 lated red blood, so tensely were its fine vessels en- 
 gorged. 
 
 " I should add that this condition extended through 
 both the larger and the smaller brain,.the cerebrum 
 and cerebellum, but was not so marked in the me- 
 dulla or commencing portion of the spinal cord. 
 
 Till: SPINAL CORD AND NERVES. 
 
 "The action of alcohol continued beyond the 
 first stage, the function of the spinal cord is influ- 
 enced. Through this part of the nervous system 
 we are accustomed, in health, to perform automatic 
 acts of a mechanical kind, which proceed systemati- 
 cally even when we are thinking or speaking on 
 other subjects. Thus a skilled workman will con- 
 tinue his mechanical work perieetly, while his mind 
 is bent on some other subject; and thus we all per-
 
 414 STItONG DRINK; 
 
 form various acts in a purely automatic way, without 
 calling in the aid of the higher centres, except 
 something more than ordinary occurs to demand 
 their service, upon which we think before we per- 
 form. Under alcohol, as the spinal centres become 
 influenced, these pure automatic acts cease to be 
 correctly carried on. That the hand may reach any 
 object, or the foot be correctly planted, the higher 
 intellectual centre must be invoked to make the 
 proceeding secure. There follows quickly upon 
 this a deficient power of co-ordination of muscular 
 movement. The nervous control of certain of the 
 muscles is lost, and the nervous stimulus is more or 
 less enfeebled. The muscles of the lower lip in the 
 human subject usually fail first of all, then the 
 muscles of the lower limbs, and it is worthy of 
 remark that the extensor muscles give way earlier 
 than the flexors. The muscles themselves, by this 
 time, are also failing in power ; they respond more 
 feebly than is natural to the nervous stimulus; 
 they, too, are coming under the depressing influ- 
 ence of the paralyzing agent, their structure is 
 temporarily deranged, and their contractile power 
 reduced. 
 
 " This modification of the animal functions under 
 alcohol, marks the second degree of its action. In 
 young subjects, there is now, usually, vomiting with 
 faintness, followed by gradual relief from the burden 
 of the poison.
 
 THE CURSE ASD THE CURE. 
 EFFECT ON THE BRAIN CENTRES. 
 
 " The alcoholic spirit carried yet a further degree, 
 the cerebral or brain centres become influenced ; 
 they are reduced in power, and the controlling 
 influences of will and of judgment are lost. As 
 these centres are unbalanced and thrown into chaos, 
 the rational part of the nature of the man gives 
 way before the emotional, passional or organic part. 
 The reason is now off duty, or is fooling with duty, 
 and all the mere animal instincts and sentiments 
 arc laid atrociously bare. The coward shows up 
 more craven, the braggart more boastful, the cruel 
 more merciless, the untruthful more false, the carnal 
 more degraded. ' In vino veriias' expresses, even, 
 indeed, to physiological accuracy, the true condition. 
 Tin- reason, the emotions, the instincts, are all in a 
 state of carnival, and in chaotic feebleness. 
 
 " Finally, the action of the alcohol still extending, 
 the superior brain centres are overpowered; the 
 senses are beclouded, the voluntary muscular pros- 
 tration is perfected, sensibility is lost, and the body 
 lies a mere log, dead by all but one-fourth, on which 
 alone its life hangs. The heart still remains true to 
 its duty, and while it just lives it feeds the breathing 
 power. And so the circulation and the respiration, 
 in tin; otherwise inert mass, keeps the mass within 
 the Itare domain of life until the poison be-ins to 
 pass away and the nervous centres to revive again. 
 It is happy for the inebriate that, as a rule, the 
 brain fails so long before the heart that he has
 
 416 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 neither the power nor the sense to continue his 
 process of destruction up to the act of death of his 
 circulation. Therefore he lives to die another day. 
 
 .;::!::::!:# * #* 
 
 " Such is an outline of the primary action of alco- 
 hol on those who may be said to be unaccustomed 
 to it, or who have not yet fallen into a fixed habit 
 of taking it. For a long time the organism will 
 bear these perversions of its functions without ap- 
 parent injury, but if the experiment be repeated too 
 often and too long, if it be continued after the term 
 of life when the body is fully developed, when the 
 elasticity of the membranes and of the blood-vessels 
 is lessened, and when the tone of the muscular fibre 
 is reduced, then organic series of structural changes, 
 so characteristic of the persistent effects of spirit, 
 become prominent and permanent. Then the ex- 
 ternal surface becomes darkened and congested, its 
 vessels, in parts, visibly large; the skin becomes 
 blotched, the proverbial red nose is defined, and 
 those other striking vascular changes which disfigure 
 many who may probably be called moderate alco- 
 holics, are developed. These changes, belonging, 
 as they do, to external surfaces, come under direct 
 observation ; they are accompanied with certain 
 other changes in the internal organs, which we shall 
 show to be more destructive still."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IT CURSES THE BODY. COX-TINTED. 
 
 WE have quoted thus freely in the preceding 
 chapter, in order that the intelligent and 
 thoughtful reader, who is really seeking for the 
 truth in regard to the physical action of alcohol, 
 may be able to gain clear impressions on the sub- 
 The specific changes wrought by this sub- 
 stance on the internal organs are of a most serious 
 character, and should be well understood by all 
 > indulge habitually in its use. 
 
 EFFECT OX THE MEMBRANES. 
 
 The parts which first suffer from alcohol are 
 those expansions of the body which the anatomists 
 call the membranes. " The skin is a membranous 
 envelope. Through the whole of the alimentary 
 surface, from the lips downward, and through the 
 bronchial passages to their minutest ramifications, 
 
 nds the mucous membrane. The lung?, the 
 In 'art, the liver, the kidneys are folded in delicate 
 membranes, which can be stripped easily from these 
 
 3. If you take a portion of bone, you will find 
 it easy to strip oil' from it a membranous sheath or 
 covering; if you examine a joint, you will find both 
 the head and the socket lined \\iih membranes. The 
 
 417
 
 418 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 whole of the intestines are enveloped in a fine mem- 
 brane called peritoneum. All the muscles are 
 enveloped in membranes, and the fasciculi, or bun- 
 dles and fibres of muscles, have their membranous 
 sheathing. The brain and spinal cord are enveloped 
 in three membranes ; one nearest to themselves, a 
 pure vascular structure, a net- work of blood-vessels ; 
 another, a thin serous structure ; a third, a strong 
 fibrous structure. The eyeball is a structure of 
 colloidal humors and membranes, and of nothing 
 else. To complete the description, the minute 
 structures of the vital organs are enrolled in mem- 
 branous matter." 
 
 These membranes are the filters of the body. 
 "In their absence there could be no building of 
 structure, no solidification of tissue, nor organic 
 mechanism. Passive themselves, they, nevertheless, 
 separate all structures into their respective positions 
 and adaptations." 
 
 MEMBRANOUS DETERIORATIONS. 
 
 In order to make perfectly clear to the reader's 
 mind the action and use of these membranous ex- 
 pansions, and the way in which alcohol deteriorates 
 them, and obstructs their work, we quote again from 
 Dr. Richardson : 
 
 " The animal receives from the vegetable world 
 and from the earth the food and drink it requires 
 for its sustenance and motion. It receives colloidal 
 food for its muscles : combustible food for its motion;
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CUKE. 
 
 for the solution of its various parts; salt for 
 (instructive and other physical purposes. These 
 all to be arranged in the body; and they are 
 arranged by means of the membranous envelopes. 
 Through these membranes nothing can pass that 
 is not, for the time, in a state of aqueous solution, 
 like -water or soluble salts. Water passes freely 
 through them, salts pass freely through them, but 
 the constructive matter of the active parts that is 
 colloidal does not pass ; it is retained in them until 
 it is chemically decomposed into the soluble type of 
 matter. When we take for our food a portion of 
 animal flesh, it is first resolved, in digestion, into a 
 soluble fluid before it can be absorbed ; in the blood 
 it is resolved into the fluid colloidal condition ; in 
 the solids it is laid down within the membranes into 
 IK w structure, and when it has played its part, it is 
 digested again, if I may so say, into a crystalloidal 
 soluble substance, ready to be carried away and 
 replaced by addition of new matter, then it is dia- 
 lysed or passed through the membranes into the 
 blood, and is disposed of in the excretions. 
 
 "See, then, what an all-important part these 
 membranous structures play in the animal life. 
 Upon their integrity all the silent work of the 
 building up of the body depends. If these mem- 
 branes are rendered too porous, and let out the col- 
 loidal fluids of the blood the albumen, for example 
 the body so circumstanced, dies; dies as if it 
 were slowly bled to death. 11', on the contrary,
 
 420 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 tliey become condensed or thickened, or loaded 
 with foreign material, then they fail to allow the 
 natural fluids to pass through them. They fail to 
 dialyse, and the result is, either an accumulation of 
 the fluid in a closed cavity, or contraction of the 
 substance inclosed within the membrane, or dryness 
 of membrane in surfaces that ought to be freely 
 lubricated and kept apart. In old age we see the 
 effects of modification of membrane naturally in- 
 duced; we see the fixed joint, the shrunken and 
 feeble muscle, the dimmed eye, the deaf car, the 
 enfeebled nervous function. 
 
 " It may possibly seem, at first sight, that I am 
 leading immediately away from the subject of the 
 secondary action of alcohol. It is not so. I am 
 leading directly to it. Upon all these membranous 
 structures alcohol exerts a direct perversion of ac- 
 tion. It produces in them a thickening, a shrink- 
 ing and an inactivity that reduces their functional 
 power. That they may work rapidly and equally, 
 they require to be at all times charged with water 
 to saturation. If, into contact with them, any agent 
 is brought that deprives them of water, then is their 
 work interfered with; they cease to separate the 
 saline constituents properly ; and, if the evil that is 
 thus started, be allowed to continue, they contract 
 upon their contained matter in whatever organ it 
 may be situated, and condense it. 
 
 " In brief, under the prolonged influence of alcohol 
 those changes which take "place from it in the blood
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 corpuscles, and which have already been described, 
 extend to the other organic parts, involving them in 
 structural deteriorations, which are always danger- 
 ous, and are often ultimately fatal." 
 
 ACTION OF ALCOHOL OX THE STOMACH. 
 
 Passing from the effect of alcohol upon the mem- 
 branes, we come to its action on the stomach. That 
 it impairs, instead of assisting digestion, has already 
 been shown in the extract from Dr. Monroe, given 
 near the commencement of the preceding chapter. A 
 large amount of medical testimony could be quoted in 
 corroboration, but enough has been educed. We shall 
 only quote Dr.Richardson on "Alcoholic Dyspepsia:" 
 
 "The stomach, unable to produce, in proper quan- 
 tity, the natural digestive fluid, and also unable to 
 absorb the food which it may imperfectly digest, is 
 in constant anxiety and irritation. It is oppressed 
 with the sense of nausea; it is oppressed with the 
 sense of emptiness and prostration ; it is oppressed 
 with a sense of distention; it is oppressed with a 
 loathing for food, and it is teased with a craving for 
 more drink. Thus there is engendered a permanent 
 disorder which, for politeness* sake, is called dys- 
 ia, and for which different remedies are often 
 sought but never found. Antibilious pills what- 
 ever they may mean Seidlitz powders, effervescing 
 waters, and all that pharmacopojia of aids to further 
 indigestion, in which the afflicted who nurse their 
 own diseases so liberally and innocently indulge,
 
 422 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 are tried in vain. I do not strain a syllable when 
 I state that the worst forms of confirmed indigestion 
 originate in the practice that is here explained. By 
 this practice all the functions are vitiated, the skin 
 at one moment is flushed and perspiring, and at the 
 next moment it is pale, cold and clammy, while every 
 other secreting structure is equally disarranged." 
 
 TIC-DOULOUREUX AND SCIATICA. 
 
 Nervous derangements follow as a matter of course, 
 for the delicate membranes which envelope and im- 
 mediately surround the nervous cords, are affected 
 by the alcohol more readily than the coarser mem- 
 branous textures of other parts of the body, and 
 give rise to a series of troublesome conditions, which 
 are too often attributed to other than the true causes. 
 Some of these are thus described : " The perverted 
 condition of the membranous covering of the nerves 
 gives rise to pressure within the sheath of the nerve, 
 and to pain as a consequence. To the pain thus 
 excited the term neuralgia is commonly applied, or 
 " tic ;" or, if the large nerve running down the thigh 
 be the seat of the pain, * sciatica/ Sometimes this 
 pain is developed as a toothache. It is pain com- 
 mencing, in nearly every instance, at some point 
 where a nerve is inclosed in a bony cavity, or where 
 pressure is easily excited, as at the lower jawbone 
 near the centre of the chin, or at the opening in 
 front of the lower part of the ear, or at the opening 
 over the eyeball in the frontal bone."
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE, 423 
 
 DEGENERATION' OF THE LIVER. 
 
 The organic deteriorations which follow the long- 
 continued use of alcoholic drinks are often of a 
 serious and fatal character. The same author says : 
 "The organ of the body, that, perhaps, the most 
 frequently undergoes structural changes from alco- 
 hol, is the liver. The capacity of this organ for 
 holding active substances in its cellular parts, is one 
 of its marked physiological distinctions. In in- 
 stances of poisoning by arsenic, antimony, strych- 
 nine and other poisonous compounds, we turn to 
 the liver, in conducting our analyses, as if it were 
 the central depot of the foreign matter. It is, 
 practically, the same in respect to alcohol. The 
 of the confirmed alcoholic is, probably, never 
 free from the influence of the poison ; it is too often 
 saturated with it. The effect of the alcohol upon 
 the liver is upon the minute membranous or capsular 
 structure of the organ, upon which it acts to prevent 
 tin- proper dialysis and free secretion. The organ, 
 at iii>t, becomes large from the distention of its 
 vessels, the surcharge of fluid matter and the thick- 
 ening of tissue. After a time, there follows con- 
 traction of membrane, and slow shrinking of the 
 whole mass of the organ in its cellular parts. Then 
 -hriiiikcn, hardened, roughened mass is said to 
 be 'hob-nailed,' a common, but expressive term. 
 Uy tlu- time this change occurs, the body of him in 
 whom it is <lrvrlo|>ed is usually dropsical in its 
 lower parts, owing to the obstruction offered to the
 
 424 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 returning blood by the veins, and liis fate is sealed. 
 
 * * * Again, under an increase of fatty sub- 
 stance in the body, the structure of the liver may 
 be charged with fatty cells, and undergo what is 
 technically designated fatty degeneration." 
 
 HOW THE KIDNEYS SUFFER. 
 
 "The kidneys, also, suffer deterioration. Their 
 minute structures undergo fatty modification ; their 
 vessels lose their due elasticity of power of contrac- 
 tion ; or their membranes permit to pass through 
 them the albumen from the blood. This last con- 
 dition reached, the body loses power as if it were 
 being gradually drained even of its blood. 
 
 CONGESTION OF THE LUNGS. 
 
 " The vessels of the lungs are easily relaxed by 
 alcohol ; and as they, of all parts, are most exposed 
 to vicissitudes of heat and cold, they are readily 
 congested when, paralyzed by the spirit, they are 
 subjected to the effects of a sudden fall of atmos- 
 pheric temperature. Thus, the suddenly fatal con- 
 gestions of lungs which so easily befall the confirmed 
 alcoholic during the severe winter seasons." 
 
 ORGANIC DETERIORATIONS OF THE HEART. 
 
 - The heart is one of the greatest sufferers from 
 alcohol. Quoting again from Dr. Richardson : 
 
 " The membranous structures which envelope and 
 line the organ are changed in quality, are thickened, 
 rendered cartilaginous, and even calcareous or bony.
 
 THE CURSE A\D THE CURE. 405 
 
 Then the valves, which are made up of folds of 
 membrane, lose their suppleness, and what is called 
 valvular disease is permanently established. The 
 8 of the great blood-vessel leading from the 
 In-art, the aorto, share, not unfrequently, in the 
 same changes of structure, so that the vessel loses 
 its elasticity and its power to feed the heart by the 
 recoil from its distention, after the heart, by its 
 stroke, has filled it with blood. 
 
 "Airain, the muscular structure of the heart fails, 
 owinic to degenerative changes in its tissue. The 
 elements of the muscular fibre are replaced by fatty 
 cells; or, if not so replaced, are themselves trans- 
 ferred into a modified muscular texture in which 
 the power of contraction is greatly reduced. 
 
 " Those who suffer from these organic deteriora- 
 tions of the central and governing organ of the 
 (in illation of the blood learn the fact so insidiously, 
 it hardly breaks upon them until the mischief is far 
 advanced. They are, for years, conscious of a cen- 
 tral failure of power from slight causes, such as 
 uve i exertion, trouble, broken rest, or too long 
 abstinence from food. They feel what they call a 
 'sinking/ but they know that wine or some other 
 stimulant will at once relieve the sensation. Thus 
 they seek to relieve it until at hist they discover that 
 the remedy fails. The jaded, overworked, faithful 
 heart will bear no more; it has run its course, and, 
 the governor of the blood-siivams broken, the cur- 
 rent either overflows into the tissues, gradually
 
 42G STRONG DRINK; 
 
 damming up the courses, or under some slight shock 
 or excess of motion, ceases wholly at the centre." 
 
 EPILEPSY AND PAKALYSIS. 
 
 Lastly, the brain and spinal cord, and all the 
 nervous matter, become, under the influence of 
 alcohol, subject alike to organic deterioration " The 
 membranes enveloping the nervous substance un- 
 dergo thickening ; the blood-vessels are subjected 
 to change of structure, by which their resistance 
 and resiliency is impaired; and the true nervous 
 matter is sometimes modified, by softening or 
 shrinking of its texture, by degeneration of its 
 cellular structure or by interposition of fatty par- 
 ticles. These deteriorations of cerebral and spinal 
 matter give rise to a series of derangements, which 
 show themselves in the worst forms of nervous dis- 
 eases epilepsy; paralysis, local or general; insanity." 
 
 We have quoted thus largely from Dr. Richard- 
 son's valuable lectures, in order that our readers 
 may have an intelligent comprehension of this most 
 important subject. It is because the great mass of 
 the people are ignorant of the real character of the 
 effects produced on the body by alcohol that so 
 many indulge in its use, and lay the foundation for 
 troublesome, and often painful and fatal diseases in 
 their later years. 
 
 In corroboration of Dr. Richardson's testimony 
 against alcohol, we will, in closing this chapter, make 
 a few quotations from other medical authorities.
 
 THE CURSE ASD TEE CURE. 407 
 
 FARTHER MEDICAL TESTIMONY. 
 
 Dr. Ezra M. Hunt says : " The capacity of the 
 alcohols for impairment of functions and the initia- 
 tion and promotion of organic lesions in vital parts, 
 is unsurpassed by any record in the whole range of 
 medicine. The facts as to this are so indisputable, 
 ami so far granted by the profession, as to be no 
 longer debatable. Changes in stomach and liver, 
 in kidneys and lungs, in the blood-vessels to the 
 minutest capillary, and in the blood to the smallest 
 red and white blood disc disturbances of secretion, 
 fibroid and fatty degenerations in almost every 
 organ, impairment of muscular power, impressions 
 so profound on both nervous systems as to be often 
 toxic these, and such as these, are the oft mani- 
 fested results. And these are not confined to those 
 called intemperate." 
 
 Professor Youmans says : " It is evident that, so 
 far from being the conservator of health, alcohol is 
 an active and powerful cause of disease, interfering, 
 as it does, with the respiration, the circulation and 
 tin- nutrition; now, is any other result possible?" 
 
 Dr. F. R. Lees says : " That alcohol should con- 
 tribute to the fattening process under certain condi- 
 tions, anrl produce in drinkers fatty degeneration of 
 the blood, follows, as a matter of course, since, on 
 the one hand, we have an agent that retains t/v/x/V 
 matter by lowering the nutritive and excretory 
 functions, and on the other, a direct poisoner of the 
 icles of the vital stream."
 
 428 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 Dr. Henry Monroe says : " There is no kind of 
 tissue, whether healthy or morbid, that may not 
 undergo fatty degeneration ; and there is no organic 
 disease so troublesome to the medical man, or so 
 difficult of cure. If, by the aid of the miscroscope, 
 we examine a very fine section of muscle taken from 
 a person in good health, we find the muscles firm, 
 elastic and of a bright red color, made up of parallel 
 fibres, with beautiful crossings or stria3 ; but, if we 
 similarly examine the muscle of a man who leads 
 an idle, sedentary life, and indulges in intoxicating 
 drinks, we detect, at once, a pale, flabby, inelastic, 
 oily appearance. Alcoholic narcotization appears 
 to produce this peculiar conditions of the tissues 
 more than any other agent with which we are ac- 
 quainted. 'Three-quarters of the chronic illness 
 which the medical man has to treat,' says Dr. 
 Chambers, 'are occasioned by this disease/ The 
 eminent French analytical chemist, Lecanu, found 
 as much as one hundred and seventeen parts of fat 
 in one thousand parts of a drunkard's blood, the 
 highest estimate of the quantity in health being 
 eight and one-quarter parts, while the ordinary 
 quantity is not more than two or three parts, so that 
 the blood of the drunkard contains forty times in 
 excess of the ordinary quantity." 
 
 Dr. Hammond, who has written, in partial defense 
 of alcohol as containing a food power, says : " When 
 I say that it, of all other causes, is most prolific in 
 exciting derangements of the brain, the spinal cord
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 409 
 
 and the nerves, I make a statement which my own 
 rience shows to be correct." 
 
 Another eminent physician says of alcohol : " It 
 sul >st it utes suppuration for growth. * * It helps 
 time to produce the effects of age; and, in a word, 
 is the genius of degeneration." 
 
 1 >r. Monroe, from whom we have already quoted, 
 : "Alcohol, taken in small quantities, or largely 
 diluted, as in the form of beer, causes- the stomach 
 gradually to lose its tone, and makes it dependent 
 upon artificial stimulus. Atony, or want of tone of 
 tomach, gradually supervenes, and iucurable dis- 
 order of health results. * * * Should a dose of alco- 
 holic drink be taken daily, the heart will very often 
 become hypertrophied, or enlarged throughout 
 Indeed, it is painful to witness how many persons 
 are actually laboring under disease of the heart, 
 owing chiefly to the use of alcoholic liquors." 
 
 Dr. T. K. Chambers, physician to the Prince of 
 "\VaU-s, says : "Alcohol is really the most ungenerous 
 :!ure is. It impoverishes the blood, and there 
 is no surer road to that degeneration of muscular 
 libre so much to bo feared; and in heart disease it 
 is more especially hurtful, by quickening the brat, 
 causing capillary congestion and irregular circula- 
 tion, and thus mechanically inducing dilatation.' 
 
 Sir Henry Thompson,* distinguished surgeon, 
 says: " Don't take your daily wine under any pretext 
 of its doing you good. Take it frankly as a luxury 
 one which must be paid for, by some persons \
 
 430 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 lightly, by some at a high price, but always to be 
 paid for. And, mostly, some loss of health, or of 
 mental power, or of caimness of temper, or of 
 judgment, is the price." 
 
 Dr. Charles Jewett says : " The late Prof. Parks, 
 of England, in his great work on Hygiene, has 
 effectually disposed of the notion, long and very 
 generally entertained, that alcohol is a valuable 
 prophylactic where a bad climate, bad water and 
 other conditions unfavorable to health exist ; and 
 an unfortunate experiment with the article, in the 
 Union army, on the banks of the Chickahominy, in 
 the year 1863, proved conclusively that, instead of 
 guarding the human constitution against the influ- 
 ence of agencies hostile to health, its use gives to 
 them additional force. The medical history of the 
 British army in India teaches the same lesson." 
 
 But why present farther testimony ? Is not the 
 evidence complete ? To the man who values good 
 health ; who would not lay the foundation for dis- 
 ease and suffering in his kter years, we need not 
 offer a single additional argument in favor of entire 
 abstinence from alcoholic drinks. He will eschew 
 them as poisons.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IT CURSES THE SOUL. 
 
 physical disasters that follow the continued 
 -L use of intoxicating beverages are sad enough, 
 and terrible enough ; but the surely attendant men- 
 tal, moral and spiritual disasters are sadder and more 
 terrible still. If you disturb the healthy condition of 
 the brain, which is the physical organ through which 
 the mind acts, you disturb the mind. It will not 
 have the same clearness of perception as before ; nor 
 ha vi- the same rational control over the impulses and 
 passions. 
 
 In what manner alcohol deteriorates the body 
 and brain has been shown in the two preceding 
 chapters. In this one we purpose showing how the 
 curse goes deeper than the body and brain, and 
 involves the whole man morally and spiritually, 
 as well as physically. 
 
 HEAVENLY ORDER IN THE BODY. 
 
 In order to understand a subject clearly, certain 
 general laws, or principles, must be seen and ad- 
 mitted. And here we assume, as a general truth, 
 that health in the human body is normal heavenly 
 order on the physical plane of life, and that any 
 431
 
 432 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 disturbance of that order exposes the man to de- 
 structive influences, which are evil and infernal in 
 their character Above the natural and physical 
 plane, and resting upon it, while man lives in this 
 world, is the mental and spiritual plane, or degree 
 of life. This degree is in heavenly order when the 
 reason is clear, and the appetites and passions under 
 its wise control. But, if, through any cause, this 
 fine equipoise is disturbed, or lost, then a way is 
 opened for the influx of more subtle evil influences 
 than such as invade the body, because they have 
 power to act upon the reason and the passions, ob- 
 scuring the one and inflaming the others. 
 
 MENTAL DISTURBANCES. 
 
 "We know how surely the loss of bodily health 
 results in mental disturbance. 'If the seat of disease 
 be remote from the brain, the disturbance is usually 
 slight ; but it increases as the trouble comes nearer 
 and nearer to that organ, and shows itself in multi- 
 form ways according to character, temperament or 
 inherited disposition ; but almost always in a pre- 
 dominance of what is evil instead of good. There 
 will be fretfulness, or ill-nature, or selfish exactions, 
 or mental obscurity, or unreasoning demands, or, it 
 may be, vicious and cruel propensities, where, when 
 the brain was undisturbed by disease, reason held 
 rule with patience and loving kindness. If the 
 disease which has attacked the brain goes on in- 
 creasing, the mental disease which follows as a con-
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 433 
 
 sequence of organic disturbance or deterioration, 
 will have increased also, until insanity may be estab- 
 lished in some one or more of its many sad and 
 varied forms. 
 
 INSANITY. 
 
 It is, therefore, a very serious thing for a man to 
 take into his body any substance which, on reaching 
 that wonderfully delicate organ the brain, sets up 
 therein a diseased action ; for, diseased mental action 
 is sure to follow, and there is only one true name 
 for mental disease, and that is insanity. A fever is 
 a fever, whether it be light or intensely burning ; 
 and so any disturbance of the mind's rational equi- 
 poise is insanity, whether it be in the simplest form 
 of temporary obscurity, or in the midnight of a 
 totally darkened intellect. 
 
 We are not writing in the interest of any special 
 
 theory, nor in the spirit of partisanship ; but with 
 
 most desire to make the truth appear. The 
 
 reader must not accept anything simply because we 
 
 say it, but because he sees it to be 'true. Now, as to 
 
 this matter of insanity, let him think calmly. The 
 
 word is one that gives us a shock ; and, as we hear 
 
 it, we almost involuntarily thank God for the good 
 
 gift of a well-balanced mind. "What, if from any 
 
 cause this beautiful equipoise should be disturbed 
 
 and the mind lose its power to think clearly, or to 
 
 hold the lower passions in due control ? Shall we 
 
 d the truth if we say that the man in whom 
 
 this takes place is insane just in the degree that he 
 
 28
 
 434 STRONG DKINK; 
 
 has lost his rational self-control ; and that he is 
 restored when he regains that control ? 
 
 In this view, the question as to the hurtfulness of 
 alcoholic drinks assumes a new and graver aspect. 
 Do they disturb the brain when they come in 
 contact with its substance; and deteriorate it if 
 the contact be long continued ? Fact, observation, 
 experience and scientific investigation all emphati- 
 cally say yes ; and we know that if the brain be 
 disordered the mind will be disordered, likewise; 
 and a disordered mind is an insane mind. Clearly, 
 then, in the degree that a man impairs or hurts his 
 brain temporarily or continuously in that degree 
 his mind is unbalanced ; in that degree he is not a 
 truly rational and sane man. 
 
 We are holding the reader's thought just here 
 that he may have time to think, and to look at the 
 question in the light of reason and common sense. 
 So far as he does this, will he be able to feel the 
 force of such evidence as we shall educe in what 
 follows, and to comprehend its true meaning. 
 
 NO SUBSTANCE AFFECTS THE BRAIN LIKE ALCOHOL. 
 
 Other substances besides alcohol act injuriously 
 on the brain ; but there is none that compares with 
 this in the extent, variety and diabolical aspect of 
 the mental aberrations which follow its use. We 
 are not speaking thoughtlessly or wildly ; but simply 
 uttering a truth well-known to every man of obser- 
 vation, and which every man, and especially those
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 435 
 
 who take this substance in any form, should lay 
 deeply to heart. Why it is that such awful and 
 destructive forms of insanity should follow, as they 
 do, the use of alcohol it is not for us to say. That 
 they do follow it, we know, and we hold up the fact 
 in solemn warning. 
 
 INHERITED LATENT EVIL FORCES. 
 
 Another consideration, which should have weight 
 with every one, is this, that no man can tell what 
 may be the character of the legacy he has received 
 from his ancestors. He may have an inheritance of 
 latent evil forces, transmitted through many gene- 
 rations, which only await some favoring opportunity 
 to spring into life and action. So long as he main- 
 tains a rational self-control, and the healthy order 
 of his life be not disturbed, they may continue qui- 
 escent ; but if his brain loses its equipoise, or is hurt 
 or impaired, then a diseased psychical condition may 
 be induced and the latent evil forces be quickened 
 into life. 
 
 No substance in nature, as far as yet known, has, 
 when it reaches the brain, such power to induce 
 
 MENTAL AND MORAL CHANGES OF A DISASTROUS 
 CHARACTER 
 
 as alcohol. Its transforming power is marvelous, 
 and often appalling. It seems to open a way of 
 entrance into the soul for all classes of foolish, insane 
 or malignant spirits, who, so long as it remains in 
 contact with the brain, are able to hold possession.
 
 436 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 Men of the kindest nature when sober, act often 
 like fiends when drunk. Crimes and outrages are 
 committed, which shock and shame the perpetrators 
 when the excitement of inebriation has passed away. 
 Referring to this subject, Dr. Henry Munroe says : 
 " It appears from the experience of Mr. Fletcher, 
 who has paid much attention to the cases of drunk- 
 ards, from the remarks of Mr. Dunn, in his ' Medi- 
 cal Psychology,' and from observations of my own, 
 that there is some analogy between our physical and 
 psychical natures ; for, as the physical part of us, 
 when its power is at a low ebb, becomes susceptible 
 of morbid influences which, in full vigor, would pass 
 over it without effect, so when the psychical (synony- 
 mous with the moral) part of the brain has its 
 healthy function disturbed and deranged by the 
 introduction of a morbid poison like alcohol, the 
 individual so circumstanced sinks in depravity, and 
 
 BECOMES THE HELPLESS SUBJECT OF THE FORCES OF 
 
 EVIL, 
 
 which are powerless against a nature free from the 
 morbid influences of alcohol. 
 
 " Different persons are affected in different ways 
 by the same poison. Indulgence in alcoholic drinks 
 may act upon one or more of the cerebral organs ; 
 and, as its necessary consequence, the manifestations 
 of functional disturbance will follow in such of the 
 mental powers as these organs subserve. If the 
 indulgence be continued, then, either from deranged 
 nutrition or organic lesion, manifestations formerly
 
 THE CURSE AND TUB CURE. 437 
 
 loped only during a fit of intoxication may be- 
 come permanent, and terminate in insanity or dyp- 
 somania. M. Flourens first pointed out the fact 
 that certain morbific agents, when introduced into 
 the current of the circulation, tend to act primarily 
 and itjH'cidlfi/ on one nervous centre in preference to 
 that of another, by virtue of some special elective 
 affinity between such morbific agents and certain 
 ganglia. Thus, in the tottering gait of the tipsy 
 man, we see the influence of alcohol upon the func- 
 tions of the cerebellum in the impairment of its 
 power of co-ordinating the muscles. 
 
 " Certain writers on diseases of the mind make 
 especial allusion to that form of insanity termed 
 DYPSOMANIA, in which a person has an unquenchable 
 thirst for alcoholic drinks a tendency as decidedly 
 maniacal as that of homicidal mania ; or the uncon- 
 tn (liable desire to burn, termed pyromania ; or to 
 steal, called kleptomania. 
 
 HOMICIDAL MANIA. 
 
 "The different tendencies of homicidal mania in 
 di fll-rent individuals are often only nursed into action 
 when the current of the blood has been poisoned 
 with alcohol. I had a case of a person who, whcn- 
 
 his brain was so excited, told me that he t 
 
 rirnced a most uncontrollable desire to kill or injure 
 
 some one ; so much so, that he could at times hardly 
 
 restrain himself from the action, and was obliged to 
 
 in from all stimulants, lest, in an unlucky mo-
 
 438 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 ment, he might commit himself. Townley, who 
 murdered the young lady of his affections, for which 
 he was sentenced to be imprisoned in a lunatic asy- 
 lum for life, poisoned his brain with brandy a-nd 
 soda-water before he committed the rash act. The 
 brandy stimulated into action certain portions of the 
 brain, which acquired such a power as to subjugate 
 his will, and hurry him to the performance of a 
 frightful deed, opposed alike to his better judgment 
 and his ordinary desires. 
 
 "As to pyromania, some years ago I knew a 
 laboring man in a country village, who, whenever 
 he had had a few glasses of ale at the public-house, 
 would chuckle with delight at the thought of firing 
 certain gentlemen's stacks. Yet, when his bruin 
 was free from the poison, a quieter, better-disposed 
 man could not be. Unfortunately, he became ad- 
 dicted to habits of intoxication ; and, one night, 
 under alcoholic excitement, fired some stacks be- 
 longing to his employers, for which he was sentenced 
 for fifteen years to a penal settlement, where his 
 brain would never again be alcoholically excited. 
 
 KLEPTOMANIA. 
 
 "Next, I will give an example of kleptomania. 
 I knew, many years ago, a very clever, industrious 
 and talented young man, who told me that when- 
 ever he had been drinking, he could hardly with- 
 stand the temptation of stealing anything that came 
 in his way ; but that these feelings never troubled
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 439 
 
 him at other times. One afternoon, after he had 
 been indulging with his fellow-workmen in drink, 
 his will, unfortunately, was overpowered, and he 
 took from the mansion where he was working some 
 articles of worth, for which he was accused, and 
 afterwards sentenced to a term of imprisonment. 
 When set at liberty he had the good fortune to be 
 placed among some kind-hearted persons, vulgarly 
 called teetotallers; and, from conscientious motives, 
 signed the PLEDGE, now above twenty years ago. 
 From that time to the present moment he has never 
 experienced the. overmastering desire which so often 
 beset him in his drinking days to take that which 
 was not his own. Moreover, no pretext on earth could 
 now entice him to taste of any liquor containing 
 alcohol, feeling that, under its influence, he might 
 ai;ain fall its victim. He holds an influential posi- 
 tion in the town where he resides. 
 
 " I have known some ladies of good position in 
 society, who, after a dinner or supper-party, and 
 after having taken sundry glasses of wine, could not 
 withstand the temptation of taking home any little 
 article not their own, when the opportunity offered; 
 and who, in their sober moments, have returned 
 till-in, as if taken by mistake. We have many 
 i ices recorded in our police reports of gentlemen 
 -ition, under the influence of drink, committing 
 thefts of the most paltry articles, afterwards returned 
 to the owners by their friends, which can only be 
 accounted for, psychologically, by the fact that the.
 
 440 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 will had been for the time completely overpowered 
 by the subtle influence of alcohol. 
 
 LOSS OF MENTAL CLEARNESS. 
 
 " That alcohol, whether taken in large or small 
 doses, immediately disturbs the natural functions of 
 the mind and body, is now conceded by the most 
 eminent physiologists. Dr. Brinton says : * Mental 
 acuteness, accuracy of conception, and delicacy of 
 the senses, are all so far opposed by the action of 
 alcohol, as that the maximum efforts of each are 
 incompatible with the ingestion of any moderate 
 quantity of fermented liquid. Indeed, there is 
 scarcely any calling which demands skillful and 
 exact effort of mind and body, or which requires 
 the balanced exercise of many faculties, that does 
 not illustrate this rule. The mathematician, the 
 gambler, the metaphysician, the billiard-player, the 
 author, the artist, the physician, would, if they 
 could analyze their experience aright, generally 
 concur in the statement, that a single glass will 
 often suffice to take, so to speak, the edge off both 
 mind and body, and to reduce their capacity to 
 something below what is relatively their perfection 
 of work.' 
 
 " Not long ago, a railway train was driven care- 
 lessly into one of the principal London stations, 
 running into another train, killing, by the collision, 
 six or seven persons, and injuring many others. 
 From the evidence at the inquest, it appeared that
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CUKE. 44^ 
 
 unr.l was reckoned sober, only he had had fim 
 glasses of ale with a friend at a previous station. 
 X<>\v, reasoning psychologically, these two glasses of 
 ale had probably been instrumental in taking off 
 the edge from his perceptions and prudence, and 
 producing a carelessness or boldness of action which 
 would not have occurred under the cooling, tem- 
 perate influence of a beverage free from alcohol. 
 Many persons have admitted to me that they were 
 not the same after taking even one glass of ale or 
 wine that they were before, and could not thorovy/tly 
 trust themselvesafterthey hud taken this single glass." 
 
 IMPAIRMENT OF MEMORY. 
 
 An impairment of the memory is among the early 
 symptoms of alcoholic derangement. 
 
 " This," says Dr. Richardson, " extends even to 
 forgetfulness of the commonest things ; to names of 
 familiar persons, to dates, to duties of daily life. 
 Strangely, too," he adds, "this failure, like that 
 which indicates, in the aged, the era of second 
 childishness and mere oblivion, does not extend to 
 the tilings of the past, but is confined to events that 
 an- passing. On old memories the mind retains its 
 power; on new ones it requires constant prompting 
 and sustainment." 
 
 In this, failure of memory nature gives a solemn 
 warning that immiiu'iit peril is at hand. Well 
 l>r tho habitual drinker if he heed the warn- 
 ing. Should he nut do so, symptoms of a more
 
 442 STEONO DRINK; 
 
 serious character will, in time, develop themselves, 
 as the brain becomes more and more diseased, 
 ending, it may be, in permanent insanity. 
 
 MENTAL AND MOEAL DISEASES. 
 
 Of the mental and moral diseases which too often 
 follow the regular drinking of alcohol, we have 
 painful records in asylum reports, in medical testi- 
 mony and in our daily observation and experience. 
 These are so full and varied, and thrust so con- 
 stantly on our attention, that the wonder is that 
 men are not afraid to run the terrible risks involved 
 even in what is called the moderate use of alcoholic 
 beverages. 
 
 In 1872, a select committee of the House of Com- 
 mons, appointed " to consider the best plan for the 
 control and management of habitual drunkards," 
 called upon some of the most eminent medical men 
 in Great Britain to give their testimony in answer 
 to a large number of questions, embracing every 
 topic within the range of inquiry, from the pathology 
 of inebriation to the practical usefulness of prohib- 
 itory laws. In this testimony much was said about 
 the effect of alcoholic stimulation on the mental con- 
 dition and moral character. One physician, Dr. 
 James Crichton Brown, who, in ten years' experi- 
 ence as superintendent of lunatic asylums, has paid 
 special attention to the relations of habitual drunken- 
 ness to insanity, having carefully examined five hun- 
 dred cases, testified that alcohol, taken in excess, pro-
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 443 
 
 duccd different forms of mental disease, of which he 
 mentioned four classes : 1. Mania a potu, or alcoholic 
 mania. 2. The monomania of suspicion. 3. Chronic 
 alcoholism, characterized by failure of the mem- 
 ory and power of judgment, with partial paralysis 
 generally ending fatally. 4. Dypsomania, or an 
 irresistible craving for alcoholic stimulants, occur- 
 ing very frequently, paroxysmally, and with con- 
 stant liability to periodical exacerbations, when the 
 craving becomes altogether uncontrollable. Of this 
 latter form of disease, he says: "This is invariably 
 associated with a certain impairment of the intellect, 
 and of the affection* and the moral pov 
 
 Dr. Alexander Peddie, a physician of over 
 thirty-seven years' practice in Edinburgh, gave, in 
 his evidence, many remarkable instances of the 
 moral perversions that followed continued drinking. 
 
 RELATION BETWEEN INSANITY AND DRUNKENNESS. 
 
 Dr. John Nugent said that his experience of 
 twenty-six years among lunatics, led him to believe 
 that there is a very close relation between the 
 results of the abuse of alcohol and insanity. The 
 population of Ireland had decreased, he said, two 
 millions in twenty-five years, but there was the 
 same amount of insanity now that there was before. 
 1 Ir attributed this, in a great measure, to indulgence 
 in drink. 
 
 Dr. Arthur Mitchell, Commissioner of Lunacy 
 for Scotland, testified that the excessive use of
 
 444 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 alcohol caused a large amount of the lunacy, crime 
 and pauperism of that country. In some men, he 
 said, habitual drinking leads to other diseases than 
 insanity, because the effect is always in the direction 
 of the proclivity, but it is certain that there are 
 many in whom there is a clear proclivity to in- 
 sanity, who would escape that dreadful consumma- 
 tion but for drinking; excessive drinking in many 
 persons determining the insanity to which they are, 
 at any rale, predisposed. The children of drunkards, 
 he further said, are in a larger proportion idiotic than 
 other children, and in a larger proportion become 
 themselves drunkards; they are also in a larger 
 proportion liable to the ordinary forms of acquired 
 insanity. 
 
 Dr. Winslow Forbes believed that in the ha- 
 bitual drunkard the whole nervous structure, and 
 the brain especially, became poisoned by alcohol. 
 All the mental symptoms which you see accompa- 
 nying ordinary intoxication, he remarks, result from 
 the poisonous effects of alcohol on the brain. It is 
 the brain which is mainly effected. In temporary 
 drunkenness, the brain becomes in an abnormal 
 state of alimentation, and if this habit is persisted 
 in for years, the nervous tissue itself becomes per- 
 meated with alcohol, and organic changes take place 
 in the nervous tissues of the brain, producing that 
 frightful and dreadful chronic insanity which we see 
 in lunatic asylums, traceable entirely to habits of 
 intoxication. A large percentage of frightful mental
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 445 
 
 and brain disturbances can, lie declared, be traced 
 to the drunkenness of parents. 
 
 Dr. D. G. Dodge, late of the New York State 
 Inebriate Asylum, "who, with Dr. Joseph Parrish, 
 
 re testimony before the committee of the House 
 of Commons, said, in one of his answers : " With 
 the excessive use of alcohol, functional disorder will 
 invariably appear, and no organ will be more seri- 
 ously affected, and possibly impaired, than the. brain. 
 This is shown in the inebriate by a weakened intcl- 
 
 f, a general debility of the mental faculties, a 
 
 partial or total loss of self-respect, and a departure 
 
 of the power of self-command ; all of which, acting 
 
 together, place the victim at the mercy of a depraved 
 
 and morbid appetite, and make him utterly power- 
 
 1. , by his own unaided efforts, to secure his recov- 
 
 iYoni the disease which is destroying him." And 
 
 Ids : " I am of opinion that there is a 
 
 GBEAT SDIILARITY BETWEEN INEBRIETY AND 
 INSANITY. 
 
 I am decidedly of opinion that the former has taken 
 I 'lace in the family of diseases as prominently as 
 its twin-brother insanity ; and, in my opinion, the 
 day is not far distant when the pathology of the 
 mer will be as fully understood and as successfully 
 treated as the latter, and even more successfully, 
 since it is more within the reach and bounds of 
 human control, which, wisely exercised and scien- 
 tific-ally administered, may prevent curable inebria- 
 tion from verging into possible incurable insanity."
 
 446 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 GENERAL IMPAIRMENT OF THE FACULTIES. 
 
