TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2035, 1 September 1880, Page 3

TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

TEdITHD BY O. M. G.l LOCAL OPTION RESOLUTION. The following is the result of the division which took place in the House of Commons on Sir Wilfrid Lawson’s Local Option Resolution : Eor the resolution ... 229 Against 203 Majority in favor ... 26 SUNDAY CLOSING RESOLUTION. The voting on tie resolution affirming tho principle of Sunday closing throughout England and Wales resulted as follows : For the resolution ... 176 Against 140 Majority in favor ... 36 Fuller particulars will appear in next week’s “Temperance Column.” THE DOWNWARD COURSE. [“Temperance Year Book.”] JPacilis decensus Averni. In the little village where I was born it was universally admitted that Mary Meredith was the local queen of hearts. She loved and was beloved by Harry Emmerson, a confidential clerk in one of the factories, a worthy young man, in receipt of a good salary, and so highly esteemed by his employers, that it was confidently predicted that at no distant date they would take him into partnership. One cloud, however, east its dark shadow over the happiness of the young lovers. Harry liked an occasional glass of liquor, “ not,” as he would tell Mary, “ for the love of drinking, but just for the sake of being social. One looks such a child if he cant take a glass once in a while with a friend.”

“ Bettor be thought a child, Harry,” said hio sweetheart, “than become a drunkard.” Ho laughed at her fears of hia ever becoming one. What he, the clear-headed, sensible Harry Emmeraon, ever take too much f ”

“My dear Mary,” he said, “ total abstinence is very well for people who have no self-con-trol. I should feel it an inault to my own self-respect were I to sign the pledge. I am a very moderate drinker, and a moderate drinker I shall always be. However, if I once should take a glass too much, I promise you that I will then become a total abstainer.”

Loving him, as she did, and knowing his great love for her, she was content, for she was confident that, after they were united, she could persuade him to do as she wished. So in due*oourse they were married, and all the village believed them a truly happy pair. But when did the moderate drinker continue to practice moderation ? Her husband loved her dearly, but ho loved the drink more. When a child was born to them, she hoped that its innocent face would silently plead with its father to pause in his downward course. , But alcohol is a stem master. Home ties, the love of wife and children, even self-respect must be yielded up by him who has elected to make drink his god. After a while Harry Emmeraon came to business in a muddled state, and made mistakes in his accounts so frequently, that his employers reluctantly dismissed him. Poor Mary was broken-hearted. She had now two children to weep over and pray for. “What cursed spell,” she thought, “can there bo in this potent drink, that makes my husband careless of me, of his children, of everything. If it can dull the senses, and keep the overcharged heart from breaking, why should I not try its soothing power ?” Maddened and reckless in her despair, she took to drink.

The descent to the wine shades is as easy to man as to woman, and Mary Meredith, the once happy, handsome girl, travelled it, alas! too speedily, leaving, as all must do who journey upon that road, her beauty and her happiness behind. * * # #

Eew would recognise in the shoeless, ragged man, with the starving children clinging to him, the once prosperous clerk; and in the haggard and poverty-pinched face, and the cracked notes of the street-singer, there remained but little trace of that beauty and sweet voice which had once been the charms of the queen of our village. It is a sad story ; but there are many such in the lives of those who doemedjthemselves “moderate drinkers.”. THE WEARY AT REST. [“Temperance Year Book.”] John Lennard stumbled home more sober than usual, but sadly irritated and out of temper. He had earned nothing that_ he could spend in drink, none of his companions had been willing to “ stand treat,” and the landlady of the Dun Cow would only let him have a single glass of whiskey. “ His score was quite long enough already, and none but a good-natured body like herself would have trusted so far a ne’er-do-well like him, who had no regular work, and who, it was well known, kept his poor wife and child starving at home.” John Lennard was quite used to such plain speaking, but it chafed him terribly, and he returned home, as I have said, with a very ruffled temper, intending to vent it in a volley of abuse on his unoffending wife. He opened the door noisily enough, and looked round the room for the haggard figure which he generally found cowering near the hearthstone; for however ill she might be, Mary Lennard always sat up for his return. She was not sitting up to-night, and, with a muttered oath, ho strode towards the wretched pallet. She was lying there, the hand of her sleeping child within hers. And she was sleeping too —a sleep from which no oaths and cruel words could ever wake her.

Stoop lower, John Lennard, and touch that cold brow; your victim has escaped far beyond the reach of your “troubling ” —“the weary is at rest!” All the manhood that was left in John Leonard's embruted nature rose up and asserted itself in the presence of his dead wife. He had maltreated, yea killed the trusting woman who called him husband, and whom he had promised in the sight of Q-od to “love and cherish.” But the remorse that brought him to the ground with a sharp cry of pain came too late, as in such cases it always does. He could not bring one smile back to the face which had lost all its comeliness through his neglect, nor one thrill of gladness to the heart which his cruel words and ways had filled so full of sorrow. I would that my story could reach the heart of some reader who is perhaps treading in John Lannard’s steps, but who never intends to let drink become his master as it became John Lennard’s.

Oh, beware! If you are beginning the dangerous course of self-indulgence in ever so small a degree, you know not where it may lead you. It cannot lead to good , you are sure of that; perhaps already it has made you indifferent to home and the happiness of wife and children, and this is the beginning of sorrows. Go on a little longer, let the evil habit get a strong hold of you, as it surely mill, and you will scarcely have power to pass the public house on your way from work. Dear friend, let me beseech you to turn round now and ask God’s help to climb again the hill of temperance and self-denial down which you have been running. You will find honor, and respectability, and success in life, in the upward path; and if you tread it in the love and fear of a reconciled God, there is “immortality and eternal life ” at the top. Thbeb - Quarters op a Loaf. The “National Temperance Advocate” tells of a very suggestive lecture which was recently delivered by an English working man of Manchester, in which, by way of effective illustration, he held in his hands a knife and a loaf of bread to represent the wages of the working man. He out off a moderate slice, and “This,” he said, “is what you give the city government.” Ho then cut off a more generous slice, and added : “ This is what you give to the general government.” Then with a vigorous flourish of his carving-knife, he out off three quarters of the whole loaf and said: “This you give to the brewer.” Of the thin slice then remaining he cut off the larger part for the “ public house ;” and then of tho few crumbs left he said: “And this you keep to support yourself and your family.” The force of his illustration was acknowledged by a hearty response, and the lesson of political economy which it involves may bo studied with great profit, not alone by the individual working man, but all tax-paying, philanthropic, and public-spirited citizens.!