Trifling with Danger by W. Taylor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · Aug 3, 1882

Trifling with Danger.

By W. Taylor

I WAS sitting at the table of an Irish merchant in Sligo a few years ago. He had eight beautiful children. He had his wines and brandy on the table, and of course asked me to drink, and I had to give my reasons for declining. This gave me an opportunity to put in a little temperance, and while I was making my little speech by way of apology, I made this remark: "I would like to see the man who could truthfully say, 'No relative or friend of mine ever fell through intemperance.'" I saw that this struck him; his knife and fork fell from his grasp, and he remained silent for some seconds.

"Well," said he at length, "I AM NOT THAT MAN. My first Sabbath-school superintendent was a man of genial spirit and noble mien. He went into the wine trade, and died a drunkard before he was forty. My first class-leader, I believe, was a good, intelligent, useful man; but he, too, yielded to the habit of intemperance and died a drunkard. My own father suffered through intemperance."

"Yes," I exclaimed, "and you yourself are parading before your friends and your children the instruments of death which slew your first Sabbath-school superintendent, your first class-leader, and your father. The very rope with which they were hung you are adjusting to catch your children. I cannot afford to put my head in such a halter as that."