 In a more recent lecture than the one from which 
 we have quoted so freely, Dr. Richardson, speaking 
 of the action of alcohol on the mind, gives the fol- 
 lowing sad picture of its ravages : 
 
 " An analysis of the condition of the mind in- 
 duced and maintained by the free daily use of alco- 
 hol as a drink, reveals a singular order of facts. 
 The manifestation fails altogether to reveal the 
 exaltation of any reasoning power in a useful or 
 satisfactory direction. I have never met with an 
 instance in which such a claim for alcohol has been 
 made. On the contrary, confirmed alcoholics con- 
 stantly say that for this or that work, requiring 
 thought and attention, it is necessary to forego some 
 of the usual potations in order to have a cool head 
 for hard work. 
 
 " On the other side, the experience is overwhelm- 
 ingly in favor of the observation that the use of 
 
 ALCOHOL SELLS THE REASONING POWERS, 
 
 make weak men and women the easy prey of the 
 wicked and strong, and leads men and women who 
 should know better into every grade of misery and 
 vice. * * * If, then, alcohol enfeebles the 
 reason, what part of the mental constitution does it 
 exalt and excite ? It excites and exalts those animal, 
 organic, emotional centres of mind which, in the 
 dual nature of man, so often cross and oppose that 
 pure and abstract reasoning nature which lifts man
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 447 
 
 above the lower animals, and rightly exercised, little 
 lower than the angels. 
 
 IT EXCITES MAN'S WORST PASSIONS. 
 
 " Exciting these animal centres, it lets loose all the 
 passions, and gives them more or less of unlicensed 
 dominion over the man. It excites anger, and when 
 it does not lead to this extreme, it keeps the mind 
 fretful, irritable, dissatisfied and captious. * * * 
 And if I were to take you through all the passions, 
 love, hate, lust, envy, avarice and pride, I should 
 but show you that alcohol ministers to them all ; 
 that, paralyzing the reason, it takes from off these 
 ions that fine adjustment of reason, which places 
 man above the lower animals. From the beginning 
 to the end of its influence it subdues reason and 
 sets the passions free. The analogies, physical and 
 iiK-ntal, are perfect. That which loosens the tension 
 of the vessels which feed the body with due order 
 and precision, and, thereby, lets loose the heart to 
 violent excess and unbridled motion, loosens, also, 
 the reason and lets loose the passion. In both in- 
 stances, heart and head are, for a time, out of har- 
 mony ; their balance broken. The man descends 
 closer and closer to the lower animals. From the 
 angels he glides farther and farther away. 
 
 A SAD AND TERRIBLE PICTURE. 
 
 "The destructii < cir cts of alcohol on the human 
 mind present, iinally, the saddest picture of its in-
 
 448 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 fluence. The most aesthetic artist can find no angel 
 here. All is animal, and animal of the worst type. 
 Memory irretrievably lost, words and very elements 
 of speech forgotten or words displaced to have no 
 meaning in them. Rage and anger persistent and 
 mischievous, or remittent and impotent. Fear at 
 every corner of life, distrust on every side, grief 
 merged into blank despair, hopelessness into per- 
 manent melancholy. Surely no Pandemonium that 
 ever poet dreamt of could equal that which would 
 exist if all the drunkards of the world were driven 
 into one mortal sphere. 
 
 "As I have moved among those who are physi- 
 cally stricken with alcohol, and have detected under 
 the various disguises of name the fatal diseases, the 
 pains and penalties it imposes on the body, the 
 picture has been sufficiently cruel. But even that 
 picture pales, as I conjure up, without any stretch 
 of imagination, the devastations which the same 
 agent inflicts on the mind. Forty per cent., the 
 learned Superintendent of Colney Hatch, Dr. Shep- 
 pard, tells us, of those who were brought into that 
 asylum in 1876, were so brought because of the 
 direct or indirect effects of alcohol. If the facts of all 
 the asylums were collected with equal care, the same 
 tale would, I fear, be told. What need we further 
 to show the destructive action on the human mind ? 
 The Pandemonium of drunkards ; the grand trans- 
 formation scene of that pantomime of drink which 
 commences with moderation ! Let it never more be
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 449 
 
 forgotten by those who love their fellow-men until, 
 through their efforts, it is closed forever." 
 
 We might go on, adding page after page of evi- 
 dence, showing how alcohol curses the souls, as well 
 as the bodies, of men ; but enough has been educed 
 to force conviction on the mind of every reader not 
 already satisfied of its poisonous and destructive 
 quality. 
 
 How light are all evils flowing from intemperance 
 compared with those which it thus inflicts on man's 
 higher nature. " What," says Dr. W. E. Channing, 
 " is the great essential evil of intemperance ? The 
 reply is given, when I say, that intemperance is the 
 
 VOLUNTARY EXTINCTION OF REASON. 
 
 The great evil is inward or spiritual. The intem- 
 perate man divests himself, for a time, of his rational 
 and moral nature, casts from himself self-conscious- 
 ness and self-command, brings on frenzy, and by 
 repetition of this insanity, prostrates more and more 
 liis rational and moral powers. He sins immedi- 
 ately and directly against the rational nature, that 
 Divine principle which distinguishes between truth 
 and falsehood, between right and wrong action, 
 which distinguishes man from the brute. This is the 
 essence of the vice, what constitutes its peculiar 
 guilt and woe, and what should particularly impress 
 an 1 awaken those who are laboring for its suppression. 
 Other evils of intemperance are light compared with 
 this, ami almost all flow from this; and it is right, 
 29
 
 450 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 it is to be desired that all other evils should be 
 joined with and follow this. It is to be desired, 
 when a man lifts a suicidal arm against his higher 
 life, when he quenches reason and conscience, that 
 he and all others should receive solemn, startling 
 warning of the greatness of his guilt ; that terrible 
 outward calamities should bear witness to the in- 
 ward ruin which he is working; that the hand- 
 writing of judgment and woe on his countenance, 
 form and whole condition, should declare what a 
 fearful thing it is for a man, " God's rational off- 
 spring, to renounce his reason, and become a brute."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 NOT A FOOD, AND VERY LIMITED IN ITS RANGE AS A 
 MEDICINE. 
 
 use of alcohol as a medicine has been very 
 large. If his patient was weak and nervous, 
 the physician too often ordered wine or ale ; or, not 
 taking the trouble to refer his own case to a physi- 
 cian, the invalid prescribed these articles for himself. 
 If there was a failure of appetite, its restoration was 
 sought in the use of one or both of the above-named 
 forms of alcohol; or, perhaps, adopting a more 
 heroic treatment, the sufferer poured brandy or 
 whisky into his weak and sensitive stomach. Pro- 
 tection from cold was sought in a draught of some 
 alcoholic beverage, and relief from fatigue and ex- 
 haustion in the use of the same deleterious substance. 
 Indeed, there is scarcely any form of bodily ailment 
 or discomfort, or mental disturbance, for the relief 
 of which a resort was not had to alcohol in some one 
 of its many forms. 
 
 It is fair to say that, as a medicine, its consump- 
 tion has far exceeded that of any other substance 
 prescribed and taken for physical and mental de- 
 rangements. 
 
 The inquiry, then, as to the true remedial value 
 401
 
 452 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 of alcohol is one of the gravest import ; and it is of 
 interest to know that for some years past the medi- 
 cal profession has been giving this subject a careful 
 and thorough investigation. The result is to be 
 found in the brief declaration made by the Section 
 on Medicine, of the 
 
 INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CONGRESS, 
 
 which met in Philadelphia in 1876. This body 
 was composed of about six hundred delegates, from 
 Europe and America, among them, some of the ablest 
 men in the profession. Realizing the importance of 
 some expression in relation to the use of alcohol, 
 medical and otherwise, from this Congress, the Na- 
 tional Temperance Society laid before it, through 
 its President, W. E. Dodge, -and Secretary, J. N. 
 Sfeearns, the following memorial : 
 
 " The National Temperance Society sends greet- 
 ing, and respectfully invites from your distinguished 
 body a public declaration to the effect that alcohol 
 should be classed with other powerful drugs ; that, 
 when prescribed medicinally, it should be with con- 
 scientious caution and a sense of grave responsibility; 
 that it is in no sense food to the human system ; that 
 its improper use is productive of a large amount of 
 physical disease, tending to deteriorate the human 
 race ; and to recommend, as representatives of en- 
 lightened science, to your several nationalities, total 
 abstinence from alcoholic beverages." 
 
 In* response to this memorial, the president of
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 453 
 
 the society received from J. Ewing Hears, M. D., 
 Secretary of the Section on Medicine, International 
 Congress, the following official letter, under date of 
 September 9th, 1876 : 
 
 " DEAR SIR : I am instructed by the Section on 
 Medicine, International Medical Congress, of 1876, 
 to transmit to you, as the action of the Section, the 
 following conclusions adopted by it with regard to 
 the use of alcohol in medicine, the same being in 
 reply to the communication sent by the National 
 Temperance Society. 
 
 " 1. Alcohol is not shown to have a definite food 
 value by any of the usual methods of chemical 
 analysis or physiological investigation. 
 
 " 2. Its use as a medicine is chiefly that of a car- 
 diac stimulant, and often admits of substitution. 
 
 "3. As a medicine, it is not well fitted for self- 
 prescription by the laity, and the medical profession 
 is not accountable for such administration, or for the 
 enormous evils arising therefrom. 
 
 " 4. The purity of alcoholic liquors is, in general, 
 not as well assured as that of articles used for niedi- 
 cine should be. The various mixtures, when used 
 as medicine, should have definite and known com- 
 position, and should not be interchanged promiscu- 
 ou>ly." 
 
 The reader will see in this no hesitating or half- 
 way speech. The declaration is strong and clear, that, 
 as a food, alcohol is not shown, when subjected to the 
 usual method of chemical or physiological investi-
 
 454 STKONQ DRINK; 
 
 gation, to have any food value ; and that, as a 
 medicine, its use is chiefly confined to a cardiac 
 stimulant, and often admits of substitution. 
 
 A declaration like this, coming, as it does, from a 
 body of medical men representing the most advanced 
 ideas held by the profession, must have great weight 
 with the people. But we do not propose resting on 
 this declaration alone. As it was based on the re- 
 sults of chemical and physiological investigations, 
 let us go back of the opinion expressed by the 
 Medical Congress, and examine these results, in 
 order that the ground of its opinion may become 
 apparent. 
 
 There was presented to this Congress, by a dis- 
 tinguished physician of New Jersey, Dr. Ezra M. 
 Hunt, a paper on " Alcohol as a Food and Medi- 
 cine," in which the whole subject is examined in 
 the light of the most recent and carefully-conducted 
 experiments of English, French, German and Amer- 
 ican chemists and physiologists, and their conclu- 
 sions, as well as those of the author of the paper, 
 set forth in the plainest manner. This has since 
 been published by the National Temperance Society, 
 and should be read and carefully studied by every 
 one who is seeking for accurate information on the 
 important subject we are now considering. It is 
 impossible for us to more than glance at the evidence 
 brought forward in proof of the assertion that
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 455 
 
 ALCOHOL HAS NO FOOD VALUE, 
 
 and is exceedingly limited in its action as a remedial 
 agent ; and we, therefore, urge upon all who are 
 interested in this subject, to possess themselves of 
 Dr. Hunt's exhaustive treatise, and to study it care- 
 fully. 
 
 If the reader will refer to the quotation made by 
 us in the second chapter from Dr. Henry Monroe, 
 where the food value of any article is treated of, he 
 will see it stated that " every kind of substance em- 
 ployed by man as food consists of sugar, starch, oil 
 and glutinous matter, mingled together in various 
 proportions ; these are designed for the support of 
 the animal frame. The glutinous principles of 
 food fibrine, albumen and casein are employed 
 to build up the structure ; while the oil, starch and 
 sugar are chiefly used to generate heat in the body." 
 
 Now, it is clear, that if alcohol is a food, it will 
 be found to contain one or more of these substances. 
 There must be in it either the nitrogenous elements 
 found chiefly in meats, eggs, milk, vegetables and 
 seeds, out of which animal tissue is built and waste 
 repaired ; or the carbonaceous elements found in fat, 
 starch and sugar, in the consumption of which heat 
 and force are evolved. 
 
 " The distinctness of these groups of foods," says 
 Dr. Hunt, " and their relations to the tissue-pro- 
 ducing and heat-evolving capacities of man, are so 
 definite and so continued by experiments on animals
 
 456 STRONG DRINK- 
 
 and by manifold tests of scientific, physiological 
 and clinical experience, that no attempt to discard 
 the classification has prevailed. To draw so straight 
 a line of demarcation as to limit the one entirely to 
 tissue or cell production, and the other to heat and 
 force production through ordinary combustion, and 
 to deny any power of interchangeability under 
 special demands or amid defective supply of one 
 variety, is, indeed, untenable. This does not in the 
 least invalidate the fact that we are able to use these 
 as ascertained landmarks." 
 
 How these substances, when taken into the body, 
 are assimilated, and how they generate force, are 
 well known to the chemist and physiologist, who is 
 able, in the light of well-ascertained laws, to deter- 
 mine whether alcohol does or does not possess a food 
 value. For years, the ablest men in the medical 
 profession have given this subject the most careful 
 study, and have subjected alcohol to every known 
 test and experiment, and the result is that it has 
 been, by common consent, excluded from the class 
 of tissue-building foods. "We have never," says 
 Dr. Hunt, "seen but a single suggestion that it 
 could so act, and this a promiscuous guess. One 
 writer (Hammond) thinks it possible that it may 
 'somehow' enter into combination with the products 
 of decay in tissues, and * under certain circumstan- 
 ces might yield their nitrogen to the construction of 
 new tissues.' No parallel in organic chemistry, nor 
 any evidence in animal chemistry, can be found to
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 457 
 
 surround this guess with the arcola of a possible 
 hypothesis." 
 
 Dr. Richardson says: "Alcohol contains no ni- 
 trogen ; it has none of the qualities of structure- 
 luiilding foods ; it is incapable of being transformed 
 into any of them ; it is, therefore, not a food in any 
 sense of its being a constructive agent in building 
 up the body." Dr. W. B. Carpenter says: "Al- 
 cohol cannot supply anything which is essential to 
 the true nutrition of the tissues." Dr. Liebig says : 
 " Beer, wine, spirits, etc., furnish no element capable 
 of entering into the composition of the blood, mus- 
 cular fibre, or any part which is the seat of the 
 principle of life." Dr. Hammond, in his Tribune 
 Lectures, in which he advocates the use of alcohol 
 in certain cases, says: " It is not demonstrable that 
 alr< )hol undergoes conversion into tissue." Cameron, 
 in his Manuel of Hygiene, says : " There is nothing 
 in alcohol with which any part of the body can be 
 nourished." Dr. E. Smith, F.R.S., says: "Alcohol 
 is not a true food. It interferes with alimenta- 
 tion." Dr. T. K. Chambers says : " It is clear that 
 we must cease to regard alcohol, as in any sense, a 
 food." 
 
 " Not detecting in this substance," says Dr. Hunt, 
 "any tissue-making ingredients, nor in its breaking 
 up any combinations, such as we are able to tract- in 
 the cell foods, nor any evidence either in the expe- 
 rience of physiologists or the trials of alimrntarians, 
 it is not wonderful that in it we should lind m-itluT
 
 458 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 the expectancy nor the realization of constructive 
 power." 
 
 Not finding in alcohol anything out of which the 
 body can be built up or its waste supplied, it is next 
 to be examined as to its heat-producing quality, 
 
 ALCOHOL NOT A PRODUCER OF HEAT. 
 
 "The first usual test for a force-producing food," 
 says Dr. Hunt, " and that to which other foods of 
 that class respond, is the production of heat in the 
 combination of oxygen therewith. This heat means 
 vital force, and is, in no small degree, a measure of 
 the comparative value of the so-called respiratory 
 foods. * * * If we examine the fats, the starches 
 and the sugars, we can trace and estimate the pro- 
 cesses by which they evolve heat and are changed 
 into vital force, and can weigh the capacities of 
 different foods. We find that the consumption of 
 carbon by union with oxygen is the law, that heat 
 is the product, and that the legitimate result is force, 
 while the result of the union of the hydrogen of the 
 foods with oxygen is water. If alcohol comes at all 
 under this class of foods, we rightly expect to find 
 some of the evidences which attach to the hydro- 
 carbons." 
 
 What, then, is the result of experiments in this 
 direction ? They have been conducted through long 
 periods and with the greatest care, by men of the 
 highest attainments in chemistry and physiology, 
 and the result is given in these few words, by Dr.
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 45Q 
 
 II. II. Wood, Jr., in his Materi Medica. "No one 
 has been able to detect in the blood any of the ordi- 
 nary results of its oxidation." That is, no one has 
 been able to find that alcohol has undergone corn- 
 ion, like fat, or starch, or sugar, and so given 
 heat to the body. On the contrary, it is now known 
 and admitted by the medical profession that 
 
 ALCOHOL REDUCES THE TEMPERATURE OF THE BODY, 
 
 instead of increasing it ; and it has even been used 
 in fevers as an anti-pyretic. So uniform has been 
 the testimony of physicians in Europe and this 
 country as to the cooling effects of alcohol, that Dr. 
 
 <1 says, in his Materia Medica, " that it does not 
 seem worth while to occupy space with a discussion 
 of the subject." Liebermeister, one of the most 
 learned contributors to Zeimssen's Cyclopaedia of 
 the Practice of Medicine, 1875, says : " I long since 
 o,n \i IK i'd myself, by direct experiments, that alco- 
 hol, even in comparatively large doses, does not 
 elevate the temperature of the body in either well 
 or sick people." So well had this become known 
 to Arctic voyagers, that, even Jbefore physiologists 
 had drnnm.-t rated the fact that alcohol reduced, in- 
 stead of increasing, the temperature of the body, 
 they had learned that spirits lessened their power to 
 withstand extreme cold. " In the Northern regions/' 
 
 Edward Smith, " it was proved that the entire 
 exclusion of spirits was necessary, in order to retain 
 heat under these unfavorable conditions."
 
 460 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 ALCOHOL DOES NOT GIVE STRENGTH. 
 
 If alcohol does not contain tissue-building mnto- 
 rial, nor give heat to the body, it cannot possibly 
 add to its strength. "Every kind of power an 
 animal can generate," says Dr. G. Budd, F. R. S., 
 " the mechanical power of the muscles, the chemical 
 (or digestive) power of the stomach, the intellectual 
 power of the brain accumulates through the nutri- 
 tion of the organ on which it depends/ Dr. F. 
 R. Lees, of Edinburgh, after discussing the question, 
 and educing evidence, remarks : " From the very 
 nature of things, it will now be seen how impossible 
 it is that alcohol can be strengthening food of either 
 kind. Since it cannot become apart of the body, it 
 cannot consequently contribute to its cohesive, or- 
 ganic strength, or fixed power ; and, since it comes 
 out of the body just as it went in, it cannot, by its 
 decomposition, generate heat-force" 
 
 Sir Benjamin Brodie says : " Stimulants do not 
 create nervous power ; they merely enable you, as it 
 were, to use up that which is left, and then they 
 leave you more in need of rest than before." 
 
 Baron Liebig, so far back as 1843, in his "Animal 
 Chemistry," pointed out the fallacy of alcohol gener- 
 ating power. He says : " The circulation will appear 
 accelerated at the expense of the force available for 
 voluntary motion, but without the production of a 
 greater amount of mechanical force." In his later 
 " Letters," he again says : " Wine is quite super- 
 fluous to man, * * * it is constantly followed by
 
 TUB CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 expenditure of power" whereas, the real func- 
 tion of food is to give power. He adds: "These 
 drinks promote the change of matter in the body, 
 and are, consequently, attended by an inward loss 
 of j)ower, which ceases to be productive, because it 
 is not employed in overcoming outward difficulties 
 i. e. t in working." In other words, this great 
 chemist asserts that alcohol abstracts the power of 
 the system from doing useful work in the field or 
 workshop, in order to cleanse the house from the 
 defilement of alcohol itself. 
 
 The late Dr. W. Brinton, Physician to St. 
 Thomas', in his great work on Dietetics, says: 
 refill observation leaves little doubt that a 
 moderate dose of beer or wine would, in most cases, 
 at once diminish the maximum weight which a 
 healthy person could lift. Mental acuteness, accu- 
 racy of perception and delicacy of the senses are all 
 so far opposed by alcohol, as that the maximum 
 efforts of each are incompatible with the ingestion 
 of any moderate quantity of fermented liquid. A 
 single glass will often suffice to take the edge off 
 both mind and body, and to reduce their capacity 
 to something below their perfection of work." 
 
 1 >r. F. R. Lees, F. S. A., writing on the subject 
 of alcohol as a food, makes the following quotation 
 from an essay on "Stimulating Drinks," published 
 
 >r. II. R. Madden, as long ago as 1847 : "Alco- 
 hol is not the natural stimulus to any of our organs, 
 and hence, functions performed in consequence of
 
 462 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 its application, tend to debilitate the organ acted 
 upon. 
 
 "Alcohol is incapable of being assimilated or 
 converted into any organic proximate principle, and 
 hence, cannot be considered nutritious. 
 
 " The strength experienced after the use of alco- 
 hol is not new strength added to the system, but is 
 manifested by calling into exercise the nervous 
 energy pre-existing. 
 
 " The ultimate exhausting effects of alcohol, owing 
 to its stimulant properties, produce an unnatural 
 susceptibility to morbid action in all the organs, and 
 this, with the plethora superinduced, becomes a fer- 
 tile source of disease. 
 
 "A person who habitually exerts himself to such 
 an extent as to require the daily use of stimulants 
 to ward off exhaustion, may be compared to a ma- 
 chine working under high pressure. He will become 
 much more obnoxious to the causes of disease, and 
 will certainly break down sooner than he would have 
 done under more favorable circumstances. 
 
 " The more frequently alcohol is had recourse to 
 for the purpose of overcoming feelings of debility, 
 the more it will be required, and by constant repeti- 
 tion a period is at length reached when it cannot be 
 foregone, unless reaction is simultaneously brought 
 about by a temporary total change of the habits of life. 
 
 " Owing to the above facts, I conclude that the 
 
 DAILY USE OF STIMULANTS IS INDEFENSIBLE UNDER 
 ANY KNOWN CIKCUMSTANCES."
 
 THE CURSE AXD TUE CURE. 4(53 
 
 DRIVEN TO THE WALL. 
 
 Not finding that alcohol possesses any direct ali- 
 mentary value, the medical advocates of its use have 
 been driven to the assumption that it is a kind of 
 secondary food, in that it has the power to delay the 
 metamorphosis of tissue " By the metamorphosis 
 of tissue is meant," says Dr. Hunt, " that change 
 which is constantly going on in the system which 
 involves a constant disintegration of material ; a 
 breaking up and avoiding of that which is no longer 
 aliment, making room for that new supply which is 
 to sustain life." Another medical writer, in refer- 
 ring to this metamorphosis, says : " The importance 
 of this process to the maintenance of life is readily 
 shown by the injurious effects which follow upon its 
 disturbance. If the discharge of the excrementi- 
 tious substances be in any way impeded or suspended, 
 these substances accumulate either in the blood or 
 tiasues, or both. In consequence of this retention 
 and accumulation they become poisonous, and rap- 
 idly produce a derangement of the vital functions. 
 Their influence is principally exerted upon the 
 nervous system, through which they produce most 
 frequent irritability, disturbance of the special senses, 
 delirium, insensibility, coma, and finally, death." 
 
 "This description," remarks Dr. Hunt, "seems 
 : 1 1 m i >.- t i n 1 1 1 1 ded for alcohol ." He then says : " To 
 claim alcohol as a fowl because it delays the meta- 
 morphosis of tissue, is to claim that it in some way 
 suspends the normal conduct of the laws of assimi-
 
 4G4 STliONG DRIXK; 
 
 lation and nutrition, of waste and repair. A leading 
 advocate of alcohol (Hammond) thus illustrates it : 
 'Alcohol retards the destruction of the tissues. By 
 this destruction, force is generated, muscles contract, 
 thoughts are developed, organs secrete and excrete.' 
 In other words, alcohol interferes with all these. No 
 wonder the author ' is not clear ' how it does this, 
 and we are not clear how such delayed metamor- 
 phosis recuperates. To take an agent which is 
 
 NOT KNOWN TO BE IN ANY SENSE AN ORIGINATOR OF 
 VITAL FORCE; 
 
 which is not known to have any of the usual power 
 of foods, and use it on the double assumption that 
 it delays metamorphosis of tissue, and that such 
 delay is conservative of health, is to pass outside of 
 the bounds of science into the land of remote pos- 
 sibilities, and confer the title of adjuster upon an 
 agent whose agency is itself doubtful. 
 
 "Having failed to identify alcohol as a nitrogenous 
 or non-nitrogenous food, not having found it amen- 
 able to any of the evidences by which the food-force 
 of aliments is generally measured, it will not do for 
 us to talk of benefit by delay of regressive meta- 
 morphosis unless such process is accompanied with 
 something evidential of the fact something sci- 
 entifically descriptive of its mode of accomplishment 
 in the case at hand, and unless it is shown to be 
 practically desirable for alimentation. 
 
 " There can be no doubt that alcohol does cause
 
 TUB CURSE AND TUB CURE. 455 
 
 '.* in the processes of elimination which are 
 natural to the healthy body and which even in dis- 
 ease are often conservative of health. In the pent- 
 in evils which pathology so often shows occurrent 
 in the case of spirit-drinkers, in the vascular, fatty 
 and fibroid degenerations which take place, in the 
 accumulations of rheumatic and scrofulous tenden- 
 cies, there is the strongest evidence that 
 
 ALCOHOL ACTS AS A DISTURBING ELEMENT 
 
 and is very prone to initiate serious disturbances 
 amid the normal conduct both of organ and func- 
 tion. 
 
 " To assert that this interference is conservative 
 in the midst of such a fearful accumulation of evi- 
 dence as to result in quite the other direction, and 
 that this kind of delay in tissue-change accumulates 
 vital force, is as unscientific as it is paradoxical. 
 
 " Dickinson, in his able expose of the effects of 
 alcohol, (Lancet, Nov., 1872,) confines himself to 
 pathological facts. After recounting, with accuracy, 
 the structural changes which it initiates, and the 
 structural changes and consequent derangement and 
 suspension of vital functions which it involves, he 
 aptly terms it the 'genius of degeneration.' 
 
 " With abundant provision of indisputable foods, 
 select that liquid which has failed to command the 
 general assent of experts that it is a food at all, and 
 because it is claimed to diminish some of the excre- 
 tions, call that a delay of metamorphosis of tissue 
 30
 
 466 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 conservative of health ! The ostrich may bury his 
 head in the sand, but science will not close its eyes 
 before such impalpable dust." 
 
 Speaking of this desperate effort to claim alcohol 
 as a food, Dr. N. S. Davis well says : " It seems 
 hardly possible that men of eminent attainments in 
 the profession should so far forget one of the most 
 fundamental and universally recognized laws of or- 
 ganic life as to promulgate the fallacy here stated. 
 The fundamental law to which we allude is, that all 
 vital phenomena are accompanied by, and dependent 
 on, molecular or atomic changes; and whatever 
 retards these retards the phenomena of life ; what- 
 ever suspends these suspends life. Hence, to say 
 that an agent which retards tissue metamorphosis is 
 in any sense a food, is simply to pervert and mis- 
 apply terms." 
 
 Well may the author of the paper from which 
 we have quoted so freely, exclaim : " Strangest of 
 foods ! most impalpable of aliments ! defying all the 
 research of animal chemistry, tasking all the in- 
 genuity of experts in hypothetical explanations, 
 registering its effects chiefly by functional disturb- 
 ance and organic lesions, causing its very defenders 
 as a food to stultify themselves when in fealty to 
 facts they are compelled to disclose its destructions, 
 and to find the only defense in that line of demar- 
 cation, more imaginary than the equator, more 
 delusive than the mirage, between use and abuse."
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 457 
 
 That alcohol is not a food in any sense, has been 
 fully shown ; and now, 
 
 WHAT IS ITS VALUE AS A MEDICINE? 
 
 Our reply to this question will be brief. The reader 
 already, the declaration of the International 
 Medical Congress, that, as a medicine, the range of 
 alcohol is limited and doubtful, and that its self- 
 prescription by the laity should be utterly discoun- 
 tenanced by the profession. No physician who has 
 madu himself thoroughly acquainted with the effects 
 of alcohol when introduced into the blood and 
 brought in contact with the membranes, nerves and 
 organs of the human body, would now venture to 
 prescribe its free use to consumptives as was done 
 a very few years ago. 
 
 " In the whole management of lung diseases," 
 remarks Dr. Hunt, " with the exception of the few 
 wlio can always be relied upon to befriend alcohol, 
 other remedies have largely superseded all spirituous 
 liquors. Its employment in stomach disease, once 
 so popular, gets no encouragement, from a careful 
 examination of its local and constitutional effects, 
 as separated from the water, sugar and acids imbibed 
 
 with it." 
 
 TYPHOID FEVER. 
 
 It is in typhoid fever that alcohol has been used, 
 
 perhaps, most frequently by the profession ; but this 
 
 now restricted, and the administration made 
 
 with great caution. Prof. A. L. Loomis, of New
 
 468 STEONG DRINK; 
 
 York City, has published several lectures on the 
 pathology and treatment of typhoid fever. Refer- 
 ring thereto, Dr. Hunt says: "No one in our country 
 can speak more authoritatively, and as he has no 
 radical views as to the exclusion of alcohol, it is worth 
 while to notice the place to which he assigns it. In 
 the milder cases he entirely excludes it. As a 
 means of reducing temperature, he does not mention 
 it, but relies on cold, quinine, and sometimes, digi- 
 talis and quinine." When, about the third week, 
 signs of failure of heart-power begin to manifest 
 themselves, and the use of some form of stimulant 
 seems to be indicated, Dr. Loomis gives the most 
 guarded advice as to their employment. " Never," 
 he says, " give a patient stimulants simply because 
 he has typhoid fever." And again, " Where there 
 is reasonable doubt as to the propriety of giving or 
 withholding stimulants, it is safer to withhold them." 
 He then insists that, if stimulants are administered, 
 the patient should be visited every two hours to 
 watch their effects. 
 
 It will thus be seen how guarded has now become 
 th*e use of alcohol as a cardiac stimulant in typhoid 
 fevers, where it was once employed with an almost 
 reckless freedom. Many practitioners have come to 
 exclude it altogether, and to rely wholly on ammo- 
 nia, ether and foods. 
 
 In Cameron's "Hygiene" is this sentence: "In 
 candor, it must be admitted that many eminent 
 physicians deny the efficacy of alcohol in the treat-
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 
 
 ment of any kind of disease, and some assert that it 
 is worse than useless" 
 
 ACCUMULATIVE TESTIMONY. 
 
 Dr. Arnold Lees, F. L. S., in a recent paper on 
 the " Use and Action of Alcohol in Disease," as- 
 sumes " that the old use of alcohol was not science, 
 but a grave blunder" Prof. C. A. Parks says : " It 
 is impossible not to feel that, so far, the progress of 
 physiological inquiry renders the use of alcohol 
 (in medicine) more and more doubtful." Dr. Anstie 
 says : " If alcohol is to be administered at all for the 
 rt-liff of neuralgia, it should be given with as much 
 precision, as to dose, as we should use in giving an 
 acknowledged deadly poison." Dr. F. T. Roberts, 
 an eminent English physician, in advocating a 
 guarded use of alcohol in typhoid fever, says: 
 "Alcoholic stimulants are, by no means, always re- 
 quired, and their indiscriminate use may do a great 
 deal of harm." In Asiatic cholera, brandy was 
 formerly administered freely to patients when in 
 the stage of collapse. The effect was injurious, 
 id of beneficial. "Again and again," says 
 Prof. G. Johnson, "have I seen a patient grow 
 colder, and his pulse diminish in volume and power, 
 after a dose of brandy, and, apparently, as a direct 
 result of the brandy." And Dr. Pidduck, of Lon- 
 don, who used common salt in cholera, treatment, 
 says : " Of eighty-six cases in the stage of collapse, 
 sixteen only proved fatal, and scarcely one would
 
 470 STRONG DRINK,- 
 
 have died, if I had been able to prevent them from 
 taking brandy and laudanum." Dr. Collenette, of 
 Guernsey, says : "For more than thirty years I have 
 abandoned the use of all kinds of alcoholic drinks 
 in my practice, and with such good results, that, 
 were I sick, nothing would induce me to have re- 
 source to them they are but noxious depressants." 
 
 As a non-professional writer, we cannot go be- 
 yond the medical testimony which has been educed, 
 and we now leave it with the reader. We could 
 add many pages to this testimony, but such cumu- 
 lative evidence would add but little to its force with 
 the reader. If he is not yet convinced that alcohol 
 has no food value, and that, as a medicine, its range 
 is exceedingly limited, and always of doubtful ad- 
 ministration, nothing further that we might be able 
 to cite or say could have any influence with him.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE GROWTH AND POWER OF APPETITE. 
 
 ONE fact attendant on habitual drinking stands 
 out so prominently that none can call it in 
 question. It is that of the steady growth of appe- 
 tite. There are exceptions, as in the action of nearly 
 every rule ; but the almost invariable result of the 
 Imbit we have mentioned, is, as we have said, a 
 steady growth of appetite for the stimulant imbibed. 
 That this is in consequence of certain morbid 
 changes in the physical condition produced by the 
 alcohol itself, will hardly be questioned by any one 
 who has made himself acquainted with the various 
 functional and organic derangements which invaria- 
 bly follow the continued introduction of this sub- 
 stance into the body. 
 
 But it is to the fact itself, not to its cause, that we 
 now wish to direct the reader's attention. The man 
 who is satisfied at first with a single glass of wine 
 at dinner, finds, after awhile 1 , that appetite asks for 
 a little more ; and, in time, a second glass is con- 
 iv.lrd. The increase of desire may be very slow, 
 but it goes on surely until, in the end, a whole 
 bottle will scarcely suffice, with far too many, to 
 meet its imperious demands. It is the same in 
 471
 
 472 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 regard to the use of every other form of alcoholic 
 drink. 
 
 Now, there are men so constituted that they are 
 able, for a long series of years, or even for a 
 whole lifetime, to hold this appetite within a certain 
 limit of indulgence. To say " So far, and no far- 
 ther." They suffer ultimately from physical ail- 
 ments, which surely follow the prolonged contact of 
 alcoholic poison with the delicate structures of 
 the body, many of a painful character, and shorten 
 the term of their natural lives ; but still they are 
 able to drink without an increase of appetite so 
 great as to reach an overmastering degree. They 
 do not become abandoned drunkards. 
 
 NO MAN SAFE WHO DRINKS. 
 
 But no man who begins the use of alcohol in any 
 form can tell what, in the end, is going to be its 
 effect on his body or mind. Thousands and tens of 
 thousands, once wholly unconscious of danger from 
 this source, go down yearly into drunkards' graves. 
 There is no standard by which any one can measure 
 the latent evil forces in his inherited nature. He 
 may have from ancestors, near or remote, an un- 
 healthy moral tendency, or physical diathesis, to 
 which the peculiarly disturbing influence of alcohol 
 will give the morbid condition in which it will find 
 its disastrous life. That such results follow the use 
 of alcohol in a large number of cases, is now a well- 
 known fact in the history of inebriation. During
 
 TUB CURSE AND THE CURE. 473 
 
 the past few years, the subject of alcoholism, with 
 the mental and moral causes leading thereto, have 
 attracted a great deal of earnest attention. Physi- 
 cians, superintendents of inebriate and lunatic asy- 
 lums, prison-keepers, legislators and philanthropists 
 have been observing and studying its many sad and 
 terrible phases, and recording results and opinions. 
 While differences are held on some points, as, for 
 instance, whether drunkenness is a disease for which, 
 after it has been established, the individual ceases 
 to be responsible, and should be subject to restraint 
 and treatment, as for lunacy or fever; a crime to be 
 punished ; or a sin to be repented of and healed 
 by the Physician of souls, all agree that there is 
 an inherited or acquired mental and nervous condi- 
 tion with many, which renders any use of alcohol 
 exceedingly dangerous. 
 
 The point we wish to make with the reader is, 
 that no man can possibly know, until he has i 
 alcoholic drinks for a certain period of time, whether 
 he has or has not this hereditary or acquired physi- 
 cal or mental condition ; and that, if it should exist, 
 a discovery of the fact may come too late. 
 
 Dr. D. G. Dodge, late Superintendent of the 
 New York State Inebriate Asylum, speaking of the 
 causes leading to intemperance, after stating his 
 belief that it is a transmissible disease, like "scrofula, 
 gout or consumption," says: 
 
 " Thciv arc men who have an organization, which 
 may be termed an alcoholic idiosyncrasy ; with them
 
 474 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 the latent desire for stimulants, if indulged, soon leads 
 to habits of intemperance, and eventually to a morbid 
 appetite, which has all the characteristics of a dis- 
 eased condition of the system, which the patient, 
 unassisted, is powerless to relieve since the weak- 
 ness of the will that led to the disease obstructs its 
 removal. 
 
 "Again, we find in another class of persons, those 
 who have had healthy parents, and have been 
 educated and accustomed to good social influences, 
 moral and social, but whose temperament and 
 physical constitution are such, that, when they 
 once indulge in the use of stimulants, which they 
 find pleasurable, they continue to habitually indulge 
 till they cease to be moderate, and become excessive 
 drinkers. A depraved appetite is established, that 
 leads them on slowly, but surely, to destruction." 
 
 A DANGEROUS DELUSION. 
 
 In this chapter, our chief purpose is to show the 
 growth and awful power of an appetite which begins 
 striving for the mastery the moment it is indulged, 
 and against the encroachments of which no man 
 who gives it any indulgence is absolutely safe. He 
 who so regards himself is resting in a most danger- 
 ous delusion. So gradually does it increase, that few 
 observe its steady accessions of strength until it has 
 acquired the power of a master. Dr. George M. 
 Burr, in a paper on the pathology of drunkenness, 
 read before the "American Association for the Cure
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 47.-, 
 
 of Inebriates," says, in referring to the first indica- 
 tions of an appetite, which he considers one of the 
 symptoms of a forming disease, says: "This early 
 stage is marked by an occasional desire to drink, 
 which recurs at shorter and shorter intervals, and a 
 propensity, likewise, gradually increasing for a 
 greater quantity at each time. This stage has long 
 been believed to be one of voluntary indulgence, 
 for which the subject of it was morally responsible. 
 The drinker has been held as criminal for his occa- 
 sional indulgence, and his example has been most 
 severely censured. This habit, however, must be 
 rded as the first intimation of the approaching 
 disease the stage of invasion, precisely as sensa- 
 tions of mal-aise and chills usher in a febrile attack. 
 " It is by no means claimed that in this stage the 
 subject is free from responsibility as regards the 
 consequences of his acts, or that his case is to be 
 looked upon as beyond all attempts at reclamation. 
 Quite to the contrary. This is the stage for active 
 interference. Restraint, prohibition, quarantine, 
 anything may be resorted to, to arrest the farther 
 advance of the disease. Instead of being taught 
 that the habit of occasional drinking is merely a 
 moral lapsus (not the most powerful restraining 
 motive always), the subject of it should be made to 
 understand that it is the commencement of a malady, 
 whieh, if unchecked, will overwhelm him in ruin, 
 and, compared with which, cholera and yellow 1 
 are harmless. He should be impressed with the
 
 476 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 fact that the early stage is the one when recupera- 
 tion is most easy that the will then has not lost 
 its power of control, and that the fatal propensity 
 is not incurable. The duty of prevention, or avoid- 
 ance, should be enforced with as much earnestness 
 and vigor as we are required to carry out sanitary 
 measures against the spread of small-pox or any 
 infectious disease. The subject of inebriety may be 
 justly held responsible, if he neglects all such efforts, 
 and allows the disease to progress without a struggle 
 to arrest it. 
 
 " The formative stage of inebriety continues for a 
 longer or shorter period, when, as is well known, 
 more frequent repetitions of the practice of drink- 
 ing are to be observed. The impulse to drink 
 grows stronger and stronger, the will-power is over- 
 thrown and the entire organism becomes subject to 
 the fearful demands for stimulus. It is now that 
 the stage of confirmed inebriation is formed, and 
 dypso-mania fully established. The constant in- 
 troduction of alcohol into the system, circulating 
 with the fluids and permeating the tissues, adds 
 fuel to the already enkindled flame, and intensifies 
 the propensity to an irresistible degree. Nothing 
 now satisfies short of complete intoxication, and, 
 until the unhappy subject of the disease falls sense- 
 less and completely overcome, will he cease his 
 efforts to gratify this most insatiable desire." 
 
 Dr. Alexander Peddie, of Edinburgh, who has 
 given twenty years of study to this subject, remarked,
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 477 
 
 in his testimony before a Committee of the House 
 of Commons, that there seemed to be " a peculiar 
 elective affinity for the action of alcohol on the 
 nervous system after it had found its way through 
 the circulation into the brain," by which the whole 
 organism was disturbed, and the man rendered less 
 able to resist morbid influences of any kind. He 
 gave many striking instances of the growth and 
 power of appetite, which had come under his pro- 
 fessional notice, and of the ingenious devices and 
 desperate resorts to which dypsomaniacs were driven 
 in their efforts to satisfy their inordinate cravings. 
 No consideration, temporal or spiritual, had any 
 power to restrain their appetite, if, by any means, 
 fair or foul, they could obtain alcoholic stimulants. 
 To get this, he said, the unhappy subject of this 
 terrible thirst " will tell the most shameful lies for 
 no truth is ever found in connection with the 
 habitual drunkard's state. He never yet saw truth 
 in n-lation to drink got out of one who was a dyso- 
 nianiac he has sufficient reason left to tell these 
 nn truths, and to understand his position, because 
 people in that condition are seldom dead drunk ; 
 tin y are seldom in the condition of total stupidity; 
 they have generally an eye open to their own affairs, 
 and that which is the main business of their exist- 
 . namely, how to get drink. They will resort 
 to the most ingenious, mean and degrading con- 
 trivances and practices to procure and comval 
 liquor, and this, too, while closely watched; and
 
 478 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 will succeed in deception, although fabulous quan- 
 tities are daily swallowed." 
 
 Dr. John Nugent gives a case which came within 
 his own knowledge, of a lady who had been 
 
 A MOST EXEMPLARY NUN 
 
 for fifteen or twenty years. In consequence of her 
 devotion to the poor, attending them in fevers, and 
 like cases, it seemed necessary for her to take stimu- 
 lants ; these stimulants grew to be habitual, and she 
 had been compelled, five or six times, to place her- 
 self in a private asylum. In three or four weeks 
 after being let out, she would relapse, although she 
 was believed to be under the strongest influences of 
 religion, and of the most virtuous desires. There had 
 been developed in her that disposition to drink 
 which she was unable to overcome or control. 
 
 The power of this appetite, and the frightful 
 moral perversions that often follow its indulgence 
 are vividly portrayed in the following extract, from 
 an address by Dr. Elisha Harris, of New York, in 
 which he discusses the question of the criminality of 
 drunkenness." 
 
 " Let the fact be noticed that such is the lethargy 
 which alcoholism produces upon reason and con- 
 science, that it is sometimes necessary to bring the 
 offender to view his drunken indulgence as a crime. 
 We have known a refined and influential citizen to 
 be so startled at the fact that he wished to destroy 
 the lives 1 of all persons, even of his own family, who
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 479 
 
 manifested unhappincss at his intemperance, that 
 seeing this terrible criminality of his indulgence, 
 instantly formed, and has forever kept, his resolu- 
 tions of abstinence. We have known the hereditary 
 dypsomaniac break from his destroyer, and when 
 tempted in secret by the monstrous appetite, so 
 grind his teeth and clinch his jaws in keeping his 
 vows to taste not, that blood dripped from his mouth 
 and cold sweat bathed his face. That man is a 
 model of temperance and moral power to-day. And 
 it was the consciousness of personal criminality that 
 .stimulated these successful conflicts with the morbid 
 appetite and the powers of the alcohol disease that 
 had fastened upon them. Shall we hesitate to hold 
 ourselves, or to demand that communities shall hold 
 every drunkard not yet insane responsible for 
 every act of inebriety ? Certainly, it is not cruel or 
 unjust to deal thus with drunkenness. It is not the 
 prison we open, but conscience." 
 
