Part 2

Who shall say where end the consequences of alcoholic injury of the blood and of the substance of the brain? Here within the cranium, in this narrow chamber, so small that a man's hand may span it, and upon this sheet of cerebral matter, which, if dilated out, would not cover a surface of over six hundred square inches, is the point of union between spirit and matter. Inversions of right judgment and every distortion of moral sense legitimately follow from the intoxicating cup. It is here that we should speak decidedly of the evil effects of moderate drinking. Men may theorize as they please, but practically there is in average experience no such thing as a moderate dose of alcohol. People drink it to produce an effect. They take enough to "fire up," as they say, and unless that effect is produced they are not satisfied. They will have enough to raise their spirits, or dissipate gloom. And this is enough to impair judgment, and in the course of years perhaps to ruin fortune, body, and soul. The compass is out of line in life's dangerous sea, and a few storms may bring the ship upon breakers.

It is to be remembered that, by the law of local affinity, the dose of alcohol is not diffused throughout the system, but is concentrated in its chief effects upon a single organ. When a man drinks moderately, though the effects might be minute if dispersed through the whole body, yet they may be powerful when most of them are gathered upon the brain. They may be dangerous when turned upon the intellect, and even fatal when concentrated upon the primal guiding powers of mind--reason, and moral sense. It is not to the whole body that a moderate glass goes; it is chiefly to its most important part--the brain; and not to the whole brain, but to its most important part--the seat of the higher mental and moral powers; and not to these powers at large, but to their helmsman and captain--Reason and Conscience.

"Ship ahoy! All aboard! Let your one shot come," shouts the sailor to the pirate craft. Now, one shot will not shiver a brig's timbers much, but suppose that this one ball were to strike the captain through the heart, and the helmsman through the skull, and that there are none to fill their posts, it would be a terrible shot indeed. Moderate drinking is a charmed ball from a pirate craft. It does not lodge in the beams' ends. It cuts no masts. It shivers no plank between wind and water. It strikes no sailor or under-officer, but with magic course it seeks the heart of the captain and the arms of the helmsman, and it always hits. Their leaders dead, and none to take their place, the crew are powerless against the enemy. Thunders another broadside from pirate alcohol, and what is the effect? Every ball is charmed; not one of the crew is killed, but every one becomes mad and raises mutiny. Commanders dead, they are free. Thunders another broadside from the pirate, and the charmed balls complete their work. The mutinous crew rage with insanity. Captain Conscience and Steersman Reason are picked up, and, lest their corpses should offend the crazy sailors, pitched overboard. Then ranges Jack Lust from one end of the ship to the other. That brave tar, Midshipman Courage, who, in his right mind, was the bravest defender of the ship, now wheels the cannon against his own friends and rakes the deck with red-hot grape until every mast totters with shot-holes. The careful stewards, seamen Friendship and Parental Love, whose exertions have always heretofore provided the crew seasonably with food and drink, now refuse to cook, furnish no meals, unhead the water-casks, waste the provisions, and break the ship's crockery. The vessel has wheeled into the trough of the sea; a black shadow approaches swiftly over the waters, and the compass and helm are deserted. That speculating mate, Love of Money, who, if sober, would see the danger, and order every rag down from jib to mainsail, and make the ship scud under bare poles before the black squall, now, on the contrary, orders up every sail and spreads every thread of canvas. The rising storm whistles in the rigging, but he does not hear it. That black shadow on the water is swiftly nearing. He does not see it. In the trough of the sea the ship rocks like a cockle shell. He does not feel it. Yonder, before the dense rush of the coming blow of air rises a huge wave, foaming, and gnawing, and groaning on high. He does not hear it. With a shock like the opening of an earthquake it strikes the broadside; with a roar it washes over the deck; three snaps like cannon, and the heavily-rigged masts are gone; a lurch and sucking in of waves, and the hold is full of water, and the sinking ship just survives the first heavy sea. Then comes out Mirthfulness, and sits astride the broken bowsprit, and ogles a dancing tune. The crew dance! It were possible, even yet, to so man the pumps and right the helm as to ride over the swells and drive into port, but all action for the right government of the ship is ended. Trumpeter Language mounts the shattered beams of the forecastle, and makes an oration; it is not necessary to work, he tells the crew, but to hear him sputter yarns.

