KEEP OUT | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 12, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 19.

KEEP OUT.

ONE man escaped the dangers of strong drink, and reached manhood sober and prosperous, by keeping a promise which his mother exacted, never to take off his hat in a public house, and never to sit down in a place where strong drink was sold. His tarrying in such places was short and the shorter the better.

A reformed saloon keeper, who signed the pledge and closed his house, gives this testimony: "I sold liquor for eleven years, and have seen a man take his first glass in my place, and afterwards fill the grave of a suicide. I have seen man after man, wealthy and educated, come into my saloon, who cannot now buy a dinner. I can count twenty customers once worth more than a thousand pounds who are now without a penny, and without hope, and without a friend in the world."

He specially warns boys against entering drinking saloons on any pretext, and says he has seen many a young fellow, member of a temperance society, come in with a friend and wait while he drank. "No, no," he would say, "I never touch it. Thanks all the same." Presently, rather than seem churlish, he would take a glass of cider or harmless lemonade. "The lemonade was nothing," says the publican, "but I knew how it would end. The only safety, boys, for any man, no matter how strong his resolution, is outside the doors of the saloon."—Christian Advocate.