 The danger in which those stand who have an 
 
 INHERITED PREDISPOSITION TO DRINK, 
 
 ry great. Rev. I. "Willett, Superintendent of 
 the Inebriate's Home, Fort Hamilton, Kings Coun- 
 ty, New York, thus refers to this class, which is 
 larger than many think: "There are a hast of 
 living men and women to be found who never 
 drank, and who dare not drink, intoxicating liquors 
 or beverages, because one or both of their parents 
 were inebriates before they were born into the
 
 480 STRONQ DRINK; 
 
 world ; and, besides, a number of these have 
 brothers or sisters who, having given way to the 
 inherited appetite, are now passing downward on 
 this descending sliding scale. The greater portion 
 of them have already passed over the bounds of 
 self-control, and the varied preliminary symptoms 
 of melancholy, mania, paralysis, ideas of persecu- 
 tion, etc., etc., are developing. As to the question 
 of responsibility, each case is either more or less 
 doubtful, and can only be tested on its separate 
 merits. There is, however, abundant evidence to 
 prove that this predisposition to inebriety,' even 
 after long indulgence, can, by a skillful process of 
 medication, accompanied by either voluntary or 
 compulsory restraint, be subdued; and the coun- 
 terbalancing physical and mental powers can at 
 the same time be so strengthened and invigorated 
 as in the future to enable the person to resist the 
 temptations by which he may be surrounded. Yea, 
 though the powers of reason may, for the time be- 
 ing, be dethroned, and lunacy be developed, these 
 cases, in most instances, will yield to medical treat- 
 ment where "the surrounding conditions of restraint 
 and careful nursing are supplemental. 
 
 " We have observed that in many instances the 
 fact of the patient being convinced that he is an 
 hereditary inebriate, has produced beneficial results. 
 Summoning to his aid all the latent counterbalanc- 
 ing energies which he has at command, and cloth- 
 ing himself with this armor, he goes forth to war,
 
 THE CURSE AND TIIE C' 481 
 
 throws up the fortifications of physical and mental 
 
 lint, repairs the breaches and inroads of dis- 
 
 1 appetite, regains control of the citadel of the 
 
 bruin, and then, with shouts of triumph, he unfurls 
 
 the banner of ' VICTORY !' ' 
 
 1 >r. Wood, of London, in his work on insanity, 
 king on the subject of hereditary inebriety, 
 
 " Instances are sufficiently familiar, and several 
 
 have occurred within my own personal knowledge, 
 
 where the father, having died at any early age from 
 
 the effects of intemperance, has left a son to be 
 
 brought up by those who have severely suffered 
 
 from his excesses, and have therefore the strongest 
 
 motives to prevent, if possible, a repetition of such 
 
 ry; every pains has been taken to enforce 
 
 sobriety, and yet, notwithstanding all precautions, 
 
 the habits of the father have become those of the 
 
 Mm, who, never having seen him from infancy, 
 
 could not have adopted them from imitation. 
 
 ything was done to encourage habits of tem- 
 
 nce, but all to no purpose; the seeds of the 
 
 ise had begun to germinate; a blind impul.-e 
 
 led the doomed individual, by successive and rapid 
 
 strides, along the same course which was fatal to the 
 
 father, and which, ere long", terminated in his own 
 
 action." 
 
 How great and fearful the power of an apj 
 which cannot only enslave and curse the man 
 which it -ains control, hut send its malign influence 
 31
 
 482 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 down to the second and third and fourth genera- 
 tions, sometimes to the absolute 
 
 EXTINGUISHMENT OF FAMILIES! 
 
 Morel, a Frenchman, gives the following as the 
 result of his observation of the hereditary effects of 
 drunkenness : 
 
 "First generation: Immorality, depravity, ex- 
 cess in the use of alcoholic liquors, moral debase- 
 ment. Second generation : Hereditary drunkenness, 
 paroxysms of mania, general paralysis. Third 
 generation: Sobriety, hypochondria, melancholy, sys- 
 tematic ideas of being persecuted, homicidal tend- 
 encies. Fourth generation: Intelligence slightly 
 developed, first accessions of mania at sixteen years 
 of age, stupidity, subsequent idiocy and probable 
 extinction of family." 
 
 Dr. T. D. Crothers, in an analysis of the hundred 
 cases of inebriety received at the New York Ine- 
 briate Asylum, gives this result : " Inebriety inher- 
 ited direct from parents was traced in twenty-one 
 cases. In eleven of these the father drank alone, 
 in six instances the mother drank, and in four cases 
 both parents drank. 
 
 "In thirty-three cases inebriety was traced to 
 ancestors more remote, as grandfather, grandmother, 
 etc., etc., the collateral branches exhibiting both 
 inebriety and insanity. In some instances a whole 
 generation had been passed over, and the disorders 
 of the grandparents appeared again.
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cl'Iir. 433 
 
 " In twenty cases various neurosal disorders had 
 been prominent in the family and its branches, of 
 which neuralgia, chorea, hysteria, eccentricity, ma- 
 nia, epilepsy and inebriety, were most common. 
 
 " In some cases, a wonderful periodicity in the 
 outbreak of these disorders was manifested. 
 
 " For instance, in one family, for two generations, 
 inebriety appeared in seven out of twelve members, 
 after they had passed forty, and ended fatally within 
 ten years. In another, hysteria, chorea, epilepsy 
 ami mania, with drunkenness, came on soon after 
 puberty, and seemed to deflect to other disorders, or 
 exhau.-t itself before middle life. This occurred in 
 ei^lit out of fourteen, extending over two genera- 
 tions. In another instance, the descendants of three 
 generations, and many of the collateral branches, 
 developed inebriety, mental eccentricities, with other 
 disorders bordering on mania, at about thirty-five 
 years of age. In some cases this lasted only a lew 
 9, in others a lifetime." 
 
 And here let us say that in this matter of an in- 
 herited appetite there is a difference of views with 
 some who believe that appetite is never transmitted 
 but always acquired. This difference of view is 
 more apparent than real. It is not the drunkard's 
 appetite that is transmitted, but the bias or proclivity 
 which renders the subject of such an inherited tend- 
 ency more susceptible to exciting causes, and there- 
 fore in greater danger from tl. alcoholic 
 drinks than others.
 
 484 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 Dr. N. S. Davis, in an article in the Wash in y- 
 tonian, published at Chicago, presents the opposite 
 view of the case. The following extract from 
 this article is well worthy to be read and con- 
 sidered : 
 
 " If we should say that man is so constituted that 
 he is capable of feeling weary, restless, despondent 
 and anxious, and that he instinctively desires to be 
 relieved of these unpleasant feelings, we should as- 
 sert a self-evident fact. And we should thereby 
 assert all the instincts or natural impulse there is in 
 the matter. It is simply a desire to be relieved 
 from unpleasant feelings, and does not, in the- slight- 
 est degree, indicate or suggest any particular remedy. 
 It no more actually suggests the idea of alcohol or 
 opium than it does bread and water. But if, by 
 accident, or by the experience of others, the indi- 
 vidual has learned that his unpleasant feelings can 
 be relieved, for the time being, by alcohol, opium or 
 any other exhilarant, he not only uses the remedy 
 himself, but perpetuates a knowledge of the same 
 to others. It is in this way, and this only, that most 
 of the nations and tribes of our race, have, much 
 to their detriment, found a knowledge of some kind 
 of intoxicant. The same explanation is applicable 
 to the supposed * constitutional susceptibility,' as a 
 primary cause of intemperance. That some persons 
 inherit a greater degree of nervous and organic 
 susceptibility than others, and are, in consequence 
 of this greater susceptibility, more readily uii'ected
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 435 
 
 by a ^iven quantity of narcotic, anaesthetic or in- 
 ini, is undoubtedly true. And that such will 
 
 MORE READILY BECOME DRUNKARDS, 
 
 if they once commence to use intoxicating drinks, 
 is also true. But that such persons, or any others, 
 ha\v the slightest inherent or constitutional taste or 
 any longing for intoxicants, until they have acquired 
 such taste or longing by actual use, we find no reliable 
 proof. It is true that statistics appear to show that 
 a larger proportion of the children of drunkards 
 become themselves drunkards, than of children born 
 of total abstainers. And hence the conclusion has 
 been drawn that such children INHERITED the con- 
 stitutional tendency to inebriation. But before we 
 are justified in adopting such a conclusion, several 
 other important facts must be ascertained. 
 
 " 1st. We must know whether the mother, while 
 nursing, used more or less constantly some kind of 
 alcoholic beverage, by which the alcohol might 
 have impregnated the milk in her breasts and 
 thereby made its early impression on the tastes and 
 longings of the child. 
 
 " iM. We must know whether the intemperate 
 parents were in the habit of frequently giving al- 
 coholic preparations to the children, either to relieve 
 temporary ailments, or for the same reason that 
 they drank it themselves. I am constrained to say, 
 that from my own observation, extending over a 
 period of forty years, and* a field by no means lim-
 
 486 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 ited, I am satisfied that nineteen out of every twenty 
 persons who have been regarded as HEREDITARY 
 inebriates have simply ACQUIRED the disposition to 
 drink by one or both of the methods just mentioned, 
 after birth." 
 
 The views here presented in no way lessen but 
 really heighten the perils of moderate drinking. 
 It is affirmed that some persons inherit a greater 
 degree of nervous and organic susceptibility than 
 others, and are, in consequence, more readily affected 
 by a given quantity of narcotic, anaesthetic or in- 
 toxicant ; and that such " will more readily become 
 drunkards if they commence to use intoxicating 
 drinks" 
 
 Be the cause of this 
 
 INHERITED NERVOUS SUSCEPTIBILITY 
 
 what it may, and it is far more general than is to 
 be inferred from the admission just quoted, the fact 
 stands forth as a solemn warning of the peril every 
 man encounters in even the most moderate use of 
 alcohol. Speaking of this matter, Dr. George M. 
 Beard, who is not as sound on the liquor question 
 as we could wish, says, in an article on the " Causes 
 of the Recent Increase of Inebriety in America :" 
 "As a means of prevention, abstinence from the 
 habit of drinking is to be enforced. Such abstinence 
 may not have been necessary for our fathers, but it 
 is rendered necessary for a large body of the Ameri- 
 can people on account of' our greater nervous sus-
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE C'l 437 
 
 coptihility. It is possible to drink without being an 
 habitual drinker, as it is possible to take chloral or 
 opium without forming the habit of taking these 
 substances. In certain countries and climates where 
 the nervous system is strong and the temperature 
 more equable than with us, in what I sometimes 
 call the temperate belt of the world, including Spain, 
 Italy, Southern France, Syria and Persia, the ha- 
 bitual use of wine rarely leads to drunkenness, and 
 r, or almost never, to inebriety ; but in the in- 
 temperate belt, where we live, and which includes 
 Nni -ihern Europe and the United States, with a cold 
 and violently changeable climate, the habit of drink- 
 ing either wines or stronger liquors is liable to de- 
 velop in some cases a habit of intemperance. No- 
 tably in our country, where nervous sensitiveness 
 is seen in its extreme manifestations, the majority of 
 bra in -workers are not safe so long as they are in 
 the habit of even moderate drinking. I admit that 
 this was not the case one hundred years ago and 
 the reasons I have already given it is not the case 
 to-day in Continental Europe; even in England it 
 is not so markedly the case as in the northern part 
 of the United States. For those iml induct!* who 
 in/a rit a t< ndency to im-hriety, the only safe course 
 is absolute abstinence, especially in early life" 
 
 In the same article, Dr. JJaird remarks: "The 
 number of those in this country who^ cannot bear 
 tea, eoil'ee or aleohulic liquors of any kind, is v* TV 
 large. There are many, e>preially in the Northern
 
 488 STRONG 
 
 States, wlio must forego coffee entirely, and use tea 
 only with caution; either, in any excess, cause 
 trembling nerves and sleepless nights. The sus- 
 ceptibility to alcohol is so marked, with many per- 
 sons, that no pledges, and no medical advice, and 
 no moral or legal influences are needed to keep them 
 in the paths of temperance. Such persons are 
 warned by flushing of the face , or by headacJie, that 
 alcohol, whatever it may be to others, or whatever it 
 may have been to their ancestors, is poison to 
 them" 
 
 But, in order to give a higher emphasis to pre- 
 cepts, admonition and medical testimony, we offer a 
 single example of the enslaving power of appetite, 
 when, to a predisposing hereditary tendency, the 
 excitement of indulgence has been added. The 
 facts of this case were communicated to us by a pro- 
 fessional gentleman connected with one of our largest 
 inebriate asylums, and we give them almost in his 
 very words in which they were related. 
 
 
 
 A REMARKABLE CASE. 
 
 A clever, but dissipated actor married clandes- 
 tinely a farmer's daughter in the State of New 
 York. The parents of the girl would not recognize 
 him as the husband of their child ; rejecting him so 
 utterly that he finally left the neighborhood.. A 
 son born of Jhis marriage gave early evidence of 
 great mental activity, and was regarded, in the col- 
 lege where he graduated, as almost a prodigy of
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE (77.7:. 439 
 
 ing. He carried off many prizes, and distin- 
 hiniM -It' as a brilliant orator. Afterwards he 
 went to Princeton and studied for the ministry. 
 AVhile there, it was discovered that he was secretly 
 drinking. The faculty did everything in their power 
 to help and retrain him ; and his co-operation with 
 tin-in was earnest as to purpose, but not permanently 
 availing. The nervous susceptibility inherited from 
 hi.s father responded with a morbid quickness to 
 Citing cause, and the moment wine or spirits 
 touched the sense of smell or taste, he was seized 
 with an almost irresistible desire to drink to excess, 
 and too often yielded to its demands. For months 
 In- would abstain entirely ; and then drink to intoxi- 
 cation in secret. 
 
 ;er graduating from Princeton he became pastor 
 of a church in one of the largest cities of Western 
 Ne\v York, where he remained for two years, dis- 
 tinguishing himself for his earnest work and fervid 
 eloquence. But the appetite he had formed was 
 imperious in its demands, and periodically became 
 so strong that he lost the power of resistance. When 
 these periodic assaults of appetite came, he would 
 
 LOCK HIMSELF IN HIS ROOM FOE DAYS 
 
 and satiate the fierce thirst, coming out sick and 
 exhausted. It was impossible to conceal from his 
 congregation the dreadful habit into which he had 
 fallen, and ere two years had elapsed he was dis- 
 l for drunkenness. He then went to one of
 
 490 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 the chief cities of the West, where he received a 
 call, and was, fora time, distinguished as a preacher; 
 but again he fell into disgrace and had to leave his 
 charge. Two other churches called him to fill the 
 office of pastor, but the same sad defections from 
 sobriety followed. For a considerable time after 
 this his friends lost sight of him. Then he was 
 found in the streets of New York City by the presi- 
 dent of the college from which he had first gradu- 
 ated, wretched and debased from drink, coatless and 
 hatless. His old friend took him to a hotel, and 
 then brought his case to the notice of the people at 
 a prayer-meeting held in the evening at one of the 
 churches. His case was immediately taken in hand 
 and money raised to send him to the State Inebriate 
 Asylum. After he had remained there for a year, 
 he began to preach as a supply in a church a few 
 miles distant, going on Saturday evening and re- 
 turning on Monday morning ; but always having an 
 attendant with him, riot daring to trust himself 
 alone. This went on for nearly a whole year, when 
 a revival sprang up in the church, which he con- 
 ducted with great eloquence and fervor. After the 
 second week of this new excitement, he began to 
 lock himself up in his room after returning from 
 the service, and could not be seen until the next 
 morning. In the third week of the revival, the 
 excitement of the meetings grew intense. After 
 this he was only seen in the pulpit, where his air 
 and manner were wild and thrilling. His friends
 
 THE CURSE ASD THE C r /:/:. 491 
 
 at the asylum knew that he must be drinking, and 
 while hesitating as to their wisest course, waited 
 anxiously for the result. One day he was grandly 
 eloquent. Such power in the pulpit had never been 
 witnessed there before his appeals were unequalled; 
 but so wild and impassioned that some began to fear 
 for his reason. At the close of this day's services, 
 the chaplain of the institution of which he was an 
 inmate, returned with him to the asylum, and on 
 the way, told him frankly that he was deceiving the 
 people that his eloquent appeals came not from the 
 power of he Holy Spirit, but from the excitement 
 of drink ; and that all farther conduct of the meet- 
 ings must be left in other hands. On reaching the 
 a.-ylum he retired, greatly agitated, and soon after 
 died from a stroke of apoplexy. In his room many 
 empty bottles, which had contained brandy, were 
 found ; but the people outside remained in ignorance 
 of the true cause of the marvelous eloquence which 
 had so charmed and moved them. 
 
 We have already extended this chapter beyond 
 the limit at first proposed. Our object has not only 
 been to show the thoughtful and intelligent reader 
 who uses alcoholic beverages, the great peril in which 
 he stands, but to make apparent to every one, how 
 insidious is the growth and how terrible the power 
 of this appetite for intoxicants; an appetite which, 
 if once established, is almost sure to rob its victim 
 of honor, pity, tenderness and love; an appetite, 
 whose indulgence too often transforms the man into
 
 492 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 a selfish demon. Think of it, all ye who dally 
 with the treacherous cup ; are not the risks you are 
 running too great? Nay, considering your duties 
 and your obligations, have you any right to run 
 these risks ? 
 
 And now that we have shown the curse of strong 
 drink, let us see what agencies are at work in the 
 abatement, prevention and cure of a disease that is 
 undermining the health of whole nations, shorten- 
 ing the natural term of human life, and in our 
 own country alone, sending over sixty thousand 
 men and women annually into untimely graves.
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 MEANS OF CURE. 
 
 IS tins disease, or vice, or sin, or crime of intem- 
 perance call it by what name you will in- 
 creasing or diminishing ? Has any impression been 
 made ujMjn it during the half-century in which there 
 have been such earnest and untiring efforts to limit 
 its encroachments on the health, prosperity, happi- 
 ness and life of the people ? What are the agencies 
 of repression at work ; how effective are they, and 
 what is each doing? 
 
 These are questions full of momentous interest. 
 Diseases of the body, if not cured, work a steady 
 impairment of health, and bring pains and physical 
 disabilities. If their assaults be upon nervous 
 centres, or vital organs, the danger of para lysis or 
 death becomes imminent. Now, as to this disease of 
 intemperance, which is asocial and moral as well 
 as a physical disease, it is not to be concealed that 
 it has invaded the common body of the people to 
 an alarming decree, until, using the words of Holy 
 AVrit, "the whole head is sick and the whole heart 
 faint." Nay, until, using a still stronger form of 
 Scriptural illustration, " From the .<ole of the foot 
 403
 
 494 STRONG DRISK; 
 
 even unto the head, there is no soundness in it ; but 
 wounds and bruises and putrifying sores." 
 
 In this view, the inquiry as to increase or dimi- 
 nution, assumes the gravest importance. If, under 
 all the agencies of cure and reform whicn have been 
 in active operation during the past fifty years, no 
 impression has been made upon this great evil which 
 is so cursing the people, theD. is the case indeed 
 desperate, if not hopeless. But if it appears that, 
 under these varied agencies, there has been an arrest 
 of the disease here, a limitation of its aggressive 
 force there, its almost entire extirpation in certain 
 cases, and a better public sentiment everywhere; then, 
 indeed, may we take heart and say " God speed tem- 
 perance work !" in all of its varied aspects. 
 
 HOPEFUL SIGNS. 
 
 And here, at the outset of our presentation of 
 some of the leading agencies of reform and cure, 
 let us say, that the evidence going to show that an 
 impression has been made upon the disease is clear 
 and indisputable; and that this impression is so 
 marked as to give the strongest hope and assurance. 
 In the face of prejudice, opposition, ridicule, perse- 
 cution, obloquy and all manner of discouragements, 
 the advocates of temperance have held steadily to 
 their work these many years, and now the good 
 results are seen on every hand. Contrast the public 
 sentiment of to-day with that of twenty, thirty and 
 forty years ago, and the progress becomes at once
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 495 
 
 apparent. In few things is this so marked as in 
 the changed attitude of the medical profession to- 
 wards alcohol. One of the most dangerous, and, at 
 -;ime time, one of the most securely intrenched 
 of all our enemies, was the family doctor. Among 
 
 medics and restoratives, wine, brandy, whisky 
 and tonic ale all held a high place, and were admin- 
 
 d more frequently, perhaps, than any other 
 articles in the Materia Medica. The disease of his 
 patients a r rested by special remedies or broken by an 
 effort of nature, he too often commenced the admin- 
 ist ration of alcohol in some one or more of its dis- 
 
 1 and attractive forms, in order to give tone 
 and stimulus to the stomach and nerves, and as a 
 
 ral vitalizer and restorative. The evil conse- 
 quences growing out of this almost universal pre- 
 scription of alcohol, were of the most lamentable 
 character, and thousands and tens of thousands of 
 
 and women were betrayed into drunkenness. 
 But ; you will not find a physician of any 
 
 high repute in America or Europe who will give it 
 to his patients, except in the most guarded manner 
 and under the closest limitations; and he will not 
 ent to any self-prescription whatever. 
 
 FRUITS OF TEMPER A .\(K WORK. 
 
 Is not this a great gain? And it has come as the 
 result of temperance work and agitation, as Dr. 
 
 :y Monroe frankly admits in his lecture on the 
 Physiological Action of Alcohol, where, after stat ing
 
 490 STRONG DRINK f 
 
 that his remarks would not partake of the character 
 of a total abstinence lecture, but rather of a scien- 
 tific inquiry into the mode of action of alcohol when 
 introduced into the tissues of the body, he adds: 
 " Nevertheless, I would not have it understood that 
 I, in any way, disparage the moral efforts made by- 
 total abstainers who, years ago, amid good report 
 and evil report, stood in the front of the battle to 
 war against the multitude of evils occasioned by 
 strong drink ; all praise be due to them for their 
 noble and self-denying exertions ! Had it not been 
 for the successful labors of these moral giants in the 
 great cause of temperance, presenting to the world 
 in their own personal experiences many new and 
 astounding physiological facts, men of science would, 
 probably, never Jiave had their attention drawn to 
 the topic." 
 
 Then, as a result of temperance work, we have a 
 more restrictive legislation in many States, and 
 prohibitory laws in New Hampshire, Vermont and 
 Maine. In the State of Maine, a prohibitory law 
 has been in operation for over twenty -six years; 
 and so salutary has been the effect as seen in the 
 
 REDUCTION OF POVERTY, PAUPERISM AND CRIME, 
 
 that the Legislature, in January, 1877, added new 
 and heavier penalties to the law, both Houses passing 
 on the amendment without a dissenting voice. In 
 all that State there is not, now, a single distillery or 
 brewery in operation, nor a single open bar-room.
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cl'Iir. 4Q7 
 
 Forty years ago the pulpit was almost silent on 
 the subject of intemperance and the liquor traffic ; 
 now, the church is fast arraying itself on the side 
 of total abstinence and prohibition, and among its 
 ministers arc to be found many of our most active 
 temperance workers. 
 
 Forty or fifty years ago, the etiquette of hospi- 
 tality was violated if wine, or cordial, or brandy 
 not tendered. Nearly every sideboard had its 
 display of decanters, well filled, and it was almost 
 as much an offense for the guest to decline as for the 
 host to omit the proffered glass. Even lx>3 r s and 
 girls were included in the custom ; and tastes were 
 acquired which led to drunkenness in after life. 
 All this is changed now. 
 
 The curse of the liquor traffic is attracting, as 
 iH'vrr before, the attention of all civilized people; 
 and national, State and local legislatures and gov- 
 ernments are appointing commissions of inquiry, 
 and gathering data- and facts, with a view to its 
 restriction. 
 
 And, more hopeful than all, signs are becoming 
 more and more apparent that the people are every- 
 where awakening to a sense of the dangers that 
 attend this traffic. Enlightenment is steadily pro- 
 gressing. Reason and judgment; common sense 
 and prudenee, are all mining to the aid of repression. 
 Men see, as they never saw before, how utterly evil 
 and destruetivi- are the drinking habits of this and 
 other nations; how they weaken the judgment and 
 32
 
 498 STEOXG 
 
 deprave the moral sense ; how they not only take 
 from every man who falls into them his ability to 
 do his best in any pursuit or calling, hut sow in his 
 body the germs of diseases which will curse him in 
 his later years and abridge their term. 
 
 Other evidences of the steady growth among the 
 people of a sentiment adverse to drinking might be 
 given. We see it in the almost feverish response 
 that everywhere meets the strong appeals of tem- 
 perance speakers, and in the more pronounced atti- 
 tude taken by public and professional men. 
 
 JUDGES ON THE BENCH 
 
 and preachers from the pulpit alike lift their voices 
 in condemnation. Grand juries repeat and repeat 
 their presentations of liquor selling and liquor 
 drinking as the fruitful source of more than two- 
 thirds of the crimes and miseries that afflict the 
 community ; and prison reports add their painful 
 emphasis to the warning of the inquest. 
 
 The people learn slowly, but they are learning. 
 Until they will that this accursed traffic shall cease, 
 it must go on with its sad and awful consequences. 
 But the old will of the people has been debased by 
 sensual indulgence. It is too weak to set itself 
 against the appetite by which it has become en- 
 slaved. There must be a new will formed in the 
 ground of enlightenment and intelligence; and 
 then, out of knowing what is right and duty in 
 regard to this great question of temperance and
 
 THE CURSE AND TIIE CURE. 499 
 
 restriction, will come the will to do. And when 
 we have this new will resting in the true enlighten- 
 ment of the people, we shall have no impeded 
 action. Whatever seta itself in opposition thereto 
 must go down. 
 
 And for this the time is coming, though it may 
 still be far off. Of its steady approach, the evidences 
 are many and cheering. Meanwhile, we must work 
 and wait If we are not yet strong enough to drive 
 out the enemy, we may limit his power, and do 
 
 THE WORK OF HEALING AND SAVING. 
 
 What, then, is being done in this work of healing 
 and saving? Is there, in fact, any cure for the 
 dreadful malady of drunkenness ? Are men ever 
 really saved from its curse? and, if so, how is it 
 done, and what are the agencies employed ? 
 
 Among the first of these to which we shall refer, 
 is the pledge. As a means of reform and restric- 
 tion, it has been used by temperance workers from 
 the beginning, and still holds a prominent place, 
 Seeing that only in a complete abstinence from in- 
 toxicating drinks was there any hope of rescue for 
 the drunkard, or any security for the moderate 
 drinker, it was felt that under a solemn pledge to 
 wholly abstain from their use, large numbers of men 
 would, from a sense of honor, self-respect or con- 
 H-ienee, hold themselves free from touch or taste. 
 In the case of moderate drinkers, with whom aj -pe- 
 tite is yet under control, the pledge has been of
 
 500 STRONG DRINK i 
 
 great value; but almost useless after appetite lias 
 gained the mastery. 
 
 In a simple pledge there is no element of self- 
 control. If honor, self-respect or conscience, rally- 
 ing to its support in the hour of temptation, be not 
 stronger than appetite, it will be of no avail. And 
 it too often happens that, with the poor inebriate, 
 these have become blunted, or well-nigh extin- 
 guished. The consequence has been that where the 
 pledge has been solely relied upon, the percentage 
 of reform has been very small. As a first means of 
 rescue, it is invaluable ; because it is, on the part of 
 him who takes it, a complete removal of himself from 
 the sphere of temptation, and so long as he holds 
 himself away from the touch and taste of liquor, he 
 is safe. If the pledge will enable him to do this, 
 then the pledge will save him. But it is well known, 
 from sad experience, that only a few are saved by the 
 pledge. The strength that saves must be something 
 more than the external bond of a promise ; it must 
 come from within, and be grounded in a new and 
 changed life, internally as well as externally. If the 
 reformed man, after he takes his pledge, does not 
 endeavor to lead a better moral life does not keep 
 himself away from old debasing associations does 
 not try, earnestly and persistently, to become, in all 
 things, 
 
 A TRUER, PURER, NOBLER MAN, 
 
 then his pledge is only as a hoop, that any over- 
 strain may break, and not an internal bond, holding
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 5Q1 
 
 in integrity all things from the centre to the cir- 
 cumference of his life. 
 
 So well is this now understood, that little reliance 
 is had on the pledge in itself, though its use is still 
 general. It is regarded as a first and most impor- 
 tant step in the right direction. As the beginning 
 of a true and earnest effort on the part of some un- 
 happy soul to hreuk the bonds of a fearful slavery. 
 But few would think of leaving such a soul to the 
 saving power of the pledge alone. If other help 
 came nut, the effort would be, except in rare cases, 
 too surely, all in vain. 
 
 The need of something more reliable than a sim- 
 ple pledge has led to other means of reform and 
 cure, each taking character and shape from the 
 peculiar views of those who have adopted them. 
 Inebriate Asylums and Reformatory Homes have 
 1 " ' -n established in various parts of the country, and 
 through their agency many \\lio were once enslaved 
 by drink are being restored to society and good 
 citi/enship. In what is popularly known as the 
 "Gospel Temperance" movement, the weakness of 
 the pledge, in itself, is recognized, and, "God being 
 my helper," is declared to be the ultimate and only 
 sure dependence. 
 
 It is through this abandonment of all trust in the 
 pledge, beyond a few exceptional cases, that re- 
 fiinnatory work rises to its true sphere and level of 
 success. And we shall now endeavor to show what 
 is being done in the work of curing drunkards, as
 
 502 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 well in asylums and Reformatory Homes, as by the 
 so-called "Gospel" methods. In this we shall, as 
 far as possible, let each of these important agencies 
 speak for itself, explaining its own methods and 
 giving its own results. All are accomplishing good 
 in their special line of action ; all are saving men 
 from the curse of drink, and the public needs to be 
 more generally advised of what they are doing.
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 INEBRIATE ASYLUMS. 
 
 careful observation and study of inebri- 
 -- ety by medical men, during the past twenty- 
 five or thirty years, as well in private practice as in 
 hospitals and prisons, has led them to regard it as, 
 in inaiiy of its phases, a disease needing wise and 
 careful treatment. To secure such treatment was 
 seen to be almost impossible unless the subject of 
 intemperance could be removed from old associations 
 and influences, and placed under new conditions, in 
 which there would be no enticement to drink, and 
 where the means of moral and physical recovery 
 could be judiciously applied. It was felt that, as a 
 di.-i-a.se, the treatment of drunkenness, while its 
 suhjeci remained in the old atmosphere of tempta- 
 tion, was as dim* cult, if not impossible, as the treat- 
 in* -nt of a malarious fever in a miasmatic district. 
 The result of this view was the establishment of 
 Inebriate Asylums for voluntary or enforced seclu- 
 sion, first in the United States, and afterwards in 
 England and some of her dependencies. 
 
 In the beginning, these institutions did not have 
 inui-h favor with the public; and, as the earlier 
 methods of treatment pursued therein were, for the,
 
 504 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 most part, experimental, and based on a limited 
 knowledge of the pathology of drunkenness, the 
 beneficial results were not large. Still, the work 
 went on, and the reports of cures made by the New 
 York State Asylum, at Binghampton, the pioneer 
 of these institutions, were sufficiently encouraging 
 to lead to their establishment in other places ; and 
 there are now in this country as many as from 
 twelve to fifteen public and private institutions for 
 the treatment of drunkenness. Of these, the New 
 York State Inebriate Asylum, at Binghamton ; the 
 Inebriate Home, at Fort Hamilton, Long Island ; 
 and the Home for Incurables, San Francisco, Cal., 
 are the most prominent. At Hartford, Conn., the 
 Walnut Hill Asylum has recently been opened for 
 the treatment of inebriate and opium cases, under 
 the care of Dr. T. D. Crothers. The Pinel Hospital, 
 at Richmond, Va., chartered by the State, in 1870, 
 is for the treatment of nervous and mental diseases, 
 and for the reclamation of inebriates and opium- 
 eaters. In Needham, Mass., is the Appleton Tem- 
 porary Home, where a considerable number of 
 inebriates are received every year. 
 
 Besides these, there are private institutions, in 
 which dypsomaniac patients are received. The 
 methods of treatment differ according to the views 
 and experience of those having charge of these 
 institutions. Up to this time a great deal of the treat- 
 ment has been experimental ; and there is still much 
 difference of opinion among physicians and super-
 
 THE CURSE AM) THE CURE. 505 
 
 intendents in n-^ard to the best moans of cure. But, 
 cm t\v<> important points, nil ;iro nearly in agreement. 
 Tin- first is in the necessity for an immediate and 
 
 ABSOLUTE WITHDRAWAL OF ALL INTOXICANTS FROM 
 THE PATIENT, 
 
 MM matter how long he may have used them; and 
 the second in the necessity of his entire abstinence 
 therefrom after leaving the institution. The cure 
 never places a man back- where he was before he be- 
 came subject to the disease ; and he can never, after 
 his recovery, taste even the milder forms of alcoholic 
 beverage without l< in<j exposed to the most iimniiK nt 
 danger of relapse. 
 
 The great value of an asylum where the victim 
 of intemperance can be placed for a time beyond 
 the reach of alcohol is thus stated by Dr. Carpen- 
 ter: Vain is it to recall the motives for a better 
 course of conduct, to one who is already familiar 
 with them all, but is destitute of the will to act upon 
 them ; tin- seclusion of such persons from the reach 
 of alcoholic liquors, for a sufficient length of time 
 to free the blood from its contumimttinn, to ret 
 tin h< (ildtfiil nnlrilinn of the bruin- and to cimltlc 
 tin- recovered tu<nlnl ri>/r in lc iri*<ly dire-fid, 
 seems to afford the only prospect of reformation : 
 and this cannot be expected to be permanent, unlos 
 the patient determinate!}' adopts and steadily acts 
 on the resolution to abstain from that which, \fu<jnln 
 i/t</ 1//</[ in, icill I" putti'ii, nlikc In ///x body and to 
 ///.< in i ml.''
 
 506 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 In the study of inebriety and the causes leading 
 thereto, much important information has been gath- 
 ered by the superintendents and physicians con- 
 nected with these establishments. Dr. D. G. Dodge, 
 late Superintendent of the New York State Inebri- 
 ate Asylum, read a paper before the American As- 
 sociation for the Cure of Inebriates, in 1876, on 
 "Inebriate Asylums and their Management," in 
 which are given the results of many years of study, 
 observation and experience. Speaking of the causes 
 leading to drunkenness, he says : 
 
 " Occupation has a powerful controlling influence 
 in developing or warding off the disease. In-door 
 life in all kinds of business, is a predisposing 
 cause, from the fact that nearly the whole force of 
 the stimulant is concentrated and expended upon 
 the brain and nervous system. A proper amount of 
 out-door exercise, or labor, tends to throw off the 
 stimulus more rapidly through the various func- 
 tional operations of the system. Occupation of all 
 kinds, mental or muscular, assist the nervous system 
 to retard or resist the action of stimulants other 
 conditions being equal. Want of employment, or 
 voluntary idleness is the great nursery of this dis- 
 ease. 
 
 TOBACCO. 
 
 " The use of tobacco predisposes the system to al- 
 coholism, and it has an effect upon the brain and 
 nervous system similar to that of alcohol. The use 
 of tobacco, if not prohibited, should be discouraged.
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 507 
 
 The treatment of inebriates can never be wholly 
 successful until the use of tobacco in all forms is 
 absolutely dispensed with. 
 
 "Statistics show that inebriety oftenest prevails 
 between the ayes of ih irty and forty-five. The habit 
 seldom culminate* until thirty, the subject to this 
 age generally being a moderate drinker ; later in 
 life the system is unable to endure the strain of a 
 continued course of dissipation. 
 
 " Like all hereditary diseases, intemperance is 
 transmitted from parent to child as much as scrofula, 
 gout or consumption. It observes all the laws in 
 transmitting disease. It sometimes overleaps one 
 generation and appears in the succeeding, or it will 
 miss even the third generation, and then reappear 
 in all its former activity and violence. Hereditary 
 inebriety, like all transmissible diseases, gives the 
 least hope of permanent cure, and temporary relief 
 is all that can generally be reasonably expected. 
 
 "Another class possesses an organization which 
 may be termed an alcoholic idiosyncrasy ; with them 
 the latent desire for stimulants, if indulged, soon 
 leads to habits of intemperance, and eventually to a 
 morbid appetite, which has all the characteristics of a 
 diseased condition of the system, which the patient, 
 unnMed, is powerless to relieve, since the weakness 
 of will that led to the disease obstructs its removal. 
 
 "The second class may be subdivided as lulluws; 
 Fir-t, those who have had healthy an<l temperate 
 parents, and have been educated ami aecu.-toim .1 to
 
 508 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 good influences, moral and social, but whose tem- 
 perament and physical constitution are such that 
 when they once indulge in the use of stimulants, 
 which they find pleasurable, they continue to habitu- 
 ally indulge till they cease to be moderate, and be- 
 come excessive drinkers. A depraved appetite is 
 established that leads them on slowly, but surely, to 
 destruction. 
 
 " Temperaments have much to do with the for- 
 mation of the habit of excessive drinking. Those 
 of a nervous temperament are less likely to contract 
 the habit, from the fact that they are acutely sensi- 
 tive to danger, and avoid it while they have the 
 power of self-control. On the other hand, those of 
 a bilious, sanguine and lymphatic temperament, 
 rush on, unmindful of the present, and soon become 
 slaves to a depraved and morbid appetite, powerless 
 to stay, or even to check their downward course." 
 
 As we cannot speak of the treatment pursued in 
 inebriate asylums from personal observation, we 
 know of no better way to give our readers correct 
 impressions on the subject, than to quote still farther 
 from Dr. Dodge. "For a better understanding," 
 he says, " of the requisite discipline demanded in 
 the way of remedial restraint of inebriates, we notice 
 some of the results of chronic inebriation affecting 
 more particularly the brain and nervous system 
 which, in addition to the necessary medical treat- 
 ment, necessitates strict discipline to the successful 
 management of these cases.
 
 THE CURSE ASD THE CTA/'. 509 
 
 RESULTS OF CHRONIC INEBRIATION. 
 
 "We have alcoholic epilepsy, alcoholic mania, 
 d< liriu/n tremcns, tremors, hallucinations, insomnia, 
 <jo, mental and muscular debility, impa irnunt 
 of rixion, mental depression, paralysis, a partial or 
 total loss of self-respect and a departure of the 
 power of self -control. Many minor difficulties ari>e 
 i'n>m mere functional derangement of the brain and 
 IHTVOUS system, which surely and rapidly disappear 
 when the cause is removed." 
 
 The general rule, on the reception of a patient, is 
 t<> i ut off at once and altogether the use of alcohol 
 in every form. "More," says the doctor, "can he 
 done by diet and medicine, than can be obtained by 
 a compromise in the moderate use of stimulant 
 a, limited period." It is a mistake, he adds, to sup- 
 pose " that any special danger arises from stopping 
 the accustomed stimulus. Alcohol is a poison, and 
 we should discontinue its use at once, as it can be 
 done with safety and perfect impunity, except in 
 
 rare cases." 
 
 To secure all the benefits to be derived from medi- 
 cal treatment, " we should have," says Dr. Dodge, 
 P institutions for the reception of inebriates, where 
 total abstinence can be rigidly, but judiciously en- 
 forced for a sufficient length of time, to test the 
 curative powers of absolute restraint from all intoxi- 
 cating drinks. When the craving for stimulants is 
 ".stil.lr, it is useless to make an attempt to re- 
 claim and cure the drunkard, unless tlte (/< Unl'.
 
 510 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 compulsory, and there is complete restraint from all 
 spirituous or alcoholic stimulants." 
 
 REMOVAL FROM TEMPTATION. 
 
 In regard to the compulsory power that should 
 inhere in asylums for the cure of drunkenness, there 
 is little difference of opinion among those who have 
 had experience in their management. They have 
 more faith in time than in medicine, and think it as 
 much the duty of the State to establish asylums for 
 the treatment of drunkenness as for the treatment of 
 insanity. " The length of time necessary to cure 
 inebriation," says Dr. Dodge, " is a very important 
 consideration. A habit covering five, ten, fifteen or 
 twenty years, cannot be expected to be permanently 
 eradicated in a week or a month. The fact that 
 the excessive use of stimulants for a long period of 
 time has caused a radical change, physically, men- 
 tally and morally, is not only the strongest possible 
 proof that its entire absence is necessary, but, also, 
 that it requires a liberal allowance of time to effect 
 a return to a normal condition. The shortest period 
 of continuous restraint and treatment, as a general 
 rule, should not be less than six months in the most 
 hopeful cases, and extending from one to two years 
 with the less hopeful, and more especially for the 
 class of periodical drinkers, and those with an 
 hereditary tendency." 
 
 A well-directed inebriate asylum not only affords, 
 says the same authority, " effectual removal of the
 
 THE CURSE AND TUB CURE. 51 1 
 
 nt from temptations and associations which 
 surrounded him in the outer world, but by precept 
 and example it teat-lies him that he can gain by his 
 mation, not the ability to drink moderately and 
 with the lea^t safety, lut tJie power to abstain alto- 
 (/< tin r. With the restraint imposed by the institu- 
 tion, and the self-restraint accepted on the part of 
 the patient, are remedial agents from the moment 
 he enters the asylum, growing stronger and more 
 rift-dive day by day, until finally he finds total ab- 
 
 "' nt only possible, but permanent. With 
 this much gained in the beginning, the asylum is 
 JIM -pa red to assist in the cure by all the means and 
 appliances at its command. With the co-operation 
 of the patient, and such medicinal remedies and hy- 
 gienic and sanitary measures as may be required, the 
 
 h<>i>cful results may be confidently looked for. 
 
 Till: HYGIENIC AND SANITARY MEASURES 
 
 -t in total abstinence from all alcoholic bever- 
 ages; good nourishing diet; well ventilated rooms; 
 pure, bracing air; mental rest, and proper bodily 
 exercise. * * Every patient should be re- 
 
 quired to conform to all rules and regulations 
 wliich have for their object the improvement of his 
 social, moral and religious condition. He must 
 begin a diilerent mode of life, by breaking up 
 former habits and associations; driving from the 
 mind the old companions of an intemperate life; 
 forming new thoughts, new ideas and new and
 
 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 better habits, which necessitates a new life in every 
 respect. This is the aim and object of the rules for 
 the control and government of inebriates. To assist 
 in this work, inebriate institutions should have 
 stated religious services, and all the patients and 
 officers should be required to attend them, unless 
 excused by the medical officer in charge, for sick- 
 ness, or other sufficient cause." 
 
 THE BINGHAMPTON ASYLUM. 
 
 Of all the inebriate asylums yet established, the 
 one at Binghampton, New York, has been, so far, 
 the most prominent. It is here that a large part 
 of the experimental work has been done ; and here, 
 we believe, that the best results have "been ob- 
 tained. This asylum is a State Institution, and will 
 accommodate one hundred and twenty patients. In 
 all cases preference must be given to "indigent 
 inebriates," who may be sent to the asylum by 
 county officers, who are required to pay seven dol- 
 lars a week for the medical attendance, board and 
 washing, of each patient so sent. Whenever there 
 are vacancies in the asylum, the superintendent can 
 admit, under special agreement, such private patients 
 as may seek admission, and who, in his opinion, 
 promise reformation. 
 
 The building is situated on an eminence two hun- 
 dred and fifty feet above the Susquehanna River, the 
 scenery stretching far up and down the valley, 
 having features of uncommon beauty and grandeur.
 
 THE CURSE ASD THE Cl 
 
 Kadi patient lias a thoroughly warmed and venti- 
 lated room, which, from the peculiar situation of the 
 house, commands a wide view of the adjoining 
 country. The tables are supplied with a variety 
 and abundance of good food, suitable in every re- 
 spect to the wants of the patients, whose tastes and 
 needs are carefully considered. Amusements of 
 various kinds, including billiards, etc., are provided 
 within the building, which afford pleasure and 
 profit to the patients. Out-door pastimes, such as 
 games of ball and croquet, and other invigorating 
 shorts, are encouraged and practised. The asylum 
 grounds embrace over four hundred acres, part of 
 which are in a state of cultivation. The remainder 
 diversified in character, and partly consisting of 
 fen 
 
 Gentlemen who desire to place themselves under 
 the care of the asylum, may enter it without any 
 other formality than a compliance with such condi- 
 tions as may be agreed upon between themselves 
 and the superintendent. The price of adm! 
 
 s according to location of rooms and attention 
 required. Persons differ so widely in their circum- 
 stances and desires, that the scale of prices has been 
 fixed at f rn m ten to twenty-live dollars per week, 
 which includes board, medical attendance, washing, 
 etc. In all cases the price of board for three months 
 must he paid in advance. 
 
