KING ALCOHOL, THE CRUEL.
By Rev. C. H. Mead
KING ALCOHOL sits on his throne and rules with a rod of iron. He strikes to kill and always maims when he does not kill. Tears, hunger, heartache, despair, poverty, ruin, and death are some of the favors he confers on his subjects. He is as heartless as famine, pitiless as pestilence, and cruel as death. When Rome was burning, Nero got his melodies out of the fiddle, but this king gets his music from the sobs of children, the cries of the broken hearted, and the awful crash of doomed souls. Come with me and behold one of his victims. I was told that a man lay dying from drink in a dismal cellar on one of the foulest streets of the city. An outside cellar door, with stone steps which led down from the sidewalk, gave me entrance to a dark, dismal hole in the ground. A woman stood within, and I said, "They tell me a man is dying here." "Yes; he is in the back room." "Back room! Great heavens, can there be anything back of this?" I made my way into the black hole. A candle standing on the head of a barrel gave but a faint glimmer in the foul air, and I needed to wait to get used to the darkness. A groan from a corner showed me where one of the king's victims lay on a little straw spread on the damp floor. I went over to him, knelt by his side, reached over and grasped his bony hand, and said, "My brother, they tell me you are dying." "I am a dying wretch, but for God's sake don't insult me." "Insult you! How have I insulted you?" "When you call a wretch like me brother, it is an insult, for you don't mean it. I am brother to no man, and no man is brother to me." "Give me your hand, for you are my brother. God is your Father and mine. Christ died to save you and me. The gospel is good news for us both. Let me hold your hand while I pray for my brother." "Too late for that. I am beyond all hope. Drink has been my ruin and my curse, and I am lost." He grew excited, and, trying to quiet him, I said, "What is your name?" "I won't tell you my name. I go by such a name, but it's not my real one." "Why won't you tell me your name?" "Because I don't want anyone to know who I am or how I die." "Why not? Perhaps you have someone who loves you yet and would want to know." "No! no!" he cried. "Listen. In a little church—a Presbyterian church—in a little country village over in Pennsylvania, an old, white-haired man stands up every Sunday and preaches this gospel of which you speak. That man is my father, made prematurely old by the ruin of his boy. Back of the church, in a grave, lies my mother. My waywardness broke her heart and sent her to an untimely grave. If my father knew how his only boy died, he would soon lie alongside of my mother. I won't tell you who I am. I am beyond the hope of mercy. Drink has been my ruin. You come too late—too late." He lay dead. A nameless grave in the potter's field contains the body of some preacher's boy. And since that day, 16 years ago, 2,000,000 more have gone down the same road. Yet the king still sits on his throne and laughs over the ruin that makes heaven weep. "How long, O Lord, how long?"—Christian Herald.