VISITED UPON OUR CHILDREN.
On a trip up the Hudson, the eminent divine, Dr. John Hall, saw an affecting sight, a tipsy man at whom the crowds were laughing. A decent, middle-aged man looked on so pityingly that the doctor drew him out, and at last he told his own story, about as follows:— He was born and bred—I use almost his own language—on a farm in Ulster, Ireland. He married a wife, a nice girl, who had served her time in —, to a dressmaker, who shared his feeling, and they set up a little business. It was in the market town close by his own place. "My people," said he, "were respectable, and I got credit to start with; but I did not know the ways of the trade. My old neighbors used to drop in, and my wife and myself wished to be kindly, and we had a deal of treating, and this cost money, and we soon ran behind in rent, in our bills, in every way. "I could not bear to go down there, and we managed to sell out, pay part and promise the rest, for our creditors knew who we were, and we moved to Glasgow. Were you ever in Glasgow?" "Yes," I said, "I know Glasgow very well." "Then you know how many mills, and works, and shops it has, and how crowded the people are together. You may think what a change it was to us to go into two rooms in High Street, and have nothing but these to ourselves. But necessity has no law. I got work and we paid a little of our debt, and I was getting a raise in wages, and we had two nice children. They have in Glasgow what they call the 'fair' every July; for a week little work is done; pleasure is the only thing; and, oh! it is too often pleasure like that poor fellow's,—drinking, men and women, aye, and children. Why, I have seen men and women in the broad daylight, lying dead-drunk on Glasgow Green, and no one seeming to mind it! Somebody had to stay at the works this week, and I was glad to earn the money. At six I came home, meaning to take Bessie—that was her name—for a walk; but when I came home she was out, and the two children were by themselves and crying dreadfully. I did the best that I could, put them in bed, and went out to look for Bessie. I found her. Like that man, only worse. She did not know me—could not speak. The women with her were drunk, too. . . . And it killed her. We had a little boy, our baby; and she was found dead when I was at work, with the child—we called him Thomas for my father—sitting on the floor by her, trying to awaken her." He took longer to tell this than I have done, for he could not keep back the tears. I expressed my sympathy for him. "Thank you, sir," he replied. "That's years ago, but I can't forget it yet. Only there's one thing, I never said a hard word to Bessie; thank God I never did," said he, and I could well believe it, as I looked at the honest face. "But, oh! when I think of her going before her Maker that way!" he added, with flowing tears. "Well, I hope," I said, "that the children will be a comfort to you." There was a long pause before he spoke, and then it was with so much evident pain that I regretted my words. "One," said he, "the second, is; she is a good child. The oldest is not steady; I can do nothing with her; and my boy, the little boy I told you about, can't be kept from drink. That's my trouble now. I gave up the place I had in Jersey, and am going out to Ohio, to a town where I am told liquor is not to be had, to try to save him. It breaks my heart a second time; and I can't altogether blame him, for at the time I took some, and his mother took too much, and it looks as if it was put into his very nature, so that he couldn't help it. Oh, sir!" he said, turning to me directly, and becoming eloquent in his vehement feeling, "fathers and mothers ought to be told that when they are drinking they are putting the desire into their children that will ruin them, and they will be scourged with the whip they themselves make." We parted with some words of hope to him, some entreaty that he would not even yet lose heart. If he sees this page he will know that I am trying to act on his honest, true words. Oh, that they could be put into the ear and heart of men and women in Ireland and Scotland—where a 'Glasgow fair' is a national disgrace—in England, and in America! Who would not wish for abstinence societies, tracts and books, ministers' sermons, young people's pledges, humane laws? One almost cries out for anything that would stop this slow, cruel murder of home love, of men, of women, of little children, of hope, of peace, of eternal life.—Christian at Work.