Temperance | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Feb 23, 1882

Temperance.

A Story for Moderate Drinkers.

AN old friend of the late Judge Fletcher, of Boston, related to the writer many years ago, the following characteristic anecdote: Mr. Fletcher, when a young man, boarded in the old Exchange Coffee House. Without much consideration, he had fallen in with the drinking fashion of the day, so far as to have a glass of spirits and water brought to his room every night, to be taken on going to bed as a "night-cap." One night an unusual press of company prevented the bar-keeper from carrying up Mr. Fletcher's night-dram. The squire didn't regard it as quite the thing for him to go to the bar and get his grog, and so he went to bed without his "night-cap." But sleep he could not. All night he tumbled about for lack of his accustomed drink. And as he did so, his active and discriminating mind worked diligently. Next morning, on getting up, weary and worn by his restless night, Mr. Fletcher went directly to the barkeeper: "Mr.---, you didn't bring up my brandy and water last night, and, as a consequence, I have slept little or none all night."

The bartender was very sorry. This neglect should not occur again. "Not so," rejoined Mr. Fletcher. "Never bring me another drop of liquor unless I order it. If it has come to this, that I can't sleep without the help of a tumbler of toddy, it is high time that I stopped, and broke up the dangerous habit."

From that day Mr. Fletcher became a thorough-going temperance man—The Canada Casket.