Chapter 10

"If that is true God made a mistake, since He made the whole phenomena of animal life to run by water power. He made it in such abundance it takes oceans to hold it, rivers and rivulets to carry it to man, bird and beast, while in all the wide world He never made a spring of alcohol. If it's good for strength, why not give it to the ox, the mule and the horse?" It takes a good deal of faith to trust a sober mule; I'm sure I wouldn't want to trust a drunken one. There is not a man in my presence who would buy a moderate drinking horse, and no one would wilfully go through a lot where a drunken dog had right of way. Yet we license saloons to turn drunken men loose in the street, some of them as vicious as mad dogs.

Good for strength? When Samson had slain the regiment of Philistines and was exhausted and athirst; when in his extremity he cried to the Lord: "Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant, and now shall I die from thirst." What was done to revive him and renew his strength? Was strong drink recommended as a stimulant? The Bible account informs us God "clave an hollow place in the jaw, and water came thereout." Don't you think if alcoholic liquor had been intended as a beverage for mankind, the great Creator would have made a few springs of it somewhere? Bore into the earth you can strike oil, but you can't strike whiskey. You can find sparkling springs of water almost everywhere, but nowhere a beer brewery in nature. It's water, blessed water all the time. On your right it bubbles in the brook; on your left it leaps and laughs in the cascade; above you it rides in rain clouds upon the wings of the wind; beneath you it hangs in diamond dew upon the bending blade; behind you it comes galloping down the gorge "from out the mountain's broken heart;" before you it goes gliding down the glen, kissing wayside flowers into fragrance and singing, as rippling o'er the rocks it runs: "Men may come and men may go, but I go on forever." Oh, bright beautiful water! may it soon be the beverage of all mankind.

I know some say: "This is a free country; if a man wants to drink and be a brute, let him do so." The trouble about that is, while strong drink will degrade some men to the level of the brute, drunkards are not made of brutes. Some thirty or more years ago a grandson of one of the greatest statesman this country ever produced, was shot in a saloon while intoxicated. While that young man was dying, but a few blocks away a grandson of one of the greatest men that ever honored Kentucky in the Senate of the United States, was in jail to be tried for murder committed while drunk; and in the same city at the same hour in the station-house from drink was a great grandson of the author of "Give me liberty or give me death." Whom did Daniel Webster leave his seat in the Senate that he might hear his eloquence? S.S. Prentice went down under the cloud of drink. A gifted family gave to a Southern State a gifted son. His state sent him to the halls of national legislation, but drink wrought his ruin. Horace Greeley was his friend, and finding him drunk in a Washington hotel said to him: "Why don't you give up what you know is bringing shame upon you and sorrow to your family?"

He replied: "Mr. Greeley, ask me to take my knife and sever my arm from my shoulder and I can do it, but ask me to give up an appetite that has come down upon me for generations, I _can't_ do it." He threw his cane upon the floor to emphasize his utterance. A few days later in the old Saint Charles Hotel, he pierced his brain with a bullet and was sent home to his family in his coffin.

Bring me the men who are drunkards in this city, strip them of their appetite for strong drink, and they are husbands, brothers, fathers, sons, and as a rule, generous in disposition.

Thank God, while drunkenness will drag down the gifted and noble, temperance will build up the humblest and lowest. Bring me the poorest boy in this audience, let him pledge me he will never take a drink of intoxicating liquor as a beverage, let him keep that pledge, be industrious and honest; my word for it, in twenty years from now he will walk the streets of the city in which he dwells, honored, respected, loved, and the world can't keep him down. I rejoice we live in a land where I can encourage a boy, a land where rank belongs to the boy who earns it, whether he hails from the mansion of a millionaire or the "old log cabin in the lane;" a land where a boy can go from a rail cut, a tan yard, or a toe-path, to the presidency of the United States; a land where I can look the humblest boy in the face and say:

"Never ye mind the crowd, my boy, or think that life won't tell; The work is the work for aye that, to him that doeth it well. Fancy the world a hill, my boy; look where the millions stop; You'll find the crowd at the base, my boy; there's always room at the top."

Have you a trade? Go learn one. Do you know how to do things? Go try; you may make mistakes, but do the best you can like the boy who joined the church. At his uncle's table soon after he was asked to say grace. He didn't know what kind of a blessing to ask, but he did know he was very hungry, so bowing his head he said: "Lord, have mercy on these victuals." I have faith in the boy who will try to do a thing. I believe in a boy like that one in a mission Sabbath school in New York, who though he had but little knowledge of the Bible, had a way of reasoning about Bible lessons. The teacher of his class said to him: "James, who was the strongest man of whom we have any account?"

He quickly replied: "Jonah."

"How do you make that out?" said the teacher.

