Sowing and Reaping - A Temperance Story | Page 3

the lack of it is a prolific cause of misery and crime, and she spared no
pains to create within his mind a horror of intemperance, and when he
was old enough to understand the nature of a vow, she knelt with him
in earnest prayer, and pledging him to eternal enmity against
everything that would intoxicate, whether fermented or distilled. In the
morning she sowed the seed which she hoped would blossom in time,
and bear fruit throughout eternity.

Chapter II
The Decision[1]

"I hear Belle," said Jeanette Roland[2] addressing her cousin Belle
Gordon, "that you have refused an excellent offer of marriage."
"Who said so?"
"Aunt Emma."
"I am very sorry that Ma told you, I think such things should be kept
sacred from comment, and I think the woman is wanting in refinement
and delicacy of feeling who makes the rejection of a lover a theme for
conversation."
"Now you dear little prude I had no idea that you would take it so
seriously but Aunt Emma was so disappointed and spoke of the
rejected suitor in such glowing terms, and said that you had sacrificed a
splendid opportunity because of some squeamish notions on the subject
of temperance, and so of course, my dear cousin, it was just like me to
let my curiosity overstep the bounds of prudence, and inquire why you
rejected Mr. Romaine."[3]
"Because I could not trust him."
"Couldn't trust him? Why Belle you are a greater enigma than ever.
Why not?"
"Because I feel that the hands of a moderate drinker are not steady
enough to hold my future happiness."
"Was that all? Why I breathe again, we girls would have to refuse
almost every young man in our set, were we to take that stand."
"And suppose you were, would that be any greater misfortune than to
be the wives of drunkards."
"I don't see the least danger. Ma has wine at her entertainments, and I
have often handed it to young gentlemen, and I don't see the least harm
in it. On last New Year's day we had more than fifty callers. Ma and I
handed wine, to every one of them." "Oh I do wish people would

abandon that pernicious custom of handing around wine on New Year's
day. I do think it is a dangerous and reprehensible thing."
"Wherein lies the danger? Of course I do not approve of young men
drinking in bar rooms and saloons, but I cannot see any harm in
handing round wine at social gatherings. Not to do so would seem so
odd."
"It is said Jeanette[,?] 'He is a slave who does not be, in the right with
two or three.' It is better, wiser far to stand alone in our integrity than to
join with the multitude in doing wrong. You say while you do not
approve of young men drinking in bar rooms and saloons, that you
have no objection to their drinking beneath the shadow of their homes,
why do you object to their drinking in saloons, and bar rooms?"
"Because it is vulgar. Oh! I think these bar rooms are horrid places. I
would walk squares out of my way to keep from passing them." "And I
object to intemperance not simply because I think it is vulgar but
because I know it is wicked; and Jeanette I have a young brother for
whose welfare I am constantly trembling; but I am not afraid that he
will take his first glass of wine in a fashionable saloon, or flashy gin
palace, but I do dread his entrance into what you call 'our set.' I fear
that my brother has received as an inheritance a temperament which
will be easily excited by stimulants, that an appetite for liquor once a
awakened will be hard to subdue, and I am so fearful, that at some
social gathering, a thoughtless girl will hand him a glass of wine, and
that the first glass will be like adding fuel to a smouldering fire."
"Oh Belle do stop, what a train of horrors you can conjure out of an
innocent glass of wine."
"Anything can be innocent that sparkles to betray, that charms at first,
but later will bite like an adder and sting like a serpent."
"Really! Belle, if you keep on at this rate you will be a monomaniac on
the temperance question. However I do not think Mr. Romaine will feel
highly complimented to know that you refused him because you
dreaded he might become a drunkard. You surely did not tell him so."

"Yes I did, and I do not think that I would have been a true friend to
him, had I not done so."
"Oh! Belle, I never could have had the courage to have told him so."