 From one of the annual reports of this institu- 
 tion now before u-, we Karn that the number of
 
 514 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 patients treated during the year was three hundred 
 and thirty-six, of whom one hundred and ninety- 
 eight " were discharged with great hopes of perma- 
 nent reformation." Fifty-eight were discharged 
 unimproved. The largest number of patients in 
 the asylum at one time was a hundred and live. 
 
 SAVING AND REFORMING INFLUENCES. 
 
 Of those discharged two hundred and fifty-six in 
 number eighty-six were of a nervous temperament, 
 ninety-eight sanguine and seventy-two bilious. In 
 their habits, two hundred and thirty-four were social 
 and twenty-two solitary. Out of the whole number, 
 two hundred and forty-four used tobacco only 
 twelve being free from its use. Of these, one hun- 
 dred and sixty had been constant and ninety-six 
 periodical drinkers. Serious affliction, being un- 
 fortunate in business, love matters, prosperity, etc., 
 were given as reasons for drinking by one hundred 
 and two of the patients. One hundred and twenty- 
 two had intemperate parents or ancestors. One 
 hundred and forty were married men and one hun- 
 dred and sixteen single. Their occupations were 
 varied. Merchants, fifty-eight ; clerks, thirty-five ; 
 lawyers, seventeen ; book-keepers, sixteen ; manufac- 
 turers, eight; bankers and brokers, eight; machin- 
 ists, seven ; mechanics, six ; farmers, six ; clergy- 
 men, five ; editors and reporters, five, etc. 
 
 In regard to some of the special influences brought 
 to bear upon the patients in this institution, we have
 
 THE CURSE ASD THE CURE. 
 
 tho following. It is from a communication (in an- 
 swer to a letter of inquiry) received by us from Dr. 
 T. D. Crothers, formerly of Binghampton, but now 
 npermtendent of the new Walnut Hill Asylum, 
 at 1 lart ford, Connecticut : " You have failed to do us 
 credit," he says, " in supposing that we do not use the 
 spiritual forces in our treatment. We depend largely 
 upon them. We have a regularly-appointed chap- 
 lain who lives in the building, and gives his entire 
 time to the religious culture of the patients. . Rev. 
 l)r. Hush was with us eight years. He died a few 
 months ago. He was very devoted to his work, 
 and the good he did, both apparent to us and un- 
 known, was beyond estimate. His correspondence 
 was very extensive, and continued for years with 
 patients and their families. He was the counselor 
 and adviser of many persons who did not know him 
 personally, but through patients. I have seen letters 
 to him from patients in all conditions asking counsel, 
 both on secular and spiritual matters; also the most 
 heart-rending appeals and statements of fathers, 
 mothers, wives and children, all of which he reli- 
 giously answered. He urged that the great duty 
 and obligation of every drunkard was to take care 
 of his body ; to build up all the physical, to avoid 
 all danger, and take no risks or perils; that his 
 only help and reliance were on God and good Itcnlilt; 
 that with regular living and healthy surroundings, 
 and a mind full of faith and hope in spiritual reali- 
 ties, the disorder would die out. Our new chaplain
 
 516 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 holds daily service, as usual, and spends much of 
 his time among the patients. Pie lives ia the build- 
 ing, pronounces grace at the table and is personally 
 identified as a power to help men towards recovery. 
 Quite a large number of patients become religious 
 men here. Our work and its influences have a 
 strong tendency this way. I believe in the force of 
 a chaplain whose daily walk is with us ; who, by 
 example and precept, can win men to higher 
 thoughts. He is the receptacle of secrets and much 
 of the inner life of patients that physicians do not 
 reach." 
 
 In another letter to us, Dr. Crothers says: " Every 
 asylum that I know of is doing good work, and 
 should be aided and encouraged by all means. The 
 time has not come yet, nor the experience or study 
 to any one man or asylum, necessary to build up a 
 system of treatment to the exclusion of all others. 
 We want many years of study by competent men, 
 and the accumulated experience of many asylums 
 before we can understand the first principles of that 
 moral and physical disorder we call drunkenness. 
 
 TREATMENT. 
 
 "As to the treatment and the agents governing it, 
 we recognize in every drunkard general debility and 
 conditions of nerve and brain exhaustion, and a cer- 
 tain train of exciting causes which always end in 
 drinking. Now,if we can teach these men the 'sources 
 of danger/ and pledge them and point them to a
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 higher power for help, we combine both spiritual and 
 physical means. We believe that little can be ex- 
 pected from spiritual aids, or pledges, or resolves, un- 
 less the patient can so build up his physical as to 
 su-tain them. Give a man a healthy body and brain- 
 power, and you can. build up his spiritual life; but all 
 attempts to cultivate a power that is crushed by dis- 
 eased forces will be practically useless. Call it a vice 
 or a disease, it matters not, the return to health 
 must be along the line of natural laws and means. 
 Some iiu-n will not feel any longing for drink unless 
 they get in the centre of excitement, or violate some 
 natural law, or neglect the common means of health. 
 Now, teach them these exciting causes, and build up 
 their health, and the pledge will not be difficult to 
 keep. This asylum is a marvel. It is, to-day, suc- 
 cessful. Other asylums are the same, and we feel 
 that we are working in the line of laws that are 
 fixed, though obscure." 
 
 DEEPLY INTERESTING CASEa 
 
 The records of this institution furnish cases of 
 reform of the most deeply interesting character. 
 1 1 ere are a few of them: 
 
 CASE No. 1. A Southern planter who had be- 
 come a drunkard was brought to this asylum by his 
 faithful colored man. In his fits of intoxication he 
 tell into the extraordinary delusion that his devoted 
 wife was unfaithful ; and so exa-jx-ratcd did he be- 
 come when seized by tliia insane delusion, that he
 
 518 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 often attempted her life. She was at last obliged to 
 keep out of his way whenever he came under the 
 influence of liquor. When sober, his memory of 
 these hallucinations was sufficiently distinct to fill 
 him with sorrow, shame and fear ; for he sincerely 
 loved his wife and knew her to.be above reproach. 
 After the war, during which he held the position of 
 a general in the Southern army, he became very 
 much reduced in his circumstances, lost heart and 
 gave himself up to drink. The friends of his wife 
 tried to prevail on her to abandon him ; but she 
 still clung to her husband, though her life was often 
 in danger from his insane passion. Four years of 
 this dreadful experience, in which she three times 
 received serious personal injuries from his hands, 
 and then the old home was broken up, and he went 
 drifting from place to place, a human ship without 
 a rudder on temptation's stormy sea ; his unhappy 
 wife following him, more or less, in secret, and often 
 doing him service and securing his protection. In 
 the spring of 1874, his faithful colored man brought 
 him to the asylum at Binghampton, a perfect wreck. 
 His wife came, also, and for three months boarded 
 near the institution, and, without his knowledge, 
 watched and prayed for him. After a few weeks' 
 residence, the chaplain was able to lead his mind to 
 the consideration of spiritual subjects, and to im- 
 press him with the value of religious faith and the 
 power of prayer. He became, at length, deeply 
 interested ; read many religious books, and particu-
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CTHF.. 
 
 larly tlie Bible. At the end of three months his 
 wife came to see him, and their meeting was of a 
 most affecting character. A year later, he^ left 
 the asylum and went to a Western city, where he 
 now resides a prosperous and happy man. 
 
 CASE No. 2. A clergyman of fortune, position 
 and education lost his daughter, and began to drink 
 iu order to drown his sorrow. It was in vain that 
 his wife and friends opposed, remonstrated, implored 
 and persuaded ; he drank on, the appetite steadily 
 increasing, until he became its slave. His congre- 
 gation dismissed him ; his wife died of a broken 
 heart ; he squandered his fortune ; lost his friends, 
 and, at last, became a street reporter for some of the 
 New York papers, through means of which he 
 picked up a scanty living. From bad to worse, he 
 swept down rapidly, and, for some offense committed 
 while drunk, was, at last, sent for three months to 
 the State prison. On coming out, and returning to 
 the city, he became a fish-peddler, but continued to 
 drink desperately. One day he was picked up in 
 the street in a state of dead intoxication and takrn 
 to the hospital, where he was recognized by the 
 doctor, who had him sent to Binghamptoo as a 
 county patient Here he remained for over a year, 
 submitting himself to the regime, and coming under 
 the salutary influences of the institution, and making 
 an carnc-t, prayerful and determined effort at re- 
 form. At the end of this period he loll the asylum 
 to enter ujxm the duties of a minister in the far
 
 520 STXOXG DZISL'; 
 
 West; and to-day he is the president of a new college, 
 and a devout and earnest man ! He attributes his 
 cure to the influence of the late chaplain, Rev. Mr. 
 Bush, and to the new life he was able to lead under 
 the protecting influences and sanitary regulations of 
 the asylum. This is a meagre outline of a very 
 remarkable case. 
 
 CASE No. 3. A poor farmer's boy acquired, 
 while in the army, an inordinate appetite for drink. 
 He was sent to the New York Inebriate Asylum, 
 but was expelled because he made no effort to reform. 
 Six months afterwards he joined a temperance so- 
 ciety, and kept sober for a year ; but fell, and was 
 again sent to the asylum. This time he made an 
 earnest effort, and remained at the asylum for seven 
 months, when he was offered a- situation in Chicago, 
 which he accepted. For a year he held this place, 
 then relapsed and came back to the asylum, where 
 he stayed for over twelve months. At the end of 
 that time he returned to Chicago and into his old 
 situation. He is now a member of the firm, and an 
 active temperance man, with every prospect of re- 
 maining so to the end of his life. 
 
 THE CARE AND TREATMENT OF DRUNKARDS. 
 
 
 
 The subject of the care and treatment of habitual 
 drunkards is attracting more and more attention. 
 They form so large a non-producing, and often vicious 
 and dangerous class of half-insane men, that con- 
 siderations of public and private weal demand the
 
 Tin: cunsE AXD Tin: < 
 
 ifation of some el'iecim- DH-MIS for their refor- 
 mation, control or restraint. Legislative aid has 
 invoke*!, and laws submitted and discus-ed ; 
 but, so far, beyond sentences of brief imprisonment 
 in jails, asylums and houses of correction, but little 
 has really been done for the prevention or cure of 
 the worst evil that inflicts our own and other civil- 
 i/rd nations. On the subject of every man's "lib- 
 erty to get drunk," and waste his substance and 
 abuse and beggar his family, the public mind is 
 peculiarly sensitive and singularly averse to restrict- 
 ive legislation. But a public sentiment favorable to 
 such legislation is steadily gaining ground ; and to 
 the formation and growth of this sentiment, many 
 leading and intelligent physicians, both in this 
 country and Great Britain, who have given the 
 subject of drunkenness as a disease long and careful 
 attention, are lending all their influence. It is seen 
 that a man who habitually gets drunk is dangerous 
 to society, and needs control and restraint as much 
 as it' lie were insane. 
 
 LEGISLATIVE CONTROL. 
 
 In 1875, a deputation, principally representative 
 of the medical profession, urged upon the British 
 niment the desirability of measures for the 
 control and management of habitual drunkards. 
 On presenting the memorial to the Secretary <>f > 
 for the Home Department, Sir Thomas Wa; 
 M.D., observed : "That during his very long pro-
 
 22 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 fessional life lie had been incredulous respecting the 
 reclamation of habitual drunkards ; but his late ex- 
 perience had made him sanguine as to their cure, 
 with a very considerable number of whom excessive 
 drinking indulged in as a vice, developed itself into 
 a most formidable bodily and mental disease." 
 
 In the early part of February, 1877, "A Bill to 
 Facilitate the Control and Care of Habitual Drunk- 
 ards," was introduced into the House of Commons. 
 It is supposed to embody the latest and most practical 
 methods of dealing legally with that class, and is of 
 unusual interest from the fact that it was prepared 
 under the direction of a society for the promotion of 
 legislation for the cure of habitual drunkards, re- 
 cently organized in London, in which are included 
 some of the most learned, influential and scientific 
 men of the Kingdom. 
 
 This bill provides for the establishment of retreats 
 or asylums, public or private, into which drunkards 
 may be admitted on their own application, or to 
 which they may be sent by their friends, and where 
 they can be held by law for a term not exceeding 
 twelve months. 
 
 In the State of Connecticut, there is a law which 
 may be regarded as embodying the most advanced 
 legislation on this important subject. The first 
 section is as follows : 
 
 " Whenever any person shall have become an 
 habitual drunkard, a dypsomaniac, or so far addicted 
 to the intemperate use of narcotics or stimulants as
 
 TUB CURSE AND THE CURE. 503 
 
 to have lost the power of self-control, the Court of 
 Probate for the district in which such person resides, 
 or has a legal doraicil, shall, on application of a 
 majority of the selectmen of the town where such 
 person resides, or has a legal domicil, or of any 
 relative of such person, make due inquiry, and if it 
 shall find such person to have become an habitual 
 drunkard, or so far addicted to the intemperate use 
 of narcotics or stimulants as to have lost the power 
 of self-control, then said court shall order such 
 person to be taken to some inebriate asylum within 
 this Stale, for treatment, care and custody, for a 
 term not less than four months, and not more than 
 twelve months; but if said person shall be found to 
 be a dypsomaniac, said term of commitment shall 
 be for the period of three years: provided, Ii<r< r< r, 
 that the Court of Probate shall not in either case 
 make such order without the certificate of at least 
 two respectable practising physicians, after a per- 
 sonal examination, made within one week before the 
 time of said application or said commitment, which 
 certificate shall contain the opinion of said physi- 
 cians that such person has become, as the case may 
 be, a dypsomaniac, an habitual drunkard, or has, by 
 reason of the intemperate use of narcotics or stimu- 
 lants, lost the power of self-control, and requires 
 the treatment, care and custody of some inebriate 
 asylum, and shall be subscribed and sworn to by 
 said physicians before an authority empowered to 
 administer oaths."
 
 524 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 LOSS TO THE STATE IN NOT ESTABLISHING ASYLUMS. 
 
 In a brief article in the Quarterly Journal of 
 Inebriety, for 1877, Dr. Dodge thus emphasizes 
 his views of the importance to the State of estab- 
 lishing asylums to which drunkards may be sent for 
 treatment : " Every insane man who is sent to an 
 asylum, is simply removed from doing harm, and 
 well cared for, and rarely comes back to be a pro- 
 ducer again. But inebriates (the hopeful class) 
 promise immeasurably more in their recovery. They 
 are, as inebriates, non-producers and centres of dis- 
 ease, bad sanitary and worse moral surroundings. 
 All their career leads down to crime and poverty. 
 The more drunkards, the more courts of law, and 
 almshouses, and insane asylums, and greater the taxes. 
 Statistics show that from fifty to sixty per cent, of 
 crime is due to drunkenness ; and we all know how 
 large poverty is due to this cause. Drunkenness is 
 alone responsible for from twenty to twenty-five per 
 cent, of all our insane. 
 
 " We assert, and believe it can be proved, that 
 reclaiming the drunkard is a greater gain to the 
 State, practical and immediate, than any other 
 charity. 
 
 " It is a low estimate to say it costs every county 
 in the State three hundred dollars yearly to support 
 a drunkard ; that is, this amount, and more, is di- 
 verted from healthy channels of commerce, and is, 
 practically, lost to the State. At an inebriate asy- 
 lum, but little over that amount would, in a large
 
 THE CURSE AND TUB Cl'IlK. 525 
 
 majority of cases, restore them as active producers 
 again. 
 
 " Figures cannot represent the actual lass to so- 
 t-it ty, nor can we compute the gain from a single 
 
 case enrol ami returned to normal life and useful- 
 
 
 
 ness. Inebriety is sapping the foundation of our 
 'rnment, both State and National, and unless we 
 can provide means adequate to check it, we shall 
 leave a legacy of physical, moral and political dis- 
 ease to our descendants, that will ultimately wreck 
 this country. Inebriate asylums will do much to 
 cheek and relieve this evil." 
 
 We conclude this chapter, which is but an im- 
 ct presentation of the work of our inebriate 
 asylums, by a quotation from the Quarterly Jour- 
 nal of Inebriety, for September, 1877. This peri- 
 odical is published under the auspices of " The 
 American Association for the Cure of Inebri. 
 The editor, Dr. Crothers, says: "We publish in 
 this number, reports of a large number of asylums 
 from all parts of the country, indicating jjjreat pros- 
 y and success, notwithstanding the depression 
 of the times. Among the patients received at these 
 asylums, broken-down merchants, hankers, business 
 men, who are inebriates of recent date, and chronic 
 cases that have been niotlrrair drinkers for many 
 years, seem to be more numerous. The explanation 
 is found in the peculiar times in which so many of 1 
 the business men are ruined, and the discharge of 
 a class of employees whose uncertain habits and
 
 526 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 want of special fitness for their work make them 
 less valuable. Both of these classes drift to the 
 inebriate asylum, and, if not able to pay, finally go 
 to insane hospitals and disappear. 
 
 " Another class of patients seem more prominent 
 this year, namely, the hard-working professional 
 and business men, who formerly went away to Eu- 
 rope, or some watering-place, with a retinue of 
 servants ; now they appear at our retreats, spend a 
 few months, and go away much restored. The out- 
 look was never more cheery than at present, the 
 advent of several new asylums, and the increased 
 usefulness of those in existence, with the constant 
 agitation of the subject among medical men at home 
 and abroad, are evidence of great promise for the 
 future. Of the Journal we can only say that, as the 
 organ of the American Association for the Cure of 
 Inebriates, it will represent the broadest principles 
 and studies which the experience of all asylums 
 confirm, and independent of any personal interest, 
 strive to present the subject of inebriety and its 
 treatment in its most comprehensive sense."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 REFORMATORY HOMES. 
 
 DIFFERING in some essential particulars from 
 inebriate asylums or hospitals for the cure of 
 drunkenness as a disease, are the institutions called 
 Homes." Their name indicates their character. 
 It is now about twenty years since the first of these 
 was established. It is located at 41 Waltham Street, 
 Boston, in an elegant and commodious building re- 
 cently erected, and is called the " Washingtonian 
 Home." The superintendent is Dr. Albert Day. 
 In 18G3, another institution of this character came 
 into existence in the city of Chicago. This is also 
 called tin; " Washingtonian Home." It is situated 
 in \Vest Madison Street, opposite Union Park. The 
 building is lar^v and handsomely fitted up, and has 
 
 niuodations for over one hundred inmates. 
 Prof. D. Wilkins is the superintendent. In 1872 
 "The Franklin Reformatory Home," of Philadel- 
 phia, was established. It is located at Nos. 911, 
 '.'!:; and 015 Locust Street, in a well-arranged and 
 
 'Uglily-furnished building, in which all the 
 comforts of a home may be found, and can accom- 
 modate over seventy persons. Mr. John Graff is 
 the superintendent. 
 627
 
 528 STRONG DRIXK; 
 
 As we have said, the name of these institutions 
 indicates their character. They are not so much 
 hospitals for the cure of a disease, as homes of refuge 
 and safety, into which the poor inebriate, who has 
 lost or destroyed his own home, with all its good 
 and saving influences, may come and make a new 
 effort, under the most favoring influences, to recover 
 himself. 
 
 The success which has attended the work of the 
 three institutions named above, has been of the most 
 gratifying character. In the 
 
 WASHINGTONIAN HOME AT BOSTON, 
 
 drunkenness has been regarded as a malady, which 
 may be cured through the application of remedial 
 agencies that can be successfully employed only 
 under certain conditions; and these are sought (o 
 be secured for the patient. The home and the hos- 
 pital are, in a certain sense, united. " While we are 
 treating inebriety as a disease, or a pathological con- 
 dition," says the superintendent, in his last report, 
 " there are those who regard it as a species of wick- 
 edness or diabolism, to be removed only by moral 
 agencies. Both of these propositions are true in a 
 certain sense. There is a difference between sin 
 and evil, but the line of demarkation is, as yet, ob- 
 scure, as much so as the line between the responsi- 
 bility and irresponsibility of the inebriate." 
 
 Doubtless, the good work done in this excellent 
 institution is due, in a large measure, to the moral
 
 THE CL'RSE A.\D THE CURE. 509 
 
 ami religious influences under which the inmates 
 are brought. Nature is quick to repair physical 
 waste and deterioration, when the exciting causes of 
 disease are removed. The diseased body of the 
 drunkard, as soon as it is relieved from the poison- 
 ing influence of alcohol, is restored, in a measure, to 
 health. The brain is clear once more, and the moral 
 faculties again able to act with reason and con- 
 science. And here comes in the true work of the 
 Homo, which }s the restoration of the man to a 
 of rational self-control ; the quickening in his 
 heart of old affections, and the revival of old and 
 better desires and principles. 
 
 BENEFICIAL RESULTS. 
 
 "Among the beneficial results of our labor," says 
 Dr. Day, " we see our patients developing a higher 
 principle of respect for themselves and their friends. 
 This, to us, is of great interest. We see indications 
 convincing us that the mind, under our treatment, 
 awakens to a consciousness of what it is, and what 
 it is made for. We see man becoming to himself a 
 higher object, and attaining to the conviction of the 
 equal and indestructible of every being. In them 
 we see the dawning of the great principle advocated 
 by us continually, viz., That the individual is not 
 made to be the instrument of others, but to govern 
 himself by an inward law, and to advance towards 
 his projxT jkerieciions ; that In- hdon^.s to him.-elf 
 ami to (Jod, and to no human superior. In all our 
 
 ol
 
 530 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 teachings we aim to purify and ennoble the charac- 
 ter of our patients by promoting in them true virtue, 
 strong temperance proclivities and a true piety ; and 
 to accomplish these ends we endeavor to stimulate 
 their own exertions for a better knowledge of God, 
 and for a determined self-control." 
 
 And again he says : "Almost every day we hear 
 from some one who has been with us under treat- 
 ment, who has been cured. Their struggles had 
 been fierce, and the battle sometimes would seem to 
 be against them ; but, at last, they have claimed the 
 victory. In my experience, I have found that so 
 long as the victim of strong drink has the will, 
 feeble as it may be, to put forth his efforts for a 
 better life, and his constant struggle is in the right 
 direction, he is almost sure to regain his will power, 
 and succeed in overcoming the habit. By exercise, 
 the will gains strength. The thorns in the flesh of 
 our spiritual nature will be plucked out, the spiritual 
 life will be developed, and our peace shall flow as 
 the river. This condition we constantly invoke, 
 and by all the means within our reach we try to 
 stimulate the desire for a better life. I am pleased 
 to say our efforts in this direction have not been in 
 vain. For nearly twenty years we have been en- 
 gaged in this work, and we have now more confi- 
 dence in the means employed than at any other 
 period. Situated, as we are, in the midst of a great 
 city, with a Christian sympathy constantly active 
 and co-operating with us, no one can remain in the
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 
 
 institution without being the recipient of beneficial 
 influences, the effect of which is salutary in the ex- 
 tivme. I am fully satisfied that the ' Washington ian 
 Home' is greatly indebted to these moral agencies for 
 its success." 
 
 The following letter, received by us, from Otis 
 C'lapp, who has been for sixteen years president 
 of the " Washingtonian Home," will give the reader 
 a still clearer impression of the workings of that 
 institution. It is in answer to one we wrote, asking 
 for information about the institution in which he 
 had been interested for so many years : 
 
 " BOSTON, August 9th, 1877. 
 
 " DEAR SIR : Your letter is received, and I am glad to 
 learn that your mind is directed to the subject of the curse 
 ami c-ure of drunkenness. This is one of the largest of human 
 fields to work in. The ' Washingtonian Home ' was com- 
 menced in a very humble way, in November, 1857. An act of 
 incorporation was obtained from the State, March 26th, 1859. 
 
 "The institution has, therefore, been in existence nearly 
 twenty years. My connection with it has been for eighteen 
 yean sixteen years as president During the period of its 
 existence the whole number of patients has been five thou- 
 sand three hundred and forty-eight. Of this number, tho 
 superintendent, Dr. Day, estimates the cured at one-half. Of 
 the remainder, it is estimated that one-half, making one-quar- 
 ter of the whole, are greatly improved. 
 
 ' You say, ' I take the general ground, and urge it strongly 
 upon the reader that, without spiritual help regeneration, in a 
 word there w, for the confirmed inebriate, but little hope, and 
 no true safety.' 
 
 this I fully concur. I believe in using all the agencies 
 medical, social, moral and religious to bear upon the pa-
 
 532 STEONO DRINK; 
 
 ticnt, and to encourage him to follow the ' straight and narrow 
 way.' With this view, a morning service is held each day ; a 
 Sunday evening service at six o'clock, and every Friday even- 
 ing a meeting, where patients relate their experience, and en- 
 courage each other in gaining power over the enemy. I 
 have had much experience and abundant evidence that ilicM- 
 meetings are of great value, for the reason that the patients 
 are the principal speakers, and can do more to "encourage each 
 other than those outside of their own ranks. These meetings 
 arc usually attended by about equal numbers of both sexes, 
 and, with fine music, can be kept up with interest indefinitely. 
 
 "It would be, in my judgment, a matter of wide economy 
 for the intelligent citizens of every city, with twenty thousand 
 or more inhabitants, to establish a home, or asylum for ine- 
 briates. Let those who favor sobriety in the community, take 
 a part in it, and they will soon learn how to reach the class 
 who needs assistance. A large, old-fashioned house can be 
 leased at small expense, and the means raised by contributions 
 of money and other necessary articles to start. The act of 
 doing this will soon enable those engaged in the work to learn 
 what the wants are, and how to meet them. It is only obeying 
 the command, ' Go out into the highways and hedges and com- 
 pel them to come in, that my house may be filled.' This is 
 the Master's work, and those who hear this invitation, as well 
 as those who accept it, will share in its blessings. 
 
 " Those who cultivate the spirit of ' love to God, and good- 
 will to their fellow-men,' will be surprised to see how much 
 easier it is to do these things when they try, than when they 
 only think about them. 
 
 "Much, of course, depends upon the superintendent, who 
 needs to possess those genial qualities which readily win the 
 confidence and good-will of patients, and which he readily 
 turns to account, by encouraging them to use the means which 
 the Creator has given them to co-operate in curing themselves. 
 The means of cure are in the patient's own hands, and it is 
 quite a gift to be able to make him see it"
 
 TUB CURSE AND THE CURE. 533 
 
 THE WASIIINT-.TONIAN HOME AT CHICAGO 
 
 ia on the same plan, in all essential respects, with 
 that of Boston ; and the reports show about the 
 same^average of cures and beneficial results. How 
 the patient is treated in this Home may be inferred 
 from the following extract from an article on " The 
 Cause, Effect and Cure of Inebriety," from the pen 
 of Prof. D. Wilkins, the superintendent, which 
 appeared in a late number of The Quarterly 
 Journal of Inebriety. In answer to the question, 
 ] low can we best save the poor drunkard, and restore 
 him to his manhood, his family and society, he says : 
 " Money, friends, relatives and all have forsaken 
 him, his hope blasted, his ambition gone, and he feels 
 that no one has confidence in him, no one cares for 
 him. In this condition he wends his way to an institu- 
 tion of reform, a penniless, homeless, degraded, lost 
 ami hopeless drunkard. Here is our subject, how 
 Khali we save him? He has come from the squalid 
 dnis, and lanes of filth, of misery, of want, of de- 
 bauchery and death; no home, no sympathy and 
 no kind words have greeted him, perhaps, for years. 
 Ho is taken to the hospital. A lew days pass, and 
 he awakes from the stupidity of drink, and as he 
 opens liis eyes, what a change! He looks around, 
 kind and gentle voices welcome him, his bed is clean 
 and soft, the room beautiful, tasteful :md pleasant in 
 its arrangements, the superintendent, the physician, 
 the steward and the inmates meet him with a smile 
 and treat him as a brother. lie is silent, lost in
 
 534 STRONG DRIXK; 
 
 meditation. Thoughts of other days, of other years, 
 pass through his mind in quick succession as the 
 tears steal gently down his cheeks. He talks thus 
 to himself : 'lam mistaken. Somebody does care 
 for the drunkard. And if somebody cares for me, 
 / ought to care for myself? Here reform first com- 
 mences. In a few days, when free, to some extent, 
 from alcohol, he is admitted to the freedom of the 
 institution. As he enters the reading-room, the 
 library, the amusement, the gymnasium, dining- 
 room and spacious halls, the conviction becomes 
 stronger and stronger that somebody is interested 
 in the inebriate, and he should be interested in 
 himself. Then comes the lessons of the superin- 
 tendent. He is taught that he cannot be reformed, 
 but that he can reform himself. That God helps 
 those only who help themselves. That he must ignore 
 all boon companions of the cup as associates, all 
 places where liquor is kept and sold, that, in order 
 to reform himself, he must become a reformer, labor 
 for the good of his brother ; in short, he must shun 
 every rivulet that leads him into the stream of in- 
 temperance, and as a cap-stone which completes. the 
 arch, that he must look to Him from whence conieth 
 all grace and power to help in time of need. 
 
 "As he converses with those that are strong in 
 experience, listens to the reading of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures in the morning devotions, joins in the sweet 
 songs of Zion and unites in unison with his brother 
 inmates in saying the Lord's Prayer, as he hears the
 
 TUB CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 strong experiences in the public meetings and secret 
 associations of those who have remained firm for 
 one, two, three, and up to ten or fifteen years, little 
 by little his confidence is strengthened, and almost 
 before he is aware, the firm determination is formed 
 and the resolve made, / will drink no more. As 
 v after week, and month after month, glides 
 pleasantly away, these resolutions become stronger 
 and stronger, and by thus educating his intellect 
 and strengthening his moral power, the once hope- 
 less, disheartened and helpless one regains his for- 
 mer manhood and lost confidence, and becomes a 
 moral, -independent, reformed man. Perhaps the 
 most difficult thing in this work of reform, is to 
 convince our inmates that resolving to stop drink- 
 ing, or even stopping drinking for the time being, 
 is not reforming. Those admitted, generally, in 
 about two weeks, under the direction of a skillful 
 physician, and the nursing of a faithful steward, 
 recover so as to sleep well and eat heartily, and 
 their wills, seemingly, are as strong as ever. Feel- 
 ing thus, they often leave the institution, sobered 
 up, not reformed, and when the periodical time 
 arrives, or temptation comes, they have no moral 
 power to resist, and they rush back to habits of 
 intoxication. They forget that the will is like a 
 door on its hinges, with the animal desires, appe- 
 tites, evil inclinations and passions attached to one 
 side, leading them into trouble and making them 
 unhappy, unless they are held by the strong power
 
 536 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 of the sense of moral right attached to the other 
 side, and that for years they have been stifling and 
 weakening this power, until its strength is almost, if 
 not entirely, gone, and that the only way they can 
 possibly strengthen it, independent of the grace of 
 God, is by education, moral light and testing it 
 under circumstances so favorable that it will not 
 yield. It took years of disobedience to destroy the 
 moral power, and it will take years of obedience to 
 restore it again. The inebriate must be taught that 
 he can refrain from drink only as he strengthens 
 this moral power, and this requires time and trial. 
 Here is just where w r e, as superintendents, or re- 
 formers, assume great responsibility. To under- 
 stand just when to test, and how much temptation 
 can be resisted by those under our charge, requires 
 much wisdom and great experience." 
 
 From this extract the reader will learn something 
 of the influences which are brought to bear upon the 
 inmates of a home for the reformation of inebriates; 
 and he will see how much reliance is placed on 
 moral and religious agencies. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF THE BEFOKMED. 
 
 From the Chicago Home is issued a monthly 
 paper called The WasJungtonian, devoted to the 
 interest of the institution and to temperance. In 
 tliis appear many communications from those who 
 are, or have been, inmates. We make a few selections 
 from some of these, which will be read with interest :
 
 TUB CURSE AXD THE Cl 537 
 
 " "When I came into the Home, mind, memory, 
 and energy were shattered. The only anima- 
 ting thought remaining to me was a misty specula- 
 tion as to where the next drink was to come from. 
 I had a kind of feeble perception that a few days 
 more of the life I was leading must end my earthly 
 career, but I didn't care. As to the 'hereafter* 
 that might take care of itself; I had no energy to 
 make any provision for it. 
 
 "To-day, how different! A new man, utterly 
 defiant of the devil and all ' his works and pomps/ I 
 am ready and eager to take my place once more in 
 the battle of life ; atone for the miserable time gone 
 by ; to take again the place in .the world I had for- 
 
 1, bearing ever in my breast the beautiful 
 maxims of the German poet and philosopher, Schil- 
 
 ' Look not sorrowfully into the past ; it comes 
 not back again. "Wisely improve the present; it is 
 thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future with- 
 out fear, and with a manly heart." 
 
 Another writes : " I have been true and faithful 
 to my promise, and have not touched or tampered 
 with the curse since the first morning I entered the 
 Home, ten months ago to-day, and, Mr. Superint* n 
 dent, I shall never drink again as long as I live. 
 My whole trust and hope is in God, who made me 
 
 move and have my being; and as long as I 
 tni-t in Him and whieh I am thoroughly sati.-lirtl 
 I always shall I will be crowned with success in 
 earh ami evt TV goodeil'ort I make. * * * The day
 
 538 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 I reached here, my little ones were out of town, but 
 were telegraphed for at once. They came in the 
 next morning, and, oh ! how my heart rejoiced to 
 see they knew and loved me. They came to my 
 arms and threw their little arms around my neck, 
 and hugged and kissed me until I wept with joy. 
 They begged of me never to leave them again, and 
 I never shall. My dear father, mother and all now 
 wish me to stay with them, for they feel I can now 
 be as great a comfort as I once, I might say, was a 
 terror to them. Thank God, I can prove a comfort 
 to them, and my daily life shall be such that they 
 never can do without me. Praises be to God for 
 His goodness and mercy to me, and for showing 
 and guiding me in the straight path, that which 
 leadeth, at last, to an everlasting life with Him and 
 His redeemed in that great and glorious kingdom 
 above." 
 
 Another writes, two years after leaving the Home: 
 " In different places where I lived, I was generally 
 a moving spirit in everything of a literary charac- 
 ter, and, from a naturally social, convivial disposi- 
 tion, enjoyed the conversation and society of literary 
 men over a glass of beer more than any other at- 
 traction that could have been presented. For years, 
 this continued, I, all the time, an active spirit in 
 whatever church I was a member of, and an active 
 worker in whatever I engaged in, thereby always 
 commanding a prominent position wherever I was. 
 Thus matters progressed till I was about twenty-
 
 Till-: CURSE AND THE CURE. 539 
 
 seven, and then I began to realize my position; but, 
 alas, when it was too late. The kindly admonition of 
 friends and my own intelligence began to tell me 
 the story, and then how I struggled for months and 
 months a naturally sensitive nature only making 
 me worse till, at last, the conviction forced itself 
 upon me that, for me there was no redemption, that 
 I wus bound, hand and foot, perfectly powerless, 
 and then I was forced to accept the fact. My only 
 then was to save those dear to me from any 
 knowledge of the truth; for this reason I chose 
 Chicago for my home. Not wishing to take my own 
 life in my hands, I was simply waiting for the mo- 
 ment when, having gone lower and lower, it would, 
 at last, please God to relieve me of my earthly suf- 
 fr rings. Oh! the mental agonies I endured I Too 
 true is it that the drunkard carries his hell around 
 with him. At any moment I was perfectly willing 
 to die, perfectly willing to trust whatever might be 
 before me in the other world, feeling it could be no 
 worse. At last, by God's grace, I was directed to the 
 ' Washington ian Home/ and there, for the first time, 
 I K'urnrd that I could be free; and in this knowledge 
 lies the power of the Home. The Home took hold of 
 me and bade me be a man, and directed me to God 
 for help ; and, at the same time, told me to work out 
 my own salvation. Its teachings were not in vain; and 
 to-day I can look up and ask God's blessing on you 
 all for your kind labors. But for that Home, I 
 should, to-day, have Uvii filling :i dishonored grave."
 
 540 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 And another says: "It is now over five years 
 since I applied to Mr. Drake for admission to the 
 Home. I was then prostrated, both physically and 
 mentally, to that degree that I had scarcely strength 
 to drag myself along, or moral courage enough to 
 look any decent man in the face. I was often as- 
 sured that to quit whisky would kill me. I thought 
 there was a probability of that ; but, on the other 
 hand, there was a certainty that to continue it would 
 kill me. I resolved to make one more effort and 
 die sober, for I never expected to live ; had no hope 
 of that. From the day I entered the Home I have 
 been a changed man. The encouragement and 
 counsel I received there, gave me strength to keep 
 the resolution I had formed, and which I have 
 kept to the present moment, viz: TO DRINK NO MORE! 
 Ever since I left Chicago, I have held a respectable 
 position ; and now hold the principal position in a 
 house of business, the doors of which I was forbid- 
 den to enter six years ago. I do not write this in 
 any spirit of self-laudation, but simply to lay the 
 honor where it belongs at the door of the ' Wash- 
 ingtonian Home/ ' 
 
 The following from the " experience " of one of 
 the inmates of the Chicago " Home," will give the 
 reader an idea of the true character of this and 
 similar institutions, and of the way in which those 
 who become inmates are treated. A lady who took 
 an interest in the writer, had said to him, "You hud
 
 THE CURSE A.\D THE d 541 
 
 > to the Washingtonian Home." What fol- 
 lowed id thus related : 
 
 HOW I WAS TK MATED IN THE HOME. 
 
 " I looked at her in surprise. Send me to a re- 
 formatory? I told her that I did not think that I 
 was sunk so low, or bound so fast in the coils of the 
 'worm of the still,' that it was necessary for me, a 
 young man not yet entered into the prime of man- 
 hood, to be confined in a place designed for the cure 
 of habitual drunkards. I had heard vague stories, 
 but nothing definite concerning the Home, and 
 thought that the question was an insult, but I did 
 not reply to the question. All that night my 
 thoughts would revert to the above question. My 
 life past since I had become a devotee of the 
 'demon of strong drink,' passed in review before 
 my mind. What had I gained? How improved? 
 What had I obtained by it? And the answer was 
 nothing. Then I asked -myself, What had I lost 
 by it? And the answer came to me with crushing 
 , everything that maketh life desirable. Start- 
 ing out young in years into the busy highways of 
 the world, with a good fortune, brigl it prospects and 
 a host of friends to aid and cheer me on, I had lost 
 ALL in my love for strong drink, and at times I 
 thought and felt that I was a modern Ishmael. 
 
 "The lady, the next morning, again returned to 
 the attack, jind then, not thinking it an insult, but 
 a benefit, to be conferred on me, I yielded a willing
 
 542 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 acquiescence. That same evening, with a slow step 
 and aching head, I walked up Madison Street to- 
 wards the Washingtonian Home, with thoughts that 
 I would be considered' by the officers of the institu- 
 tion as a sort of a felon, or, if not that, at least 
 something very near akin to the brute, and it was 
 with a sinking heart that I pushed open the main 
 door and ascended the broad, easy stairs to the office. 
 I asked if the superintendent was in, and the gen- 
 tlemanly clerk at the desk told me that he was, and 
 would be down immediately, meanwhile telling me 
 to be seated. After the lapse of a few minutes, the 
 superintendent, Mr. Wilkins, came into the office, 
 his countenance beaming with benevolence. He 
 took the card that I had brought with me, read it, 
 and, turning round to where I sat, with a genial 
 smile lighting up his countenance, with outstretched 
 hand, greeted me most kindly and introduced me to 
 the gentlemen present. I was dumbfounded, and 
 it was with great difficulty that I restrained myself 
 from shedding tears. It was the very opposite of 
 the reception that I had pictured that I would re- 
 ceive, and I found that I was to be treated as a hu- 
 man being and not as a brute. With a smile, the 
 superintendent addressed me again, and told me to 
 follow him ; and it was with a lighter heart and 
 spirits that I ascended the second flight of stairs 
 than the first, I can assure you. I was brought to 
 the steward, who also greeted me most kindly, con- 
 versed with me a short time, fixed up some medi-
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 543 
 
 cine for me and tlion took me into the hospital. By 
 the word ' hospital,' dear reader, you must not take 
 the usual definition of all that word implies, hut in 
 tli is case, take it as a moderate-sized room with eight 
 or nine beds, covered with snow-white sheets and 
 coverlids, and filled with air of the purest ; no sickly 
 smells or suffering pain to offend the most delicate. 
 
 "After a most refreshing night's rest the first 
 that I had had in three or four long, weary months 
 I arose, and for a few moments could not realize 
 where I was, but memory came back, and I fell on 
 my knees and gave thanks to God that I had fa Urn 
 into the hands of the 'Good Samaritans/ After 
 breakfast, I went with great diffidence into the 
 common sitting-room, where there was about ten of 
 the inmates sitting smoking, playing checkers, etc. 
 I did not know how I would be received here, but 
 as soon as I entered I was greeted most kindly and 
 told to make myself at home. It seemed as if my 
 cup was full and running over, and for a few mo- 
 ments I could scarcely speak, and I thought that 
 the institution's motto must be founded on the 
 Saviour's command to 'Love one another. 1 
 
 " The first day I was not allowed to go down to 
 the dining-room, I still being under the care of the 
 hospital steward. The second day I was discharged 
 from the hospital, assigned a most comfortable and 
 cheerful furnished bed-room, and allowed the liberty 
 of the whole building, and the day passed pleasantly. 
 The next morning, at about six, I was awakened by
 
 544 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 the clangor of a bell shaken by a vigorous arm. 
 Hurriedly dressing, I descended to the wash-room 
 and performed my ablutions, and then waited for 
 the next step. Half an hour having elapsed, the 
 bell was rung a second time, and we all entered 
 what is called the service-room. Shortly after Mr. 
 Wilkins and his family entered ; the superintendent 
 read a chapter of the Bible, the inmates sung a 
 hymn, accompanied on the organ by Miss Clara 
 Wilkins ; after a short prayer, the inmates marched 
 in single file to the head of the room, where Mr. 
 Wilkins stood, his kind face actually beaming, and 
 with extended hand greeted every individual in- 
 mate. After leaving him we marched to the other 
 side of the room, where we also received a cheery 
 ' good morning,' and cordial grasp of the hand from 
 the estimable and motherly wife of the superin- 
 tendent. To describe one day is sufficient to picture 
 the manner in which the inmates of the Home (and 
 I sincerely believe that ' home ' is the right designa- 
 tion for it) pass their time. I have never felt hap- 
 pier or more contented even in my most prosperous 
 days than I have in these few short days that I have 
 been an inmate of the Washingtonian Home." 
 
 In this institution, according to the last annual 
 report, two thousand two hundred and fifty-two 
 persons have been treated since it was opened. Of 
 these, one thousand one hundred and eighteen, or 
 over sixty per cent., are said to have remained sober, 
 or nearly so, up to this time. During the last year
 
 Til K CURSE AND TUB CURE. 5 |,} 
 
 two hundred and fifty-eight patients were under 
 treatment (one-third free patients). Of these only 
 thirty had relapsed, the others giving great promise 
 of recovery. 
 
 The Philadelphia institution, known as the 
 " FRANKLIN REFORMATORY HOME FOR INEBIATES," 
 has been in existence over five years. It was or- 
 ganized in April, 1872. In this institution intem- 
 perance is not regarded as a disease, which may be 
 cured through hygienic or medical treatment, but 
 as a sin, which, must be repented of, resisted and 
 <>mc through the help of God. In order to 
 place the inebriate, who honestly desires to reform. 
 and lead a better life, under conditions most favor- 
 able to this work of inner reformation and true 
 recovery, all the external associations and comforts 
 of a pleasant home are provided, as with the two 
 institutions whose record of good results has just 
 been made. Its administrative work and home-life 
 vary but little from that of the Homes in Boston 
 and ( 'hicago. But it is differenced from them and 
 other institutions which have for their aim the cure 
 of inebriety, in its rejection of the disease theory, 
 and sole reliance on moral and spiritual agencies in 
 the work of saving men from the curse of drink. 
 It says to its inmates, this appetite for drink is not 
 a disease that medicine can cure, or change, or 
 (radicate. New sanitary conditions, removal from 
 temptations, more favorable surroundings, congenial 
 occupation, improved health, a higher self-respect, 
 35
 
 546 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 a sense of honor and responsibility, and the tender- 
 ness and strength of love for wife and children, may 
 be powerful enough as motives to hold you always 
 in the future above its enticements. But, trusting 
 in these alone, you can never dwell in complete 
 safety. You need a deeper work of cure than it is 
 possible for you to obtain from any earthly physi- 
 cian. Only God can heal you of this infirmity. 
 
