p. 45 | Rum the Master

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 26, 1882

Rum the Master.

The terrible power which the appetite for intoxicants has over its slaves is vividly illustrated in the following incident:— One wintry afternoon a trembling man entered a tavern in New Hampshire, carrying a small bundle of clothing. Going to the bar he said:— “Landlord, I am burning. Give me a glass of gin.” The landlord pointed to a lot of chalk marks and said:— “John, you see the old score—not another drop till that is paid.” The poor wretch glared fiercely at the man behind the bar. “Landlord, you don’t mean that. You have got my farm, you have got my horses, you have got my tools. All I have got in this world is this little bundle of clothes. Please, landlord, give me for them just one glass of gin.” “I don’t want your old clothes,” calmly answered the man. Pay the old score first.” The drunkard staggered back. A gentleman then said:— “What will you give me for enough to buy two glasses of gin? I see you have a good pair of boots on your feet. Will you give me your boots for ten cents?” The miserable wretch hesitated for a moment, then he said:— “Stranger, if I give you the boots I must go out into the snow barefooted. If I give you the boots I must freeze to death; if I don’t give them to you I shall burn to death. Stranger, it is harder to burn to death than to freeze to death; give me the gin; you may have the boots.” He sat down and began to draw them off. The gentleman did not, however, intend to take them, but he was testing the terrible appetite. Others were looking on, and they said the man should have his gin. They supplied him liberally, and he drank all he could and took the rest away. When night came he had drank the last drop, and he went to sleep in a barn. The frost king came and took the poor man in his arms. The next morning he was found in the barn frozen to death.