It is fearful now to look upon the raging of the black sea. Every moment the storm increases in fury. As a giant would toss about a straw, so the waves handle the wrecked timbers. Night gathers her black mists into the rifted clouds, and the strong moaning sound of the storm is heard on the dark ocean. By that glare of lightning I saw a sail and a life-boat! Men from another ship are risking their lives to save the insane crew whose masts are gone. They come nearer, but the boat bounds and quivers, and is nearly swamped upon the top of a wave. Jack Courage and Independence see the boat coming. "Ship ahoy," shout the deliverers. "Life-boat from the ship Temperance! Quit your wreck and be saved." No reply. Independence grinds his teeth and growls to Jack Courage that the offer of help is an insult. "I will tell you how to answer," says Jack, stern and bloody. There is one cannon left with a dry charge. They wheel that upon the approaching boat, and Independence holds the linstock over the fuse-hole. "Life-boat for sailors on the wreck," shouts Philanthropy from the approaching boat. "What answer, ship Immortal?" Then shoots from the ringing gun a tongue of flame, and ten pounds of iron are on their way. The Temperance boat rocks lower from the wave-top, and the deadly reply just grazes the heads of the astounded philanthropists and buries itself heavily in their own ship beyond. It was an accident, they think, and keep on board the ship and stand upon its deck. Then flash from their scabbards a dozen swords; then click the locks of a dozen muskets; then double the palms of a dozen fists; then shake the clubs of a dozen maniac arms, and the unsuspecting deliverers are murdered on the deck they came to save. As the lightning glares I see them thrown into the sea, while thunders are the dirge of the dead and the damnation of the murderers.

The drunken ship is fast filling with water. Not a man at the pumps, not an arm at the helm. Having destroyed their friends, the crew fall upon each other. Close under their bow rave the breakers of a rocky shore, but they hear it not. At intervals they seem to realize their condition, and their power even yet to save themselves, but they make no effort. Gloom, and storm, and foam shut them up against hell with many thunders. In this terrible extremity Independence is heard to refuse help, and boasts of his strength. Friendship and Parental Love rail at thoughts of affection. Language trumpets his easy yarns and grows garrulous as the timbers crack one after another. Rage and Revenge are now the true names of Firmness and Courage. Silly Mirth yet giggles a dance, and I saw him astride the last timber as the ship went down, tossing foam at the lightning. Then came a sigh of the storm, a groaning of waves, a booming of blackness, and a red, crooked thunderbolt shot wrathfully blue into the suck of the sea where the ship went down.

And I asked the names of those rocks, and was told: "God's Stern and Immutable Laws."

And I asked the name of that ship, and they said: "Immortal Soul."

And I asked why its crew brought it there, and they said: "Their captain, Conscience, and helmsman, Reason, were dead."

And I asked how they died, and they said: "By one single shot from the pirate Alcohol; by one charmed ball of Moderate Drinking!"

On this topic, over which we sleep, we shall some day cease to dream.

ADVERTISEMENTS

_THE BEER QUESTION._

The National Temperance Society has published the following books, tracts, and pamphlets upon the beer question, which should have a wide circulation. The following are adapted to Sunday-school libraries, as well as for family reading and general distribution.

+Brewer's Fortune, The.+ By Mary Dwinell Chellis. 12mo, 425 pp +$1.50+

This takes up and discusses the entire beer question; the writer having carefully studied the subject from every point of view, and it is worthy of the widest circulation. It is one of the best volumes ever written by this popular author, and shows that wealth can not compensate for evil-doing, and that the sins of the fathers are often visited upon the children.

+Brewery at Taylorville, The.+ By Mary Dwinell Chellis. 12mo, 445 pp +1.50+

This book shows how much evil was wrought by the establishment of a brewery in a hitherto prosperous town, and how it brought ruin and disgrace upon those who indulged in what are called the lighter drinks. It is one of the strongest books in favor of total abstinence from everything that can intoxicate.

+Firebrands; a Temperance Tale.+ By Mrs. J. McNair Wright. 12mo, 357 pp +1.25+

It is the story of an orphaned boy, adopted by a distant relative, and subsequently the inheritor of a small fortune from an uncle, which he is then induced to invest in brewing in a country village, with an unhappy sequel alike to himself and the community. The lesson against tampering with beer or strong drink, either the drinking, making, or vending of it, is of a most impressive character, and is admirably adapted to win and hold the reader's interest, and to create and strengthen good resolutions.