 A BELIGIOUS HOME. 
 
 AVhile. never undervaluing external influences, 
 and always using the best means in their power to 
 make their institution a home in all that the word im- 
 plies, the managers have sought to make it distinct- 
 ively something more a religious home. They rely 
 for restoration chiefly on the reforming and regener- 
 ating power of Divine grace. Until a man is brought 
 under spiritual influences, they do not regard him 
 as in safety ; and the result of their work so far only 
 confirms them in this view. They say, that in 
 almost every case where an inmate has shown him- 
 self indifferent, or opposed to the religious influences 
 of the Home, he has, on leaving it, relapsed, after a 
 short period, into intemperance, while the men who 
 have stood firm are those who have sought help 
 from God, and given their lives to His service. 
 
 Under this view, which has never been lost sight 
 of from the beginning, in the work of the " Franklin 
 Home," and which is always urged upon those who 
 seek its aid in their efforts to reform their lives,
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. . 547 
 
 there has come to be in the institution a pervading 
 sentiment favorable to a religions life as the only 
 safe life, and all who are brought within the sphere 
 of its influence soon become impressed with the fact. 
 And it is regarded as one of the most hopeful of 
 signs when the new inmate is drawn into accord 
 with this sentiment, and as a most discouraging one 
 if he sets himself in opposition thereto. 
 
 WHO ARE RECEIVED INTO "THE FRANKLIN HOME." 
 
 As in other institutions, the managers of this one 
 have had to gain wisdom from experience. They 
 have learned that there is a class of drinking men 
 for whom efforts at recovery are almost useless ; and 
 from this class they rarely now take any one into 
 the Home. Men of known vicious or criminal 
 lives are not received. Nor are the friends of such 
 tdulge in an occasional drunken debauch per- 
 mitted to send them there for temporary seclusion. 
 None are admitted but men of good character, in all 
 but intemperance ; and these must be sincere and 
 earnest in their purpose to reform. The capacity 
 of an institution in which the care, and service, and 
 protection of a home can be given, is too small for 
 mere experiment or waste of effort. There are too 
 many who are anxious, through the means offered 
 in a place like this, to break the chains of a de- 
 ng habit, and get back their lost manhood once 
 more, to waste effort on the evil-minded and morally 
 depraved, who only seek a temporary asylum and
 
 548 STRONO DRINK; 
 
 the opportunity for partial recovery, but with no 
 purpose of becoming better men and better citizens. 
 Apart from the fruitlessness of all attempts to per- 
 manently restore such men to sobriety, it has been 
 found that their presence in the Home has had an 
 injurious effect; some having been retarded in re- 
 covery through their influence, and others led away 
 into vicious courses. 
 
 There is a chapel in the building, capable of 
 holding over two hundred person In this, Divine 
 worship is held every Sunday afternoon. A minis- 
 ter from some one of the churches is usually in 
 attendance to preach and conduct the services. It 
 rarely happens that the chapel is not well filled 
 with present and former inmates of the Home, their 
 wives, children and friends. Every evening, at 
 half-past nine o'clock, there is family prayer in the 
 chapel, and every Sunday afternoon the president, 
 Mr. S. P. Godwin, has a class for Bible study and 
 instruction in the same place. On Tuesday even- 
 ings there is a conversational temperance meeting ; 
 and on Thursday evening of each week the Godwin 
 Association, organized for mutual help and encour- 
 agement, holds a meeting in the chapel. 
 
 USE OF TOBACCO DISCOURAGED. 
 
 The attending physician, Dr. Robert P. Harris, 
 having given much thought and observation to the 
 effects of tobacco on the physical system, and its 
 connection with inebriety, discourages its use among
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 549 
 
 the inmate?, doing all in his power, by advice 
 and admonition, to lead them to abandon a habit 
 that not only disturbs arid weakens the nervous 
 forces, but too often produces that very condition of 
 nervous exhaustion which leads the sufferer to resort 
 to stimulation. In many cases where men, after 
 leaving the " Home," have stood firm for a longer 
 or shorter period of time, and then, relapsing into 
 intemperance, have again sought its help in a new 
 effort at reformation, he has been able to find the 
 cause of their fall in an excessive use of tobacco. 
 
 Dr. Harris is well assured, from a long study of 
 the connection between the use of tobacco and alco- 
 hol, that, in a very large number of cases tobacco 
 has produced the nervous condition which led to 
 inebriety. And he is satisfied that, if men who are 
 seeking to break away from the slavery of drink, 
 will give up their tobacco and their whisky at the 
 game time, they will find the work easier, and their 
 ability to stand by their good resolutions, far greater. 
 See the next chapter for a clear and concise state- 
 ment, from the pen of Dr. Harris, of the effects of 
 tobacco, and the obstacles its use throws in the way 
 of men who are trying to reform. 
 
 WHAT HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED. 
 
 The results of the work done in this " Home" are 
 
 of the most satisfactory kind. From the fifth annual 
 
 rt, we learn that there have been received into 
 
 the Home, since its commencement, seven hundred
 
 550 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 and forty-one persons. Of these, the report gives 
 three hundred and fifty-four as reformed, and one 
 hundred and three as benefited. Two hundred and 
 ninety-seven were free patients. 
 
 WOMAN'S WOKK IN THE HOME. 
 
 In the management of this Home there is, beside 
 the board of directors, an auxiliary board of twenty- 
 six lady managers, who supervise the work of the 
 Home, and see to its orderly condition and the 
 comfort of the inmates. Through visiting and 
 relief committees the families of such of the inmates 
 as need temporary care and assistance are seen, and 
 such help and counsel given as may be required. 
 An extract or two from the reports of this 
 auxiliary board will not only give an idea of the 
 religious influences of the institution, but of what is 
 being done by the woman's branch of the work. 
 Says the secretary, Mrs. E. M. Gregory, in her last 
 annual report : 
 
 " The religious influence exerted by this institu- 
 tion by means of its Sunday evening services, its 
 Bible class and its frequent temperance meetings, 
 which are cordially open to all, is silently, but, we 
 think, surely making itself felt among those brought 
 within its reach, and establishing the highest and 
 strongest bond among those whose natural ties are 
 often unhappily severed by intemperance. We find 
 whole families, long unused to any religious observ- 
 ance, now regularly, for years, accompanying the
 
 T1IK CURSE AND THE CV11K. 55 \ 
 
 husband and father to this place of worship, and 
 joining devoutly in the exercises. 
 
 " Especial emphasis is laid upon the doctrine that 
 the only foundation for a thorough, enduring re- 
 formation is found in a radical change of heart, a 
 preparation for the future life by a conscientious, 
 persistent effort to lead a Christ-like life here. 
 
 " One result of this teaching is found in the fact 
 that several of the inmates, not in the first pleasant 
 excitement of their rescue from the immediate hor- 
 rors of their condition, but after long and faithful 
 olcrvance of their pledge and constant attendance 
 upon the religious instruction of the Home, Live 
 voluntarily and with solemn resolve united tlu-m- 
 selves to some Christian church, and are devoting a 
 large share of their time and means to the work of 
 bringing in their old companions to share this great 
 salvation. "When, in our visits among their fami- 
 lies, we hear of those who formerly spent all their 
 earnings at the saloon, bringing nothing but distress 
 ami terror into their homes, now walking the streets 
 all day in search of work, without dinner themselves, 
 because the * wife and children need what little there 
 is in the house ;' and another, not only denying him- 
 self a reasonable share of the scanty food, but nursing 
 a sick wife and taking entire care of the children 
 and house, hastening out, when relieved awhile by 
 a kindly neighbor, to do ' anything to bring in a 
 little money* when we see changes like these, ac- 
 companied by patience and cheerfulness, and a gruw-
 
 552 STRONG DRINK f 
 
 ing sense of personal responsibility, we thankfully 
 accept them as proofs of the genuineness of the work 
 and hopefully look for its continuance." 
 
 TOUCHING INCIDENTS. 
 
 
 
 In a previous report, speaking of the visits made 
 to the families of inmates, she says : 
 
 " In no case has a visit ever been received with- 
 out expression of absolute pleasure, and especially 
 gratitude, for ' what the Home has done for me and 
 mine/ 
 
 "Although, unhappily, there are instances of men 
 haying, through stress of temptation, violated their 
 pledges, it is believed that not one case has occurred 
 of a family, once brought together through the influ- 
 ence of the Home, again being separated by the 
 return to intemperance of the husband and father, 
 and the results of their faithfulness are to be seen in 
 the growing comfort and happiness of those de- 
 pendent on~ them. 
 
 "An aged mother, not only bowed down with the 
 weight of seventy years, but heart-sick with the 
 'hope deferred' of ever finding her intemperate son, 
 heard of him at last, as rescued by the Home ; and, 
 being brought to the Sunday and evening services, 
 met him there, ' clothed and in his right mind.' The 
 tears streamed down her face, as she suid : ' That 
 man is forty years old, and I've been a widow ever 
 since he was a baby, and I've wept over him often 
 and often, and to-day I've shed tears enough to bathe
 
 TIIE CURSE AND THE CURE. -,.-,;; 
 
 him from head to foot, but, oh! thank the Lord! 
 are such h"i>py tears!' 
 
 " Said one wife : ' Some days, these hard times, 
 we have enough to eat, and some days we don't ; 
 but all the time I'm just as happy as I can be ! 
 
 " ' I wish you could see my children run, laugh- 
 ing, to the door when their father comes home. Oh ! 
 he is another man from what he was a year ago ; 
 he is so happy at home with us now, and always so 
 patient and kind ! 
 
 " ' Do tell us if there isn't something if it is ever 
 s little that we women can do for the Home ; we 
 never can forget what it has done for us !' 
 
 " Such words, heard again and again with every 
 variety of expression, attests the sincerity of those 
 who, in widely differing circumstances, perhaps 
 have yet this common bond, that through this in- 
 strumentality, they are rejoicing over a husband, a 
 father, a son, * which was dead, and is alive was 
 lost, and is found.' 
 
 "Surely, such proof of the intrinsic worth of a 
 work like this, is beyond all expression full of 
 comfort and encouragement to persevere." 
 
 Again : " Through their instrumentality families 
 long alienated and separated have been happily 
 brought together. This branch of the ladies' work 
 has been peculiarly blest; and their reward is rich 
 in witnessing not only homes ma<le haj>ji<T through 
 their labors, but hearts so ineltel by their personal 
 kindness and by the Gospel message whieli they
 
 554 STRONG DRINK,- 
 
 carry, that husbands and wives, convicted of the 
 sinfulness of their neglect of the great salvation, 
 come forward to declare themselves soldiers of. the 
 cross, and unite with the Christian church." 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF INMATES. 
 
 As the value of this and similar institutions is 
 best seen in what they have done and are doing, we 
 give two extracts from letters received from men 
 who have been reformed through the agency of the 
 "Home" in Philadelphia. In the first, the writer 
 says : 
 
 " It has now been nearly two years since I left the 
 Franklin Home. I had been a drinking man ten 
 years, and it got such a hold on me that I could not 
 resist taking it. I had tried a number of times to 
 reform, and at one time, was in the Dashaway's 
 Home, in California, where they steep everything 
 in liquor, but when I came out I still had the desire 
 to drink, and only kept from it for nine months. I 
 again commenced, and kept sinking lower and lower, 
 till I lost my friends, and felt there was no hope for 
 me. On the 31st day of May, 1873, 1 came to the 
 Franklin Home, and have never tasted intoxicating 
 liquor since, which is the longest time I was ever 
 without it since I commenced to drink. I feel now 
 that I will never drink again, as I do not associate 
 with drinking men, or go to places where liquor is 
 sold. It was so different at the Home from any- 
 thing I had ever met or heard of, that I went away
 
 TllK CURSE ASD THE CURE. 555 
 
 with more strength to resist than ever before. When 
 I came to the Home I could not get a position in 
 Philadelphia, nobody having confidence in me. 
 Since then I have been engaged as foreman in a 
 manufacturing establishment, by the very man that 
 had diaeharged me several times for drinking, and 
 have been with him a year. I feel more happy and 
 contented now than any time in ten years past, and 
 if I had a friend who I found this was taking hold 
 of, I would bring him to the Home, for I believe 
 any one that is sincere can be reformed, and I would 
 recommend any man that needs and desires to re- 
 form to go to the Home, as I did." 
 
 AFTEB FIVE YEARS. 
 
 Writing to Mr. Samuel P. Godwin, President of 
 the Franklin Home, an old inmate, five years after 
 his reformation, says : " I received your kind letter 
 and recognized in it the challenge of the ever- 
 watchful sentinel, ' How goes the night, brother ?' 
 I answer back, 'All is well.' I am delighted to hear 
 of the continued success of ' my second mother,' the 
 Home, and the Association, my brothers; and I 
 thank (io<l, who is encouraging you all in your 
 eilorts for fallen men, by showing you the ripening 
 fruits of your labor efforts and labors that are in- 
 spired by a love of God that enables you to see in 
 every fallen man the soul made like unto His own 
 image. The Home and all its workers, its princi- 
 ples, the nidless and untiring eilorU made, challenge
 
 556 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 the wonder and admiration of every Christian heart. 
 Its grand results will admit of but one explanation, 
 that ' It is God's work/ We, the reclaimed,- can 
 never give expression to the grateful emotions of our 
 hearts. We can only let our lives be its best eulogy. 
 We hope to vindicate in the future, as we have in 
 the past, (by adhering to its principles) the great 
 Christian truth, the grace of God is all-powerful, all- 
 saving. Oh ! what has not the Home done for us all! 
 It sought us amid temptations, misery and sorrow, and 
 took us into its warm and fond embrace, clearing 
 away the debris that intemperance and misfortune 
 had piled up, tearing down all false theories of dis- 
 ease and seizing our convictions. It reached down 
 into our hearts by its admirable practical mode of 
 imparting its principles, impressing all its lessons 
 with the examples of living, active men, who, 
 through its aid, accepting its teachings and practic- 
 ing them, have become reformed men in a word, 
 conquerors of self. By its love, fostering care and 
 ever-watchful solicitude for us, it has awakened the 
 lessons of love and faith learned at a dear mother's 
 knee in childhood, which, if forgotten for a time, 
 were never entirely dead, and required but just such 
 an influence to warm them into life. It enables me 
 to say to you now, at the end of five years, I have 
 been a total abstinence man for that time, and by 
 and with the help of God, I will die that." 
 
 But enough has been educed to show the import- 
 ance of this and other " Homes " for the recovery
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE 
 
 of inebriates, and to direct public attention to their 
 great value. Those already established should be 
 liberally sustained by the communities in which 
 they are located, and similar institutions should be 
 organized and put in operation in all the larger 
 cities of the Union. Thousands of outcast, helpless, 
 perishing men, who, but for the fatal habits they have 
 acquired, would be good and useful citizens, might, 
 it' this were done, be every year restored to them- 
 selves, their families and to society. If we cannot, 
 as yet, stay the curse that is upon our land, let us 
 do all in our power to heal what has been hurt, and 
 to restore what has been lost. 
 
 In every truly reformed man, the temperance 
 cause gains a new and valuable recruit The great 
 army that is to do successful battle with the destroy- 
 ing enemy that is abroad in the land, will come 
 chiefly from the ranks of those who have felt the 
 crush of his iron heel. So we gain strength with 
 every prisoner that is rescued from the enemy ; for 
 every such rescued man will hate this enemy ^Yitll 
 an undying hatred, and so long as he maintains his 
 integrity, stand fronting him in the field. 
 
 Dr. Harris, the attending physician of the 
 "Franklin Reformatory Home," whose long ( 
 rience and careful observation enable him to speak 
 intelligently as to the causes which Jead to relapses 
 among reformed men, has kindly furnished us with 
 the following suggestions as to the dangers that be- 
 set their way. The doctor has done a good service
 
 558 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 in this. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. \Te 
 are also indebted to him for the chapter on " To- 
 bacco as an Incitant to the Use of Alcoholic Stimu- 
 lant," which immediately follows this one, and 
 which was especially prepared by him for the pre- 
 sent volume. 
 
 DANGERS THAT BESET THE REFORMED INEBRIATE. 
 
 BY DR. B. P. HARRIS. 
 
 "Come, take a drink" How pernicious is this 
 treating generosity of the inebriate, and how im- 
 portant to the reformed to be firm in declining his 
 invitation. To hesitate, is, in most cases, to yield. 
 
 Old companions. These should be avoided, and 
 made to understand that their company is not con- 
 genial ; and new and safe ones should be selected. 
 
 Attacks of sickness. A quondam inebriate should 
 never employ a physician who drinks, and should 
 always tell his medical attendant that he cannot 
 take any medicine containing alcohol. It is very 
 unsafe to resort to essence of ginger, paregoric, 
 spirits of lavender or burnt brandy, and friends 
 very injudiciously, sometimes, recommend remedies 
 that are dangerous in the extreme. We saw one 
 man driven into insanity by his employer recom- 
 mending him a preparation of rhubarb, in Jamaica 
 spirits, which he took with many misgivings, be- 
 cause, six years before he had been a drunkard. 
 The old appetite was revived in full force at once. 
 Diarrhoea can be much better treated without tine-
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 559 
 
 a and essences than with them, as proved by 
 the large experience of the Franklin Home, where 
 they are never prescribed. 
 
 Bad company of either sex. Remember what is 
 said of the strange woman in Proverbs v., 3-12; 
 and the advice given in the first Psalm. Lust has 
 driven to drunkenness and death many a promising 
 case of reform. 
 
 Entering a tavern. It is never safe to buy a 
 cigar, take a glass of lemonade, eat a plate of 
 oysters or even drink water at a bar where liquors 
 are sold. The temptation, and revival of old associa- 
 tions, are too much for weak human nature to with- 
 
 : 1. 
 
 Politics, military organizations, etc. Many a 
 nun has In't'ii made a drunkard by the war, or by 
 becoming an active politician. Associations of men 
 leading to excitement of any kind stimulate them to 
 invite each other to drink as a social custom. For- 
 IIIT inebriates should avoid all forms of excitement. 
 Said a former politician, who has not drank for five 
 - : " If I was to go back to politics, and allow 
 matters to take their natural course, I should soon 
 drift again into drunkenness." 
 
 "Idleness" says the French proverb, "is the 
 mother of all vices;" hence the advantage and im- 
 }M>rtance of being actively employed. 
 
 \Vnrkinii in cfintninniti>A. There are no men 
 more inclined to drunkenness than shoemakers, 
 hatters and those in machine shops. Shoemakers
 
 560 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 are especially difficult to reform, as they incite each 
 other to drink, and club together and send out for 
 beer or whisky. 
 
 Use of excessive quantities of pepper, mustard 
 and horse-radish. No person can use biting condi- 
 ments to the same degree as drunkards; and re- 
 formed men must largely moderate their allowance, 
 if they expect to keep their appetite under for some- 
 thing stronger. Tavern-keepers understand that 
 salt and peppery articles, furnished gratis for lunch, 
 will pay back principal and profit in the amount 
 they induce men to drink. 
 
 Loss of money or death in the family. These 
 are among the most severe of all the trials to be en- 
 countered by the reformed drunkard. Hazardous 
 ventures in stocks or business are dangerous in the 
 extreme. Without the grace of God in the heart, 
 and the strength that it gives in times of depression 
 of spirits under severe trial, there are few reformed 
 men who can bear, with any safety, the loss of a 
 wife or very dear child. Thousands who have, for 
 the time, abandoned the habit have returned to it 
 to drown, in unconsciousness, their feeling of loss ; 
 hence the great and vital importance of an entire 
 change of heart to enable a man to go to his faith 
 for consolation, and to look to God for help in tunes 
 of trial and temptation.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 TOBACCO AS AX IXCITANT TO THE USE OF ALCOHOLIC 
 
 STIMULANTS, AND AN OBSTACLE IN THE WAY 
 
 OF A PERMANENT REFORMATION. 
 
 BV DR. R. P. HARRIS, PHYSICIAN OP THE " PRANKUN REFORMATORY 
 
 HOME." 
 
 WHEN we consider the almost universal use of 
 tobacco, especially in the form of smoking, 
 among our male population, it is not to be wondered 
 at that this powerful poison has come to be regarded 
 as an innocent and almost necessary vegetable pro- 
 duction, not to be used as food exactly, but greatly 
 allied to it as an article of daily consumption. Few 
 stop to reason about its properties or effects ; they 
 remember, perhaps, how sick they were made by 
 the first chew or smoke, but this having long passed, 
 hi'lk-ve that as their systems have become accus- 
 tomed, apparently, to the poison, it cannot be doing 
 them any real injury. "When we reflect that tobacco 
 contains from one to nearly seven per cent, of ntco- 
 tine one of the most powerful vegetable poisons 
 known a few drops of which are sufficient to de- 
 stroy life, it is not difficult to perceive that this 
 faith in the Innocence begotten of use must be fal- 
 lacious. We have met with instances where the 
 36 661
 
 562 STEONG DRINK; 
 
 poisonous effects of tobacco were manifest after every 
 smoke, even where the attempt to accustom the sys- 
 tem to its use had been persevered in for many 
 years ; and yet the men never realized what was the 
 matter with them, until they had, under medical 
 advice, ceased to use the drug. 
 
 Before the discovery of anesthetics, tobacco was 
 used as a remedy to produce relaxation in cases of 
 strangulated hernia ; and although very cautiously 
 administered in the form of tea, or smoke per rec- 
 tum, proved fatal in many instances. As little as 
 twelve grains in six ounces of water having thus 
 acted ; and from half a drachm to two drachms in 
 a number of instances. When men chew as high 
 as a pound and a quarter of strong navy tobacco a 
 week, or three packages of fine-cut in a day, it must 
 certainly tell upon them sooner or later ; or even in 
 much less quantity. 
 
 If men used tobacco in moderation, there would be 
 much less objection to it, if it was not so intimately 
 
 ASSOCIATED WITH THE HABIT OF DRINKING. 
 
 This is recognized by the trade, in the fact that we 
 see many tobacco stores as the entrance to drinking 
 saloons. Ninety- three per cent, of the men who 
 have been admitted to the Franklin Reformatory 
 Home used tobacco, and eighty per cent, of them 
 chewed it. There may be possibly as high as ninety- 
 three per cent, of male adults who smoke, but eighty 
 per cent, of chewers is undoubtedly a large propor-
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 563 
 
 tion as compared with those in the same ranks of 
 society who do not drink. 
 
 Although the poisonous symptoms of tobacco are, 
 in a great degree, the same in different persons at 
 the inception of the habit, the effects vary materially 
 in after years according to the quantity and variety 
 used, the form employed and the habits and tem- 
 perament of the user. One man will chew a paper 
 a week, another four, many use one a day, and a 
 few from one and a half to three a day, besides 
 smoking. Occasionally, but very rarely, we find a 
 man who limits himself to one cigar a day, a number 
 allow themselves but three, but of later years even 
 these are moderate compared with those who use 
 eight, ten or more. 
 
 There are many men who, for years, preserve a 
 robust, hale appearance under both tobacco and 
 whisky, who are, notwithstanding their apparent 
 health, steadily laying the foundation of diseased 
 heart, or 
 
 DERANGEMENT OF THE DIGESTIVE ORGANS 
 
 or nervous system from the former, or an organic 
 fatal disease of the liver or kidneys from the latter. 
 Healthy-looking men are often rejected by ex- 
 aminers of life insurance companies because of ir- 
 n'unilar and intermittent action of the heart from 
 tobacco ; and equally robust subjects are forced to 
 abandon the habit because of tremors, vertigo or a 
 pmiliur form of dyspepsia. AVe have known men
 
 504 STKOXG DRINK; 
 
 who died from the use of tobacco, and others who 
 met a like fate from whisky, who were never fully 
 in the state denominated drunk. Men may earn a 
 hobnail liver and dropsy by the constant, steady 
 use of alcoholic drink taken systematically, so as 
 always to keep within the limits of intoxication ; or 
 they may, in the same way, get a diabetes or Bright's 
 disease. 
 
 Abundant testimony in regard to the effects of 
 tobacco in creating an appetite for strong drink has 
 been given by the inmates of the Franklin Home. 
 In a few exceptional cases the use of tobacco does 
 not appear to create any sense of thirst ; and this 
 is specially the case with the smokers who do not 
 spit when smoking. Some men seem to be free 
 from any alcoholic craving when using tobacco, and 
 say that when they commence to drink they give 
 up the drug for the time being. These are excep- 
 tional cases, for excess in drinking generally leads 
 to an excess in the use of tobacco, often to double 
 the amount ordinarily employed. We have often 
 been told by moderate drinkers, that they frequently 
 
 FELT A DESIRE FOB A LITTLE WHISKY AFTER A SMOKE, 
 
 and they have confessed that they were only saved 
 from a habit of drinking to excess by the fact that 
 they had no innate fondness for alcoholic stimulation. 
 Unfortunately, there is a large and increasing class 
 of men who, finding that water does not, but that 
 alcohol does, relieve the dryness of throat and dis-
 
 THE CUSSE ASD THE CUIiK 
 
 eased thirst resulting from tobacco, are led, little by 
 little, into the habit of using whisky to excess. 
 hnu-h nun, after, it may be, a long abstinence, are 
 not unfrequently led back into their old habits by 
 an attack of nervousness, resulting from a tempo- 
 rary excessive use of tobacco, and a feeling that all 
 that is wanting to relieve this is a glass of whisky, 
 which being taken, at once determines a debauch of 
 long or short duration, according to the habits and 
 character of the party. Many a so-called periodi- 
 cal drinker fixes the return of his period by an act 
 of this kind, and with such cases it is all-important 
 to their permanent reformation, that they should 
 cease entirely and forever from the use of tobacco. 
 We have, in a few instances, prevailed upon men to 
 do this, but in a large majority of cases, where they 
 have admitted the connection between the two habits, 
 in their own person, or volunteered to tell how 
 much tobacco had acted in forming and keeping up 
 their appetite for whisky, they have failed in being 
 able to sum up sufficient resolution to abandon the 
 use of the drug, saying that they felt the import- 
 ance of the step, and would be glad to be able to 
 give it up, but that the habit was 
 
 Ti;.\ TIMES AS DIFFICULT TO CONQUER AS THAT OF 
 
 UIIISKY-DKINKING. 
 
 All that we have been able to accomplish in such 
 cases has been to check the excessive use. AVc have 
 repeatedly assured mm, after a careful examination
 
 566 STKOXQ DRINK; 
 
 of their peculiar cases, that they would certainly 
 drink again unless they gave up their tobacco, and 
 have seen this opinion verified, because they took, 
 no heed to the warning. We have also been grati- 
 fied in a few instances by hearing a man say that 
 he felt confident that he could never have accom- 
 plished his reformation as he had done, if he had 
 not taken the advice given him about abandoning 
 his tobacco. In contrast with the men of weak pur- 
 pose, we have to admire one who had resolution 
 enough to break off the three habits of opium- 
 eating, whisky-drinking and tobacco-chewing no 
 trifling matter when the first was of ten and the 
 last of more than thirty years' duration. 
 
 We have been repeatedly asked which was the 
 most injurious, smoking or chewing, and have re- 
 plied, that everything depended upon the amount 
 of nicotine absorbed in the process, and the loss to 
 the system in the saliva spit out. Men have died 
 from the direct effect of excessive smoking, and quite 
 recently a death in a child was reported from the 
 result of blowing soap-bubbles with an old wooden 
 pipe. We have known a little boy to vomit from 
 drawing air a few times through the empty meer- 
 schaum pipe of his German teacher. The smoking 
 of two pipes as the first essay, very nearly caused 
 the death of a young man, whose case was reported 
 by Dr. Marshall Hall. 
 
 The least poisonous tobaccos are those of Syria 
 and Turkey, but the cigarettes made of them in the
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CUHF. 
 
 .and imported into this country are said to be 
 impregnated with opium. Virginia tobacco, for the 
 pipe or chewing, contains a large percentage of 
 nicotine, and the former is often impregnated with 
 foreign matters, recognizable by the choking effect 
 of the smoke when inhaled, or by the removal of 
 the epithelium (outer skin) of the tongue at the 
 point under the end of the pipe-stem. 
 
 If we fail in our efforts to reform the tobacco 
 habit, the next best thing to do, is to show men 
 what the nature and capabilities of the poison are, 
 and endeavor to persuade them to use the milder 
 varieties and in a moderate quantity. 
 
 ONE OF THE GREAT CURSES OF THE RISING GENE- 
 RATION 
 
 is the passion for imitating and acquiring the evil 
 habits of men, under an impression that it hastens 
 their approach to manhood. Weak, frail, delicate 
 boys, with inherited tendencies to disease, who 
 should, by all means, never use tobacco, or anything 
 injurious, are often as obstinately bent upon learning 
 to smoke, in spite of medical advice, as those in 
 whom a moderate use would be far less objection- 
 able. A recent observer, in examining into the 
 cases of thirty -eight boys who had formed the hnhit 
 of using tobacco, found that twenty-seven of them 
 had also a fondness for alcoholic stimulants. A 
 large proportion of the Franklin Home inmates 
 attribute their habit of drinking to the effects of
 
 568 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 company ; many commenced in the army, and many 
 were induced to drink at first by invitation. If 
 smoking was a solitary habit, it would be less likely 
 to lead to drinking ; but the same companionship, 
 and habits of treating prevail, as in the saloon, and 
 the step from the estaminet to the bar-room under 
 invitation, is an easy one, where the diseased thirst, 
 so often induced by tobacco, favors the movement 
 to treat. 
 
 We have no prejudice against tobacco, other than 
 what would naturally arise in the mind from a 
 careful examination of the effects of the poison 
 in hundreds of cases. We have seen large, hale- 
 looking men forced in time to abandon, although 
 very reluctantly, the use of tobacco in every form ; 
 and the most bitter enemy we have ever met to the 
 vile weed, as he termed it, was a physician, who had 
 been forced to give up chewing on account of the 
 state of his heart, after years of indulgence. We 
 have seen many such instances, and, in one case, the 
 abandonment of the habit entirely cured a dyspepsia 
 of twenty -eight years' standing.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE WOMAJFS CRUSADE. 
 
 FOR every one saved through the agency of ine- 
 briate asylums and reformatory homes, hun- 
 dreds are lost and hundreds added yearly to the 
 great army of drunkards. Good and useful as such 
 institutions are, they do not meet the desperate exi- 
 gencies of the case. Something of wider reach and 
 quirker application is demanded. AVhat shall it be ? 
 In prohibition many look for the means by which 
 the curse of drunkenness is to be abated. But, 
 while we wait for a public sentiment strong enough 
 to determine legislation, sixty thousand unhappy 
 beings are yearly consigned to drunkards' graves. 
 
 What have temperance men accomplished in the 
 fifty years during which they have so earnestly op- 
 posed the drinking usages of society and the trailie 
 in alcoholic drinks ? And what have they done for 
 the prevention and cure of drunkenness? In lim- 
 iting the use of intoxicants, in restricting the liquor 
 traffic and in giving a right direction to public 
 sentiment, they have done a great and good work; 
 but their efforts to reclaim the fallen drunkard have 
 met with sad discouragements. In the work of 
 prevention, much has been accomplished ; in the 
 5G9
 
 570 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 work of cure, alas ! how little. The appetite once 
 formed, and the unhappy victim finds himself under 
 the control of a power from which he can rarely 
 get free. Pledges, new associations, better and more 
 favorable surroundings, all are tried, and many are 
 saved; but the number of the saved are few in 
 comparison with those who, after a season of so- 
 briety, fall back into their old ways. 
 
 In all these many years of untiring efforts to lift 
 up and save the fallen, what sad disappointments 
 have met our earnest and devoted temperance 
 workers. From how many fields, which seemed 
 full of a rich promise, have they gathered only a 
 meagre harvest. But still they have worked on, 
 gaining strength from defeat and disappointment ; 
 for they knew that the cause in which they were 
 engaged was the cause of God and humanity, and 
 that in the end it must prevail. 
 
 Meantime, the bitter, half-despairing cry, "O Lord, 
 how long !" was going up from the lips of broken- 
 hearted wives and mothers all over the land, and year 
 by year this cry grew deeper and more desperate. 
 All hope in man was failing from their hearts. 
 They saw restrictive legislation here and there, and 
 even prohibition ; but, except in a few cases, no re- 
 moval of the curse; for behind law, usage, preju- 
 dice, interest and appetite the traffic stood intrenched 
 and held its seat of power. 
 
 At last, in the waning years of the first century 
 of our nation's existence, their failing hope in man
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 57 1 
 
 utterly, and with another and deeper and more 
 despairing cry, the women of our land sent up their 
 voices to God. Not now saying " O Lord, how long !" 
 but "Lord, come to our help against the mighty!" 
 
 What followed is history. The first result of this 
 utter abandonment of all hope in moral suasion or 
 legal force, and of a turning to God in prayer and 
 faith, was that strange, intense, impulsive movement 
 known as the " Woman's Crusade." 
 
 BEGINNING OF THE CRUSADE. 
 
 Let us briefly give the story of its initiation late 
 in the month of December, 1873. Dr. Dio Lewis, 
 in a lecture which he had been engaged to deliver 
 at Hillsboro, Ohio, related how, forty years before, 
 his pious mother, the wife of a drunkard, who was 
 struggling to feed, clothe and educate her five help- 
 less children, went, with other women who had a 
 similar sorrow with her own, to the tavern-keeper 
 who sold their husbands drink, and, kneeling down 
 in his bar-room, prayed with and for him, and be- 
 sought him to abandon a business that was cursing 
 his neighbors and bringing want and suffering into 
 tlu-ir homes. Their prayers and entreatirs juwaik'd. 
 After telling this story of his mother, the lecturer 
 asked all the women present who were willing to 
 follow her example to rise, and in response, nearly 
 the entire audience arose. A meeting was thru 
 calU-il for the next morning, to be held in the Pres- 
 byterian church.
 
 572 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 Dr. Lewis was a guest at the old mansion of Ex- 
 Governor Trimble, father of Mrs. E. J. Thompson, 
 a most cultivated, devoted Christian woman, mother 
 of eight children. She was not present at the lec- 
 ture, but " prepared," as she writes, " as those who 
 watch for the morning, for the first gray light upon 
 this dark night of sorrow. Few comments were 
 made in our house," she continues, " upon this new 
 line of policy until after breakfast the next morning, 
 when, just as we gathered about the hearth-stone, my 
 daughter Mary said, very gently : ' Mother, will you 
 go the meeting this morning ?' Hesitatingly I re- 
 plied : ' I don't know yet what I shall do/ My 
 husband, fully appreciating the responsibility of the 
 moment, said : ' Children, let us leave your mother 
 alone ; for you know where she goes with all vexed 
 questions ;' and pointing to the old family Bible, left 
 the room. The awful responsibility of the step that 
 I must needs next take was wonderfully relieved by 
 thought of the ' cloudy pillar ' and ' parted waters ' 
 of the past; hence, with confidence, I was about 
 turning my eye of faith 'up to the hills/ from 
 whence had come my help, when-, in response to a 
 gentle tap at my door, I met my dear Mary, who, 
 with her Bible in hand and tearful eyes, suid : 
 ' Mother, I opened to Psalm cxlvi., and I believe it 
 is for you.' She withdrew and I sat down to read 
 the wonderful message from God. As I read what 
 I had so often read before, the Spirit so strangely 
 ' took of the things of God,' and showed me new
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 573 
 
 meanings, I no longer hesitated, but, in the strength 
 thus imparted, started to the scene of action. 
 
 " Upon entering the church, I was startled to find 
 myself chosen as leader. The old Bible was taken 
 down from the desk, and Psalm cxlvi. read. Mrs. 
 General McDowell, by request, led in prayer, and, 
 although she had never before heard her own voice 
 in a public prayer, on this occasion ' the tongue of 
 fire* sat upon her, and all were deeply affected. 
 Mrs. Cowden, our Methodist minister's wife, was 
 then requested to sing to a familiar air 
 
 " ' Give to the winds thy fears I 
 Hope, and be undismayed ; 
 God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears : 
 lie will lift up thy head.' 
 
 And while thus engaged, the women (seventy-five 
 in number) fell in line, two and two, and proceeded 
 first to the drug stores and then to the hotels and 
 saloons." 
 
 Thus began this memorable Crusade, which was 
 maintained in llillsboro for over six months, during 
 which time the saloons were visited almost daily. 
 
 Within two days, the women of Washington 
 Court-House, a neighboring town, felt the inspira- 
 tion of their sisters, and inaugurated the movement 
 there. A description of what was done at this place 
 will afford the reader a clear impression of tin- 
 way in which the "Crusaders" worked, and the re- 
 sults that followed their efforts. We quote from 
 the account given by Mrs. M. V. I -tick :
 
 574 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 " After an hour of prayer, forty-four women filed 
 slowly and solemnly down the aisle and started 
 forth upon their strange mission, with fear and 
 trembling, while the male portion of the audience 
 remained at church to pray from the success of this 
 new undertaking; the tolling of the church-bell 
 keeping time to the solemn march of the women, 
 as they wended their way to the first drug store on 
 the list (the number of places within the city limits 
 where intoxicating drinks were sold was fourteen 
 eleven saloons and three drug stores). Here, as in 
 every place, they entered singing, every woman 
 taking up the sacred strain as she crossed the thresh- 
 old. This was followed by the reading of the appeal 
 and prayer, and then earnest pleading to desist from 
 their soul-destroying traffic and to sign the dealers' 
 pledge. Thus, all the day long, going from place 
 to place, without stopping even for dinner or lunch, 
 till five o'clock, meeting with no marked success ; 
 but invariably courtesy was extended to them. 
 
 " The next day an increased number of women 
 went forth, leaving the men in the church to pray 
 all day long. On this day the contest really began, 
 and at the first place the doors were found locked. 
 With hearts full of compassion, the women knelt 
 in the snow upon the pavement to plead for the 
 Divine influence upon the heart of the liquor-dealer, 
 and there held their first street prayer-meeting. 
 The Sabbath was devoted to a union mass-meeting. 
 Monday, December 29th, is one long to be remem-
 
 TUB CURSE AND THE CURE. 575 
 
 bered in Washington as the day on which occurred 
 the iirst surrender ever made by a liquor-dealer of 
 his stock of liquors of every kind and variety to the 
 women, in answer to their prayers and entreaties, and 
 by them poured into the street. Nearly a thousand 
 men, women and children witnessed the mingling 
 of beer, ale, wine and whisky, as they filled the 
 gutters and were drunk up by the earth, while bells 
 were ringing, men and boys shouting, and women sing- 
 ing and praying to God, who had given the victory. 
 
 "On the fourth day, the campaign reached its 
 height ; the town being filled with visitors from all 
 parts of the country and adjoining villages. An- 
 other public surrender and another pouring into the 
 street of a larger stock of liquors than on the day 
 before, and more intense excitement and enthusiasm. 
 In eight days all the saloons, eleven in number, 
 had been closed, and the three drug stores pledged 
 to sell only on prescription. 
 
 " Early in the third week the discouraging intelli- 
 gence came that a new man had taken out license 
 to Bell liquor in one of the deserted saloons, and 
 that he was backed by a whisky house in Cincin- 
 nati to the amount of five thousand dollars to break 
 down this movement. On Wednesday, 14th of 
 January, the whisky was unloaded at his room. 
 About forty women were on the ground and fol- 
 lowed the liquor in, and remained holding an unin- 
 terrupted prayer-meeting all day and until eleven 
 o'clock at night. The next day bitterly cold was
 
 576 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 spent in the same place and manner, without fire or 
 chairs, two hours of that time the women being 
 locked in, while the proprietor was off attending a 
 trial. On the following day, the coldest of the win- 
 ter of 1874, the women were locked out, and re- 
 mained on the street holding religious services all 
 day long. Next morning a tabernacle was built in 
 the street just in front of the house, and was occu- 
 pied for the double purpose of watching and praying 
 through the day ; but before night the sheriff closed 
 the saloon, and the proprietor surrendered. A short 
 time afterwards, on a dying bed, this four-day's 
 liquor-dealer sent for some of these women, telling 
 them their songs and prayers had never ceased to 
 ring in his ears, and urging them to pray again in 
 his behalf; so he passed away." 
 
 From this beginning the new temperance move- 
 ment increased and spread with a marvelous rapidity. 
 The incidents attendant on the progress of the 
 " Crusade " were often of a novel and exciting char- 
 acter. Such an interference with their business 
 was not to be tolerated by the liquor men ; and they 
 soon began to organize for defense and retaliation. 
 They not only had the law on their side, but in 
 many cases, the administrators of the law. Yet it 
 often happened, in consequence of their reckless 
 violations of statutes made to limit and regulate the 
 traffic, that dealers found themselves without standing 
 in the courts, or entangled in the meshes of the very 
 laws they had invoked for protection.
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 577 
 
 In the smaller towns the movement was, for a 
 time, almost irresistible ; and in many of them the 
 drink traffic ceased altogether. But when it struck 
 the larger cities, it met with impediments, against 
 which it beat violently for awhile, but without the 
 ft nve to bear them down. Our space will not per- 
 mit us to more than glance at some of the incidents 
 attendant on this singular crusade. The excitement 
 that followed its inauguration in the large city of 
 ( '! vi land was intense. It is thus described by Mrs. 
 Sarah K. Bolton in her history of the Woman's 
 Crusade, to which we have already referred: 
 
 HOW THE CRUSADERS WERE TREATED. 
 
 " The question was constantly asked : ' Will the 
 women of a conservative city of one hundred and 
 fifty thousand go upon the street as a praying-band ?' 
 Tin- Liquor-dealers said: 'Send committees of two 
 or three and we will talk with them ; but coming in 
 a body to pray with us brands our business as dis- 
 reputable.' The time came when the Master seemed 
 to call for a mightier power to bear upon the liquor 
 traffic, and a company of heroic women, many of 
 tin-in the wives of prominent clergymen, led by 
 W. A. Ingham, said : ' Here am I ; the Lord's 
 will l>e done.' 
 
 "On the third day of the street work, the whi.-ky 
 
 and beer interest seemed to have awakened to a full 
 
 consciousness of the situation. Drinkers, di-alers 
 
 and roughs gathered in large numbers on the street 
 
 37
 
 578 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 to wait for the praying women. A mob, Leaded by 
 an organization of brewers, rushed upon them, 
 kicking them, striking them with their fists and 
 hitting them with brickbats. The women were 
 locked in a store away from the infuriated mob, 
 who, on the arrival of a stronger body of police, 
 were dispersed, cursing and yelling as they went. 
 The next day, taking their lives in their hands, a 
 larger company of women went out, and somewhat 
 similar scenes were enacted. Meantime, public 
 meetings, called in the churches, were so crowded 
 that standing room could not be found. The clergy, 
 as one man, came to the front. Business men left 
 their stores and shops, ministers their studies, and a 
 thousand manly men went out to defend the praying 
 women. The military companies were ordered to 
 be in readiness, resting on their arms ; the police 
 force was increased, and the liquor interest soon 
 made to feel that the city was not under its control. 
 The mob never again tried its power. For three 
 months, with scarcely a day's exception, the praying- 
 bands, sometimes with twenty in each, working in 
 various parts of the city ; sometimes with five hun- 
 dred, quietly and silently, two by two, forming a 
 procession over a quarter of a mile in length, fol- 
 lowed by scores in carriages, who could not bear the 
 long walks, went from saloon to saloon, holding 
 services where the proprietors were willing, and in 
 warehouses which were thrown open to them, or in 
 vacant lots near by, when they were unwilling.
 
