For John's Sake Part 16

"It seems to me, Eliza, that we use too much ale and wine for a private family. Why, we consume more and more, and I only take the same quant.i.ty that I did years ago. It's more than I can stand!" he said, looking across at his wife, who was listlessly sitting at the head of the table with her coffee untasted before her. She answered sharply:

"I can't help it, John; I shouldn't take it if I didn't need it, and you might know that nothing else has kept me alive for many a year."

"I don't complain of stimulant in moderation, my dear; but I cannot believe that an extensive use of alcohol can benefit a delicate const.i.tution," replied Mr. Stewart. His wife was not inclined to let the matter drop.

"You seem to forget that the children take their gla.s.s of ale too, and that makes some difference in the amount we use."

"Well, I object to strong, healthy boys and girls touching stimulants; it is expensive and quite unneedful."

"But, papa, we like it so much; you mustn't stop our supplies," cried several youthful voices.

"I must, and I will, my dears; you have not your mother's plea of ill-health to urge, and from this time I shall not expect you to take alcohol as a daily beverage. I have no objection to lemonade or some other non-intoxicant taking its place, for that will be much less expensive, and besides, I have lately come to the conclusion that young people, at least, are likely to be harmed by the stimulus of ale or wine."

"You are very absurd, John. What harm could come to our boys and girls by taking half a gla.s.s of ale at dinner and sometimes at supper?"

testily asked Mrs. Stewart.

"Why, Eliza, you know that a taste formed in childhood is held with greater tenacity than any other, and this taste for stimulant, which I am sorry to see the children possess, may not always permit them to remain satisfied with a gla.s.s or so daily; for, I was reading not long ago, that the tendency of alcohol is to create a morbid craving which may become that insatiable thirst for drink which has ruined thousands of men and women who were once children as promising as those who sit round our table. I wish I had been as wise years ago; they should never have known the taste of it." So saying, Mr. Stewart left the table.

A chorus of voices was raised as the door closed.

"It's too bad!" "A great shame!" "Lemonade, indeed!" and other exclamations were uttered expressing disapproval of the father's action.

Mrs. Stewart had not been careful of late years to uphold her husband's authority in the household, and the unfilial remarks pa.s.sed without rebuke, she merely adding: "You'll have to mind what your father says, you know, or we shall all get into trouble."

A few hours after, when the elder children were at school, the youngest, a bright boy of seven, came to her side and said: "Shall I get your wine, mamma?"

"You are mamma's dear boy to remember her lunch time. Yes, bring it out, though it is quite early."

The wine was brought, and one gla.s.s, and then another, and yet another was drained; the little fellow meanwhile standing by. Catching sight of his wistful looks, the mother said: "Come, and have a sip, Bertie."

"Papa says I mustn't," faltered Bertie, but drawing a step nearer. Lost to all sense of duty to husband or child, Mrs. Stewart answered:

"Come, and drink, I tell you; didn't your father say you were not to have any at dinner, and this is lunch?"

She poured out a full gla.s.s, which the child drank without further demur. He was shortly asleep on the sofa, waking at dinner-time in fretful mood, and turning impatiently from his food.

"I want my ale," he cried.

"You mustn't have it, Bertie," said his eldest sister; "we all have to do without it now, thanks to papa's whimsical notions."

"Wait till you're a man, Bertie, and you can drink as much as you please, as I mean to," remarked his fourteen-year-old brother with a contracted brow, and a longing glance towards his mother's gla.s.s; while she, poor deluded woman, looked on, languidly smiling, with never a thought of the possible future of these children for whom she had suffered and toiled. Many a time, when scarcely conscious of her own actions, did she encourage them to partake with her in secret of that which was banished from the table. It was only by the awful but timely discovery of their mother's degradation that the children were prevented from following in her steps.

A few months later, upon entering the house at the close of the day, the father was met by his eldest daughter, a girl of seventeen, who, with dismay on her face, exclaimed: "Oh, papa, do come upstairs, and see what is the matter with poor mamma. She has been sleeping heavily for hours, and when I have tried to disturb her, she has spoken quite wildly, and then gone to sleep again. A dreadful thought has just occurred to me that perhaps she has taken poison." Mr. Stewart anxiously followed his daughter to the room where his wife was lying on the bed. He bent over her. Her unnatural appearance, and the strong smell of liquor which proceeded from her parted lips, told the tale; and the truth, horrible and ghastly, stood revealed to the husband.

"Papa, tell me the truth; is it poison?" asked his daughter, as Mr.

Stewart staggered to a seat. He hesitated a moment, then hoa.r.s.ely said:

"It is poison of the worst kind, my poor child! Your mother is intoxicated. Oh, what shall we do? How can we save her?" One brief moment of horror, and then, subduing all outward manifestation of her agony, the girl said:

"Papa, we must put the temptation out of her way. We must all of us do without a luxury which has brought about such a terrible result."

