Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear Part 9

A Temperance Talk in Acrostic--One Great Evil Power--Beware!

THE LESSON--That the deadly drink evil appears to its victims in the most alluring and deceptive form.

The following talk necessitates the use of lettering only, but it affords an opportunity for the audience to take a part, especially if the company of hearers is made up largely of children. The climax is not to be antic.i.p.ated, and the effect cannot be other than lasting. The talk may be varied to suit local conditions; specific incidents make the best impressions. It is suggested that you watch your newspapers for a period preceding the talk and make clippings of incidents to fit the points of the first seven paragraphs. It is well to ask the children to repeat each word as it is placed on the drawing paper.

~~The Talk.~~

"The thing I am going to speak about today is not a pleasant one. The fact is that nothing good can be said about it, for it deals with sorrow and death. You may wonder, then, why we do not speak of something bright and happy; and I answer that if you learn the lesson about this thing of sorrow and death, your lives will escape its influence and you will be many more times likely to be happy; and if you do not learn the lesson, you may suffer distress and anguish all the years of your later life. This thing is known as a great evil power. Sometimes we hear of it coming into the home and making a brute out of a loving husband. Where there was happiness and joy there is now sorrow and despair. [Place the word Sorrow on the drawing paper. When adding the succeeding words, be sure to place them exactly as indicated in Fig. 43.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 43]

"Again, this evil power creeps into a home and fastens itself upon a young man who had before him every promise of a bright, successful life. So relentless is it that the young man, in despair, takes his own life. [Add the word Death.]

"Again, we see a man, successful in business, with no seeming obstacle in the way of greater achievement, when, one day, we find his doors are closed. This evil power has come upon him and he is a bankrupt and a failure. [Add the word Failure.]

"Again, we hear of a man who has been a leader among men--a brilliant lawyer, a keen thinker--taken from his place and confined in a hospital for the insane. The same evil power has done this. [Add the word Insanity.]

"Again, we know of a young man who was strong and robust, a splendid specimen of physical manhood; now he has lost his health and strength. The same evil power has come upon him and has placed him on a bed of sickness from which he cannot rise. [Add the word Sickness.]

"Again, how often do we hear that a man, respected and honored, has in a moment of pa.s.sion, taken the life of another man, just because this evil power came in and caused him to do it. [Add the word Murder.]

"But more common than all the other terrible things which this great evil power does is the bringing of wretchedness and want to the wives and the children of the men who are its victims. These innocent ones suffer for the common comforts of life, food and clothing. This we call poverty. [Add the word Poverty. This completes Fig. 43.]

"Many more words could be added to this list, representing the misfortunes which come to the victims of this great evil power. In every instance it deceived its victims into believing it was harmless--that in accepting it there was no danger or risk.

"What is this great evil power? [With red chalk draw the heavy line, completing Fig. 44, to bring out the word Whiskey.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 44]

"Now, boys and girls, consider this not as a puzzle drawing. It represents a truth almost as old as the world. Concerning strong drink, the Bible cries out, 'Beware!' Remember that every drunkard believed he could taste liquor and then leave it alone if he wished.

You, in your happy homes, may think you are safe from it. Beware!

Some day, the temptation will come to you; someone will test you.

Beware! 'Whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.' 'Who hath woe?

Who hath sorrow? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine.' Beware! Be not one of these.

"No, let us keep our minds on the pure, the upright, looking ever to Jesus, who is our strength and who will keep us from the power of this evil thing. 'Then shalt thou walk in thy way securely, and thy foot shall not stumble.'"

IF WAs.h.i.+NGTON LIVED TODAY --Was.h.i.+ngton's Birthday --Character

The Principles Which Underlie Success Are the Same at All Times.

THE LESSON--That true success will attend those who found their lives on the principles which governed the life of Was.h.i.+ngton.

Properly handled, the ill.u.s.tration designed for the following talk will prove a revelation to young and old. The application fits the ill.u.s.tration so well that the talk should prove of absorbing interest and lasting impressiveness.

~~The Talk.~~

[Before beginning the talk, make the following preparations very carefully: Attach several thicknesses of your drawing paper to your board, leaving the outer sheet free at the bottom by tacking at the top only. Next, with a sharp pen-knife, cut a hole in the outer sheet, indicated by the dotted lines in Fig. 45, and throw away the piece which has been cut out. The object of this preparation is this: When you draw the portrait of Was.h.i.+ngton, represented in Fig. 45, a portion of your drawing will appear on the outer sheet and part of it--the face--on the next sheet beneath. If your preparations have been well made, the outer sheet will lie flat against the one beneath, and the audience will not see the hole until the proper time comes.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 45]

"I am going to draw first an outline portrait of George Was.h.i.+ngton, copied from the profile crayon sketch of St. Memin. [Draw Fig. 45, complete, being careful, in moving the crayon from one sheet to the other, not to tear the outer sheet.] This view shows plainly the style of wig and military clothing of a gentleman of the revolutionary days, and, as we look at it we note what a difference there is between this and the dress of the men of today. Do we also feel that there is a great difference between the men of colonial days and the present time--the same difference in character that there is in dress? If this thought has come to us, we have also asked ourselves, perhaps, this strange question, 'What kind of a man would George Was.h.i.+ngton be if he were living at the present time?'