 THE CURSE AXD TUE CURE. 579 
 
 Men took off their hats, and often wept 
 as the long procession went by. Little children 
 gathered close to the singers, and catching the words, 
 sang them months afterwards in their dingy hovels. 
 _ranl women bent their heads as they mur- 
 mured with unutterable sadness, 'You've come too 
 late to save my boy or my husband.' Many saloon- 
 keepers gave up their business and never resumed 
 it. Many who had lost all hope because of the ap- 
 petite which bound them, heard from woman's lips 
 the glad tidings of freedom in Christ, and accepted 
 the liberty of the Gospel." 
 
 In many other places the crusaders met with vio- 
 lence from exasperated liquor-dealers and their 
 brutish associates. A pail of cold water was thrown 
 into the face of a woman in Clyde, Ohio, as she 
 knelt praying in front of a saloon. Dirty water 
 was thrown by pailfuls over the women at Norwalk. 
 At Columbus, a saloon-keeper assaulted one of the 
 praying-band, injuring her seriously. In Cincin- 
 nati, forty-three women were arrested by the authori- 
 ties for praying in the street and lodged in jail. In 
 In llefontaine, a large liquor-dealer declared that if 
 the praying-band visited him he would use powder 
 and Irad ; but the women, undeterred by his threat, 
 sang and prayed in front of his saloon every day 
 for a week, in spite of the insults and noisy inter- 
 ferences of himself and customers. At the end of 
 that time the man made his appearance at a mass- 
 meeting and signed the pledge; and on the follow-
 
 530 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 ing Sunday attended church for the first time in 
 five years. 
 
 DECLINE OF THE CRUSADING SPIRIT. 
 
 From Ohio the excitement soon spread to other 
 Western States, and then passed east and south, 
 until it was felt in nearly every State in the Union ; 
 but it did not gain force by extension. To the 
 sober, second-thought of those who had, in singleness 
 of heart, self-consecration and trust in God, thrown 
 themselves into this work because they believed that 
 they were drawn of the Spirit, came the perception 
 of other, better and more orderly ways of accom- 
 plishing the good they sought. If God were, in- 
 deed, with them if it was His Divine work of 
 saving human souls upon which they had entered, 
 He would lead them into the right ways, if they 
 were but willing to walk therein. Of this there 
 came to them a deep assurance ; and in the great 
 calm that fell after the rush and excitement and 
 wild confusion of that first movement against the 
 enemy, they heard the voice of God calling to them 
 still. And, as they hearkened, waiting to be led, 
 and willing to obey, light came, and they saw more 
 clearly. Not by swift, impetuous impulse, but 
 through organization and slow progression was the 
 victory to be won. 
 
 In the language of Frances E. Willard, in her 
 history of " The Woman's National Christian Tem- 
 perance Union," to be found in the Centennial
 
 THE CURSE AND TUB CURE. 
 
 temperance volume : " The women who went forth 
 by an impulse sudden, irresistible, divine, to pray 
 in the saloons, became convinced, as weeks and 
 months passed by, that theirs was to be no easily- 
 won victory. The enemy was rich beyond their 
 power to comprehend. He had upon his side the 
 majesty of the law, the trickery of politics and the 
 leagued strength of that almost invincible pair 
 appetite, avarice. He was persistent, too, as fate ; 
 determined to fight it out on that line to the last 
 dollar of his enormous treasure-house and the last 
 ounce of his power. But these women of the Cru- 
 sade believed in God, and in themselves as among 
 1 1 is appointed instruments to destroy the rum-power 
 in America. They loved Christ's cause ; they loved 
 the native land that had been so mindful of them ; 
 they loved their sweet and sacred homes ; and so it 
 came about that, though they had gone forth only 
 as skirmishers, they soon fell into line of battle; 
 though they had ignorantly hoped to take the enemy 
 by a sudden assault, they buckled on the armor for 
 the long campaign. The woman's praying-bands, 
 earnest, impetuous, inspired, became the woman's 
 temperance unions, firm, patient, persevering. The 
 praying-bands were without leadership, :-uve that 
 which inevitably results from ' the survival of the 
 lit t>t;' the woman's unions are regularly oflicered 
 in the usual way. They first wrought their grand 
 pioneer work in sublime indifference to prescribed 
 forms of procedure 'so say we all of us' being the.
 
 582 STEONO DRINK i 
 
 spirit of ' motions' often made, seconded and carried 
 by the chair,.while the assembled women nodded 
 their earnest acquiescence ; the second are possessed 
 of good, strong constitutions (with by-laws an- 
 nexed), and follow the order of business with a 
 dutiful regard to parliamentary usage. In the first, 
 women who had never lifted up their voices in their 
 own church prayer-meetings stood before thousands 
 and * spoke as they were moved ;' in the second, 
 these same women with added experience, and a 
 host of others who have since enlisted, impress the 
 public thought and conscience by utterances care- 
 fully considered. The praying-bands, hoping for 
 immediate victory, pressed their members into in- 
 cessant service ; the woman's unions, aware that the 
 battle is to be a long one, ask only for such help as 
 can be given consistently with other duties." 
 
 As the result of this intelligent effort at effective 
 organization by the women who inaugurated and 
 were prominent in the " Crusade," we have " The 
 Woman's National Christian Temperance Union," 
 with its auxiliary and local unions in nearly 
 every State ; one of the most efficient agencies in 
 the practical work of temperance reform which the 
 country has yet seen.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE WOMAN'S NATIONAL CHRISTIAN TEMPERANCE 
 
 UNION. 
 
 THvUEING the summer of 1874, when the re- 
 L^ action which had checked the "Crusade" 
 was recognized as something permanent by the 
 more thoughtful and observant of the women who 
 had been engaged in it, they paused for delibera- 
 tion, and took counsel together. Great victories had 
 been won in the brief season during which they 
 were masters of the field ; and now that the enemy 
 had rallied his forces, and intrenched himself be- 
 hind law, public opinion, politics and the State, 
 should they weakly give up the contest? Not so. 
 Thry had discovered wherein the weakness, as well 
 as the stivngth, of their enemy lay, and had come 
 into a new perception of their own powers and 
 resources. 
 
 ORGANIZATION. 
 
 The first step taken was to call conventions in 
 the various States where the Crusade had been 
 active. These were attended by delegates chosen 
 by the local praying-bando. The result was the 
 organization, in some of the States, of what were
 
 5S4 STRONG DEIXK; 
 
 known as " Temperance Leagues." Afterwards tlie 
 word " Unions" was substituted for Leagues. Hav- 
 ing organized by States, the next thing was to have 
 a National Union. In August of that year, the first 
 National Sunday-School Assembly was held at 
 Chautauqua Lake, near Buffalo, New York. Many 
 of the most earnest workers in the temperance Cru- 
 sade, from different parts of the United States, and 
 from the various denominations of Christians, were 
 present, and the conviction was general that steps 
 should at once be taken towards forming a National 
 League, in order to make permanent the work that 
 had already been done. After much deliberation, 
 a committee of organization was appointed, consist- 
 ing of a woman from each State. This committee 
 issued a circular letter, asking the various Woman's 
 Temperance Leagues to hold meetings, for the pur- 
 pose of electing one woman from each Congressional 
 district as a delegate to a National Convention, to 
 be held in November, at Cleveland, Ohio. A single 
 paragraph from this circular will show the spirit 
 that animated the call. 
 
 " It is hardly necessary to remind those who have 
 worked so nobly in the grand temperance uprising 
 that in union and organization are its success and 
 permanence, and the consequent redemption of this 
 land from the curse of intemperance. In the name 
 of our Master in behalf of the thousands of women 
 who suffer from this terrible evil, we call upon all 
 .to unite in an earnest, continued effort to hold the
 
 Till-: CURSE AXD THE CI'J'J:. 535 
 
 ground ;il n-ad v won, and move onward together to 
 a complete victory over the foes we fight." 
 
 Delegates representing sixteen States were pre- 
 sent at the convention, which held its first session in 
 
 .land, commencing on the 18th of November, 
 1874, and lasting for three days. Prominent among 
 its members were active leaders of the Crusade, but, 
 besides these, says Miss Willard, " there were pre- 
 sent many thoughtful and gifted women, whose 
 hearts had been stirred by the great movement, 
 though until now they had larked the opportunity 
 to identify themselves with it. Mrs. Jennie F. 
 AVilling presided over the convention, which was 
 one of the most earnest and enthusiastic ever held. 
 A constitution was adopted, also a plan of organiza- 
 tion intended to reach every hamlet, town and city 
 in the land. There was a declaration of principles, 
 of which Christianity alone could have furnished 
 the animus. An appeal to the women of our coun- 
 try was provided for; another to the girls of 
 America; a third to lands beyond the sea; a 
 memorial to Congress was ordered, and a deputation 
 
 : TV it appointed; a National temperance paper, 
 to be edited and published by women, was HL 
 upon, also a financial plan, asking lor a cent a w< ck 
 from memliers; and last, not least, was appoint 
 special committee on temperance work among the 
 children. Four large mass-meetings were held 
 during the convention, all of them addressed by 
 women. Mrs. Annie Wittenmyer, of Philadelphia,
 
 586 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 was elected president; Miss Frances E. Willard, of 
 Chicago, corresponding secretary; Mrs. Mary C. 
 Johnson, of Brooklyn, recording secretary ; Mrs. 
 Mary A. Ingham, of Cleveland, treasurer, with one 
 vice-president from each State represented in the 
 convention." 
 
 The spirit of this assembly of workers is shown 
 in the closing resolution, which it adopted unani- 
 mously : 
 
 " Resolved, That, recognizing the fact that our cause is, and 
 is to be, combated by mighty, determined and relentless forces, 
 we will, trusting in Him who is the Prince of Peace, meet 
 argument with argument, misjudgment with patience, denun- 
 ciation with kindness, and all our difficulties and dangers with 
 prayer." 
 
 FIRST YEAR'S WORK. 
 
 During the first year six State organizations were 
 added to the number represented in the beginning, 
 including scores of local unions. A monthly paper 
 was established; a deputation of women sent to 
 Congress with a memorial, to which hundreds of 
 thousands of signatures had been obtained, asking 
 for inquiry and legislation in regard to the liquor 
 traffic ; a manual of " Hints and Helps," concerning 
 methods of temperance work, prepared and issued ; 
 and other agencies of reform, and for the extermi- 
 nation of the liquor traffic, set in motion. 
 
 The reports from State Unions, made to the first 
 annual meeting, held in Cincinnati, November, 1875, 
 were, in most cases, highly encouraging. In Ohio,
 
 THE CURSE AND TUB CURE. 55? 
 
 a large number of local unions were formed, 
 nearly two hundred friendly inns established, while 
 reading-rooms, juvenile societies and young people's 
 leagues were reported as multiplying all over the 
 State. Indiana showed effective work in the same 
 direction ; so did Illinois. In both of these States 
 many local unions, reform clubs and juvenile 
 organizations came into existence, while the work 
 of temperance agitation was carried on with un- 
 tiring vigor. Iowa reported fifty local unions, 
 eleven juvenile societies, seven reform clubs and 
 six coffee-houses and reading-rooms. But, how 
 better can we sum up the results of this year's 
 work, and how better give a clear idea of the new 
 forces which were coming into the field under the 
 leadership of women, than by giving an extract 
 from the first annual report of the corresponding 
 secretary, Miss Frances E. AVillard: 
 
 " Briefly to recapitulate, bringing out salient fea- 
 tures, Maine has given, since the Crusade, the idea 
 of the temperance camp-meeting, which, though not 
 original with us, has been rendered clUvtive largely 
 through the efforts of our own workers. Conmrti- 
 oiit influences elections, has availed itself of peti- 
 tions and given us the best form on record. >Y\v 
 York has kept alive the visitation of saloons, ami 
 proved, what may we never forget, that this is 
 always practicable, if conducted wisely. In the 
 relief an ; branches of our work, the Empire 
 
 State is perhaps without a rival. The women of
 
 588 STEONG DRINK; 
 
 Pennsylvania have bearded the gubernatorial lien 
 in his den, and the Hartranft veto had the added 
 sin of women's prayers and tears denied. Mary- 
 land and the District of Columbia prove that the 
 North must look to her laurels when the South is 
 free to enter on our work. As for Ohio, as Daniel 
 Webster said of the old Bay State, * There she 
 stands; look at her!' foremost among leaders in 
 the new Crusade. Michigan is working bravely 
 amid discouragements. Illinois has given us the 
 most promising phase of our juvenile work, and 
 leads off in reform clubs. Our best organized States 
 are Ohio, Indiana, New York, Pennsylvania and 
 Iowa. By reason of their multiplied conventions of 
 State, district and county, their numerous auxila- 
 ries, their petitions and their juvenile work, Ohio 
 and Indiana bear off the palm, and stand as the 
 banner States of our Union up to this time, each of 
 them having as many as two hundred and fifty 
 auxiliaries. 
 
 " Our review develops the fact that of the forty- 
 seven States and Territories forming the United 
 States, twenty-two States have formed temperance 
 unions auxiliary to the Woman's National Union. 
 Of the twenty-five not yet organized, twelve are 
 Southern States and eight are Territories ; while of 
 the remaining five, three are about to organize State 
 unions, and have already flourishing local unions. 
 So, that, without exaggeration, we may say we have 
 fairly entered into the land to possess it. To bring
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 89 
 
 about this vast result of organization, and to main- 
 tain it, there have been held (not to mention con- 
 ions of districts and counties, the name of which 
 is*legion,) forty-five State conventions of women, 
 alnmst all within the last year. 
 
 " The number of written communications sent out 
 during the year from our Western office to women 
 in every State in the Union, is nearly five thousand. 
 This is exclusive of ' documents,' which have gone 
 by the bushel from the Eastern and Western offices, 
 and also of the incessant correspondence of our 
 president. Either president or secretary has spoken 
 in nearly every State in which our organization 
 exists. During the summer months, conventions, 
 camp-meetings and local auxiliaries in large num- 
 bers have been addressed by officers of our National 
 and State Unions in all of the Eastern and Middle 
 and in many of the Western States. Noteworthy 
 in our history for the year, is the monster petition 
 circulated in nearly every State, presented to Con- 
 gress on our behalf by Senator Morton, of Indiana, 
 and defended in an eloquent speech before the Fi- 
 nance Committee by our president" 
 
 TIIK SECOND YEAR'S WOKK. 
 
 The second annual meeting of the "Woman's 
 
 National Christian Temperance Union" was held 
 in Newark, N. J., in October, 1876. From tin- 
 reports made to this meeting, we take the following 
 interesting statements, showing how actively the
 
 500 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 work, for which this great National Association was 
 organized, has been prosecuted. 
 
 Twenty-two State unions were represented at this 
 meeting, and local unions were reported as having 
 been formed for the first time in Tennessee, Louisi- 
 ana and Arkansas, preparatory to State organizations. 
 An International Temperance Convention of women 
 had been held in the Academy of Music, Philadel- 
 phia, from which resulted an International Woman's 
 Temperance Union. A summary of the work of the 
 year says : 
 
 "In almost every organized State, the request 
 of our National Committee that ministerial, medi- 
 cal and educational associations be asked to de- 
 clare their position in relation to temperance re- 
 form has been complied with. In every instance, the 
 ladies have been courteously received, and in no case 
 has the declaration of opinion been adverse, and in 
 many, most hopeful to our cause. The letter of Mi's. 
 Wittenmyer to the International Medical Convention 
 recently held in Philadelphia, secured the important 
 declaration against alcohol made by that body. 
 
 " In February, our president, accompanied by 
 Mrs. Mary R. Denman, President of New Jersey 
 W. T. U., made a trip to Kentucky, Tennessee and 
 Louisiana, in the endeavor to enlist our Southern 
 sisters in the temperance work. Large meetings 
 were addressed and several local unions organized. 
 
 " In the month of May thirty-six temperance 
 meetings were held in the State of Ohio, by the
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 591 
 
 corresponding secretary, -who nas also made a trip 
 through Michigan, and spoken in all the East* ni, 
 Middle and several of the Western States since the 
 last meeting. 
 
 " Our recording secretary, Mrs. Mary C. Johnson, 
 has visited Great Britian, by invitation of Christian 
 women there, for the purpose of introducing our 
 Gospel work. Going in the spirit of the Crusade, 
 Johnson's labors have awakened an earnest 
 spirit of inquiry and activity among the thoughtful 
 and comparatively leisure class. During her six 
 months' absence in England and Ireland, she ad- 
 dressed one hundred and twenty-one audiences and 
 conducted forty prayer-meetings. 
 
 " ' Mother Stewart,' of Ohio, has also visited Eng- 
 land and Scotland this year, under the auspices of 
 tli Good Templars, and much good has resulted 
 from her labors. 
 
 " Our union has circulated the petition to Con- 
 gress for a Commission of Inquiry into the costs and 
 n-.-uluj of the liquor traffic iu America, and to the 
 Centennial Commissioners praying them not to allow 
 the sale of intoxicants on the Exposition grounds. 
 Tin- drsiivd Commission of Inquiry has been or- 
 dered by the Senate in response to the wish of t lie 
 united temperance societies of the land, but the sub- 
 ject did not come before the House at the last session. 
 
 "Our pajH-r has constantly increased in its hold 
 upon the local unions, whose devotion to its interests 
 augurs well for its future success.
 
 592 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 " The number of documents scattered among our 
 auxiliaries cannot be accurately stated, but is not 
 less than twelve or fifteen thousand, and the corres- 
 pondence of the officers by letter and postal-card, 
 will not fall short of the same estimate. To correct 
 misapprehensions, it should, perhaps, be stated that 
 no officer of the National Union has received a 
 dollar for services or traveling expenses during the 
 year." 
 
 A WORKING ORGANIZATION. 
 
 To meet annually in convention and pass resolu- 
 tions and make promises is one thing ; to do prac- 
 tical and effective work all through the year is quite 
 another. And it is just here that this new temper- 
 ance organization exhibits its power. The women 
 whom it represents are very much in earnest and 
 mean work. What they resolve to do, if clearly 
 seen to be in the right direction, will hardly fail for 
 lack of effort. In their plan of work, one branch 
 particularly embraces the children. If the rising 
 generation can not only be pledged to abstinence, 
 but so carefully instructed in regard to the sin and 
 evil of intemperance, and their duty, when they 
 become men and women, to make war upon the 
 liquor traffic, and to discountenance all form of 
 social drinking, then an immense gain will be had 
 for the cause in the next generation, when the boys 
 and girls of to-day will hold the ballots, make the 
 laws, give direction to public sentiment and deter- 
 mine the usages of society.
 
 THE CURSE AND THE Cr /:/:. 593 
 
 LOOKING AFTER THE CHILDREN. 
 
 To what extent, then, are the State and local 
 unions looking after the children? Writing, as we 
 now are, before the third animal meeting of the Na- 
 tional Union, and, therefore, without a general re- 
 port of the year's work before us, we are unable to 
 t:i-ve a statement in full of the important temperance 
 work which has been done with and for the rising 
 
 ration. But, from official and other reliable 
 sources of information, we are in possession of facts 
 of a most gratifying character. In the State of 
 Minnesota, as the result of woman's efforts, they 
 have had for several years a "Sunday-School Tem- 
 pi -ranee League," and their last annual report gives 
 seventeen thousand as the number of children al- 
 ready " pledged to abstain from all intoxicants as a 
 beverage." Says their report for 1877, "We have 
 curried the work into sixty-one new schools, held 
 sixty-three anniversary meetings and temperance 
 concerts, instigated about one thousand addresses in 
 the Sunday-schools, secured six thousand six hun- 
 dred and seventy-tour signers to our pledges, and 
 one thousand and fifteen to our constitution." 
 
 In most of the larger towns throughout the United 
 
 fl where active local unions exist, juvenile 
 unions, bands of hope or temperance associations 
 by some other name, have been formed among the 
 children. These have, in many cases, a large mem- 
 ber-hip; often us hi^h as from five to six hun- 
 dred. In llorkford, 111., the juvenile union nuui-
 
 594 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 bers over eight hundred boys and as many girls. 
 The pledge taken by these children includes, in 
 some localities, tobacco and profanity as well as in- 
 toxicants. 
 
 THE WORK OF REFOEM AND RESCUE. 
 
 In the work of reform and rescue, the State and 
 local unions are very active, especially in the larger 
 towns and cities. In the smaller towns, religious 
 temperance meetings are held weekly, and in the 
 larger cities, daily, and sometimes twice a day. 
 Chicago has as many as eighteen meetings every 
 week. In Chapters XIX. and XX. of the first part of 
 this volume, we have described at length, and from 
 personal observation, the way in which these tem- 
 perance prayer-meetings are generally conducted, 
 and the means used for lifting up and saving the 
 poor drunkard. 
 
 What are known as " Reform Clubs," have grown 
 out of the efforts made of these praying women, to 
 hold in safety the men whom they have been able to 
 rescue. These clubs are numerous in New England 
 and the Western States, and have a large member- 
 ship, which is composed exclusively of reformed men. 
 The common platform upon which they all stand is : 
 1. Total abstinence. 2. Reliance upon God's help 
 in all things. 3. Missionary work to induce others 
 to sign the pledge. In Newark, N. J., there .is a club 
 with a membership of over six hundred reformed 
 men, nearly all of whom have been rescued in the
 
 Tin-: CURSE AND THE CURE. 595 
 
 three years, through the efforts of the Woman's 
 Christian Temperance Union of that city. 
 
 In an interview with Mrs. Wittenmyer, President 
 of the National Union, who had received reports of 
 the third year's work from the various unions, we 
 learned that, after deducting from the returns all 
 who were known to have broken the pledge, ten 
 thousand remained as the number reported to have 
 been saved during the year, and who were still 
 standing in the strength which God had given them. 
 The larger part of these rescued men had united 
 themselves with the church, and were earnestly en- 
 deavoring to lead Christian lives. 
 
 KEEPING ALIVE A SENTIMENT ADVERSE TO THE 
 LIQUOR TRAFFIC. 
 
 Another and most important branch of the work of 
 the " Woman's Christian Temperance Union," is that 
 of arousing, keepingaliveand intensifyinga sentiment 
 adverse to the liquor traffic. So long as the State 
 and National Governments give the sanction of law 
 to this traffic, they find their efforts to save the 
 fallen, utterly unavailing in far too many instaiicvs. 
 In an appeal made by the women of the Si ate 
 Union to the voters of Massachusetts, under date of 
 August loth, 1877, the curse of this traffic is exhih- 
 itcd in words of solemn earnest ness. Thedocuinent is 
 strong and convincing, yet temperate and respect- 
 ful. We copy it entire as presenting ar^nii, 
 and considerations which every humane and
 
 596 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 Christian voter in the laud should lay deeply to 
 heart : 
 
 "The Woman's Christian Temperance Union 
 comes to you with a solemn and earnest appeal. 
 
 " Our mission is the redemption of the Common- 
 wealth from the curse of intemperance. During 
 the past year we have labored incessantly for this 
 end, and have expended nearly twenty thousand 
 dollars in efforts to rescue the perishing, and to 
 educate public sentiment in favor of total abstinence. 
 
 " In this work we have met numerous obstacles 
 the apathy of the people, the inherited and depraved 
 appetites of drunkards, and the perilous social cus- 
 toms of the day, which are indorsed by the practice 
 of many otherwise excellent people. Worse than 
 all these combined is the influence of the licensed 
 dram-shop. We can arouse the indifferent to action ; 
 we can enkindle in the drunkard aspirations for a 
 better life than that of debauchery ; we hope, in 
 time, by constant agitation, to change the social 
 customs of the day. But against the influence of 
 the licensed dram-shop we are powerless. We have, 
 no ability to cope with this most formidable enemy 
 of virtue, prosperity and good order. 
 
 "A long and bitter experience compels us to pay 
 that the most untiring efforts to reclaim the drunkard 
 have, in many instances, proved unavailing, because 
 his demoralized will lias been powerless to resist the 
 temptations placed in his path by the sanction of 
 the State.
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 597 
 
 " Worse, if possible, even than this the licensed 
 dnm-ehop is instrumental in creating a new genera- 
 tion of drunkards. For thither resort our young 
 men, the future hope of the country, who speedily 
 fall before the seductions of the place, their habits 
 of sobriety are subverted, their moral sense is 
 blunted, their will palsied, and they drift rapidly 
 into the appalling condition of habitual drunken- 
 ness. The licensed drain-shops are recruiting offices, 
 where another army of drunkards is enlisted, to fill 
 the ranks depleted by dishonored deaths and the 
 great Commonwealth extends over them the aegis of 
 its protection, indorsing them by the sanction of 
 law. The people of Massachusetts drink annually 
 twenty-five million dollars' worth of intoxicating 
 liquors. Only God can furnish the statistics of 
 sorrow, poverty, disease, vice and crime, begotten Inj 
 this fearful consumption of strong drink. 
 
 " Under these discouraging circumstances, men of 
 Massachusetts, we appeal to you! The licensed 
 dram-shop is the creature of political action. We 
 are wholly destitute of political power, by which it 
 must be overthrown. Anguished by the peril of 
 lathers and brothers, husbands and sons, we appeal 
 to you to make good the oft-repeated assertion that 
 the men of the State represent and protect the 
 women of the State at the ballot-box. We beseech 
 you to make r.iniest efforts to secure the repeal of 
 the license law at the next election, and the eiiaet-
 
 598 STRONG DKINK; 
 
 ment of a law prohibiting the sale of intoxicating 
 liquors as a beverage. 
 
 "We are sure we speak the sentiment of the 
 Christian people of this State, and of all who stand 
 for morality, thrift, virtue and good order, when we 
 say that the great State of Massachusetts should not 
 take sides with the drunkard-maker against his 
 victim. If either is to be protected by law, it should 
 be the drunkard, since he is the weaker, rather than 
 the rumseller, who persistently blocks the pathway 
 of reform. 
 
 " We know that we utter the voice of the majority 
 of the women of the State when we plead the cause 
 of prohibition and the women of Massachusetts 
 outnumbers its men by more than sixty thousand. 
 It is women who are the greatest sufferers from the 
 licensed dram-shops of the community and we 
 pray you, therefore, voters of Massachusetts, to take 
 such action that the law which protects these drink- 
 ing shops may be blotted from the statute book at 
 the next election." 
 
 This appeal from the Christian women of Massa- 
 chusetts is signed by Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, 
 President, and Mrs. L. B. Barrett, Secretary of the 
 State branch of the Woman's National Temperance 
 Union, and shows the animating spirit of that body. 
 No one can read it without a new impression of the 
 wickedness of a traffic that curses everything it 
 touches. 
 
 But not alone in Massachusetts are the women of
 
 THE CURSE AND TUB CURE. 599 
 
 the "Union" using their efforts to shape public 
 opinion and influence the ballot. In all the States 
 where unions exist, this part of the work is steadily 
 prosecuted ; and it cannot be long ere its good re- 
 sults will become manifest at the polls in a steadily 
 imTc-asing anti-license vote, and, ultimately hi the 
 ranging of State after State with Maine, Vermont 
 and New Hampshire on the side of prohibition. 
 
 INFLUENCE ON THE MEDICAL PROFESSION. 
 
 In still another direction important gains have 
 been realized. But for the efforts of the Woman's 
 National and State Temperance Unions we should 
 scarcely have had the declaration of the Interna- 
 tional Medical Congress of 187G, adverse to the use 
 of alcohol as food or medicine. Early in their work, 
 the women of the " Union," seeing how largely the 
 medical prescription of alcohol was hurting the 
 cause of temperance, and being in possession of the 
 latest results of chemical and physiological investi- 
 gation in regard to its specific action on the body, 
 sent delegations to various State medical associations 
 at their annual meetings, urging them to pass reso- 
 lutions defining its true status as a food or a im-di- 
 cine and discouraging its use in the profession. 
 With most of these medical associations they found 
 a respectful hearing ; and their presentation of the 
 matter had the effect of drawing to the subject the 
 atu-ntion of a large number of medical men who 
 hud not, from old prejudices, or in consequence of
 
 (300 STRONG DEIXK; 
 
 their absorption in professional duties, given careful 
 attention to the later results of scientific investiga- 
 tion. As a consequence, many physicians who had 
 been in the habit of ordering alcoholic stimulants 
 for weak or convalescent patients, gave up the prac- 
 tice entirely ; while those who still resorted to their 
 use, deemed it safest to be more guarded in their 
 administration than heretofore. 
 
 ACTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CONGRESS. 
 
 But the crowning result of this effort to induce 
 the medical profession to limit or abandon the pre- 
 scription of alcohol, came when the International 
 Congress, one of the largest and ablest medical 
 bodies ever convened, made, through its "Section on 
 Medicine," the brief, but clear and unequivocal de- 
 claration already given in a previous chapter, and at 
 once and forever laid upon alcohol the ban of the 
 profession. 
 
 Official communications were addressed to this 
 body by the National Temperance Society, through 
 its president, Hon. Win. E. Dodge, by the Woman's 
 Christian Temperance Union, through its president, 
 Mrs. Annie Wittenmyer, and by the New York 
 Friends' Temperance Union, asking from it a decla- 
 ration as to the true character of alcohol and its 
 value in medicine. 
 
 The following is the full text of the memorial of 
 the Woman's Christian Temperance Union :
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cl'IlK. 001 
 
 " To tin- ('Im'init'iii iiinl M> ml, rx of the International 
 
 M '!'n-n I ComjrcM: 
 
 "II' >.\oBED SIRS : I take the liberty, as a repre- 
 sentative of the Woman's National Christian Tem- 
 perance Union of the United States, to call your 
 attention to the relation of the medical use of alcohol 
 to the prevalence of that fearful scourge, intemper- 
 ance. 
 
 ." The distinguished Dr. Mussey said, many years 
 ago: 'So long as alcohol retains a place among sick 
 patients, so long there will be drunkards.' 
 
 " Dr. Hush wrote strongly against its use as early 
 as 1790. And at one time the College of Physicians 
 at Philadelphia memorialized Congress in favor of 
 restraining the use of distilled liquors, because, as 
 they claimed, they were ' destructive of life, health 
 and the faculties of the mind.' 
 
 " ' A Medical Declaration,' published in London, 
 December, 1872, asserts that ' it is believed that the 
 inconsiderate prescription of alcoholic liquids by 
 medical men for their patients has given rise, in 
 many instances, to the formation of intemperate 
 habits.' This manifesto was signed by over two 
 hundred and fifty of the leading medical men of the 
 United Kingdom. AVhcn the nature and ell'cets of 
 alcohol were little known, it was thought to be in- 
 valnal)le as a medicine. lut in the light of recent 
 scientific investigations, its claims have been chal- 
 1 and its value denied. 
 
 " We are aware that the question of the medical
 
 602 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 use of alcohol has not been fully decided, and that 
 there is a difference of opinion among the ablest 
 medical writers. But we notice that as the discus- 
 sion and investigation goes on, and the new facts are 
 brought out, its value as a remedial agent is depre- 
 ciated. 
 
 " A great many claims have been brought for- 
 ward in its favor, but one b one they have gone 
 down under the severe scrutiny of scientific research, 
 until only a few points are left in doubt. In view 
 of this, and the startling fact that tens of thousands 
 die annually from its baneful effects, we earnestly 
 urge you to give the subject a careful examina- 
 tion. 
 
 "You have made the study of the physical na- 
 ture of man your life-work, and you are the trusted 
 advisers of the people in all matters pertaining to 
 the treatment of diseases and the preservation of 
 life and health. 
 
 " You are, therefore, in a position to instruct and 
 warn the masses in regard to its indiscriminate use, 
 either as a medicine or a beverage. 
 
 "We feel sure that, true to your professional 
 honor, and the grave responsibilities of your distin- 
 guished position, you will search out and give us the 
 facts, whatever they may be. 
 
 " If you should appoint a standing committee 
 from your own number, of practical scientific men, 
 who would give time and thought to this question, 
 it would be very gratifying to the one hundred
 
 THE CURSE AND THE C77.7'. (503 
 
 tJion.<fin<1 wiuiifii I represent, and most acceptable to 
 the LTfiH-ral public. 
 
 "I am, with high considerations of respect, 
 " Your obed't servant, 
 
 " ANNIE WITTENMYER, 
 "Pratt W. Nat. Chris. Temp. Union. 
 " Philadelphia, Sept. 6th, 1876." 
 
 How was this memorial received? Scarcely h:i<l 
 it been presented ere a member moved that it be laid 
 on the table without reading ; but ere the vote could 
 be taken the voice of another member rose clear 
 ami strong in the question whether that body could 
 afford to treat a hundred thousand American women 
 with such a discourtesy ! And the motion to lay on 
 the table was lost. 
 
 A vote to refer to the " Section on Medicine " was 
 largely carried ; and to that section the petitioners 
 took their case, and were not only accorded a gra- 
 cious and respectful hearing, but, after a full dis- 
 cussion of the subject, a declaration against the use 
 of alcohol, as a substance both hurtful and dan- 
 gerous possessing no food value whatever, and as 
 a medicine, being exceedingly limited in its range. 
 All the points in reply were passed upon unani- 
 mously by the section to which the matter was re- 
 ferred, and afterwards by the Congress in full 
 session, with but a single dissenting vote, and the 
 result officially communicated to the president of 
 the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. An
 
 G04 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 official notification of the action of the Congress 
 was also sent to Hon. Wm. E. Dodge, president of 
 the National Temperance Society. 
 
 Other aspects of the work of this young and vig- 
 orous organization might be given ; but enough has 
 been presented to show that its agency in temper- 
 ance reform is already far-reaching and powerful ; 
 and to give assurance that if the spirit which has 
 influenced and directed its counsels so wisely from 
 the beginning, can be maintained, it will achieve 
 still greater and more important victories for the 
 cause of temperance.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 REFORM CLUBa 
 
 differ in some aspects from most of the 
 associations which, prior to their organization, 
 h;nl for tlu-ir ohject the reformation of men who 
 li.i<l fallen into habits of drunkenness. The dis- 
 tinguishiiig characteristics of the reform club is 
 its religious spirit, its dependence upon God and its 
 reliance u^on prayer. 
 
 The first movement in this direction was made in 
 (lardiner, Maine, in January, 1872, by Mr. I. K. 
 od. lie says of himself that in fifteen years 
 he had run down from a moderate and fashionable, 
 drinker of wine, to a constant and immoderate 
 drinker of the vilest spirits; and from the condi- 
 tion of a respectable l>n>ine>.s man to one of mi.-ery 
 and destitution. Coming back to his wretched home 
 lie night, he saw through the window his poor 
 ing lonely and sorrowful, waiting for his 
 return. The sight touched his heart and can-ed 
 him to reilivt, and then to res.ilvc, that God heing 
 his helper lie would never drink again. That reso- 
 lution he found himself able, by God's help, to 1 
 A few months later lie 1.. -.in the work of trying to
 
 606 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 reform others. His first effort was with a lawyer, 
 an old friend, who was as much reduced by drink 
 as he had been. After much entreaty, this man 
 consented to break off drinking and sign the pledge. 
 Mr. Osgood then drew up the following call for a 
 meeting which both signed : " REFORMERS' MEET- 
 ING. There will be a meeting of reformed drinkers 
 at City Hall, Gardiner, on Friday evening, January 
 19th, at seven o'clock. A cordial invitation is ex- 
 tended to all occasional drinkers, constant drinkers, 
 hard drinkers and young men who are tempted to 
 drink. Come and hear what rum has done for us." 
 A crowd came to the City Hall. The two men 
 addressed the meeting with great earnestness, and 
 then offered the pledge, which was signed by eight 
 of their old drinking companions. These organized 
 themselves into a reform club, which soon reached 
 a hundred members, all of whom had been men of 
 intemperate habits. The movement soon attracted 
 attention in other places, especially among drinking 
 men, and clubs multiplied rapidly throughout the 
 State. In a few months, the aggregate membership 
 reached nearly twenty thousand. In June of the 
 following year, Mr. Osgood began his work in Mas- 
 sachusetts, under the auspices of the Massachusetts 
 Temperance Alliance, organizing about forty clubs, 
 one of which, in Havcrill, numbered over three 
 thousand members. In New Hampshire and Ver- 
 mont, many clubs were organized by Mr. Osgood 
 and some of his converts.
 
 Till-: CURSE AXD THE CURE. 07 
 
 DR HENKY A RIlYNoLDS. < 
 
 Another effective worker in the field is Dr. Henry 
 A. Reynolds, of Bangor, Maine, where In- was born 
 in 1839. In 18G3, he graduated from the Medical 
 College of Harvard University, and was assistant 
 surgeon in the First Maine Regiment, heavy artillery, 
 during two years of the war, receiving an honorable 
 discharge. He then- entered upon the practice of 
 medicine in his native city, and continued therein 
 until 1874. But he had inherited a taste for strong 
 drink, through the indulgence of which he became 
 its abject slave. After many efforts at reform which 
 proved of no avail, he resolved to look to Almighty 
 God, and ask for strength to overcome his dreadful 
 appetite. About this time there was, in the city of 
 ]>angor, .a band of Christian women who met 
 frequently to pray for the salvation of the intem- 
 perate. At one of their meetings, the doctor pre- 
 sented himself it was two days after he had knelt 
 alone in his office and prayed to God for help and 
 publicly signed tin- pledge. 
 
 Sympathy for those who were in the dreadful 
 slough from which he had been lifted, soon began 
 ring in his heart, and he sought, by various 
 methods, to influence and save them. After work- 
 ing for several months, with only partial success, it 
 becaineevide.it, that for sure and permanent work, 
 there must be organi/ation, and he conceived the 
 plan of a reform elnb made up exclusively of those 
 who had been drinking men ; believing, as he did,
 
 608 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 that there must exist between two men who had 
 once heen intemperate, a sympathy which could not 
 exist between a man who has, and one who has 
 never, drank to excess. As soon as this matter be- 
 came clear to him, Dr. Reynolds, by notice in a 
 daily paper, invited the drinking men of the city to 
 meet him at a certain place. Eleven men responded 
 to the call, and the Bangor Reform Club, the first 
 of its kind, was organized, September 10th, 1874, 
 with Dr. Henry A. Reynolds as president. The 
 motto of the new organization was, " Dare to do 
 Right." Filled with the true rhissionary spirit, this 
 little band held other meetings, and did their utmost 
 to bring in new members, and so successful wen; 
 their efforts, that in a few weeks their membership 
 swelled to hundreds, and the whole city. was in a 
 state of excitement over the new and strange work 
 which had been inaugurated. 
 
 From Bangor, the excitement soon spread through 
 the State. Dr. Reynolds, believing that God hud 
 called him to the work of saving men from intem- 
 perance and leading them to Christ, gave up his 
 profession and threw himself into the work of 
 preaching temperance and organizing reform clubs. 
 Within a year forty-five thousand reformed men 
 were gathered into clubs in the State of Maine. In 
 August, 1875, at a meeting of the National Chris- 
 tian Temperance Camp-Meeting Association, held 
 at Old Orchard, Maine, where temperance workers 
 from all parts of the country had congregated, the
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 609 
 
 lent of the Woman's Christian Temperance 
 Tn ion of Salem, Massachusetts, learned of the great 
 work of reform progressing in Maine under the 
 leadership of Dr. Reynolds, and invited him to in- 
 troduce his work in Massachusetts by holding a 
 series of meetings in Salem during the month of 
 September. So the work began in the Old Bay 
 State, and within a year, forty thousand men of that 
 Commonwealth, who had been habitual drinkers, 
 were organized into reform clubs. 
 
 FORMATION OF CLUBS. 
 
 The method pursued by Dr. Reynolds in the for- 
 mation of these clubs is very simple. There is a 
 constitution with by-laws, to which the following 
 pledge is prefixed : " Having seen and felt the evils 
 of intemperance, therefore, Resolved, That we, the 
 undersigned, for our own good and the good of the 
 world in which we live, do hereby promise and 
 en-age, with the help of Almighty God, to abstain 
 from buying, selling or using alcoholic or malt bev- 
 erages, wine and cider included." Article III. of 
 the constitution gives the qualification for member- 
 ship: "All male persons of the age of eighteen or 
 upwards, who have been in the habit of using in- 
 toxicating liquor to a greater or less extent, are 
 eligible to membership in this club." After or- 
 gani/.ing a club of persons who have been addicted 
 to drink, Dr. Reynolds appeals to the Christian 
 women of the locality to throw around them the 
 39
 
 610 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 shield of their care and sympathy, and urges upon 
 the people at large the necessity of upholding and 
 encouraging them in every possible way. 
 
 The meetings of the clubs are held at least once 
 during the week, in the evenings ; and on Sunday 
 afternoons or evenings, the clubs, with the Woman's 
 Christian Temperance Unions, hold public religious 
 temperance meetings, which are often crowded to 
 overflowing. The order of exercises at these public 
 meetings consist of prayer, reading of Scripture and 
 brief addresses by reformed men, interspersed with 
 the singing of such hymns as " Rock of Ages," 
 " Hold the Fort," " I Need Thee Every Hour," etc. 
 Brief addresses are the rule, and a hymn is usually 
 sung between each address. 
 
 The badge worn by members of these reformed 
 clubs is a red ribbon. Their motto is " Dare to do 
 Eight." 
 
 One of the first fruits of the establishment of a 
 reform club in any locality, is an increase in church 
 attendance, and a decrease in the tax rate. In many 
 towns where they exist, liquor-selling has become 
 unprofitable, and liquor-drinking a custom that 
 hurts a man's social standing. 
 
 From the East, Dr. Reynolds extended his labors 
 into the West, where his work has been chiefly con- 
 fined to the State of Michigan. In a letter to the 
 Union, the organ of the Woman's Christian Tem- 
 perance Union, under date of July, 1877, the as- 
 pect and results of Dr. Reynolds's work in that State
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cl Gil 
 
 ro thus referred to by a correspondent from Evans- 
 ton: " His plan is to take a State and settle down 
 in it ' to stay ' until it capitulates to the red-ribbon 
 pledge. None but men over eighteen years of age 
 are allowed to sign this pledge. Eighty thousand 
 nit-ii in Mirhipm, to-day, wear the ribbon, which is 
 a token of their signature all of them have been 
 drinking men. ' None others need apply ' as mem- 
 bers of Dr. Reynolds's Reform Clubs. His method 
 is to speak in a general way to the public on the 
 evening of his arrival his meetings being held in 
 a hall and thoroughly announced. The next after- 
 noon, the doctor addresses women, chiefly from the 
 medical point of view. If they have not a W. T. 
 U. he organizes one. The second night he talks to 
 the public generally again, and organizes his club, 
 then goes on his way, and leaves the town rejoicing. 
 The doctor is thoroughly business-like and methodi- 
 cal. There is no doubt about his securing, in every 
 State he visits, the same results as in Michigan, for 
 his ability is marked, his experience growing, his 
 lity complete and all his work is 'begun, con- 
 tinued and ended' in a firm reliance upon God." 
 
 To give an idea of the excitement created by tho 
 presence of Dr. Reynolds in any community, ami 
 of the results of his efforts to reclaim intempenttt 
 men, we copy the following brief reference to his 
 work in the spring of 1877 : 
 
 "It is impossible to give figures, for there are 
 additions every day of hundreds in the State, and
 
 (512 STEONG DRINK; 
 
 the climax of enthusiasm is by no means reached 
 in any town while Dr. Reynolds is there. 
 
 " In Jackson, Sabbath evening, February llth, 
 two months after the organization of the club, 
 Union Hall was so packed that the galleries settled 
 and were cleared, and hundreds could not gain ad- 
 mittance. 
 
 "As the result of ten days' work in Saginaw 
 Valley at the three cities (Bay City, Saginaw 
 City and East Saginaw), the clubs number about 
 three thousand men. 
 
 " From there, Dr. Reynolds went to Lansing, our 
 capital, and at the first signing, two hundred and 
 forty-five joined the club, which is far up in the 
 hundreds now. 
 
 " The last and greatest victory is Detroit. Slow, 
 critical, conservative, staid, not-any-shams-for-me 
 Detroit. 
 
 " Friday and Saturday nights there were crowded 
 houses. Sabbath afternoon, two thousand five 
 hundred men together, and a club of three hundred 
 and forty-five formed. Sabbath evening, no room 
 could hold the people, and the club reached nearly 
 nine hundred. It is safe to say to-day that a thou- 
 sand men in the city of Detroit are wearing the red 
 ribbon. 
 
