Temperance | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 16, 1882

Temperance.

The Old Woman's Appeal.

THE inhabitants of a thriving town in Pennsylvania were assembled, as was their custom, to decide what number, if any, of the saloons should be licensed. There was a very full attendance. One of the magistrates presided, and upon the platform were seated, among others, the pastor of the village, one of his deacons, and the physician. After the meeting had been called to order, one of the most respectable citizens of the boro' rose, and after a short speech, moved that the meeting petition for the usual number of licenses for the ensuing year. He thought it was not best to get up an excitement by refusing to grant licenses. They had better license good men and let them sell.

The proposition seemed to meet with almost universal favor. The president was about to put the question to the meeting, when an object rose in a distant part of the building, and instantly all eyes were turned in that direction. It was an old woman, poorly clad, and whose care-worn countenance was the painful index of no light suffering. And yet there was something in the flash of her bright eye that told she had once been what she then was not. She addressed the president, and said she had come because she had heard that they were to decide the license question.

"You," said she, "all know who I am. You once knew me mistress of one of the best estates in town. I once had a husband and five sons, and woman never had a kinder husband, mother never had five better or more affectionate sons. But where are they now? In yonder burying ground there are six graves, filled by that husband and those five sons, and oh! they are all drunkards' graves!"

"Doctor, how came they to be drunkards? You would come and drink with them, and you told them that temperate drinking would do them good. And you, too, sir (addressing the pastor), would come and drink with my husband, and my sons thought they might drink with safety, and follow your religious example."

"Deacon, you sold them rum, which made them drunkards. You have now got my farm and all my property, and you got it all by rum."

"And now" she said, "I have done my errand. I go back to the poor-house, for that is my home. You, reverend sir; you, doctor; and you, deacon, I shall never meet again until I meet you at the bar of God, where you, too, will meet my ruined husband and those five sons, who, through your means and influence fill the drunkard's grave."

The old woman sat down. Perfect silence prevailed, until broken by the president, who rose to put the question to the meeting: "Shall we petition the court to issue licenses to this town for the ensuing year?"

And the unbroken "No!" which made the very walls re-echo with the sound, told the result of the old woman's appeal. There were no more licenses wanted.