Promptly the answer came: "The whale couldn't hold him after he got him down."

Boys, are you poor? Columbus was a weaver; Arkright was a barber; Esop, a slave; Bloomfield, a shoemaker; Lincoln, a rail-splitter; Garfield tramped a toe-path with no company but an honest mule; and Franklin, whose name will never die while lightning blazes through the clouds, went from the humble position of a printer's devil to that height where he looked down upon other men. If you would win in the battle of life, take the right side of life and build a righteous character. The saddest scene on the streets at night is the young man, whose clothes are finest in quality and fittest in fashion, but whose principles sadly need "patching." I dare say there are young men before me now who would not go into refined company indecently dressed for any consideration, but who will rush into the presence of their God before they sleep with a dozen oaths upon their lips. Will Carleton puts it this way:

"Boys flying kites, haul in their white plumed birds; You can't do that when flying words; Thoughts unexpressed, may sometimes fall back dead, But God Himself can't kill them when they're said."

Will Carleton puts it in poetry, let's have it in prose. Boys, pay more attention to your manners than to your moustache; keep your conduct as neat as your neck-tie, polish your language as well as your boots; remember, moustache grows grey, clothes get seedy, and boots wear out, but honor, virtue and integrity will be as bright and fresh when you totter with old age as when your mother first looked love into your eyes.

Little Lucy Rome was taken up for vagrancy in a great city. When brought before the court an austere judge said: "Who claims this child?"

A boy arose and walking down near the Judge, said: "Please, sir; I do. She's my sister; we are orphans, but I can take care of her if you'll let her go."

"Who are you?" asked the Judge.

"I'm Jimmy Rome, and I have been taking care of my sister; but two weeks ago the man for whom I worked died and while I was out looking for another place, Lucy begged some bread and they took her up. But now I've a good place to work, Judge, and I'm going to put little sister in school. Please let me have her, sir."

The Judge said: "Stand aside. Officer, take the child to the children's home."

The boy with tears streaming down his cheeks, as he heard his sister sobbing, said: "Judge, please don't take her from me."

The Judge, moved by the pleading of the brother, said: "Well, my boy, if you can find some reliable person to go your security you may have her."

"Judge, I don't know anyone to give you; my good friend is dead, but I told you the truth. I don't drink, nor smoke nor swear oaths; I try to be a good boy; I work hard, but I can't give you any security. Judge, will you please let me kiss my little sister before you take her from me?"

With this the boy put his arms about his weeping sister and printed, as he thought, the last kiss upon her cheek. The Judge, with a lump in his throat, said: "Take her, my boy; I'll go your security. I'll give Lucy to the care of such a brother."

Hand in hand the homeless orphan pair walked out of the court room together, Jimmy Rome to make his mark in the business world and his sister to be the wife of a merchant prince.

Boys, be industrious, be honest, be sober. "I will" fluttered from the worm-eaten ships of Columbus; "I will" blazed upon the banners of Washington and Grant; "I will" stamped the walls of Hudson river tunnel, and dug the canal of Panama. Young man, write "I will" upon your brow, give your heart to God and hope will herald your way to victory as the reward of a well spent life. Keep your eye upon the star of ambition. Don't be like the owl, who when daylight comes hides himself within the shadows of the ivy-bound oak and moans and moans the days of his life away; but rather be like the proud eagle that leaves its craggy summit, starts on its pinion flight through the clouds, rides upon the face of the storm, then on beyond bathes its plumage in the "sunlight of the day god, and laughs in the face of the coming morrow."

Some one said, and trifled with the secret of success and happiness when he said it: "There's only a dollar's difference between the man who works and the man who pays, and the man who pays, gets that." There is an old superstition that somewhere on the earth, under the earth or in the sea, there is a stone called the "philosopher's stone" and whoever finds it will be "chiefest among ten thousand." The same superstition prevails with many today; only the name of the stone is turned to "luck," and thousands of young men are waiting for luck to come along and turn up something for them. There is a rule of life, young men, more reliable than luck. It is called an ancient law and runs thus: "By the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." It is the foundation of more sweet bread and pure enjoyment than all your luck. On it the feet of Abraham Lincoln rested, while he wedged his way to the highest office in the gift of the American people. On it Shakespeare stood, driving a shuttle through the warp and woof of a weaver's loom and wove out for himself a name and fame immortal. On it Elihu Burrett wielded a sledge hammer, while developing a mind that mastered many different languages. On it Henry Clay made his way from the mill-sloshes of Virginia to the United States Senate, and on it James A. Garfield tramped his toe-pathway from driving a mule, to presiding over the destinies of seventy-five millions of people.