So from the house there was banished from that time the alcoholic beverages which had been deemed necessary; but, alas! too late to save the wife and mother from rapidly drifting into confirmed habits of drunkenness. All the schemes that love could devise proved powerless to prevent the mistaken woman from continued indulgence in the fatal cup.

The apparent need for constant recourse to stimulants had long since pa.s.sed away, but the habit of past years had wrought deadly mischief, not alone in gradually weakening the power of self-control, but in creating that morbid craving for alcohol which leaves its deluded victim no alternative but to obey its behests. She had seen no harm in what had become an essential of life to her, until she found herself bound in its toils. True, she did not yield to its slavery without many a struggle, but temptation was overpowering, and finally she succ.u.mbed to what she declared was inevitable. She had forgotten the only remedy available in such need as hers. No cry from her despairing heart had risen to heaven; the strength she lacked had not been sought from Him Who only can save from the thraldom of sin, and so, with the stain of uncancelled guilt upon her conscience, she hastened to an untimely end.

As she lay dying with mind weakened by long excess, they sought in vain for some sign of penitence, for some words to a.s.sure their sad hearts that the darkness of approaching dissolution was gilded by hues of hope and trust in the forgiving mercy of G.o.d through Christ. Day after day the sufferer's lips were sealed in an obstinate silence that struck dismay into the hearts of the watchers. She was dying without hope it seemed; but the prayer of faithful friends rose that the intercession of the Great High Priest might be made, and prove effectual for His wandering child.

Still the shadows deepened until it became evident that the mother's hours were numbered.

"I will watch beside her now, my dears," said the husband, dismissing his children for a brief period. Taking his seat beside the motionless form, he sent up a pet.i.tion for help. Then, stooping over his wife, he said: "Eliza, dear, would you not like me to pray for you?"

The dying woman opened her eyes and faintly whispered: "No."

"Shall I send for a minister to come and pray with you, then, dear?"

Mrs. Stewart roused herself with a great effort, and with energy exclaimed: "No, _He has prayed for me_, and that is enough." They were her last words. Before the next morning she had pa.s.sed away, leaving to husband and children the faint comfort of her dying testimony: "He has prayed for me."

Say, gentle reader, whether being a.s.sured of the thousand parallel cases which exist in this civilised land of ours, you will dare to place temptation in the way of your sister, by advocating the use of alcohol as the necessary stimulant which alone can nerve the failing heart and brain to meet the exigencies of her daily life, thus placing before her unwary feet the stumbling-block over which she may fall never to rise?

It may be that you who proffer the well-meaning advice are moderate in the use of your own alcoholic luxuries, and cannot understand the mysterious attraction they may hold for another; yet, surely to you is uttered the divine warning: "Woe unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him." And you, sister, plying your household tasks with an aching head, amidst the ceaseless prattle of the little ones who call you mother, striving patiently to perform your G.o.d-given duties, yet fainting under the burden and heat of the day, beware, oh, beware, of seeking relief from the tension of nerve and brain, which is a woman's allotted portion, by deadening the finely strung susceptibilities of your nature by indulgence in any of the various forms which alcohol a.s.sumes, or under which it would hide.

Beware how you seek its false stimulus to enable you to cope with the almost superhuman duties devolving upon you! Patience and strength to endure will be given in G.o.d's appointed way; but be a.s.sured you will never find it in that which is responsible for myriads of ruined homes and blighted lives.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE CHILDREN'S SUPPER.

"SHE'S such a little thing, papa; really it seems quite unnecessary to say anything about it to her for the next few years."

"Perhaps you are right, dear. Elsie will meet with no temptation at home, and a child of her tender years is scarcely likely to find it outside."

So said Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, when it had been proposed to introduce the subject of total abstinence to their youngest, a fairy child of six, and suggest to her that she should follow the example of her parents and brothers and sisters, who shortly before had pledged themselves to abstain from the use of intoxicating beverages.

"If we say anything to the dear child, it would be necessary to tell her why we consider it advisable to banish wine and ale from the house, and she would be perplexed and saddened by the insight afforded into misery and degradation of which she, at present, knows nothing. Her life is all suns.h.i.+ne now, and we have no right to disturb her childish happiness,"

added Mrs. Morgan.

So Elsie's little mind puzzled over the unrevealed reason of the absence from her father's table of the bottled ales and sparkling wines, the taste of which she had already learned to like.

A year pa.s.sed away, and an invitation to a children's party was sent to Elsie, who forthwith became wild with excitement. A dainty creature she looked on the afternoon of the important day. Her golden curls softly floated over her blue merino dress, and her brown eyes flashed and glowed with delight.

"Mother's darling, good-bye! try and be a little lady, and nurse shall fetch you at nine o'clock," said the mother, as she pressed her child's coral lips, and then watched the little feet trip down the road beside the servant.