p. 11 | TRIFLING WITH DANGER

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · May 8, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 19.

TRIFLING WITH DANGER.

I was sitting at the table of an Irish merchant in S—— 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. I made this remark: “I would like to see the man who can truthfully say, ‘No relative or friend of mine ever fell thru intemperance.’” This struck the merchant; his knife and fork fell from his grasp, and he remained silent for some seconds.

“Well,” he said, at length, “I am not that man. My first Sunday-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 thru intemperance.”

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