A Change of Place

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Apr 25, 1878

A Change of Place.

ALFRED ROGERS was a skillful young mechanic in the city of Hartford more than thirty years ago, but like many a young man of that day and this, he had fallen into evil habits. Not all the endearments of a loving home circle could win him from the enchantment of the occasional glass and when the first was taken another and another were sure to follow, until a week was very likely lost in a "drunken spree."

An old writer used to give us a very good reason for not drinking, that it consumed too much time. It took "one day of sinning, one of suffering and one of repenting," every time he indulged in his cups.

Alfred had an excellent friend in a lady who had received him into her family when a boy and had always taken the deepest interest in his welfare. Not long after his marriage she had interceded with a gentleman who employed many workmen to take him into his establishment, feeling that his welfare for time and eternity might depend upon that decision.

That man had many scruples, fearing the influence of one who was intemperate upon his young apprentices. But Alfred consented to sign the pledge to abstain from "ardent spirits," which, with the little light then existing was considered all that could be reasonably asked of a man. I do not fully understand the nice distinctions made about the kinds of liquors, but there seems to have been various sorts of intoxicating drinks that were not counted as "ardent spirits." These the young man felt his pledge did not require him to abstain from.

For a while all went smoothly. Alfred was valued as a superior workman. He was respected everywhere, and his family were handsomely supported. But in an evil day a glass of something not called "ardent spirits," set on fire the old smouldering embers of a depraved taste. A second and a third glass fanned the blaze until it fired every drop of blood in his veins. The result was, not "one day of sinning, another of sorrowing and another of repenting," but two whole weeks of drunken insanity. Knowing that his wife had some money, he gave her no peace by day or by night until she gave it up to him. Then he set out for New York, where he spent it all in wild carousals, pawning a part of his clothing, and coming home at last a miserable, despicable object. "Who hath woe?" Surely there can hardly be a woe more terrible on earth than that of the drunkard and his family.

But yet he was not wholly lost, for when he came to himself he was overwhelmed with despair and self-reproach. Days of repenting were long and many, yet he shunned the path which led to his old employers. How could he hope to be received again, after all that had transpired. But he hears that the Spirit of the Great Master goes after the lost sheep and seeks diligently for them among the dark mountains of sin; perchance he may save them from being dashed to pieces upon the fearful rocks.

"Why do you not come back to the shop Alfred?" he asked kindly.

With a look of anguish and despair in his bloodshot eyes, he said: "I never can come into your shop again; I have abused your confidence, treated you with the basest ingratitude, and destroyed my last hope of reformation."

A few strong, earnest, cheering words were like oil on the troubled waters of his heart. He clutched like a drowning man at a straw, to hope that he might be a man again. He came to the shop and worked more faithfully than ever to prove his gratitude to the hand so kindly held out to him in his time of need.

Three bright months and then a terrible fall again. Ah, what a tyrant is a depraved appetite! stronger than a man's love of respectability, or happiness of the wife and child, stronger than his fear of eternal retribution!

At every successive fall Alfred sunk deeper into the mire. This time he grew so violent that he was obliged to be put under arrest.

Another season of suffering and repenting, and then another trial in the service of an employer who had learned the lesson of forgiving until "seventy times seven."

The intervals of sobriety also became shorter and shorter, and the days of drunken debauch longer and more terrible, as the tyrant got the young man more and more into his clutches.

At last one bright May morning he was gone, no one knew whither; his presence would seem to have been a relief in the home, where he was so often a terror and a curse. But oh, who can measure the depths of a woman's love for even the most worthless son or husband. How the poor bruised heart goes out in all their wanderings, yearning over them and praying for them in all the years of neglect and unkindness.

So Mary Rogers watched and prayed for the return of her worthless husband. When at last in mid-summer a letter came, stating where he was, and that he had got steady work, and begging her to come to him, with many promises of reformation, the poor trusting heart believed them all, and taking her little child she went to him. There were enough to sneer at her faith in such promises, to call her a fool for trusting to them after her past experience, but she heeded them not.

Two years and a half rolled away when a respectable, well-dressed man walked into the door of the old workshop and advanced with a manly, ringing step to meet the proprietor. Could it be Alfred Rogers changed? All that haggard, downcast look was gone. The face had the glow of health and cheerfulness, the bearing of the steady and prosperous man.

You may be sure there was a warm grasp of the hand for him and a cordial greeting. In answer to his inquiries Alfred replied emphatically.

"I am well, well in more senses than one. It is over two years since I have tasted a drop of anything that can intoxicate. That was the only thing for me; I began abstaining from ardent spirits alone—but that was not enough—I could not reform that way. Now I have shut down on everything that can intoxicate, and you see the result."

After various kinds of inquiries after the welfare of his family, to all of which he would give most pleasing answers, Alfred went on to say:—

"I have come now to tell you why I left you. I saw clearly that I should die if I did not leave off drinking, and that I never could leave off in Hartford. I could not turn a corner of the street without passing a grog-shop. I could not go to my meals without meeting some associate who asked me to take a glass. The dealers themselves would use every art to entice me to drink, well knowing that I would not stop after the first glass until they had a good bill against me. My only hope was in going where liquor was not to be had."

He remained away from the city some five years, and returned to his old business thoroughly reformed, and became an active, earnest worker in the church and Sabbath-school.

He could pass the old haunts now with only a feeling of loathing and repulsion.

What was the secret of this man's reformation?

It was in entire abstinence from everything that would intoxicate, and to succeed in this he went where liquor was not to be had. Otherwise he would have soon lain down in a drunkard's grave.—Sel.