ONCE DRUNK | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 16, 1877

ONCE DRUNK.

“Just once,” is the devil’s plea, an enticement which has ruined many a soul. One hour of passion may blast a life of carelessness. One hour of sleep on the part of a pilot may send the noblest vessel to the bottom of the sea; and one single indulgence in the intoxicating cup may throw the balance of a man’s will into the devil’s hands, and he, knowing that it is his only chance, may do his worst.

“Never,” says Dr. Jabez Burns, “shall I forget the end of one member of the church of which I was pastor at Perth. He was a moderate drinker, and at the solicitation of a traveler with whom he had business, retired one evening to the hotel. For the first time in his life he became intoxicated, went home, and in the heat of passion excited by liquor, committed upon his wife injuries of which she died.

“In due time he was tried, the evidence was conclusive, and a sentence of death pronounced. Never will it be effaced from my memory. I attended him in his cell, and was the last to leave him on the scaffold; and there, within sight of the church of which he had been forty years a member, he was hung like a dog.”

Beware of being once drunk—beware of the first glass, and you need not fear the last.—Sel.