Avoid the Net, Boys by Benjamin Jay

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 14, 1884

Avoid the Net, Boys.

By Benjamin Jay

COME here, boys, let me speak to you. Where are you going? I heard one of your company say, "Come, let us go down to the saloon and get some beer." Is it there you are going? Hold on a moment; that is a bad place for boys. I have known a great many boys begin at the saloon or liquor-shop, and end in State’s prison. Did you ever see the fisherman cast a net and draw in the fish? How the fish dive, and flop, and try to escape, but can’t! Did you ever see birds caught in a snare or net? If you have seen pigeons in a net, you have noticed how they try but can’t escape. Listen to what the Bible tells you: "As the fishes are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in a snare, so are the sons of men snared in an evil time." Every liquor saloon or rum-shop is a net or snare; if you go there you are in danger of being caught. Shun it—keep away. If you begin drinking beer, you will soon want still stronger drinks, and once started on this track, no one can tell where you will end. But if you never taste a drop of intoxicating liquor, we all know where you will end—you will end sober men. How easy, then, to escape becoming a drunkard, to wit, by never drinking a drop of intoxicating liquors. Avoid the ale, and beer, the lager—don’t begin and you will never get into the net or snare. Think of five hundred thousand drunkards in America, all caught in the net. Some try as hard as do the poor fishes to escape, but in vain. Avoid the net, boys, avoid the net! is the cry of an old sentinel. Listen to the note of warning—keep away from the dram-shops.

A poor drunkard tried to borrow five dollars of me a few months ago. He wandered around in drunkenness, and not ten days later was run over on a railroad track and killed. I knew him when a bright, promising boy. But he went to the rum-shop, was caught in the snare, and in an evil hour ruin came suddenly upon him. Keep out of that net!—Benjamin Jay.