Treading the Narrow Way Part 6

Dad is never still long enough for the birds to build nests in his goatee and set three weeks. If he slackens up you notice a visible reduction in your pancake pile. The Lord didn't make the suns far enough apart for dad or some other people. I worked for a farmer one time that used to start out with a handmade sun about two-thirty A. M. and never ceased till ten P. M. The meals always bothered me; I couldn't tell if it was breakfast the next morning or two suppers. If G.o.d's suns.h.i.+ne meets man's suns.h.i.+ne and the two mix properly, you've got an individual that is a continual pleasure, one whose existence is exhilarating. He whistles and sings and smiles and laughs and gets out of life everything that is good, and everybody likes and knows him.

I was never so ashamed in my life as I was one time when I had encased in my left cheek a quid of tobacco the size of a hen's egg. I was carrying on nonchalantly a conversation with a depot master, and the saliva was gathering so rapidly, it wasn't long before I could only grunt. I always disliked to ruin a floor with expectoration and was also embarra.s.sed by the presence of the agent's boy, a little fellow of four years, but my mouth was so full and my cheeks so inflated that leakage was starting and I was forced to eject it or swallow it. I chose the former and let it go. It sounded like the distant booming of guns and the s.p.a.ce required to contain it on the floor was unbelievable. If its dimensions didn't cover a foot square outside of the innumerable rivulets in every direction, I'll buy my wife a twelve dollar Easter bonnet for a Christmas present. The little boy looked at it and said, "My, that's a big one!" I sneaked out crestfallen, abashed and ashamed, but didn't have the sense to quit for some years afterwards, when the preacher said something about the ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

TEMPERANCE.

The cause of temperance is one that has been close to my heart for twenty years. Taken from the logical standpoint of protection to the home, sound saneness, improvement in morals, an enhancement of citizens.h.i.+p, it is the second paramount issue of the age. Take away liquor, stop the traffic entirely, and you reduce seventy-five per cent of crime. The empty whisky-bottle is the greatest curse that ever existed. When it is standing filled in front of some bar-room mirror, it is harmless, but when it is empty it signifies that it has been drank by somebody and has been the direct cause for all that has followed.

Trace it up and you will find sorrow, misery, heartaches, remorse, disgrace, shame, humiliation, want, poverty, destroyed homes, cruelty, hatred, anger, revenge, and murder. Rags, vulgarity, dishonor, wasted lives, and deceit. Ruined sweethearts, broken-hearted wives, disgraced parents, and hungry, shoeless children. Disease, filth, white slavery, prize fights, tangoes, rottenness, and shame. Keeley cures, jails, penitentiaries, poorhouses, brothels, cabarets, and insane asylums.

Thieves, robbers, safe blowers, beggars, pick-pockets, delirium tremors, and death. Leave it alone!

Some people say there is no harm in it; there isn't if you leave it alone. You can take a loaded revolver and lay it alongside of a well-filled whisky bottle and they will get along side by side peacefully as long as time exists. Each one separate and apart are harmless; but let a sane man come along and drink the whisky, pick up the revolver, and what happens? Every nationality without distinction to race or color, Irishmen included, will run for safety.

A well-educated young man with brilliant prospects, neatly attired, attractive, and of fine, honorable parentage, was pa.s.sing a saloon one day when a friend standing in the doorway invited him in. He had never been in a place of this kind in his life. His parents had taught him, friends advised him, and a sweet faced girl had warned him. Conscience told him to decline and go on, but, like millions of others, he heeded the invitation and stepped in. "Come up and take something," the tempter said. "No," he said, "I never drink." "Come on," urged the tempter. "It won't hurt you." "NO," he said; "it's beneath the dignity of a true gentleman and it would break my mother's heart." "Ah, come on, don't be a kid," he urged, and still the boy said no. After continued and repeated solicitation he finally yielded and drank his first gla.s.s.

Alas, the fatal mistake was made. Years of careful training were swept aside. Hopeful aspirations of his mother when she looked on his innocent face in the cradle were all for naught. Solemn advice from a kind father was lost sight of, and the deed was done. That first drink fired his brain. Others were taken and his eyes shone, the house treated, and the once quiet, manly lad was loud and boisterous. Self-respect was cast aside and foul utterances flew fast and thick from a once clean mouth.

The end came. He reeled in drunkenness and fell to the floor in a gibbering drunken stupor. He was put to bed and when sober he felt the shame and remorse so keenly that he was at the point of self destruction. He thought of his mother, his father, the dear little sweetheart, and his friends. He was so afraid they would all hear of his ignominy that he kept secluded. He couldn't bear to face them, tell all and start anew.

