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WHY DRINK IS DANGEROUS

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Pacific Press Publishing Association

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 32.

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WHY DRINK IS DANGEROUS.

By Beatrice Fairfax

[Beatrice Fairfax, in Examiner.]
WHISKY and prosperity can not rule the same house.
Where you find the head of the home addicted to drink, you find poverty and wretchedness.
The wife is harrassed and careworn, the children are shabby and ill-nourished.
Instead of looking upon their father as the best man in the world, they fear and distrust him.
Instead of looking forward to his homecoming, they dread it.
The wife sees other women with comfortable homes, pretty clothes, well-dressed children.
She knows that she can not have any of those things because the money which should buy them is spent on whisky.
The man she promised to ``love, honor, and obey'' is nothing but a burden to her.
He is no help to her in the upbringing of the children. They can learn no good from him for the reason that they have absolutely no respect for him.
The duty of a father toward his children is quite as great as that of a mother.
It is his duty to train them to be honorable, diligent, useful citizens.
He should be the guide and counselor of his sons, ordering his life in such a way that they will have the greatest respect for his judgment.
But if he loves drink better than he does his children, he can do nothing for them.
He can only handicap them by obliging them to live down their father's shame and degradation.
The husband and father can not afford to drink. He has married a woman, taken her, perhaps, from a comfortable home, and promised to do his best to support her in comfort for the rest of her days.
He has become a father, and his plain duty and responsibility demand that he should give his wife and children the best that he can afford.
But if he is cursed by the love of drink he can be no help to them.
The saddest home in the world is the drunkard's home.
Grim poverty sits enthroned everywhere. There is little to eat and little to wear.
The pinched faces and shivering bodies of his children should be enough to bring the father to his senses.
His fellow men have no respect for him. His word counts for nothing. He is known as a bore and a nuisance.
In his time he was probably called a `good fellow'' and a `sport.'' He drank for conviviality's sake, and this is what it has brought him to.
The head of the house is supposed to stand as an example of all that is fine and splendid in his children's eyes.
If he is addicted to drink they will very soon discover that their idol has feet of clay.
Instead of loving and respecting him, they will be ashamed to call him father. As time goes on there will be nothing left but the cause of his downfall—whisky. Wife, children, friends, honor—all will have left him.