"Of course, if he had not performed his great work in helping to shape the destiny of our nation, it is probable that America would have had a vastly different history. We will a.s.sume, however, that Was.h.i.+ngton were a product of the present day and that the present conditions prevailed. What, then, would Was.h.i.+ngton be like? How would he act?

What would he do?

"Perhaps we can best transplant him to our day by dressing him in the clothing of the man of the present. [Slowly fold back the outer sheet, so the audience may see that you have already drawn on the under sheet a portion of the second "scene"--the most important part, in fact. As you continue the talk, add lines to complete Fig. 46.] In the first place, Was.h.i.+ngton, with his abundance of natural hair, would not wear a wig just for style, so we will draw his head as we think it would appear naturally. Nor would he wear the colonial style of clothing, so we will subst.i.tute the coat, collar and tie of an American gentleman of today. And here we have Was.h.i.+ngton as he would look if he lived in our own time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 46]

"I do not believe Was.h.i.+ngton would be a military leader in this latter day. He was essentially a man of peace, and everywhere in his writings we find expressed a longing to return after the strife of battle and the weary days in the presidential chair, to his quiet, beloved Mount Vernon, to carry on his extensive private business and enjoy his friends and the sweets of home life.

"But we cannot doubt that he would be a great leader in the struggle for right against wrong in every form. From his childhood, he loved truth and honesty. He was a deep and careful student. He worked hard at his duties as a surveyor of the wilderness and then came the call from Governor Dinwiddie to carry a message to the French over hundreds of miles of unknown land, in the dead of winter. It was the most perilous undertaking ever entrusted to any man in the new land of America up to that time, but he met the task manfully. It was such victories as these in his youth that made him the Father of His Country. It is the meeting of our own problems in the same spirit that means our own success in life.

"If Was.h.i.+ngton lived today, his career would be vastly different from what it was, yet he would have made his place, and the world would have been eminently better for his work. Let us study to apply to our own lives the principles which made Was.h.i.+ngton truly great."

[In closing, restore the outer sheet to its first position, thus presenting the original portrait. It may be necessary to fasten it down with a thumb-tack.]

EVOLUTION OF THE JUG --Temperance Day --Slavery

While Strong Drink Makes "Poverty and Rags," the Pure Life Brings Earthly Prosperity.

THE LESSON--That intemperance is the chief cause of the world's poverty and misery.

This talk deals especially with the point that the use of strong drink consumes the income of the wage earner, unfits him for his work, and brings suffering and want to himself and those dependent upon him.

~~The Talk.~~

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 47]

"It is a common belief that slavery was wiped out of America by the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation of President Lincoln, sustained by the victory of the union armies in the war of the rebellion. And so it was as far as the negro is concerned; but there is in America today another form of slavery which no clash of arms can eradicate, and this is the picture of the slaveholder: [Draw Fig. 47 complete.] The 'little brown jug,' which we use as a type of the saloon power, holds millions of men and boys in its grasp, consuming their brains, their bodies, and their money, and bringing misery and hopelessness to them and to those who love them. From Europe comes many a cry of anguish, showing that the same powerful slaveholder holds sway across the ocean. Listen to the words of the great English statesman, Joseph Chamberlain:

"'If there is in this whole liquor business any single encouraging feature,' he says, 'it is to be found in the gathering impatience of the people at the burden which they are bound to bear, and their growing indignation and sense of shame and disgrace which this imposes upon them. The fiery serpent of drink is destroying our people, and now they are waiting with longing eyes the uplifting of the remedy.'

"Again, from the island of Madagascar, off the east coast of Africa, we hear the queen of that island declaring herself in bitterness of spirit, in these words:

"'I cannot consent, as your queen, to take revenue from the sale of liquor, which destroys the souls and bodies of my people.'

"The Hon. Carroll D. Wright, while United States commissioner of labor, tells, from observation, of the slavery of strong drink in his own country and in Europe. He says: 'I have looked into a thousand homes of the working people of Europe; I do not know how many in this country. In every case, so far as my observation goes, drunkenness was at the bottom of the misery, and not the industrial system or the industrial surroundings of the men and their families.'

"And so the testimony goes on. It is the same everywhere. There is no need of more proof that strong drink is the world's greatest curse. To every one of you boys, I am going to say that success in life cannot come to you in its fulness if you ever allow yourselves to get this deadly habit. Let it not break into the abode of your soul--and by this I mean your own bodies--and make you depraved captives for life. The first taste of strong drink, even though it may seem to be a very little thing, may mean that you will become banished from G.o.d forever. Remember, boys, that Satan is deceitful. He never tells you the truth. He is always trying to juggle you with his jug and to make you believe that black is white and wrong is right, and even that sorrow is joy and 'a good time.' It is against those who would tempt you that Jesus said, 'And fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him that is able to destroy both soul and body.' Such a destroyer is strong drink.