Boys, don't be idle. I know a man to-day who always looks so lazy it really rests me to look at him. A boy working for a farmer was asked by his employer if he ever saw a snail. The boy answered that he had. "You must have met it, for you surely did not overtake it," said the farmer. I know an old man who seems to take pride in saying he never worked. The first time I saw this man was in my youth. While his father was husking corn in a field, he was seated by a fire reading a novel. Often after that, when I would go to the postoffice in the winter, he would be there by the fire. He moved to the city thirty years ago, where he spends his winters sitting around a fire. He doesn't drink or gamble. I don't think he will have many sins of commission for which to answer; he never commits anything; he sits by the fire. When he dies an appropriate epitaph for his tomb will be:

"He was never much on stirrin' round, Sich wasn't his desire; When weather cool, he was always found, A sittin' round the fire.

"When the frost was comin' down, And the wind a creepin' higher, He spent his time just that way, A sittin' round the fire.

"Same old habit every day, He never seemed to tire; While others worked and got their pay, He sat there by the fire.

"When he died, by slow degrees, Some said, 'he's gone up higher;' But if he's doin' what he did, He's sittin' round the fire."

The man or woman who lives in this age of the world and lives in idleness, should have lived in some other age. When ox-teams crept across the plains, and stage coaches went six miles an hour, idleness may have been in some kind of harmony with the age, but now, when horses pace a mile in two minutes, express trains make fifty miles an hour, and aeroplanes fly a mile in a minute; when telephone and telegraph send news faster than light flies, the idler is out of place. Carlisle said: "The race of life has become intense; the runners are tramping on each other's heels; woe to the man who stops to tie his shoestrings!"

Young man, if you would keep step with the energy of the age in which you are living, and be ever found on the safe side of life, you must not only be equipped with education, stability and ambition, but to make sure you should start right. If you are going to California tomorrow, which way would you start, east or west? You say: "We would start west." A man riding along a highway said to a farmer by the wayside: "How far to Baltimore?"

The farmer answered: "About twenty-five thousand miles the way you're going; if you'll face about and go the other way, it's fourteen miles."

Young man, which way are you going?

Does someone in my presence say: "I have started wrong; I take a glass of beer now and then; occasionally utter an oath, and am sowing wild oats in a few other fields; but I'll come out right in the end." Two diverging roads keep on widening; they don't come together at the other ends. If you would make sure of the safe side of life in the end of the journey, then start right. Luke Howard graduated from a fine college and went to a large city to practice his profession. He boarded in a fine hotel and frequented fine saloons. He became dissipated and one morning after a drunken debauch the landlord said: "Sir, you disturbed my boarders last night and I must ask you to leave." Young men, did Luke Howard go to a better hotel? No, but to a grade lower; he started wrong. In this hotel a few months later, he was asked to move on. Did he go to a better? No, still lower, until at last he went to board in the low tavern on the river front. The landlord said: "I remember when you graduated from college. I was present, saw the flowers and heard the applause that greeted your success. I feel honored to have you as a boarder." A few months later, on Christmas night, Luke Howard lay drunk on the bar-room floor. The landlord had borne all he could and, with a kick, he said: "Get up and get out, you brute; I will not keep you another hour." The drunkard with help arose and said: "Where am I? Why, this is my boarding place, my home, and you are my landlord. You said you felt honored to have me board here. What's the matter?"

"Luke Howard, you're not the man you once were, and I want you to leave here at once."

The poor fellow started for the door muttering: "I am not the man I was. I'm not the man I was." Missing the step as he went out, he fell, striking his head against the stone curbing. A physician was summoned and recognizing the injured man as an old friend said: "Luke, speak to your old college chum; I'm here to help you."

The poor drunkard, looking through the blood that flowed from the gaping wound said: "Listen to me, Tom, I'm not the man I was, I'm not the man I was." And thus died the poor fellow.

Young man, start wrong and end right? No, start wrong and you may expect in the autumn of life a penniless, friendless old age; opportunity gone, health shattered, and the "long fingers of memory" reaching out and dragging into its chambers thoughts that will "bite like a serpent and sting like an adder." Bad as this is, it is even worse when your depravity involves another life. What if that other life is your mother, who went to the door of death to give you life, and whose every breath is another thread of sorrow woven into her wasting heart while her boy is bound like Mazeppa to the wild steed of passion.