The humiliation was more than he could stand and he slipped farther and farther down the steep and rapid descent to h.e.l.l. Back in his cheerful and once comfortable home a dear old mother sat waiting and watching year after year the lamp was kept burning. A kind old father sat with bowed head thinking and thinking. A dear little girl was weeping and weeping, and still he didn't come. Where, O where was he and why didn't he come? Alas! how sad as he sank lower and lower. Drunken brawls were common, nights spent in revelry very often; the dissipation was telling, his once clean countenance was haggard. His step was languid, lethargy was settling upon him, and his whole being was repulsive. His character was no longer clean and a thing of beauty. Brothels caught him and G.o.d's penalties were discernible for the violation of his laws. Decent men shunned him and pure women scorned him, but still the light was kept burning. The mother watched, the father waited, the sweetheart prayed, and the friends yearned; but down, down, down he went. Even dogs hurried by him, the filth and disease was nauseating.

The years sped quickly and there he is clear down at the bottom, an object of disgust and scorn. Behold him, beneath the ma.s.s of stale and putrid slime, a castoff, friendless and penniless vagabond. Beneath the most loathsome and foul degeneracy conceivable; even beneath the filthy sewer. He lay on a bundle of rags in a drunkard's hut. As he moaned and groaned, an old friend pa.s.sing by heard him, stepped in and stood looking at him. With tears streaming down his cheeks the boy looked up and said, "my life is ebbing, I am at the border line, my career is wasted; I am a drunken, despised and worthless sot, friendless and alone. I can see nothing ahead but the blackest despair. Oh my poor old mother, my poor old father, my dear little sweetheart, My Sav-oh-oh."

Another spell grasped him and as he tossed and shrieked and moaned, grappling with the demon, writhing in mental anguish, terror clouded his countenance, his eyes rolled, his limbs jerked, the mouth dropped open, the tongue protruded, he clutched until the blood trickled from the torn flesh, a loud, gurgling, terrifying scream, and he was dead. Died with the delirium tremens caused by the rum demon. As the old friend wiped away the tears and stood looking at his pitiful form he noticed in one of his torn and ragged pockets a slip of paper. He pulled it out and read:

Listen, friend, today, To what I have to say, Don't let temptation sway And miss the narrow way.

When you are young and gay And anxious for the fray Be ready to say "Nay"

And tread the narrow way.

The debt I have to pay As here near death I lay Wouldn't hold so much dismay Had I trod the narrow way.

Oh tread the narrow way And never miss a day Ask Jesus how to pray And tread the narrow way.

How can America, the foremost nation of the world, that has long boasted of liberty and advancement, allow the liquor traffic to continue when the condition it causes are so critical. It is stealing away her brains, increasing her crime, lowering her moral standing, demoralizing her citizens.h.i.+p, and giving to posterity a weaker race and causing such poverty, misery and unhumanitarian distress. Can this enlightened nation afford its continuance and let it remain when it has a grasp so powerful that it is endangering its very vitals? Can America, with her unsurpa.s.sed inst.i.tutions of learning, her brilliant and scholarly statesmen, her great mineral and agricultural wealth yet unfound and developed, allow a traffic so alarmingly demoralizing as to let her const.i.tutional principles decline? Can she sit still, under her broad and world famed methods of progress, and allow such a traffic, that devastates from every source, for a revenue wrung from women's tears, that is so rapidly depreciating her citizens.h.i.+p. Is she prudent? Is she applying the Christian principles of her const.i.tution to obtain revenue from a traffic so nefarious and debauching? If she realizes the danger ahead why delay an amendment that enhances citizens.h.i.+p and principle.

America, 'tis thee I prize, 'Twas underneath thy azure skies, Where heaven's light first met my eyes.

I love thy thrift and enterprise, To me beloved and so wise Thy name is one I idolize.

Thy blood did purchase liberty, To make this land so great and free, And quench forever tyranny.

Oh may thy name forever be Embraced within a righteous plea, That lessens pain and misery.

It is for thee that I will fight, When'er thy cause is for the right, For none but these e'er use thy might.

I'll heed your call with keen delight, But should I fall before the night, Let freedom's flag be my last sight.

EVERY DAY PHILOSOPHY.

Look out for the man whose face shows it pains him to say "Good Morning."

Never be afraid to trust the man whose dog meets him with a bound.

The mad rush to join the appendicitis club and sing in the choir invisible has lost its popularity, both for the good of posterity and the pocket book.

Some people take a great deal of liberty with the English language, when they speak of work.

Stick to the boys who borrow a five occasionally and pay it back; rather than the fellows who love you like a fly does mola.s.ses when your roll would choke a lazy mule.

It's cheaper to buy your coal from your regular dealer and take short weight, than to steal it from the railroad and pay court costs.

It's an ice cold fact that the fellow who is continually condemning others' faults and pointing with pride to his own great meritable achievements, is not ent.i.tled to a premium for sincerity.

It's often the sour, surly looking man that goes down in his pocket and gives you his last quarter, when hunger is beating a fast tattoo against your breastworks.

Because a man joins the church and becomes a pious and strict respecter of Sunday observance, don't cast all caution aside and let him sell you gold mine stock on Monday, unless you know something about the mine.

Some men tell you the wonderful things they have done from the corner store dry goods box and then let their wives earn the living over the wash tub.

Many a man has nearly grasped St. Peter's hand, when his wife's razor edged tongue drove him clean down to perdition.