 " Dr. Reynolds has done another grand work, 
 and that is in bringing up the W. C. T. Unions. 
 Everywhere this follows, churches are packed with 
 women. Dr. Reynolds tells them how they can
 
 THE CURSE AND T1IE CURE. 
 
 help tlic men and their families, and they fall into 
 line by the hundreds. Three hundred have enlisted 
 in Bay City, four hundred in Lansing, two hundred 
 in Kn.-t Saginaw, and so on, all over the State." 
 
 The establishment of reform clubs has been more 
 general in New England and the Western States 
 than in other parts of the country, though their or- 
 ganization in some or the Middle States has been 
 attended with marked success. Vermont has a lar^e 
 number of clubs, the membership ranging from one 
 hundred to fifteen hundred. 
 
 FRANCIS MURPHY. 
 
 The work of Francis Murphy, which has been 
 attended with such remarkable fervors of excitement 
 in nearly every community where he has labored, 
 is not so definite in its purpose, nor so closely or- 
 ganized, nor so permanent in its results as that of 
 Dr. Reynolds. He draws vast assemblies, and ob- 
 tains large numbers of signers to his pledge, which 
 reads: 
 
 " With malice towards none and charity for all, 
 I, the undersigned, do pledge my word and honor, 
 God helping me, to abstain from all intoxicating 
 liquors as a beverage, and that I will, by all honor- 
 able means, encourage others to abstain." 
 
 An Irishman by birth, and full of the warm im- 
 pulse and quick enthusiasm of his people, he has 
 thrown himself into the work of temperance reform 
 with an earnestness that commands a hearing, and
 
 614 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 with an ardor of appeal and solicitation that is, for 
 the time, almost irresistible. 
 
 In the fall of 1869, Francis Murphy found him- 
 self in the cell of a prison in the city of Portland, 
 Maine, to which he had been committed for drunk- 
 enness. ' He had been a liquor-seller, commencing 
 the work as a sober man with a good character, and 
 ending it in ruin to himself and family, and with 
 the curse of the drunkard's appetite upon him. A 
 Christian gentleman, Captain Cyrus Sturdevant, had 
 obtained permission of the authorities to visit the 
 jail and talk and pray with the prisoners. This 
 brought him into personal contact with Mr. Mur- 
 phy, who was not only deeply humiliated at the 
 disgrace into which his intemperate life had brought 
 him, but almost in despair. He tells the story of 
 this part of his life with a moving eloquence. Capt. 
 Sturdevant, after some solicitation, induced him to 
 leave his cell one Sunday morning and attend reli- 
 gious services with the prisoners. He was in a state 
 of mind to be deeply impressed by these services, 
 and the result was a solemn resolution to walk, with 
 God's help, in a new and better way. While yet a 
 prisoner, he began his work of trying to save men 
 from the curse of drink, and to lead them to enter 
 upon a religious life; and his influence with his 
 fellow-prisoners was very marked and for good. 
 On leaving the jail, he began at once his efforts to 
 rescue others from the slavery from which he hud 
 escaped. His first appearance as a lecturer was in
 
 1UE CURSE AXD THE CWE. 15 
 
 the city of Portland. The effort was well received 
 by the audience, and at its close he found himself 
 an oh j ret of special interest. From this time, he 
 gave himself almost wholly to the cause of temper- 
 ance. After working for a time in Portland, and 
 assisting in the organization of a reform club, he ex- 
 tended his efforts to other parts of the State of 
 Maine, and afterwards to New Hampshire and the 
 adjoining States, in which he labored for nearly 
 three years with marked and often extraordinary 
 success. From New England, Mr. Murphy went, 
 on invitation, to the West, and was very active 
 there, especially in Iowa and Illinois, in which 
 States he aroused the people, and was instrumental 
 in the organization of large numbers of local socie- 
 ties and reform clubs. 
 
 In the winter of 1876-7, his work in Pittsburgh was 
 attended with remarkable results; over sixty thou- 
 sand signatures were obtained to his pledge, and 
 over five hundred saloons in Allegheny and neigh- 
 boring counties closed their doors for want of patron- 
 age. The succeeding spring and summer Mr. Mur- 
 phy spent in Philadelphia, where the excitement 
 was almost as great as it had been in Pittsburgh. 
 P.iit, as in the last-named city, too large a portion 
 of the harvest which had been reaped was left to 
 perish on the ground for lack of the means, or the 
 will, to gather and garner it. The real substantial 
 and enduring work here has been that of the Wo- 
 man's Christian Temperance Union; which not
 
 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 only held its meetings daily during the exciting 
 time of the Murphy meetings, but has held them 
 daily ever since, keeping, all the while, hand and 
 heart upon the men who are trying in earnest to 
 reform, and helping, encouraging and protecting 
 them by all the means in their power. 
 
 Mr. Murphy continues to work in various parts of 
 the country, attracting large audiences wherever he 
 appears, and leading thousands to sign his pledge. 
 He has done and is still doing good service in the 
 cause to which he is so earnestly devoting himself.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 GOSPEL TEMPERANCE. 
 
 AS we have seen in the chapters on the " Cru- 
 sade," the " Woman's Christian Temperance 
 Union," and the " Reform Clubs," this new temper- 
 ance movement, which has attained in the last few 
 years such large dimensions, has in it ma-ny of 
 the features of a religious revival. On this account, 
 and to distinguish it from all preceding efforts to 
 break down the liquor traffic and save the drunkard, 
 it has been called a Gospel temperance movement. 
 Its chief reliance with many has been on prayer 
 ami faith, as agencies by which the mighty power 
 of God could be so determined as not only to save 
 the drunkard from the curse of his debasing appr- 
 tite, but to so move and act upon the liquor-seller as 
 to lead him to abandon his accursed traffic. 
 
 THE VALUE OF PRAYER AND FAITH ALONE. 
 
 At the commencement of this movement, which 
 took the form of what is known as the " Woman's 
 Crusade," the power of prayer seemed for awhile to 
 be an almost irresistible force. Thousands and tens 
 of thousands of men were, as they felt assured in 
 their hearts, freed in an instant of time from an
 
 613 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 appetite which had been growing and strengthening 
 for years, until it held complete mastery over them ; 
 and this in answer to the prayer of faith. And 
 hundreds of saloon and tavern-keepers abandoned 
 their evil work, because, as was believed, God, in 
 answer to the prayers of pious men and women, 
 had turned upon them the influences of His Holy 
 Spirit, and constrained them to this abandonment. 
 
 For awhile this power of prayer was regarded as 
 the force that was to break down the liquor traffic, 
 and rescue the people from the curse of appetite. 
 If prayer were persistent enough, and faith strong 
 enough, God would come to the rescue, overthrow 
 the enemy, and redeem and save the wretched vic- 
 tims he was holding in such cruel bondage. But, as 
 time moved on, and the enemy, whose ranks were 
 at first thrown into confusion, rallied his forces and 
 held himself secure against renewed attack, there 
 came a doubt in the minds of many as to the value 
 of prayer and faith as the sole agency by which the 
 rule of the demon of intemperance was to be over- 
 thrown ; and the same doubt came as to the power 
 of prayer and faith alone to work the removal of an 
 appetite for drink, when it was found by sad expe- 
 rience that of the thousands of men who signed the 
 pledge under religious excitement, and made public 
 declaration that, through faith in Christ, they had 
 been healed of their infirmity, only a few were able 
 to stand in the hour of temptation ; and these stood 
 fast because they rested in no vain security. They
 
 THE crnsE AXD THE cn:r. (519 
 
 v, from an inner conviction, that appetite had 
 not been destroyed ; and that, in some unguarded 
 moment, it would spring upon and endeavor to 
 enslave them again. But, with God's help, they 
 had resolved to hold it in check. Humbly they 
 looked to Him for strength meantime watching, 
 as well as praying to fight and overcome when 
 their hour of trial and darkness came. So they 
 stood ever on guard ; and God gave them the 
 strength they asked for, and victory after victor}', 
 until their enemy was under their feet; not di-ad, 
 but held there by the power which is given to ev-ry 
 one who will use it against the enemies of his soul. 
 
 PRAYER SUPPLEMENTED BY ORGANIZED WORK. 
 
 Not so much dependence on prayer and faith now 
 as on organized work in the natural plane of means 
 and forces. This came as an orderly sequence, and 
 gave to the cause of Gospel temperance a surer 
 foundation to rest upon, and a larger promise of 
 success. There was no turning away from God ; no 
 weakness of faith in His Divine power and readi- 
 ness to save; but clearer light as to His ways with 
 man, and as to how He is able to save, to the uttrr- 
 most, all who come unto Him. The instances goin^ 
 to show that men were not cured of the apj*ctitc for 
 strong drink in a moment of time by prayer and 
 faith, were too many and too sorrowful not to force 
 this conviction upon the mind of evn-y thoughtful 
 and observant ( 'hri.-tian man and woman. And, so,
 
 620 STRONG DRINK;' 
 
 even while many sincere and self-devoted workers 
 in this cause still hold to the view that God can, 
 and will, if the faith be strong enough, change a 
 man in an instant of time, and with no co-operation 
 of his own beyond this act of faith, from vileness to 
 purity from a love of evil to a love of good the 
 sounder, safer and more Scriptural doctrine that, if 
 a man would be saved from the enemies of his soul, 
 he must fight and overcome them in the strength 
 which God gives to all who will ask and receive, is 
 the one now more generally preached to reformed 
 men ; and, as a result, the number of those who 
 stand fast in the new life to which they have at- 
 tained, is steadily increasing. 
 
 THE APPETITE FOR DRINK NOT TAKEN AWAY IN A 
 MOMENT. 
 
 Still, far too widely in this Gospel work of saving 
 fallen men from the power of appetite, is the delu- 
 sive idea held out that if a man will " give his heart 
 to Christ," as it is called; that is, pray humbly, 
 sincerely and in faith to have his sins forgiven, and 
 his soul purified from all evil by an application of 
 Divine grace ; God will, in answer to this prayer 
 alone, and in an instant of time, take away the 
 appetite for drink which has been for years gradu- 
 ally gaining the mastery over him. We have heard 
 a man declare, in the presence of an assemblage of 
 men who had been slaves to drink, and who were 
 seeking for a way of escape, that God had, in answer
 
 THE CURSE AND TIIE d 
 
 to his prayers, destroyed in a moment the appetite 
 which had long held him in a close bondage; and 
 that, it' they would come to Him and give Him 
 their hearts, He would work in them the same 
 miracle of spiritual healing. As we listened to his 
 confident speech, we felt how great was the danger 
 in which he himself stood, and how much hetter 
 it would have been for his hearers if he had kept 
 silent. 
 
 HOW MANY ARE REALLY SAVED. 
 
 Facts are solid things, and weigh heavily in the 
 scale of argument. They are not always pleasant to 
 look at ; but it is weakness to ignore them. Let us 
 take a few facts in connection with this Gospel 
 temperance work. The first of these came to our 
 knowledge while we were revolving the contents of 
 this chapter, and before we had commenced writing 
 it. A leading temperance worker, who was an 
 active participant in the Murphy movement, and 
 wh<> holds that there is for the confirmed drunkard 
 no bopeor safety hut in the power of religion, stated 
 to us that during the Moody and San key revival in 
 Philadelphia, something <>ver two hundred drunken 
 men were reclaimed and converted; changed in 
 heart, as it was declared, and "saved" by the power 
 of ( iod. These were gathered together on a certain 
 evening in one of the churches, and the gentleman 
 to whom we have referred was amon^ those who 
 addressed them. The j ik, and in too many
 
 622 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 instances, friendless and homeless men were talked 
 to, and then committed to God in prayer. They 
 had His grace in their hearts had been "saved" 
 through prayer and faith and would He not care 
 for, protect and defend them ? 
 
 Alas, for the sequel ! Of all these two hundred 
 converted and "saved" men, who had, in a mo- 
 ment of time, been changed from servants of sensu- 
 ality and sin into children of God, their souls made 
 " whiter than snow," not over five or six can to-day 
 be found in the ranks of sober men ! 
 
 In and around Pittsburgh, during the religious 
 temperance revival which, under Francis Murphy, 
 wrought such marvels in that city and neighborhood, 
 over fifty thousand signatures were obtained to the 
 pledge, the signers, in a large number of cases, 
 professing faith in Christ, and having an inner as- 
 surance, as they believed, that He would keep them, 
 by the power of His grace, from again falling into 
 the sin and misery of intemperance. But, to-day, 
 only a small proportionate number can be found 
 out of this great multitude who are standing fast by 
 their profession. A like result has followed the 
 great Gospel work of Mr. Murphy in Philadelphia. 
 Of the thirty or forty thousand who signed the 
 pledge and professed to be saved through faith in 
 Christ, the number of men who have been rescued 
 from drunkenness can scarcely be counted by hun- 
 dreds ; and of these the large proportion owe their 
 salvation to the natural safeguards and orderly ex-
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 023 
 
 trnuil conditions which were brought to the aid of 
 spiritual resolve and spiritual forces. 
 
 When the excitement of these great revivals was 
 over, and the contagious enthusiasm had died away, 
 and men fell back into their old ways, amid old 
 surroundings and temptations, each alone in the 
 house of his own real lite, then came 
 
 THE TRIAL AND THE TEST, 
 
 and it was found that to depend on grace alone, and 
 the inner change it had effected in answer to 
 prayer, was to rest, too often, in a vain security. 
 Tin.- new convert was the same as to the essential 
 evil quality of his life as before his conversion or 
 turning round to go the other way and if he stood 
 still where he had turned, and did not, in a new 
 life of practical obedience to Divine laws, walk for- 
 ward in the Heavenly road, his conversion would 
 avail him nothing. Not that he was left alone by 
 God to stand or fall as he might. No human heart 
 ever felt even the faintest motions of that Divine 
 pity, and compassion, and yearning to save his lost 
 and perishing children, whieh is felt by our Heav- 
 enly Father, who is very love itself. But lie can- 
 not save humanity by destroying it, and this destruc- 
 tion would take plaee the moment he touched man's 
 freedom to choose between good and evil. Of his 
 own will, man h:is turned away from God; and of 
 his own will he must return to Him if ever he re- 
 turn at all. The way of return has been opened
 
 (524 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 and made plain, and God is forever calling and en- 
 treating His poor, wandering ones to come back, 
 and offering them strength to walk, and weapons to 
 fight, and armor for defense. But He cannot walk 
 for them, nor fight for them, nor defend them un- 
 less they put on the armor His mercy supplies. 
 They must, of themselves, using the strength He 
 gives them, walk in the Heavenly way ; and with 
 the sword of Divine truth He places in their hands, 
 do battle with the enemies of their souls. There is 
 no other means of attaining Heaven. This strength 
 to walk and fight and overcome, is the Divine grace 
 that saves. It is the free gift of our Lord and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ ; the very power of God unto 
 salvation. 
 
 THE DIVINE GRACE THAT SAVES. 
 
 It is by the application of this Divine grace that 
 men are saved from their sins and from the power 
 of hell. But they can never receive it as passive 
 subjects. They must take it and apply it in and of 
 themselves, and use it as if it were their own ; yet 
 never forgetting that it is the gift of God, and never 
 ceasing to acknowledge and thank Him for His in- 
 finite goodness and mercy in teaching their " hands 
 to war ;" in " girding " them " with strength unto 
 the battle," and in giving them a " lamp unto their 
 feet and a light unto their path," so that they may 
 walk in safety. 
 
 If salvation were of grace alone, as so many teach 
 in this Gospel temperance work, what need of
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE C! 
 
 " sword," or " armor," or a " lamp unto the feet ?" 
 for if, in answer to prayer and faith, a man's evil 
 nature is instantly changed, he is no longer subject 
 to temptation, and cannot, therefore, enter into coin- 
 bat with evil; and if God lift him out of the dark- 
 ness of his carnal nature into the light of regenera- 
 tion solely in answer to prayer, what need of any 
 lamp unto his feet or light unto his path ? He is no 
 longer a pilgrim and a wayfarer, journeying heaven- 
 ward through an enemy's land. 
 
 \\'e press this subject on the reader's attention, 
 because so much of success or failure in this great 
 Gospel temperance work depends on a right under- 
 standing of spiritual laws and a true comprehen- 
 sion of the means of salvation. Holding, as we do, 
 that, for the thousands and hundreds of thousands 
 of unhappy and wretched men and women in our 
 land who have become the almost helpless slaves of 
 an appetite which is rarely, if ever, wholly destroyed, 
 no true succor lies in anything but Divine grace 
 and help, we feel that a great responsibility rests 
 with all who, in the providence of God, have been 
 drawn into this work. 
 
 Referring to the loose, and we cannot help saying 
 hurtful teachings of too many temperance n vi- 
 va! ists, Rev. Charles I. Warren, writing in the 
 New York Christian Advocate, says : 
 
 " Religious conversion, all are agreed, is the first 
 -iiy tor all men, and i^>ccially for inebriates, 
 as the surest hope of a real and permanent refor- 
 40
 
 626 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 mation of life. And intemperate men, especially 
 those who become demented rather than demonized, 
 it is well known, are always easily moved by reli- 
 gious influences, even when so drunk that they 
 would wisely be deemed incompetent to execute a 
 will for the disposal of earthly property, and inca- 
 pable of giving testimony in a court of law. 
 
 " Yet, this idea of a spiritual renovation of the 
 heart, while the head is too intoxicated to apprehend 
 a moral obligation, is almost beyond rational belief. 
 It is difficult to conceive that any man, in such a 
 state of voluntarily-induced imbecility, too drunk 
 to hold intelligent converse with men, can be com- 
 petent to transact business with God, to receive and 
 answer those calls from the Holy Spirit that decide 
 the eternal destinies of the soul." 
 
 And he adds : " We judge instinctively that all 
 men, intemperate or sober, must work out their own 
 salvation with fear, while God works in them to will 
 and to do." 
 
 This is the key-note to the whole subject of spir- 
 itual regeneration. It. is active co-operation ; work, 
 conflict, victory ; and this down on the sphere of 
 common life, and in the midst of temptation not 
 out of the world, but " in the world ;" not some- 
 thing done in and for a man while he waits in 
 prayer on God, but after he has fought his battle 
 with some enemy of his soul, and overcome in the 
 strength which God has given him in answer to 
 prayer. Only they who have fought and conquered 
 can possess the land and dwell there in safety.
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 AN UNSOUND AND DANGEROUS DOCTRINK. 
 
 In a meeting at which we were present, and where 
 from one to two hundred reformed men were 
 gathered for religious worship, and for help and 
 counsel, the hymn commencing 
 
 " Prone to wander, Lord I feel it," 
 
 was sung. At its close, a man rose from his seat and 
 entered his protest against the singing of that hymn 
 any more. It is not true, he said, that the man 
 whom God has converted feels any proneness to 
 wander. He had had the grace of God in his soul 
 for we don't remember how many years and he 
 could testify that the desire to wander from God's 
 commandments had been wholly removed. He, 
 therefore, repeated his protest against the use of a 
 hymn containing a sentiment so dishonorable to a 
 truly saved Christian. As he sat down, a very 
 young man arose and added the weight of his testi- 
 mony to the assertion of his older Christian brother. 
 He also, in answer to prayer, as he confidently as- 
 serted, had attained unto that higher life which is 
 not only free from sin, but from even the desire to 
 wander from the ways of holiness. 
 
 As we looked into and read the faces of these two 
 UK ii, we sighed for what we saw therein, and pitied 
 them for the peril in which they stood. But our 
 greater concern was for the poor, weak, almost hrlp- 
 less ones we saw around us, and for the effect of this 
 delusive error which had been so needlessly thrown
 
 628 STKONG DRINK; 
 
 into their minds. If any of them should rest in 
 the belief that they, too, had, by the grace of God, 
 been wholly set free from the bondage of sin ; that 
 the appetite for drink and the lust of all evil had 
 been extinguished, and their proneness to wander 
 from God taken away in simple answer to prayer, 
 then would their danger, we felt, be so imminent as 
 to leave but little room for hope of their standing 
 in the new life. A stumbling-block had been laid 
 in their way over which they must almost surely fall. 
 
 We are writing for the help and safety of men 
 for whom there is but little or no hope of rescue 
 from the depths of evil and sensuality into which 
 they have fallen, except in a truly religious life ; 
 not a life of mere faith and sentiment and fancied 
 holiness, but of earnest conflict and daily right 
 living. A life in which not only intemperance is 
 to be shunned as a sin against God, but every im- 
 pure and evil desire of the heart, and every thought 
 and purpose of wrong to the neighbor. And, be- 
 lieving as we do, that God's grace and power can 
 only be given to those who will take it as active 
 subjects not mere passive recipients and by using 
 it as if it were their own, avail themselves of its 
 purifying and regenerating influence, we can do no 
 less than question and reject any doctine that even 
 seems to give a different impression, as delusive and 
 exceedingly dangerous. 
 
 To make Gospel temperance the true power of 
 God unto the salvation of intemperate men, we
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 mn>t liavo in it, and with it, the Gospel of conflict 
 with evil, the Gospel of daily right living, the Gos- 
 pel of love to the neighbor and the Gospel of com- 
 mon sense. And these are coming more and more 
 into the work, which is widening and increasing, 
 and every year adding thousands upon thousands to 
 the number of those who are saved from the curse 
 of drink.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 TEMPERANCE COFFEE-HOUSES AND FEIENDLY INNS. 
 
 r 1 1HE cure of a drunkard is always attended with 
 -L peculiar difficulties. The cost is often great. 
 Sometimes cure is found to be impossible. A hun- 
 dred may be protected from the ravages of intem- 
 perance at the cost of saving one who has fallen a 
 victim to the terrible malady. "An ounce of pre- 
 vention is worth a pound of cure." 
 
 While so much is being done to reform and save 
 the drunkard, the work of prevention has not been 
 forgotten. Great good has been accomplished in 
 this direction through the spread of total-abstinence 
 principles. In this the various temperance organi- 
 zations have done much, and especially with the 
 rising generation. But, so long as men are licensed 
 by the State to sell intoxicating drinks, the net of 
 the tempter is spread on every hand, and thousands 
 of the weak and unwary are yearly drawn therein 
 and betrayed to their ruin. In our great cities a 
 large number of men who have to do business at 
 points remote from their dwellings, are exposed to 
 special temptations. The down-town lunch-room 
 and dining-room have, in most cases, their drinking- 
 bars ; or, if no bar is visible, the bill of fare offers, 
 630
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. (53 1 
 
 in too many cases, any kind of intoxicating beverage 
 that may be desired. Thousands of men are, in 
 consequence, yearly led away from sobriety. 
 
 Seeing this, efforts have been made during the 
 past few years to establish cheap temperance coffee- 
 houses, where workingmen and others may get a 
 good noonday lunch, or a morning and evening 
 meal at a trifling cost. In all cases, these have 
 been found of great service to the cause of temper- 
 ance. A pint mug of excellent coffee, with sugar 
 and milk, and a large, sweet roll, costing five cents, 
 are found to make a far better and healthier lunch 
 than the highly-seasoned hashes and scraps allied 
 " free lunches," which must be washed down by a 
 or ten-cent glass of liquor. 
 
 THE EXPERIMENT IX PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 The success which has attended the establishment 
 of cheap temperance coffee-houses in this city (Phila- 
 delphia), is quite remarkable. In the fall of 1874, 
 Joshua L. Baily, one of our active, clear-headi -d mer- 
 chants, who had been for many years an earnest 
 tcmprranrr man, determined to give the cheap 
 e-house experiment a fair trial, cost what ii 
 might; for he saw that if it could be made success- 
 ful, it would be a powerful agency in the work of 
 pn vmtion. lie began in a modest way, taking a 
 small store at the corner of Market and Fift< 
 
 ami lilting it up in a mat and attractive 
 manner. With a i' \v pounds of coffee, and a few
 
 (532 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 dozens of rolls, the place was opened, the single 
 attendant, a woman, acting the double part of cook 
 and waiter. For five cents a pint mug of the best 
 Java coffee, with milk and sugar, and a good-sized 
 roll, were furnished. 
 
 From the very start " The Workingmen's Central 
 Coffee-House," as Mr. Baily called it, was successful. 
 In the immediate neighborhood five hundred work- 
 men were employed on the city buildings, and oppo- 
 site stood the Pennsylvania Railroad freight depot, to 
 which came daily about the same number of men 
 draymen, teamsters and others. It took but a few 
 days to so crowd the new coffee-room at the usual 
 lunching time as to require an additional assistant. 
 From day to day the business went on increasing, 
 until more help and larger accommodations became 
 necessary. Soon a complete kitchen had to be built 
 in the basement, and the adjoining store added, in 
 order to meet the steadily-enlarging demands upon 
 the new establishment. The fame of the good coffee, 
 which was better than most people found at home, 
 spread far and near, and larger and larger numbers 
 of clerks, workingmen and others, turned their 
 steps daily, at lunch time, towards the Central 
 Coffee-House. It was so much better than the poor 
 stuff served in most of the eating-houses; and, with 
 the sweet roll added, so much better than the free 
 lunch and glass of beer or whisky with which too 
 many had been accustomed to regale themselves.
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 33 
 
 SIGNAL SUCCESS. 
 
 Steadily swelled the tide of custom. Within a 
 year a third store, adjoining, was added. But the 
 enlarged premises soon proved inadequate to the 
 accommodation of the still-increasing crowd. 
 
 At this writing "The Central" is from six to 
 seven times larger than when first opened; and 
 lunch in its rooms, daily, nearly two thousand 
 persons. One room has been lilted up tor hulks 
 exclusively, in which from forty to fifty can lunch 
 at one time. 
 
 But Mr. Baily looked beyond the cheap coffee 
 and rolls by which he was able to keep so many 
 away from bar-rooms and restaurants where liquor 
 was sold. He believed in other influences and safe- 
 guards. And to this end, and at his own cost, he 
 lit t-d up the various rooms over the seven stores ex- 
 truding along Market Street from Fifteenth to 
 Broad, in which the coffee-rooms are located, and 
 set them apart for various uses. Here is a lecture- 
 hall, capable of seating four hundred persons; a 
 free reading-room, well warmed and li^hh-d and 
 supplied with the best daily newspapers, American 
 and English illustrated publications, and the stand- 
 ard periodicals; besides four other -rooms that will 
 hold from seventy to one hundred persons, which 
 are used for various meeting purposes, all in con- 
 nection with temperance. Five regular services are 
 held in the lecture-room every week, viz.: "Bible 
 Beading," on Sunday afternoon ; "Temperance Ex-
 
 634 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 perience meeting," on Monday evening; "Prayer 
 and Praise meeting," Tuesday evening; "Gospel 
 Temperance meeting," on Thursday evening ; and 
 " Youths' Temperance meeting," Friday evening. 
 These meetings are often crowded, and, like the 
 coffee-rooms below, attract audiences made up from 
 every rank in society. At many of these meetings, 
 Mr. Baily presides in person. 
 
 Encouraged by the success of this first effort, Mr. 
 Baily opened another cheap coffee-house in the very 
 centre of the wholesale trade of the city, where 
 thousands of clerks, workingmen and merchants 
 were in the habit of resorting for lunch or dinner 
 to the restaurants and bar-rooms in the neighbor- 
 hood. This, located at No. 31 South Fourth Street, 
 he called "The Model Coffee-House." 
 
 CKOWDED FEOM THE FIRST. 
 
 From the first it was crowded even to an uncom- 
 fortable extent. The demands of its patrons soon 
 rendered larger quarters a necessity. A new build- 
 ing was erected specially adapted to the purpose, 
 many novel features being introduced which a twelve- 
 month's experience had suggested. 
 
 The new " Model " opened June 1st, 187G. Many 
 persons thought it was too large, and that it would 
 never be filled. But it was thronged on the day of 
 opening, and on every day since the demands upon 
 it have been fully up to its capacity. The num- 
 ber lunching here daily is about three thousand.
 
 TUB CURSE AXD THE CURE. $35 
 
 In the establishment of the coffee-houses there 
 were, of course, many mistakes, the results of inex- 
 perience. Many things had to be unlearned as 
 well as many learned. But mistakes were promptly 
 corrected. With the growth of the work, ability to 
 provide for it seemed to keep pace, and modifications 
 in the management were adopted as necessity dic- 
 tated. Not much was anticipated at the commence- 
 ment beyond furnishing a mug of coffee and a roll 
 of bread, but it soon became apparent that something 
 more than this was needed. To meet this necessity, 
 the coffee-house bill of fare was greatly extended, 
 and now quite a variety of nutritious and substantial 
 dishes are provided, and each at the uniform price 
 of five cents. The main feature the coffee is, 
 however, preserved. A full pint mug of the best 
 Java (equal to two ordinary cups) with pure, rich 
 milk and white sugar, and two ounces of either 
 wiieat or brown bread, all for five cents, is the 
 ev< ry-day lunch of many a man who, but for this 
 provision, would be found in the dram shop. 
 
 No dish, as we have said, costs over five cents, 
 whieh is t lu- stain la nl price the year round, wha; 
 the fluctuations of markets may be. in addition 
 to the bread and coffee already mentioned for live. 
 cents, the bill of fare comprises puddings of rice, 
 tapioca and corn stareh, baked apples dre>sed with 
 sugar and milk, all sorts of pies (half a pie lieing 
 given for a portion), mushes of craekrd wheat, corn 
 and oatmeal, dumplings, eggs, potatoes, brans, ham,
 
 (536 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 corned beef, liver, "scrapple," sausage, custards, 
 soups, pickles and, in season, fresh fruits. Of bread, 
 there are Boston and Philadelphia brown, wheat, 
 Philadelphia and Vienna rolls. A pint glass of 
 milk with a roll, costs five cents ; butter three cents, 
 and extra rolls one cent each; so that for ten or 
 fifteen cents a man gets a full luncheon, as every 
 portion of food is equal to a large saucer heaped. 
 
 These establishments require, of course, the most 
 methodical, orderly and careful management, with 
 capable matrons at the head of each, and a steward 
 or superintendent to make intelligent purchases. 
 At the " Model Coffee-House," there are nearly fifty 
 employees, and, excepting three or four men, they 
 are girls and women. The upper rooms of the 
 building are for the lodgings, offices, laundry and 
 drawing-room, for the use of the employees. The 
 girls, who are mostly of country birth and training, 
 are thus furnished with a good and safe home, where 
 they have books and music, large and well-furnished 
 chambers, a good table they dine at one family 
 table in their own dining-room and have their 
 washing and ironing done in the house. They are 
 required to be neat and tidy in appearance, respect- 
 able and discreet in character and manner. 
 
 THE GOOD DONE. 
 
 The good that is done through an instrumentality 
 like this can never be fully known. Of those who 
 are drawn into paths of safety, we do not so often
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. (537 
 
 as of those who are led astray. But enough 
 is already known of the good done by these two 
 coffee-houses to give large encouragement for their 
 establishment in other localities and other cities. 
 Hundreds of young men who had fallen into the 
 dangerous habit of taking a glass of beer every day 
 with their lunch, now take a fragrant cup of c 
 instead, and find themselves better for the change; 
 hundreds more who had begun to feel the insidious 
 encroachments of appetite, have been able to get out 
 of the way of temptation. 
 
 The question that naturally arises with all who 
 look pncticallyst this matter is, whether there is 
 any profit in the business of keeping a cheap tem- 
 perance coffee-house? Can a pint of coffee, with 
 sugar, milk and a two-ounce roll of bread, be fur- 
 nished for five cents and leave any margin for profit? 
 .Mr. Daily's experiment has proved that it can. 
 
 FKIEXDLY INNS. 
 
 But not alone in Philadelphia is the cheap coffee- 
 house to be found. There are hundreds of them in 
 our various towns and cities, though none on so 
 large a scale as here; and they arc rapidly multi- 
 plying and doing good. "The Friendly Inn," and 
 "The Holly-Tree Inn," are places somewhat similar 
 in character, but partaking more of the nature of 
 inn " than a simple, eating-house. These have, 
 !y, a pleasant parlor, with light, and warmth, 
 and books, into which any oue may come and pass
 
 (338 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 the evening, instead of drifting into a saloon, and 
 where cheap meals and lodgings can be had if 
 needed. In Cleveland, Ohio, Christian temperance 
 work, which is very large and effective, is carried 
 on almost entirely in connection with " Friendly 
 Inns," of which there are five. A chapel, reading- 
 room, sleeping apartments and a cheap restaurant 
 are maintained in connection with each of these 
 inns. The women engaged in the cause of Gospel 
 temperance in that city regard them as most valuable 
 auxiliaries to the spiritual work in which they are 
 engaged. In a large number of cases, they have been 
 the direct means of bringing men in whom few traces 
 of goodness could at first be discerned in such con- 
 tact with religious influences as to win them over to 
 a better life.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 TEMPERANCE LITERATURE. 
 
 greatest and most effective agency in any 
 work of enlightenment and reform is the press. 
 By it the advanced thinker and Christian philan- 
 thropist is able to Bpeak to the whole people, and to 
 instruct, persuade and influence them. He can 
 address the reason and conscience of thousands, and 
 < v< ii of hundreds of thousands of people to whom 
 he could never find access in any other way, and so 
 turn their minds to the right consideration of ques- 
 tions of social interest in regard to which they had 
 been, from old prejudices or habits of thinking, in 
 duubt or grievous error. 
 
 No cause has been more largely indebted to the 
 press than that of temperance reform. From the 
 very beginning of agitation on the subject of this 
 reform, the press has been used with great efficiency; 
 and to-day, the literature of temperance is a force 
 of such magnitude and power, that it is moving 
 whole nations, and compelling Parliaments, Chambers 
 of Deputies and Houses of Congress to consider the 
 claims of a question which, if presented fifty years 
 ago, would have been treated, in these grave assem- 
 blages, with levity or contempt 
 639
 
 640 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 For many years after the reform movement began 
 in this country, the press was used with marked 
 effect. But as most of the books, pamphlets and 
 tracts which were issued came through individual 
 enterprise, the editions were often small and the 
 prices high ; and as the sale of such publications 
 was limited, and the profit, if any, light, the efforts 
 to create a broad and comprehensive temperance 
 literature met with but feeble encouragement. But 
 in 1865, a convention was called to meet at Saratoga 
 to consider the subject of a national organization so 
 comprehensive and practical that all the friends of 
 temperance in religious denominations and temper- 
 ance organizations could unite therein for common 
 work. Out of this convention grew the 
 
 NATIONAL TEMPERANCE SOCIETY AND PUBLICATION 
 
 HOUSE, 
 
 which began, at once, the creation of a temperance 
 literature worthy of the great cause it represented. 
 The president of this society is Hon. William E. 
 Dodge, of New York. The vice-presidents are 
 ninety-two in number, and include some of the most 
 distinguished men in the country ; clergymen, jurists, 
 statesmen, and private citizens eminent for their 
 public spirit and philanthropy. It has now been 
 in existence some twelve years. Let us see what it 
 has done in that time for temperance literature and 
 the direction and growth of a public sentiment ad- 
 verse to the liquor traffic. We let the efficient cor-
 
 THE rr/:\/: A.\D THE CURE. $41 
 
 responding secretary and publishing agent, J. N. 
 Stearns, speak for the association he so ably repre- 
 sents. Its rooms are at No. 58 Reade Street, New 
 York. Referring to the initial work of the society, 
 "It was resolved," says Mr. Stearns, "that the 
 publishing agent should keep * all the temperance 
 literature of the day/ This was found to consist of 
 less than a dozen different publications in print, and 
 these of no special value. All the plates of valuable 
 works before in existence were either shipped across 
 the water or melted up and destroyed. The society 
 commenced at once to create a literature of its own, 
 but found it was not the work of a moment. The 
 first publication outside of its monthly paper, was a 
 four-pM^e tract by Rev. T. L. Cuyler, D.D., in Feb- 
 ruary, 1866, entitled 'A Shot at the Decanter/ of 
 which about two hundred thousand copies have 
 been published. 
 
 FIRST BOOK PUBLISHED. 
 
 " The first book was published in May of the 
 year, entitled, 'Scripture Testimony against 
 Intoxicating AVine.' Prizes were offered for the 
 best tracts and books, and the best talent in the 
 land sought and solicited to aid in giving light upon 
 every phase of the question. The result has been 
 that an immcnso mass of manuscripts have been 
 received, examined, assorted, some approved and 
 many rejected, and the list of publications has gone 
 on steadily increasing, until in the eleven years it 
 41
 
 642 STKONG DRINK; 
 
 amounts to four hundred and fifty varieties upon 
 every branch of the temperance question. There 
 were over twenty separate so-called secret temper- 
 ance societies, each with a different ritual and con- 
 stitution, with subordinate organizations scattered 
 all over the land. These contained probably about 
 one million of members. Then there were churches, 
 open societies, State temperance unions, etc., each 
 operating independently and with no common bond 
 of union. Some were for moral suasion alone, 
 others for political action, while others were for both 
 united. The great need for some national organi- 
 zation which should be a common centre and 
 ground of union, a medium of communication be- 
 tween all, and to aid, strengthen and benefit every 
 existing organization and denomination, was felt all 
 over the land. 
 
 "This society was organized to supply such a 
 need. It is both a society and a publication house. 
 The need and demand came from every quarter for 
 facts, statistics, arguments and appeals upon every 
 phase of the question, in neat, cheap and compact 
 form, which could be sent everywhere and used by 
 everybody. Public opinion had settled down against 
 us, and light was needed to arouse it to right action. 
 The pulpit and the platform were to be supplemented 
 by the press, which, henceforth, was to be used in 
 this great and rapidly strengthening cause, as in 
 every other, to reach the individuals and homes of 
 every portion of the land.
 
 TUE CURSE AXD THE CL'fiE. 643 
 
 AFTER TWELVE YF.AK-. 
 
 "Twelve years have passed years of anxious 
 preparation and toil, of seed-planting and sowing, 
 and they have been improved. This society now 
 puhlishes books and tracts upon the moral, economi- 
 cal, physiological, political, financial, religious, medi- 
 cal and social phases of the reform. We have the 
 writings of over two hundred different persons in 
 almost every walk and station in life. AVe already 
 have a literature of no mean character. Its influ- 
 ence is not only felt in every State and Territory in 
 the land, but in every country on the globe. 
 
 :;: * # * * # :: =;= 
 
 "Among the early publications of the society 
 were those printed upon 'The Adulteration of 
 Liquors,' ' The Physiological Action of Alcohol/ 
 'Alcohol: Its Nature and Effects/ 'Alcohol: Its 
 Place and Power/ 'Is Alcohol Food?' 'Text- 
 Book of Temperance/ etc., followed later by ' Bac- 
 clins Dethroned/ ' The Medical Use of Alcohol/ 
 ' Is Alcohol a Neccessary of Life ?' ' Our Wasted 
 Resources/ ' On Alcohol/ ' Prohibition does Pro- 
 hibit/ ' Fruits of the Liquor Traffic/ 'The Throne of 
 Iniquity/ 'Suppression of the Liquor Traffic,' 'Al- 
 cohol as a Food and Medicine/ etc. 
 
 " The truths of these books and pamphlets, which 
 have been reproduced in a thousand ways in ser- 
 mons, addresses, newspapers, etc., have already p r- 
 meated the community to such an extent as to bear 
 much fruit"
 
 (344 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 In the creation of a literature for children, the 
 society early issued The Youths' Temperance Ban- 
 ner, a paper for Sunday-schools. This has attained a 
 circulation of nearly one hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand copies monthly. It has also created a Sunday- 
 school temperance library, which numbers already 
 as many as seventy bound volumes; editions of 
 which reaching in the aggregate to one hundred 
 and eighty-three thousand five hundred and seventy- 
 six volumes have already been sold. The society 
 also publishes a monthly paper called the National 
 Temperance Advocate, which has a wide circulation. 
 
 REMARKABLE GROWTH OF TEMPERANCE LITERATURE. 
 
 The number of books, pamphlets and tracts which 
 have been issued by the National Temperance So- 
 ciety during the twelve years of its existence, is four 
 hundred and sixty, some of them large and import- 
 ant volumes. 
 
 To this extraordinary production and growth of 
 temperance literature in the past twelve years are 
 the people indebted for that advanced public senti- 
 ment which is to-day gathering such force and will. 
 
 And here, let us say, in behalf of a society which 
 has done such grand and noble work, that from the 
 very outset it has had to struggle with pucuniary 
 difficulties. 
 
 Referring to the difficulties and embarrassments 
 with which the society has had to contend from the 
 beginning, the secretary says :
 
 1'llK CURSE A ND THE Cl 'li /.. G45 
 
 "The early financial struggles of the society are 
 known only to a very few persons. It was deemed 
 best by the majority of the board not to let the 
 public know our poverty. Looking hack over the 
 eleven years of severe struggles, pecuniary embar- 
 rn ments, unexpected difliculties, anxious d;iys, 
 toiling, wearisome nights, with hopes of relief dashed 
 at almost every turn, surrounded by the indifference 
 of friends, and with the violent opposition of enemies, 
 we can only wonder that the society has breasted the 
 storm and is saved from a complete and total wreck. 
 * This society never was endowed, never had 
 a working capital, never has been the recipient of 
 contributions from churches or of systematic dona- 
 tions from individuals. It never has had a day of 
 relief from financial embarrassment since its organi- 
 zation ; and yet there never has been a day but that 
 the sum of ten thousand dollars would have lifted it 
 out of its embarrassments and started it with a buoy- 
 ant heart on towards the accomplishment of its 
 mission." 
 
 And lie adds: "Notwithstanding all these con- 
 stant and ever-pressing financial emburras.sinentBj the 
 society has never faltered for one moment, but has 
 gone steadily on doing its appointed work, exploring 
 lu-w fields, and developing both old and new truths 
 and documents and principles, and it stands to-day 
 the strongest and most solid and substantial bulwark 
 against intemperance in the land."
 
 646 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 A MOST IMPORTANT AGENCY. 
 
 As the most important of all the agencies now 
 used for the suppression of the liquor traffic, and as 
 the efficient ally of all let us rally to the support of 
 our great publication house and see that it has 
 ampler means for the work in which it is engaged. 
 There are hundreds of thousands of men and women 
 in our land who are happy and prosperous to-day 
 because of what this society has done in the last 
 twelve years to create a sentiment adverse to the 
 traffic and to the drinking usages of society. Its 
 work is so silent and unobtrusive in comparison 
 with that of many other efficient, but more limited 
 instrumentalities, that we are apt to lose sight of 
 its claims, and to fail in giving an adequate support 
 to the very power, which is, in a large measure, the 
 source of power to all the rest. 
 
 If we would war successfully with our strong and 
 defiant enemy, we must look to it that the literature 
 of temperance does not languish. We are not 
 making it half as efficient as it might be. Here we 
 havea thoroughly organized publication house, with 
 capable and active agents, which, if the means were 
 placed at its disposal, could flood the country with 
 books, pamphlets and tracts by millions every year ; 
 and we leave it to struggle with embarrassments, 
 and to halting and crippled work. This is not well. 
 Our literature is our right arm in this great conflict, 
 and only in the degree that we strengthen this arm 
 will we be successful in our pursuit of victory.
 
 CHAPTER XVH. 
 
 LICENSE A FAILURE AND A DISGEACE. 
 
 FOR over two hundred years in this country, and 
 for a much longer period of time in Great 
 ] Britain and some of the countries of Continental 
 Europe, attempts have been made to protect the peo- 
 ple against the evils of intemperance by restrictive 
 liquor laws. But as these laws were permissive and 
 IK t prohibitory, the evil was not restrained. Nay, 
 its larger growth came as the natural consequence 
 of such laws, for they not only gave to a few men 
 in every community the right to live and grow rich 
 by doing all in their power to increase the evil, but 
 throw around them the protection of the State ; so 
 leaving the people powerless in their hands. 
 
 HISTORY OF LICENSE IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 The history of all restrictive laws which have 
 stopped short of absolute prohibition, is a history of 
 the saddest of failures, and shows that to license an 
 evil is to increase its power. 
 
 Judge Robert C. Pitman, in his "Alcohol and the 
 State," an exceedingly valuable discussion of the 
 " Problem of Law as Applied to the Liquor Tntflic," 
 gives an instructive history of the license laws of
 
 648 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 Massachusetts from early colonial times down to tlie 
 year 1877. The experience of Massachusetts is 
 that of every other community, State or nation, 
 which has sought to repress drunkenness and its 
 attendant evils by the enactment of license laws ; 
 and we ask the reader's earnest and candid consid- 
 eration of the facts we shall here present. 
 
