p. 10 | TRIFLING WITH DANGER by William Taylor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 24, 1897

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 23, No. 24.

TRIFLING WITH DANGER.

By William Taylor

I WAS sitting at the table of an Irish merchant in S— a few years ago. He had eight beautiful children. He had his wines and brandy on the table, and of course asked me to drink, and I had to give my reasons for declining. This gave me an opportunity to put in a little temperance, and, while I was making my little speech by way of apology, I made this remark: 'I would like to see the man who could truthfully say, 'No relative or friend of mine ever fell through intemperance.'' I saw that this had struck him; his knife and fork fell from his grasp, and he remained silent for some seconds.

'Well,' said he at length, 'I am not that man. My first Sunday-school superintendent was a man of genial spirit and noble mien. He went into the wine trade, and died a drunkard before he was forty. My first class leader, I believe, was a good, intelligent, useful man; but he, too, yielded to the habit of intemperance, and died a drunkard. My own father suffered through intemperance.'

'Yes,' I exclaimed, 'and you yourself are parading before your friends and your children the instruments of death which slew your first Sunday-school superintendent, your first class leader, and your father. The very rope with which they were hung, you are adjusting to catch your own children. I can not afford to put my head in such a halter as that.'—W. Taylor.