Untitled article | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, November 12, 1867

CHARLES LAMB’S WARNING.

Charles Lamb, a genius and drunkard, tells his sad experience as a warning to young men, in the following language:

“The waters have gone over me. But out of the black depths, could I be heard, I would cry out to all those who have but set a foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth to whom the flavor of his first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life, or the entering upon some newly-discovered paradise, look into my desolation and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will—to see his destruction and have no power to stop it, and yet feel it all the way emanating from himself; to see all godliness emptied out of him, and yet not able to forget a time when it was otherwise; to bear about the piteous spectacle of his own ruin; could he see my fevered eye, feverish with last night’s drinking, and feverishly looking for to-night’s repetition of the folly; could he but feel the body of the death out of which I cry hourly with feeble outcry to be delivered—it were enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth in all the pride of its mantling temptation.”

If you have a young friend who may be in danger of acquiring an appetite for strong drink, invite his attention to Charles Lamb’s dreadful experience.