Temperance | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 8, 1882

Temperance.

The Little Shoes Did It.

A YOUNG man who had been reclaimed from the vice of intemperance was called upon to tell how he was led to give up drinking. He arose, but looked for a moment very confused. All he could say was: "The little shoes, they did it." With a thick voice, as if his heart was in his throat, he kept repeating this. There was a stare of perplexity on every face, and at length some thoughtless young people began to titter. The man, in all his embarrassment, heard the sound, and rallied at once. The light came into his eyes with a flash; he drew himself up, and the choking went from his throat. "Yes, friends," he said, in a voice that cut its way clear as a deep-toned bell, "whatever you may think of it, I've told you the truth—the little shoes did it. I was a brute and a fool; strong drink had made me both, and starved me into the bargain. I suffered—I deserved to suffer; but I did not suffer alone—no man does who has a wife and children—for the women get the worst share. But I am no speaker to enlarge on that; I'll stick to the little shoes I saw one night when I was all but done for—the saloon-keeper's child holding out her feet to her father to look at her fine new shoes. It was a simple thing; but, my friends, no fist ever struck

me such a blow as those little new shoes. They kicked reason into me. What reason had I to clothe others with fineries, and provide not even coarse clothing for my own, but let them go bare? And there outside was my shivering wife, and blue, chilled child on a Christmas Eve. I took hold of my little one with a grip, and saw her feet. Men! fathers! if the little shoes smote me, how must the feet have smote me? I put them, cold as ice, to my breast; and they pierced me through. Yes, the little feet walked right into my heart, and away walked my selfishness. I had a trifle of money left; I bought a loaf of bread, and then a pair of shoes. I never tasted anything but a bit of bread all the next day; and I went to work like a man on Monday, and from that day I have spent no more money at the public house. That's all I have got to say—it was the little shoes that did it."