 As early as 1636, an effort was made in the Old 
 Colony to lessen intemperance by the passage of a 
 restrictive law, declaring " That none be suffered to 
 retail wine, strong water or beer, either within doors 
 or without, except in inns or victualing-houses al- 
 lowed." That this law did not lessen the evil of 
 drunkenness is plain from the fact that, in 1646, in 
 the preamble to a new liquor law it was declared by 
 the Massachusetts colony that, "Forasmuch as drunk- 
 enness is a vice to be abhorred of all nations, es- 
 pecially of those who hold out and profess the Gos- 
 pel of Christ, and seeing any strict law will not pre- 
 vail unless the cause be taken away, it is, therefore, 
 ordered by this Court," What ? Entire prohibition 
 of the sale of intoxicating drinks? No. Only, 
 "That no merchant, cooper or any other person 
 whatever, shall, after the first day of the first month, 
 sell any wine under one-quarter of a cask, neither 
 by quart, gallon or any other measure, but only such 
 taverners as are licensed to sell by the gallon" 
 And in order still further to protect and encourage 
 the publican in his vested and exclusive right, it 
 was further enacted that, "Any taverners or other
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cl'lll'. 49 
 
 persons who shall inform against any transgressor, 
 shall have one-half of the lines for his encouragc- 
 //." This la\v contained a section which forbids 
 any person licensed "to sell strong waters, or any 
 private housekeeper to permit any person to sit 
 drinking or tippling strong waters, wine or strong 
 beer in their houses." 
 
 THE EVIL STILL INCREASING. 
 
 Ptill the evil of drunkenness went on increasing 
 under the license system, until in 1092, we find in 
 a preamble to certain more stringent laws for the 
 regulation of the traffic, this sad confession : "And 
 -much ns the ancient, true and principal use of 
 inns, taverns, ale-houses, victualing-houses and 
 other houses for common entertainment is for re- 
 ceipt, relief and lodging of travelers and strangers, 
 and the refreshment of persons on lawful business. 
 And not for entertainment and harboring 
 of lewd or idle people to spend or consume their 
 time or money there; therefore, in j>r> >< ut (he -;w/.s- 
 cltii'f and great disorders happening daily by alntxe 
 of sttr/t, Junixes, It is further enacted," etc. not 
 prohibition of the sale; but further restrictions and 
 penalties. How far these restrictions and penalties 
 ell'ective, appears from the statue of 169r>, in 
 the preamble of which is a complaint that divers 
 na who had obtained license to sell liquor to be 
 taken away and not drunk in their houses, did, not- 
 withstanding, "give entertainment to persons ;
 
 (350 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 drinking and tippling there," while others who 
 " have no license at all are yet so hardy as to run 
 upon the law," to the " great increase of drunkenness 
 and other debaucheries." 
 
 These colonial fathers, in their efforts to lessen 
 the evil of drinking by restrictive license, for which 
 a fee to the State was required, opened a door 
 for the unlicensed dram-shop, which was then, as it 
 is now, one of the worst forms of the liquor traffic, 
 because it is in the hands of more unscrupulous 
 persons, too many of whom are of the lowest and 
 vilest class, and whose tippling-houses are dens of 
 crime and infamy as well as drunkenness. 
 
 How this was in the colony of Massachusetts 
 under license in 1695 is seen above, and further 
 appears in this recital taken from the statute to fur- 
 ther limit the spread of drunkenness, wherein it 
 refers to "divers ill-disposed and indigent persons, the 
 pains and penalties in the laws already made not 
 regarding, who are so hardy as to presume to sell 
 and retail strong beer, ale, cider, sherry wine, rum 
 or other strong liquors or mixed drinks, and to keep 
 common tippling-houses, thereby harboring and en- 
 tertaining apprentices, Indians, negroes and other 
 idle and dissolute persons, tending to the ruin and 
 impoverishment of families, and all impieties and 
 debaucheries, and if detected are unable to pay ///>// 
 fine." All such were sentenced to the whipping-post. 
 
 Three years later, the curse of the licensed traffic 
 had so augmented that another effort was made for
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CTIil-:. 
 
 its regulation oy the enactment of a new and more 
 comprehensive law entitled, "An Act for the In- 
 specting and Suppressing of Disorders in Licensed 
 Houses." 
 
 WORSE AND WORSE. 
 
 How successful the good people of Massachusetts 
 were in holding in check and regulating the evil 
 which they had clothed with power by license, ap- 
 pears in the preamble to a new Act passed in 1711, 
 " For reclaiming the over great number of licensed 
 houses, many of which are chic-fly used for revelling 
 and tippling, and become nurseries of intemperance 
 and debauchery, indulged by the masters and keep- 
 ers of the same for the sake of gain." 
 
 So it went on, from bad to worse, under the Colo- 
 nial Government, until 1787, when the State con- 
 stitution was adopted. To what a frightful magni- 
 tude the evil of drunkenness, provided for and 
 fostered by license, had grown, appears from an 
 entry in the diary of John Adams, under date of 
 February 29th, 17GO, in which he says that few 
 things were "so fruitful of destructive evils" as 
 "licensed houses." They had become, he declares, 
 " the eternal haunts of loose, disorderly people of the 
 town, which renders them offensive and unfit for the 
 entertainment of any traveler of the least delicacy." 
 
 * ::: * " Young people arc templed to wa.-le their 
 
 time aii'l money, and to acquire habits of intemper- 
 ance and idleness, that we often see reduce many to
 
 652 STRONG DRIXK; 
 
 beggary and vice, and lead some of tliem, at least 
 to prison and the gallows." 
 
 In entering upon her career as a State, Massachu- 
 setts continued the license system, laying upon it 
 many prudent restrictions, all of which were of no 
 avail, for the testimony is complete as to the steady 
 increase of drunkenness, crime and debauchery. 
 
 TESTIMONY OF JOHN ADAMS. 
 
 Writing to Mr. Rush in 1811, John Adams says : 
 "Fifty-three years ago I was fired with a zeal, 
 amounting to enthusiasm, against ardent spirits, the 
 multiplication of taverns, retailers, dram-shops and 
 tippling-houses. Grieved to the heart to see the 
 number of idlers, thieves, sots and consumptive pa- 
 tients made for the physicians in these infamous 
 seminaries, I applied to the Court of Sessions, 
 procured a Committee of Inspection and Inquiry, 
 reduced the number of licensed houses, etc., but 1 
 only acquired the reputation of a hypocrite and an 
 ambitious demagogue by it. The number of licensed 
 houses was soon reinstated ; drams, grog and sotting 
 were not diminished, and remain to this day as de- 
 plorable as ever" 
 
 OPENING A WIDER DOOR. 
 
 In 1816, so demoralized had the sentiment of the 
 people become, and so strong the liquor interest of 
 the State, that the saving provision in the license 
 laws, which limited the sale of liquor to inns and
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE Cl'lll'. $53 
 
 -MS, was repealed, and licenses were granted to 
 common victualers, " who shall not be required to 
 furnish accommodations" for travelers; and also to 
 confectioners on the same terms as to inn-keepers ; 
 that is, to sell and to be drunk on the premises. This 
 change in the license laws of Massachusetts was de- 
 clared, by Judge Aldrich, in 1867, to be "one of 
 tin- most fruitful sources of crime and vice that ever 
 d in this Commonwealth." 
 
 Up to as late as 1832, attempts were continued to 
 patch up and amend the license laws of the State; 
 ai't-.T that they were left, for a time, to do their evil 
 work, all efforts to make them anything but pro- 
 moters of drunkenness, crime and poverty being 
 led as fruitless. 
 
 "Miserable in principle," says Judge Pitman, 
 *' license laws were found no less inefficient in prac- 
 tice." Meantime, the battle against the liquor 
 traflic had been going on in various parts of the 
 State. In 1835, a law was secured by which the 
 < >llice of county commissioner (the licensingauthorit y) 
 was made an elective office ; heretofore it had been 
 held by appointment. This gave the people of each 
 county a local control over the liquor question, and 
 in the very first year the counties of Plymouth and 
 Bristol elected boards committed to the policy of no 
 license. Other counties followed this good example ; 
 and to l>ar all (jue-tions of the right to refuse every 
 license by a county, the power was expressly con- 
 ferred by a law passed in 1837.
 
 (554 STRONG DEINK; 
 
 A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER. 
 
 The good results were immediately apparent in 
 all places where license to sell intoxicating drinks 
 was refused. After a thorough investigation of the 
 matter, the Judiciary Committee of the Legislature 
 reported the evidence to be " perfectly incontrovert- 
 able, that the good order and the physical and moral 
 welfare of the community had been promoted by 
 refusing to license the sale of ardent spirits; and 
 that although the laws have been and are violated 
 to some extent in different places, the practice soon 
 becomes disreputable and hides . itself from the 
 public eye by shrinking into obscure and dark 
 places ; that noisy and tumultuous assemblies in the 
 streets and public quarrels cease where license is 
 refused ; and that pauperism lias very rapidly di- 
 minished from the same cause" 
 
 An attempt to prohibit entirely the retail liquor 
 traffic was made in 1838, by the passage of what 
 was known as the "Fifteen-Gallon Law," which 
 forbade the sale of spirituous liquors in a less quan- 
 tity than fifteen gallons, which had to be " carried 
 away all at one time ;" except by apothecaries and 
 practicing physicians, who might sell for use in the 
 arts and for medicinal purposes. 
 
 But this law remained in operation only a year 
 and a half; when, in concession to the liquor in- 
 terest of the State, which had been strong enough 
 to precipitate a political revolution and get its own 
 men in the legislature, it was repealed.
 
 THE CURSE ASD TIL 
 
 " But the State," says Judge Pitman, " while the 
 memory of licence was JVesh, was not to fall again 
 under its sway. The struggle for local prohibition 
 was at once renewed, and in a few years licence had 
 ceased throughout the Commonwealth. The state- 
 ment may surprise many ; but I have the authority 
 of the city clerk of Boston for saying, that ' no 
 licenses for the sale of intoxicating liquors were 
 granted in Boston between 1841 and 1852.' * * * 
 And so the chapter of license was apparently closed. 
 It had not only had its 'day/ but its centuri- 
 court; and the well-nigh unanimous verdict 
 
 So strong was this conviction in the minds of the 
 people of Massachusetts, that Governor Bullock, in 
 1801, while acting as chairman of the Judiciary 
 Committee of the House, gave it expression in these 
 notable words : " It may be taken as the solemnly 
 declared judgment of the people of the Common- 
 wealth, that the principle of licensing the traffic in 
 intoxicating drinks as a beverage, and thus ulrlnij 
 Ay// sanction to that which is regarded in itself as 
 an evil, is no longer admissible in morals or in legia- 
 
 THE LIQUOR POWER IN TIIK ASCENDANT AGA I 
 
 But in 1868, adver-e influences prevailed, and 
 after all her sad and di-u;raei-ful experience, Massa- 
 chusetts abandoned her prohibition of the traffic 
 and went back to license again ; but the evil conse-
 
 (356 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 quences began to show themselves so quickly that 
 the law was repealed in less than a year. 
 
 Governor Claflin, in his message to the legisla- 
 ture m January, 1869, thus speaks of the effect of 
 the new license law : " The increase of drunkenness 
 and crime during the last six months, as compared 
 with the same period of 1867, is very marked and 
 decisive as to the operation of the law. The /State 
 prisons, jails and houses of correction are being 
 rapidly filled, and will soon require enlarged ac- 
 commodation if the commitments continue to in- 
 crease as they have since the present law went in 
 force." 
 
 While the chaplain of the State prison in his 
 annual report for 1868, says: "The prison never 
 was so full as at the present time. If the rapidly 
 increasing tide of intemperance, so greatly swollen 
 by the present wretched license law, is suffered to 
 rush on unchecked, there will be a fearful increase 
 of crime, and the State must soon extend the limits 
 of the prison, or create another." 
 
 This law was repealed, as we have seen. A year 
 of its bitter fruit was enough for the people. 
 
 SUBMITTING AGAIN TO THE YOKE. 
 
 But, strange to say, after all she has suffered from 
 license laws, the old Bay State has again submitted to 
 the yoke, and is once more in the hands of the great 
 liquor interest. In 1874, she drifted out from the 
 safe harbor of prohibition, and we find her, to-day, .
 
 THE CURSE AND TUB CURE. (557 
 
 on the stormy and storm-wrecked sea of license. 
 A miserable attempt has been made by the friends 
 of this law to show that its action has been salutory 
 in Boston, the headquarters of the liquor power, in 
 the diminution of dram-shops and arrests for drtmk- 
 cnnrss. Water may run up hill in Boston; but it 
 obeys the law of gravitation in other places. We 
 leave the reader to draw his own conclusions from this 
 extract from the report of the License Commissioners 
 of that city, made February 1st, 1877: "It must 
 be admitted that the business of liquor-selling in 
 this city i.s, to a very large extent, in the hands of 
 irresponsible ///> n <///'/ u-vinai, whose idea of a lir 
 l;i\v ends with the simple matter of paying a certain 
 sum, the amount making but little difference to 
 i\wm, provided they are left to do as tlicy please 
 pay mi- nt. Besides the saloons and bar-rooms, 
 which are open publicly, the trafiic in small grocery 
 stores, in cellars and in dwelling-houses, in .-ome 
 parts of the city, is almost astounding. TJie Sunday 
 trade is enormous, and it seems as if tJicre were not 
 f eiwityh in the whole round of ticenty-four t or 
 iyh In the entire week to satisfy the dcal> n." 
 
 Tin- experience of Massachusetts is, as we have 
 
 already said, the experience of every community, 
 
 or nation in which ail effort has been made to 
 
 abridge the evils of intemperance by licensing the 
 
 dram-shop. 
 
 And to whom and to what class of citizens does 
 the State accord, under lic M-- , the privilege of 
 49
 
 658 STKONG DRINK; 
 
 making gain out of the people's loss ? For whom 
 is every interest in the nation taxed and every in- 
 dustry hurt ? For whom are the houses of the poor 
 made poorer ; and the supply of bread diminished ? 
 For whom are a crime-assaulted and pauper-ridden 
 people driven to build jails and poor-houses, and 
 insane asylums, and maintain courts and juries and 
 a vast army of police, at the cost of millions of 
 dollars every year ? 
 
 For great benefactors to whom the nation owes a 
 debt of gratitude? For men who are engaged in 
 great industrial or commercial enterprises? Pro- 
 moters of education ? leaders in the great march of 
 civilization ? Even if this were so, better not to have 
 accepted the service than pay f6r it at so fearful a cost. 
 
 Who and what are these men ? this great priv- 
 ileged class ? Let us see. In Boston, we have the 
 testimony of the License Commissioners that liquor- 
 selling is in the hands of " irresponsible men and 
 women," who pay a license for the privilege of doing 
 " as they please after payment." And for the main- 
 tenance of these " irresponsible " men and women 
 in their right to corrupt and degrade the people, a 
 forced tax is laid on every bit of property and every 
 interest in the great city of Boston ! What was the 
 tax on tea to this ? And yet, Boston patiently sub- 
 mits I 
 
 Is it better in New York, Philadelphia, Balti- 
 more, Cincinnati, Chicago or any other of our 
 large cities? Not a whit! In some it is worse,
 
 THE CUSSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 even, than in the capital of the old Bay State. In 
 one of these last-mentioned cities, where, under the 
 license system so dear to politicians, and for which 
 they are chiefly responsible, between seven and eight 
 thousand places in which liquor is sold at retail 
 exist, an effort was made in 1876 to ascertain the 
 character and antecedents of every person engaged 
 in drain -selling. We are not able to say how care- 
 fully or thoroughly the investigation was pursued, 
 but it was in the hands of those who meant that it 
 should be complete and accurate. One fact elicited 
 was, that the proportion of native-born citizens to 
 the whole number engaged in the business was less 
 than one-sixth. Another was, that over six thou- 
 sand of these dram-sellers belonged to the criminal 
 class, and had suffered imprisonment, some for cx- 
 tmde-d terms in the State prison. And another was, 
 that nearly four thousand of the drinking-places 
 which had been established under the fostering care 
 of State license laws were houses of ill-fame as well! 
 Comment is unnecessary. 
 
 We cannot lessen the evil nor abate the curse of 
 drunkenness so long as we license a traffic, which, 
 from its essential hostility to all the best interests of 
 society, naturally fulls into the hands of our worst 
 citizens, who persistently violate every salutary and 
 ictive feature in the laws which give their trade 
 a recognized existence. 
 
 What then ? Is there any remedy short of Pro- 
 hibition? Wu believe not.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 PBOHIBITION. 
 
 ~T~T has taken nearly half a century to convince the 
 =- people that only in total abstinence lies any 
 hope of cure for the drunkard. When this doctrine 
 was first announced, its advocates met with opposi- 
 tion, ridicule and even insult. Now it has almost 
 universal acceptance. The effort to hold an inebri- 
 ate's appetite in check by any restriction that in- 
 cluded license, has, in all cases, proved so signal a 
 failure, that the " letting down," or " tapering off" 
 process has been wholly abandoned in inebriate asy- 
 lums. There is no hope, as we have said, but in 
 complete abstinence. 
 
 NO EEMEDY BUT PKOHIBITION. 
 
 Is there any other means of cure for national 
 drunkenness? The remedy of license has been 
 found as valueless for the whole people as restriction 
 for the individual. Appetite, when once depraved, 
 becomes, in the individual, lawless, exacting and 
 unscrupulous; not hesitating to trample on duty, 
 justice, humanity and every public and private 
 virtue. It will keep no faith ; it will hold to no 
 pledge, however solemnly taken. It must be wholly 
 denied or it will be wholly master. 
 660
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 As in the individual, so in the nation, State or 
 community. Appetite loses nothing by aggr 
 tion ; nor are the laws of its action changed. If not 
 denied by prohibition in the State, as by total absti- 
 nence in the individual, it will continue to entail 
 upon the people loss and ruin and unutterable 
 License, restrictive permission, tax, all will be vain in 
 the future as they have been in the past There is no 
 Lope, no help, no refuge in anything but Proh iltit'mn ! 
 
 And here we art met by two questions, fairly and 
 honestly asked. First. Is prohibition right in the 
 abstract as a legislative measure? Seconi. Can 
 prohibitory laws be enforced, and will they cure the 
 evil of drunkenness? 
 
 First, as to the question of legislative action. 
 Can the State forbid the sale of intoxicating drinks 
 as a beverage without violating the natural right of 
 en lain citi/.ens, engaged in the manufacture and sale 
 of these articles, to supply them to customers who 
 
 h to purchase? 
 
 \\V answer, that no man has a natural right to 
 do wrong; that is, to engage in any pursuit by 
 which he makes gain out of loss and injury to his 
 Ijor. The essential principle of government 
 is the well-being of the people. It guarantees to 
 the weak, security against the strong; it pun' 
 evil doers, and seeks to protect its citizens from the 
 evil effects of that unscrupulous selli.-hness in the 
 individual which would trample on the- rights uf all 
 tin- rest in its pursuit of money or power.
 
 STRONG DRIXK; 
 
 Now, if it can be shown that the liquor traffic is 
 a good thing; that it benefits the people; makes 
 them more prosperous and happy ; improves their 
 health ; promotes education and encourages virtue, 
 then its right to exist in the community has been es- 
 tablished. Or, even if the good claimed for it be only 
 negative instead of positive, its right must still be 
 unquestioned. But what if it works evil and only 
 evil in the State ? "What if it blights and curses 
 every neighborhood, and town, and city, and nation 
 in which it exists ; laying heavy taxes upon the 
 peopl^ that it may live and flourish, crippling all 
 industries; corrupting the morals of the people; 
 enticing the young from virtue ; filling jails, and 
 poor-houses, and asylums with a great army of 
 criminals, paupers and insane men and women, 
 yearly extinguishing the light in thousands of happy 
 homes ? What then ? 
 
 Does this fruit of the liquor traffic establish its 
 right to existence and to the protection of law ? Let 
 the reader answer the question for himself. That 
 it entails all of these evils, and many more, upon 
 the community, cannot and will not be denied. 
 That it does any good, cannot be shown. Fairly, 
 then, it has no right to existence in any government 
 established for the good of the people ; and in sup- 
 pressing it, no wrong can be done. 
 
 PROHIBITION NOT UNCONSTITUTIONAL. 
 
 How the question of prohibition is regarded by 
 the highest legal authority in the United States will
 
 THE CURSE AND THE CURE. 
 
 appear from the following opinions officially given 
 1 -y t >ur of l he Justices of our Supreme Court. They 
 xpressed in no doubtful or hesitating form of 
 speech : 
 
 Chief Justice Taney said : " If any State deems 
 tin- ivtail and internal traffic in ardent spirits inju- 
 to its citizens, and calculated to produce idle- 
 ness, vice or debauchery, I see nothing in the Con- 
 stitution of the United States to prevent it from 
 regulating or restraining the traffic, or from pro- 
 hibiting it altogether, if it thinks proper." [5 
 Howard, ~77.] 
 
 Hon. Justice McLean said : "A license to sell is 
 a matter of police and revenue within the power of 
 th,. S;ate." [5 Ibid., 589.] " If the foreign article 
 be injurious to the health and morals of the com- 
 munity, a {State may prohibit the sale of it." 
 
 1 1 on. Justice Catron said : " If the State lias the 
 power of restraint by license to any extent, she may 
 go to the length of prohibiting sales altogether." 
 Ibid., 611.] 
 
 1 Ion. Justice Grier said : " It is not necessary to 
 array the appalling statistics of misery, pauperism 
 and crime which have their origin in the ii.-o and 
 abuse of ardent spirits. The police power, which 
 lusivi-ly in the fttute, is competent to the cor- 
 rection of these L ils, and all measures of re- 
 straint or prohibition necessary to -llvt that purpose 
 are within thescope of that authority." [Ili<L 5 
 
 That the State has a clear right to prohibit the
 
 (504 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 sale of intoxicating drinks, because this sale not 
 only hurts all other interests, but destroys the health 
 and degrades the morals of the people, has been 
 fully shown. 
 
 The question next to be considered is, Can pro- 
 hibitory laws be enforced ? and if so, will they re- 
 move from the people the curse of drunkenness ? 
 
 CAN PROHIBITORY LAWS BE ENFORCED? 
 
 As to the complete enforcement of any salutory 
 law, that depends mainly on the public sentiment 
 regarding it, and on the organized strength of its 
 opposers. If the common sentiment of the people 
 were in favor of every man's liberty to steal what- 
 ever he could lay. his hands on, it would be found 
 very difficult to convict a rogue, no matter how 
 clearly expressed the law against stealing. A single 
 thief in the jury-box could defeat the ends of justice. 
 A hundred loop-holes for escape can always be 
 found in the provisions of a law with which the 
 majority of the people are not in sympathy. In- 
 deed, it often happens that such loop-holes are pro- 
 vided by the law-makers themselves; and this is 
 especially true in too many of the laws made for 
 the suppression of the liquor trade. 
 
 Is this an argument against the enactment of laws 
 to protect the people from great wrongs especially 
 the weaker and more helpless ones? To the half- 
 hearted, the indifferent and the pusillanimous yes I 
 But with brave, true men, who have at heart
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 
 
 st interests of humanity, this can only inten- 
 sify opposition to wrong, and give strength for new 
 efforts to destroy its power. These have an undying 
 faith in the ultimate victory of good over evil, and 
 mean, so far as they are concerned, that the battle 
 shall continue until that victory is won. 
 
 Judge Pitman has eloquently expressed this sen- 
 timent in the closing pages of his recent work, to 
 which we have more than once referred. Speaking 
 of those who distrust the practicability of securing 
 s.ueh legislation as will effectually destroy the liquor 
 trade, he says: "They are appalled at the power of 
 the trailic. They see that it has uncounted wealth 
 iimand ; that it is organized and unscrupu- 
 lous ; that it has the support of fierce appetite be- 
 hind it and the alliance of every evil lust; that it 
 is able to bribe or intimidate the great political 
 parties. All this is true ; but still it is not to be the 
 final victor. It has all the elemental moral f< 
 of the human race against it, and though their 
 working be slow, and their rate of progress depen- 
 dent on human energy and fidelity, the ultimate 
 result is as certain as the action of the law of gravity 
 in the material universe. Wealth may be against 
 us; rank may affect to despise us; but the light 
 whose dawn makes a new morning in the world, 
 rarely shines from palace or crown, but from the 
 manger and the cross. Before the aroused conscien-'es 
 of the people, wielding the indomitable will <>far-- 
 t he destroyers of soul and body shall go down forever/'
 
 STRONG DRINK; 
 THE VALUE OF PROHIBITORY LAWS WHEN ENFORCED. 
 
 It remains now to show how far prohibitory laws, 
 when enforced, have secured the end for which they 
 were created. On this point, the evidence is clear 
 and satisfactory. In Vermont, a prohibitory law 
 has existed for over twenty-three years. In some 
 parts of the State it is rigidly enforced ; in others 
 with less severity. Judge Peck, of the Supreme 
 Court says : " The law has had an effect upon our 
 customs, and has done away with that of treating 
 and promiscuous drinking. * * * In attending 
 court for ten years, I do not remember to have seen 
 a drunken man" In St. Johnsbury, where there 
 is a population of five thousand, the law has been 
 strictly enforced ; and the testimony in regard to 
 the town is this : " There is no bar, no dram-shop, 
 no poor, and no policeman walks the streets. It is 
 the workingman's paradise." 
 
 Connecticut enacted a prohibitory law in 1854. 
 In 1855, Governor Button said, in his annual mes- 
 sage to the General Assembly : " There is scarcely 
 an open grog-shop in the State, the jails are fast 
 becoming tenantless, and a delightful air of security 
 is everywhere enjoyed." 
 
 In Meriden, the chaplain of the reform school 
 testified that "crime had diminished seventy -five 
 per cent." In New London, the jail was tenantless. 
 In Norwich, the jails and almshouses were reported 
 " as almost empty." But in 1873, the liquor influ- 
 ence was strong enough in the legislature to substi-
 
 THE CURSE AND THE Cl'M. 
 
 tute license for prohibition. The consequence was 
 an immediate increase of drunkenness and crime. 
 Two years afterwards, the Secretary of State de- 
 clared that "there was a greater increase of crime 
 in one year under license than in seven years under 
 prohibition." 
 
 Vine-land, Now Jersey, has a population of ten 
 tl.oti.-aii'l. Absolute prohibition is the law of that 
 fi immunity. One constable, who is also overseer of 
 the poor, is sufficient to maintain public order. In 
 -, his annual report says: " We have practically 
 no debt. * * * The police expenses of Vine- 
 land amount to seventy-five dollars a year, the sum 
 paid to me, and our poor expenses are a mere trille." 
 
 In Potter County, Pennsylvania, there has been 
 a prohibitory law for many years. Hon. John S. 
 Mann says : " Its effect, as regards crime, is marked 
 and runs] icnous. Our jail is without inmates, ex- 
 c>/>( tlic sheriff, for more than half the time." 
 
 Other instances of local prohibition in this country 
 could be given, but these are sufficient. 
 
 Bessbrook, a town in Ireland of four thousand 
 inhabitants, has no liquor-shop, and whisky and 
 strong drink are strictly prohibited. There is no 
 poor-house, pawn-shop or police-station. The town 
 i- entirely free from strife, discord or disturbance. 
 
 In the county of Tyrone, Ireland, nodrinking house 
 
 is allowed. In 1870, Right Hon. Claude 1 lamilton 
 
 said : <% At j -resent there is not a single policeman in 
 
 distrii-t. Tin- ]>< K>r-rates are half what they
 
 GG8 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 were before, and the magistrates testify to the great 
 absence of crime." 
 
 In many parts of England and Scotland there is 
 local prohibition, and the uniform testimony as to 
 the absence of pauperism and crime is as unequivo- 
 cal as that given above. 
 
 THE MAINE LAW ITS COMPLETE VINDICATION. 
 
 But it is to the State of Maine, where a prohibi- 
 tory law has existed for over a quarter of a century, 
 and where prohibition has been put to the severest 
 tests, that we must look for the more decisive proofs 
 of success or failure. 
 
 On the evidence which Maine furnishes, the ad- 
 vocates of legal suppression are content to rest their 
 case. In order to get a brief, but thoroughly ac- 
 curate and reliable history of the Maine law, we 
 addressed a letter to Hon. Neal Dow, of Portland, 
 Maine, asking him to furnish us, for this volume, 
 with the facts and evidence by which our readers 
 could for themselves judge whether the law were a 
 dead letter, as some asserted, or effective and salutory. 
 In reply, Mr. Dow has kindly furnished us with the 
 following deeply interesting and important commu- 
 nication : 
 
 TESTIMONY OF HON. NEAL DOW. 
 
 PORTLAND, October 12th, 1877. 
 T. S. ARTHUR, ESQ. : 
 
 Dear Sir I will gladly furnish you with a brief history of 
 the Maine Law, aud a statement of its operation and effects in
 
 THE CURSE AND TUB CLTJ:. 
 
 Main\ in the hope that the wide circulation of the work you 
 have in preparation may serve to correct the mistaken notion 
 that prevail*', to the c fleet that the law has failed of any useful 
 result, and that the liquor traffic is carried on as extensively 
 in Maine as ever it had been, with all its baleful effects upon 
 loral and material interests of the State. 
 
 In the old time the people of Maine were as much addicted 
 to the use of strong drinks as those of any other part of the 
 country ; and the effects of this shocking habit were seen * 
 
 in shabby buildings, neglected farms and in wide-spread 
 poverty. There wore, in this State, magnificent forests of the 
 best pine timber in the world. The manufacture of this tim- 
 ber into "lumber" of various descriptions, and the sale of it, 
 were the leading industries of Maine. The products of our 
 vast forests were sent chiefly to the West India Islands, and 
 the returns were mostly in rum and in molasses, to be converted 
 into rum by our own distilleries, of which there were many 
 among us, in various parts of the State seven of them in this 
 city, running night and day. This rum, almost the whole of 
 it, whether imjMirted or home-made, was consumed among our 
 own people. It was sent in the way of trade and in exchange 
 lumber" into every part of our territory ; not a town or 
 village, or rural district escaped, however remote or thinly 
 populated it might be. 
 
 The result of this was, that almost the entire value of all this 
 vast indu.- i\\i\ the throats of our people in tin- shape 
 
 of ruin, either imported or home-made. I have heard men say 
 v.i.. had been extensively engaged in this lumber trade, that 
 Maine is not a dollar the richer, and never was, on account of 
 thi> immense business; but that ih.- people were poorer in con- 
 sequence of it, and ; ralile than they \\oiilil have been 
 it' the pine forest.- had been swept away by a great cuiiilagra- 
 
 The effects of this course of trade were seen everywhere 
 throu^hi.ut the State. In scarcely any part of it was there 
 any evidence of business prosperity or thrift, but, generally,
 
 670 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 there was abundant evidence of poverty, untidiness and decay. 
 In the lumbering towns and villages, where the innumerable 
 saw-mills were, the greatest bustle and activity prevailed. The 
 air resounded with the loud noises coming from these mills. 
 Wight and day they were " run," never ceasing until the " logs" 
 were "worked up." Relays of hands were employed at all these 
 lumbering centres, so that the saw-mills never stopped even for 
 an hour during " the season," except for some occasional re- 
 pairs. All these men drank rum ; a quart a day per man was 
 a moderate quantity ; but a great many of them required two 
 quarts a day. The result of this was, that the entire wages of 
 the men were consumed in drink, except a meagre .share that 
 went to the miserable wives and children at home. 
 
 Everywhere throughout the State the results of this way of 
 life was to be seen in the general poverty of the people, and 
 in the shabbiness of all their surroundings. But some persons 
 conceived the idea that all this evil was not necessary and in- 
 evitable ; that it came from the liquor traffic, which might be 
 prohibited and suppressed, as lottery-tickets, gambling-houses 
 and impure books and pictures had already been. And they 
 devoted themselves constantly and industriously to the work 
 of correcting the public opinion of the people as to the liquor 
 traffic by demonstrating to them that this trade was in dea'Uy 
 hostility to every interest of the State, while no good came 
 from it, nor could come from it, to State or people. 
 
 This educational work was carried on persistently for years ; 
 meetings were held by these persons in every little country- 
 church and town-house, and in every little wayside school- 
 house, where the farmers and their wives and children assem- 
 bled at the call of these missionaries, to listen to their burning 
 denunciation of the liquor traffic, which lived only by spread- 
 ing poverty, pauperism, suffering, insanity, crime and prema- 
 ture death broadcast over the State. The result of this teach- 
 ing was, that the public opinion of the State became thoroughly 
 changed ?. to the character of tho liquor traffic and its relation 
 to the public prosperity and welfare.
 
 THE CURSE AND Till' < 7 /:/ . (J71. 
 
 When we thought the time had come for it, we demanded of 
 
 the Legislature that the law of " license," then upon the statute 
 
 , which represented the public opinion of the old time, 
 
 should be changed for a law of prohibition, representing the 
 
 improved public opinion of the present time; and, after two 
 
 cessful attempts to procure such a law, we obtained what 
 
 we desired, an act of absolute prohibition to the manufacture 
 
 and sale of strong drink a measure for which we had labored 
 
 long and industriously for many years. 
 
 At the time of the enactment of this statute, now known as 
 the MAINE LAW the world over, the liquor traffic was carried 
 on extensively in the State, wholesale and retail, precisely as 
 it is now in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and iu 
 every other State where that trade is licensed and protected by 
 the law. The Maine Law went into operation immediately 
 upon its approval by the Governor, and by its provisions-, 
 liquors kept for sale everywhere, all over the State, were liable 
 to be seized, t<>rl'< -ited and destroyed, and the owners to be pun- 
 i-hcil by fine and imprisonment. The municipal authorities 
 of the cities and towns allowed the dealers a reasonable time to 
 M-IH! away their stocks of liquors to other States and countries, 
 [heir sale was permitted by the law. 
 
 The liquor-traders availed themselves of this forbearance of 
 the authorities, and did generally send their stock of liquors 
 out of the State. Tin- open sale of liquors came instantly to 
 an end throughout all our territory, ami where it continued, it 
 was done secretly, as other things are done iu violation of law. 
 Tli. manufacture of intoxicating liquors was entirely stopped, 
 so that in all the State there was absolutely none produced, 
 except eider, which might he made and used for vii; 
 
 The effect of tlti- j<.]i,-y of prohibition to the liquor traffic 
 was speedily visible in our wor!;-hoii-;, jails and houses : 
 
 08. The jail of Cumberland County, the most populous 
 of the State, had been badly over-crowded, but within four 
 months of the en at -tin. m oj'ihc la\\ there \\crebutfivcprisoncr8 
 iu it, three of whom \UTC ]i juor
 
 (572 STRONG DRINK; 
 
 the law. The jails of Penobscot; Kennebec, Franklin, Ox- 
 ford and York were absolutely empty. The inmates of the 
 work-houses were greatly reduced in number, and in some of 
 the smaller towns pauperism ceased entirely. 
 
 But, during all this time, in every part of the country, re- 
 ports were industriously circulated that the law was inopera- 
 tive for good, and that liquors were sold in Maine as freely and 
 in as large quantities as before the law. These false statements 
 were industriously and persistently made everywhere by those 
 interested in the liquor trade, and by those impelled by appe- 
 tite or passion. It is sufficient for me to say here that the 
 Maine Law, from the first, has been as faithfully executed as 
 our other criminal laws have been, though there has been, at 
 certain times, and in certain localities, considerable complicity 
 with the violators of it, on the part of many officers of the law, 
 so that the Legislature has at last provided heavy penalties for 
 the punishment of prosecuting officers, justices of the peace and 
 judges of municipal and police courts, in case of failure in their 
 duty. I am glad to be able to say that the judges of our 
 higher courts have, from the first, been true to their duty hi 
 the administration of this law, as of all others. 
 
 In much the larger part of Maine, in all the rural districts, 
 in the villages and smaller towns, the liquor traffic is absolutely 
 unknown ; no such thing as a liquor-shop exists there, either 
 open or secret. The traffic lingers secretly only in the larger 
 towns and cities, where it leads a precarious and troubled life 
 only among the lowest and vilest part of our foreign popula- 
 tion. Nowhere in the State is there any visible sign of this 
 horrible trade. The penalties of the law, as they now stand, 
 are sufficient to extinguish the traffic in all the small towns, 
 and to drive it into dens and dark corners in the larger towns. 
 The people of Maine now regard this trade as living, where it 
 exists at all, only on the misery and wretchedness of the com- 
 munity. They speak of it everywhere, in the press, on the 
 platform, and in legislative halls, as the gigantic crime of 
 crimes, and we mean to treat it as such by the law.
 
 TUE CURSE AND TI1E CURE. ' $73 
 
 For some years after the enactment of the law, it entered 
 largely into the politics of the State. Candidates were nomi- 
 nated by one party or the other with reference to their pro- 
 clivities for rum or their hostility to it, and the people were 
 determined in their votes, one way or the other, by this consid- 
 eration. 
 
 Now, the policy of prohibition, with penalties stringent 
 enough to be effective, has become as firmly settled in this 
 State as that of universal education or the vote by ballot. The 
 republican party, in its annual conventions, during all these 
 years, has affirmed, unanimously, its " adhesion to prohibition 
 ami the vigorous enforcement of laws to that end;" and the 
 Democratic party, in its, annual convention of this year, re- 
 jected, by an immense majority, and with enthusiastic cheers, 
 a resolution, proposed from the floor, in favor of " license." 
 
 The original Maine Law was enacted by a vote in the House 
 'iiy-six to forty, and in the Senate by eighteen to ten. 
 There have been several subsequent, liquor laws, all in the 
 ion of greater stringency; and the Legislature of this 
 year enacted an additional law, with penalties much more 
 stringent than any which had preceded it, without a dissenting 
 vote. No one can mistake the significance of this fact, it was 
 nn unanimous affirmation of adhesion to the policy of prohibi- 
 tion, after a steady trial of it and experience of its rcsui 
 more than a quarter of a century. And, since that time, the 
 people have passed upon it at the late annual election by an 
 approval of the policy and of the men who favor it by an 
 immense majority. If it be conceded that the people of Maine 
 possess an ordinary share of intelligence and common sense, 
 this result would be impossible, unless the effect of prohibition 
 ha-1 been beneficial to the State and to them. 
 
 While we were earnestly at work in bringing up the public 
 
 opinion of the State to the point of demanding the prohibition 
 
 of the li[uor traffic, as a more important politic :il ami social 
 
 : >n than any other or all others, I was startled at hearing 
 
 leiiKin of the town of Raymond declare that in his t->\\;i 
 
 L3
 
 (574 STRONG DRIXK; 
 
 the people consumed in strong drink its entire valuation in 
 every period of eighteen years, eight months and twenty-five 
 days ! " Here are the figures," he said ; " I know the quantity 
 of liquor brought into the town annually. I am so situated 
 that I am able to state this accurately, beyond all possibility 
 of doubt, except that liquors may be brought here by other 
 than the ordinary mode of transportation without my knowl- 
 edge ; but the quantities stated in this paper (which he held in 
 his hand), and their cost are within my knowledge." This was 
 part of a speech to his fellow-townsmen, and his statement was 
 admitted to be true. Now, there is not a drop of liquor sold 
 in that town, and there has not been any sold there for many 
 years. This statement may strike us at first blush to be tre- 
 mendously exaggerated, that the people of any locality should 
 consume in strong drink the entire value of its real estate and 
 personal property in every period of less than twenty years. 
 But let us examine it. 
 
 We learn from tha Bureau of Statistics that the annual 
 liquor bill of the United States is seven hundred millions of dol- 
 lars. This does not include the enormous quantity of " crooked 
 whisky," which has been put upon the market with or without 
 the knowledge, consent, assent or complicity of our public 
 officers, from the highest to the lowest. The drink bill of the 
 United Kingdom, with a population smaller than purs, is more 
 than this by many millions. This valuation seven hundred 
 millions of dollars is the price, by the quantity, taken from the 
 figures as they come into the public office, while the cost to the 
 consumers is vastly greater. Now, this sum, with annual com- 
 pound interest for ten years, amounts to the enormous figure 
 of eight billions nine hundred and forty-four millions one hun- 
 dred and forty-one thousands of dollars almost nine thousand 
 millions of dollars ! For twenty years the amount is twenty- 
 five billions two hundred and forty-five millions six hundred and 
 eighty-one thousands of dollars. Twenty-five thousand two hun- 
 dred and forty-five millions of dollais and more; actually as 
 much, within a fraction, as the entire value of the personal and
 
 THE CURSE AXD THE CURE. 
 
 landed property of the United States ! My friend of Raymond 
 may well be credited in the statement made to his fellow- 
 men. 
 
 Now, as the result of the Maine Law, in Maine, the wealth 
 
 ami prosperity of the people have greatly increased. This can 
 
 be seen in every part of the State, and is obvious to the ino.-t 
 
 1 observer, who knew what Maine was before the law of 
 
 prohibition, and knows what it has been since and down to the 
 
 present time. Evidences of industry, enterprise and thrift 
 
 where, instead of the general poverty, uuthrift and shab- 
 
 nessof the old rum-time. 
 
 The phare of Maine, of the National drink bill, would be 
 about thirteen millions of dollars, and but forthe Maine Law, 
 we should be consuming our full proportion ; but now I feel 
 myself fully warranted in saying that we do not expend in that 
 way one-tenth of that sum. A mayor of the city of Portland, 
 in a message to the City Council, said : " The quantity of 
 liquor now sold is not one-fiftieth part as much as it was 1 
 the enactment of the law." The difference, whatever it may 
 be, between the sum we should waste in strong drink, but for 
 the law, and that which we actually squander in that way, we 
 have in our pockets, in our savings banks and in our business, 
 so that Maine has sufl' ml lar less, financially, during this 
 . than any other part of the country. 
 
 I have said the drink hill of Maine, but for prohibition, 
 would be about thirteen millions of dollars annually, in pro- 
 jx>rtion to that of the whole country. Now, this sum, with 
 annual compound interest at six per cent., in t.-n years will 
 amount to one hundred and seventy millions three hundred 
 and ninete, n thousand five hundred and twenty-* -iirht dol- 
 ainl in t\vmty years to four hundred and sixty-three 
 millions eight hundred and fifty-four thousand four hundred 
 and twenty dollars more than twice the entire valuation 
 of the State, by the estimate made in 1870, which was two 
 hundred and twenty-four millions eL'ht hundred ami tw.-nty- 
 two thousand nine hundred and thirteen dollars. There
 
 676 STKONG DRIXK; 
 
 was a reason then for the fact, that in the old rum-time the 
 people of Maine were poor and unthrifty in every way and 
 for that other fact, that now they are prosperous and flourish- 
 ing, with a better business than that of any other State, pro- 
 portionately. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that in Portland a great conflagra- 
 tion destroyed ten millions of dollars in 1866, burned down 
 half the town, and turned ten thousand people out of doors, the 
 prosperity of the city has been steadily on the increase. Its 
 valuation, in 1860, was twenty-one millions eight hundred and 
 sixty-six thousand dollars, and in 1870, twenty-nine millions 
 four hundred and thirty-nine thousand two hundred and fifty- 
 seven dollars. In the last year the increase in valuation, in 
 spite of the hard times, was four hundred and eighty thousand 
 dollars, while Boston, with free rum, has lost more than eight 
 millions, and New York and Brooklyn has experienced an im- 
 mense depreciation. 
 
 I think I have said enough to satisfy every intelligent, un- 
 prejudiced man that the absolute prohibition and suppression 
 of the liquor traffic has been in the highest interest of our State 
 and people. I am, very truly, yours, 
 
 NEAL Dow. 
 
 And here we close our discussion of the most 
 important of all the social questions that are to-day 
 before the people ; and in doing so, declare it as our 
 solemn conviction, that until the liquor traffic is 
 abolished, and the evils with which it curses the 
 people, removed, all efforts at moral reforms must 
 languish, and the church find impediments in IK.T 
 way which cannot be removed. The CURSE is upon 
 us, and there is but one CURE; Total Abstinence, by 
 the help of God, for the individual, and Prohibition 
 for the State.
 
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