p. 453 | JUST ONE GLASS

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 6, 1881

"JUST ONE GLASS."

THE New York papers lately contained hints of a tragedy, which had its wretched ending in that city; a tragedy no less terrible because the same has occurred in thousands of American homes. Here are the facts in detail:—

A young man, a clever, generous lad, the son in an influential and pious family in Scotland, two years ago, fell into dissolute habits.

Every means was tried to bring him back to his better self, with little effect, until he saw and loved a young girl of his own rank in life. The hope of marrying her, of regaining his self-control and self-respect nerved him again with the strength of his boyhood. He asked his father for the means to bring him to this country, resolving to begin life anew, where no one knew his shame.

The money for his outfit was given him, and with tears and prayers his old father and mother saw him depart. The day before he sailed, he went to the woman he hoped some day to call his wife, told her he loved her, and asked her to wait for him until he returned to claim her.

The promise was given and the young fellow set sail, his heart elated with hope and triumph. In this new world a happy home, a full noble life, might yet be his! On his passage he was observed again and again to take out two letters from his pocket and pore over them. They had been handed to him as he came on board the ship. One was from his father, a passionate, almost breathless, prayer for his safe deliverance from the old temptation, the other from his betrothed wife, happy, hopeful, and loving.

When within two days sail of New York, a friend whom he had made on the steamer, ordered wine at the dinner-table, and filled the young man's glass. The smell and sight of it maddened him. His head reeled. One glass? One little glass? There could surely be no danger in that? He raised it to his lips and drank.

Two days later he landed in New York in a state of intoxication; was driven to a hotel where he continued to drink heavily for a week, until he was seized with delirium, and placed under a physician's care.

When he recovered, his money was all spent, and he was ordered to leave the house. He was sober now, and understood fully what he had done. He looked at the landlord steadily.

"Go? Yes, I will go. That is all that is left for me to do," he said.

"The 'bus will be ready to take you away in five minutes," the man called after him, as he went up stairs.

But the next moment his bell rang, and when they went up they found him dead upon the floor—his life taken by his own hand. The letters he had read so often, and that had seemed to promise hope and brightness for the future, lay beside him. Thus he left the world without one word of farewell to anybody in it—the victim of "just one glass."—Youth's Companion.