The Abominations of Modern Society | Page 6

friend, when I bid you be cautious where you spend your winter evenings. Thank God that you have lived to see the glad winter days in which your childhood was made cheerful by the faces of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, some of whom, alas! will never again wish you a "happy New Year," or a "Merry Christmas."
Let no one tempt you out of your sobriety. I have seen respectable young men of the best families drunk on New Year's day. The excuse they gave for the inebriation was that the ladies insisted on their taking it. There have been instances where the delicate hand of woman hath kindled a young man's taste for strong drink, who after many years, when the attractions of that holiday scene were all forgotten, crouched in her rags, and her desolation, and her woe under the uplifted hand of the drunken monster who, on that Christmas morning so long ago, took the glass from her hand. And so, the woman stands on the abutment of the bridge, on the moon-lit night, wondering if, down under the water, there is not some quiet place for a broken heart. She takes one wild leap,--and all is over!
Ah! mingle not with the harmless beverage of your festive scene this poison of adders! Mix not with the white sugar of the cup the snow of this awful leprosy! Mar not the clatter of cutlery at the holiday feast with the clank of a madman's chain!
Stop and look into the window of that pawnbroker's shop. Elegant furs. Elegant watches. Elegant scarfs. Elegant flutes. People stand with a pleased look gazing at these things; but I look in with a shudder, as though I had seen into a window of hell.
Whose elegant watch was that? It was a drunkard's watch!
Whose furs? They belonged to a drunkard's wife!
Whose flute? Whose shoes? Whose scarf? They belonged to a drunkard's child!
If I could, I would take the three brazen balls hanging at the door-way, and clang them together until they tolled the awful knell of the drunkard's soul. The pawnbroker's shop is only one eddy of the great stream of municipal drunkenness.
Stand back, young man! Take not the first step in the path that leads here. Let not the flame of strong drink ever scorch your tongue. You may tamper with these things and escape, but your influence will be wrong. Can you not make a sacrifice for the good of others?
When the good ship London went down, the captain was told that there was a way of escape in one of the life-boats. He said--"No; I will go down with the rest of the passengers!" All the world acknowledged that heroism.
Can you not deny yourself insignificant indulgences for the good of others? Be not allured by the fact that you drink only the moderate beverages. You take only ale; and a man has to drink a large amount of it to become intoxicated. Yes; but there is not in all the city to-day an inebriate that did not begin with ale.
"XXX:" What does that mark mean? XXX on the beer-barrel: XXX on the brewer's dray: XXX on the door of the gin-shop: XXX on the side of the bottle. Not being able to find any one who could tell me what this mark means, I have had to guess that the whole thing was an allegory: XXX--that is, thirty heartbreaks. Thirty agonies. Thirty desolated homes. Thirty chances for a drunkard's grave. Thirty ways to perdition.
"XXX." If I were going to write a story, the first chapter would be XXX.; the last--"A pawnbroker's shop."
Be watchful! At this season all the allurements to dissipation will be especially busy. Let not your flight to hell be in the winter.
I also remark that the winter evenings, through their very length, allow great swing for indulgences. Few young men would have the taste to go to their room at seven o'clock, and sit until eleven, reading Motley's Dutch Republic or John Foster's Essays. The young men who have been confined to the store all day want fresh air and sight-seeing; and they must go somewhere. The most of them have, of a winter's evening, three or four hours of leisure. After the evening repast, the young man puts on his hat and coat and goes out.
"Come in here," cries one form of allurement.
"Come in here," cries another.
"Go;" says Satan. "You ought to see for yourself."
"Why don't you go?" says a comrade. "It is a shame for a young man to be as green as you are. By this time you ought to have seen everything."
Especially is temptation strong in such times as this, when business is dull. I have noticed that men spend more money when they have little to spend.
The tremendous question to be settled