+Beer as a Beverage.+ An address by G. W. Hughey. 12mo, 24 pp +10+

A very able reply to the assumptions by the brewers at their late congress at St. Louis, that beer is a harmless, wholesome, "temperance" beverage. It deals very effectively and conclusively with the sophistries and falsehoods of the brewers, and is a most valuable document for general circulation by the friends of temperance in all parts of the country.

+History and Mystery of a Glass of Ale.+ By J. W. Kirton. 12mo, 24 pp +10+

Showing what ale is, and what it does, and why it should be let alone.

EIGHT-PAGE TRACTS, $6.00 per 1,000.

+The Evils of Beer Legislation.+ By J. B. Dunn, D.D. +Malt Liquors, their Nature and Effects.+ By Wm. Hargreaves, M.D.

FOUR-PAGE TRACTS, $3.00 per 1,000.

+Why I Did Not Become a Brewer.+ By J. B. Dunn, D.D. +That Glass of Ale.+ By Rev. E. H. Pratt. +The Sabbath and the Beer Question.+ By Geo. Lansing Taylor, D.D. +Shall we Use Wines and Beer?+ By Mrs. Sarah K. Bolton. +A Glass of Ale.+ By T. S. Arthur. +Not Poverty, but Beer.+ By Mary Dwinell Chellis.

UNION HAND-BILLS, $1.00 per 1,000.

+A Crusade Against Beer.+ +What Is Malt Liquor?+ +What Brewers Think about Beer.+ +What! Deprive a Poor Man of his Beer?+ +What Beer Costs.+ +What Have You to Show for It?+

Address J. N. STEARNS, Publishing Agent, _58 Reade Street, New York_.

_SCIENCE AND TEMPERANCE._

By BENJAMIN W. RICHARDSON, M.A., M.D., F.R.S.,

_Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London; etc._

The National Temperance Society has published the following new and valuable works on alcohol, from a scientific stand-point, written by Dr. Richardson, one of the foremost scientists of the age.

+On Alcohol.+ With an introduction by Dr. Willard Parker, of New York. 12mo, 190 pages. Paper covers, 50 cents; cloth +$1.00+

This book contains the "Cantor Lectures" recently delivered before the Society of Arts. These justly celebrated lectures, six in number, embrace a historical sketch of alcoholic distillation, and the results of an exhaustive scientific inquiry concerning the nature of alcohol and its effects upon the human body and mind. They have attracted much attention throughout Great Britain, both among physicians and general readers, and are the latest and best scientific expositions of alcohol and its effects extant.

+The Temperance Lesson-Book.+ A series of 52 short Lessons on Alcohol and its Action on the Body. Adapted for public and private schools, and supplies a great educational need. 12mo, 220 pages. School edition, per dozen, $6.00; singly +75+

It is the mature result of most careful and extended research on the part of its gifted author, whose attainments place him in the front rank of the ablest scientists of the world. There are fifty-two lessons, each followed by a series of questions for examination and review. They are free from labored and wearisome details, cover a wide range of physiological and hygienic information, and in style are simple and attractive, admirably adapted to win and retain to the end the interest of students. Their practical value, as a means of prevention and a safeguard for the young against the drink peril, it would be impossible to compute.

+Moderate Drinking+: For and Against, from Scientific Points of View. 12mo, 48 pages. Paper +20+

It is a thoroughly scientific and impartial discussion of the subject of the moderate use of alcoholic beverages, by one who stands in the front rank of the most distinguished scientists in Great Britain, and as such possesses a rare value for circulation among the young, and all who may not yet have arrived at mature convictions as to total abstinence. It is one of the most valuable contributions its gifted author has yet made to temperance literature. It ought to be in the hands of all college students, and of young men, ministers, teachers, and intelligent people everywhere.

+Action of Alcohol on the Body and on the Mind, The.+ 12mo, 60 pages. Paper +20+

Two able and important lectures, the result of careful and extended researches as to the results of alcohol from a scientific stand-point, and are among the ablest contributions to this branch of the subject.

+The Medical Profession and Alcohol.+ An Address before the British Medical Association. 12mo, 33 pages. Paper +10+

It is a scientific plea for total abstinence, of great power. It embodies also a very earnest appeal to members of the medical profession to join in the pending vitally important warfare against alcoholic beverages. It is a most valuable publication to place in the hands of the physicians of this country, among whom it should have the widest possible circulation.

Address J. N. STEARNS, Publishing Agent, _58 Reade Street, New York_.

End of Project Gutenberg's Alcohol and the Human Brain, by Joseph Cook