One day last summer a temperance lecturer was being driven from one town to another, where he was to hold a meeting in the evening. His friend, in whose carriage he was riding, and who was most zealous in everything associated with temperance, was asked, “How is it that you, who have never felt the tooth of the serpent, should always be so ready to make sacrifices for the good cause?” He gave a quick, searching, telegraphic glance at the speaker. A tear gleamed in his eyes as he said, “One reason why I wanted to ride with you was to tell you the story of a most important crisis in my life. “I was born in the year 1823. My father was a very intemperate man. The most of his time was spent in the tavern in my native town, or at a village tavern about three miles distant. We often suffered for the necessaries of life while my father poured all his earnings into the tills of those two tavern-keepers. My mother was quite expert with her needle, and thus kept the wolf at bay by her industry and close economy. Our little home had been left to us by my grandfather in such a way that my father could not spend it or deprive us of a shelter. We kept a cow, which furnished a large share of our living. The family consisted of myself and three sisters. “One day, when I was about seven years old, my father went to the tavern, and while taking his accustomed drink discovered that some one had spoken of him as a common drunkard. He furiously demanded of the landlord the name of the person who had said this, and the fellow replied, ‘Your wife knows all about it.’ He came home infuriated with drink, and began abusing my mother in language which it makes me shudder to remember, she protesting that she did not know anything about it. Finally, his face purpled with passion; he dealt my mother a terrible blow, which prostrated her bleeding and insensible to the floor.” Here the relater broke down completely, bursting into tears. After a moment, he said, “I hope you will pardon my emotion; but now, after a period of nearly fifty years, I cannot refer to this picture without the sad, suffering face of my mother, rising before me. My sister shrieked, ‘Oh, father, you have killed my mother!’ Affrighted, I sprang from my bed, and ran to the barn and hid myself. When daylight came all was still in the house, and I crept back to find that my grandmother had gone to seek a doctor, who, finding my mother in a critical condition, told my father, who had just risen from his drunken slumber, that he would certainly be punished for his violence. He gathered what few clothes he had together and absconded, leaving us to get along the best way we could. When my father had left the house, my mother tenderly drew me to her breast, and, with the tears streaming over her cheeks, made me promise never to drink a drop of liquor while I lived, and sealed that promise with a passionate kiss, which left an indelible impress upon my heart. For nearly fifty years I have kept that pledge. That summer we got along comfortably. “With the help of our neighbors we cultivated the little patch of ground, and with our cow we did not suffer for food. My mother raised a flock of turkeys also, with the sale of which she hoped to obtain means to purchase our shoes and other necessary clothing for winter. There was to be a militia muster near the village. The landlord of the little tavern I have spoken of came to purchase our turkeys for that occasion, offering a good price, which my mother gladly accepted. He put them in his cart, and handed my mother a bill which my father had contracted at his bar, and jumping into his cart, drove away as fast as his horse could go. “My poor mother stood there dumbfounded, and bursting into tears, walked into the house. Early and late all that autumn she worked, sometimes till past midnight, to get our winter clothing, and I went bare-foot until the snow covered the ground before she could purchase our shoes. Oh! when I think of my broken-hearted mother, and my sorrow-laden childhood, do you wonder that I am a radical temperance man?” It seems as if God’s retribution followed that tavern-keeper. He died a poor loathsome drunkard, forsaken of God and man.”