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You Are Responsible

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 8, 1875

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 46, No. 2.

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“You Are Responsible.”

A MINISTER whose praise is in all the churches was asked on one occasion to visit a family in the deepest distress.
On his way to the house he met a brother minister, and repeated to him the sad story which had drawn him from his home. The minister was interested, and at once decided to accompany his friend on his errand of mercy.
The sight which presented itself as the two friends crossed the threshold was one not soon to be forgotten. In a room destitute of all the comforts that make an attractive home, a woman was dying. She was young in years, but on her face the traces of want and suffering and care were plainly visible. A babe, wailing feebly, was on the bed beside the mother, but her ears were closed to its cries.
A third person was present—the husband and father; but he seemed deaf to the voice of his child, as well as unable to comprehend the fact that his wife was even then passing away from earth.
He was a man tall and well-formed, with a finely-shaped head and large, full eyes.
He arose and staggered toward the two gentlemen as they entered, and muttered something meant to be a welcome and an apology for the condition in which they found his home.
As his eyes met those of the gentleman who had been wont to accompany his friend, the two stood a moment as if spell-bound. The clergyman was the first to speak. “Bond, can it be possible that you have come to this?”
The man thus addressed turned away his face a moment from the sad, reproachful gaze bent upon him by the clergyman, and in that moment he seemed to rally his scattered senses; then he turned fiercely upon his questioner.
“You see me in a ruined home, and drink has brought me here. It has killed her,” he added, pointing to his wife, “and you, sir, are responsible.”
“What do you mean?” exclaimed the clergyman in amazement.
“I once attended your church,” continued the man.
“I know,” answered the clergyman, “but as I had not seen you since your marriage, I concluded that you had left the city.”
“You married me,” he continued. “At my wedding the wine cup was passed. I had never tasted the accursed cup; but that night, seeing you, my pastor, take a glass, I felt that it could not be wrong to follow your example, that it certainly could do no harm to take just one glass on my wedding night. But that one glass has proved my ruin; for it awakened an appetite for the intoxicating cup, and now I am its slave; and you, I repeat it, are responsible.”
Hard must have been the heart of that pastor if he did not from that moment resolve to shun forever that which might cause a weak brother to stumble. Not alone for our own safety, but for the sake of those about us who may be led astray by our example, should we resolve to touch not, taste not, handle not.—Temperance Review.