There are some things I cannot understand about this drink question. I can understand how a young woman with jeweled fingers can tempt a young man to drink wine. I had a bit of experience some years ago down in Texas, that helped me to appreciate how young men are tempted. I gave an address in a Y.M.C.A. lecture course in a city, and at the close of my address a prominent citizen said to me: "Kentucky has a reputation for beautiful women, but we think Texas has the handsomest women in the world. At the hotel where you are stopping, there is a leap year ball tonight and the most beautiful women for a hundred miles around are gathered there. I will call for you at your room in a little while and you must take a look at our Texas girls." A little later I stood in a hallway where I could see down the long ball room, and I declare they were as pretty women as I have ever seen, and I live in Kentucky. I was invited to step inside the door, where between dances I was introduced to couple after couple. It being leap year the ladies were soliciting their partners for the dance, and a very handsome young lady invited me to be her partner. Having never danced and being a Methodist steward, I declined. Another and another asked me to dance, and again and again I declined, giving as an excuse my utter ignorance of the function. Finally a very beautiful, blue-eyed, charming young lady said: "Since you do not dance, may I engage you for a promenade around the ball room?" Boys, if I had been a young man the chances are I would have started down the "turkey-trot" road that evening. I can appreciate how young men are tempted.

There is one thing, however, about the drink habit that is difficult for me to understand, and that is how a young man, who loves his mother, whose mother loves him as only a mother can love, loved him first, loved him best and will love him to the last, can go from home and mother to the impure, degrading vileness of a liquor saloon. If we enter that young man's home what do we find? Perhaps on one of the side-walls, "What is home without a mother," on the altar the family Bible, every picture on the walls suggestive of home life and purity, every chair and piece of bric-a-brac linked with the sweet association of childhood, the conversation as pure as the sunlight on which the young man lives; yet he will kiss his mother, leave this home, and down the street make his way to a liquor saloon, where often vile pictures hang on the walls, cards lie on the table instead of the family Bible and the air is freighted with oaths and obscenities.

Boys, have any of you done this within the past month, or six months? Promise me now you will never do this again. Oh what a grand meeting this would be if every young man and boy in my presence would make the promise! I plead with you, young man, by the sleepless nights your mother spent to give you rest; by the shadow you have hung over her pathway; by the bleeding heart you've wounded but which loves you still:

"Come back, my boy, come back, I say, And walk now in thy mother's way."

I would that every boy in our land were as grateful to his mother as was that Southern girl to her father, who stood years ago in front of an open fire, her back to the fire, her face toward the door, her bare arms full of flowers, waiting for her brother to call with a carriage to take her to a party. While standing there a flame caught her dress; she gave a scream, dropped the flowers and ran through the door to where her father was standing in the yard. When the father saw his child coming with flame following, he ran toward her. As he ran he took off his coat and wrapping it about her face, arms and shoulders, threw her to the ground. With his left hand he kept the flame from the body, while with his right hand he fought the fire. He saved his daughter but burned his right arm to the elbow. Day after day when the doctor would unwrap the arm to dress it, the girl, though burned herself, would go to her father's bed, gently lift the burned arm and caress it. When the father recovered his hand was so maimed and scarred, that when introduced to strangers, he would hold his right hand behind him and shake hands with the left. One day his daughter, seeing him do this, went to his side and reaching for the scarred hand, held it to her lips and kissed it. She was not ashamed, for that hand had been burned for her. When the father died and lay in his casket ready for burial, the family came to take their last look. First came the mother of the girl, then a brother and sister, and then the girl herself. She kissed the cold brow of her father, then kneeling she took up the disfigured hand and kissed it over and over again. My boy, your mother has suffered more for you than that father did for his daughter. I beg you, go home and kiss your mother. If she is dead or far from you, kiss her memory. Go to your bed room, kneel there, and pray God to help you to live worthy the love of your mother.

I now turn from young men to parents and say, use every means possible to make safe the way of your boys. Some years ago in one of our cities, after a lecture in which I appealed to parents, a leading merchant of the city said: "I wish I had heard that lecture years ago."

"You never used liquor?" I said.

"No, but I am responsible for its use in my family. I am a Methodist, and a total abstainer. In my employ I had a number of clerks, and let it be known I would not allow any of them to drink even moderately. One day a man came to my store with a paper in his hand and said: 'I want to set up a saloon on the next block and I am getting signers to my petition. I am one of your customers; you know me and know I will keep an orderly place.' I said to myself, 'if he doesn't sell others will and we need the revenue anyway,' so I signed the petition. A few months later I chanced to see my youngest boy and one of my clerks coming out of the door of that saloon. Soon after when they entered the store I called them into my office and said: 'Young men, did I see you coming out of a saloon, and had you been taking a drink in there?' When they admitted they had, I said to my son: 'Did I ever set such an example for you to follow?' He answered: 'No, father, but you signed that man's petition to set up the saloon; whom did you expect him to sell to? Did you sign it for him to sell to other fathers' sons and not yours?' I realized as never before the wrong I had done, not only to my own son, but to every father's son to whom that saloon-keeper would sell if they had the money to pay for liquor. I said: "Forgive me, my boy. Promise me you will never enter a saloon again and I promise never to sign a petition or vote to have a saloon-keeper sell to anybody's boy!"