Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

7. The form of the judge was convulsed with agony. He raised not his head; but, in a smothered voice, he faltered, — “No, no, my child! - for Heaven's sake, NO!"

She lifted the glittering goblet, and, letting it fall suddenly to the floor, it was dashed to pieces. Many a tearful eye watched her movement, and instantaneously every glass was transferred to the marble table. Then, as she looked at the fragments of crystal, she turned to the company, saying,

[ocr errors]

"Let no friend hereafter, who loves me, tempt me to peril my soul for wine, or any other poisonous venom. Not firmer are the everlasting hills than my resolve, God helping me, never to touch or taste the terrible poison. And he, to whom I have given my hand-who watched over my brother's dying form in that land of gold — will sustain me in this resolve. Will you not, my husband?"

8. His glistening eyes, his sad, sweet smile, was his answer. The judge had left the room; but when he returned, and, with a more subdued manner, took part in the entertainment of the bridal guests, no one could fail to see that he, too, had determined to banish the enemy at once and forever from that princely home.

Reader, this is no fiction. I was there and heard the words, which I have penned, as nearly as I can recollect them. This bride, her husband, and her brother who died in the gold regions of California, were schoolmates of mine. Those who were present at that wedding of my associates never forgot the impression so solemnly made, and all, from that hour, forsook the social glass.

8

LESSON XXVI

EN THU SI ASM, (from two Greek words, EN, in, or within; and THEOS, a god;) signifies, literally, the state or condition of having a god within us; that is, being under the inspiration of a god: hence, strong mental excitement; ardent feeling.

DESOLATING EFFECTS OF INTEMPERANCE.

W. IRVING.

HE depopulating pestilence that walketh at noon-day, the carnage of cruel and devastating war, can scarcely exhibit their victims in a more terrible array, than exterminating drunkenness. I have seen a promising family spring from a parent trunk, and stretch abroad its populous limbs, like a flowering tree covered with green and healthy foliage. I have seen the unnatural decay beginning upon the yet tender leaf, and gnawing like a worm in an unopened bud, while they dropped off, one by one, and the scathed and ruined shaft stood desolate and alone, until the winds and rains of many a sorrow laid that, too, in the dust.

2. On one of those holy days when the patriarch, rich in virtue as in years, gathered about him the great and the little ones of the flock — his sons with their sons, and his daughters with their daughters—I, too, sat at the festive board. I, too, pledged them in the social wine-cup, and rejoiced with them round the hospitable hearth, and expatiated with delight upon the eventful future; while the good old man, warmed in the genial glow of youthful enthusiasm,' wiped the tear of joy from his glistening eye. He was happy!

3. I met with them again when the rolling year brought the festive season round. But they were not all there. The kind old man sighed as his suffused

eye

dwelt upon

the then unoccupied seat. But joy yet came to his relief, and he was happy. A parent's love knows no diminution, time, distance, poverty, shame, but give intensity and strength to that passion, before which all others dissolve and melt away.

4. Another elapsed. The board was spread; but the guests came not. The old man cried,-"Where are my children?" And Echo answered," Where?" His heart broke; for they were not. Could not Heaven have spared his gray hairs this affliction'? Alas! the demon of Drunkenness had been there! They had fallen victims to his spell. And one short month sufficed to cast the vail of oblivion over the old man's sorrow, and the young men's shame. -THEY ARE ALL DEAD!

LESSON XXVII.

1 EƯLO GY, (EU, well; LOGY, a speaking;) signifies a speaking well of, that is, a speech in praise of some particular person or thing; a laudatory address. See Sanders' Analyzer, page 74.

EULOGY ON COLD WATER.

PAUL DENTON.

[ocr errors]

The following eloquent speech was delivered by Paul Denton, a missionary of the M. E. Church in Texas, at a barbecue camp-meeting, many years ago. In a previous notice of the meeting, the preacher had announced that preparations would be made to suit all tastes, - that there would be "a splendid barbecue, better liquor, and the best of gospel." After partaking of the repast, a voice was heard to exclaim,-"Paul Denton, where is the liquor you promised us?" To which he made the following reply: —

66

"THERE,” replied the speaker, pointing to a sparkling

66

[ocr errors]

fountain that bubbled up from the mountain's base, THERE is the liquor which God, the Eternal, brews for all his children! Not in the simmering still, over smoking

fires, choked with poisonous gases, and surrounded with the stench of sickening odors and rank corruption, doth your Father in Heaven prepare the precious essence of life-PURE COLD WATER!

2. "But in the green glades and grassy dell, where the red deer wanders, and the child loves to play, there God Himself brews it; and down, low down in the deepest valleys, where the fountains murmur, and the rills sing; and high upon the mountain-tops, where the naked granite glitters like gold in the sun, where the storm-cloud broods, and the thunder-storms crash; and away far out on the wide, wide sea, where the hurricane howls music, and big waves roar the chorus, sweeping the march of God!' THERE He brews it, that beverage of life, health-giving water!

[ocr errors]

3. "And everywhere it is a thing of beauty: gleaming in the dew-drop; singing in the summer-rain; shining in the ice-gem, till the trees seem turned to living jewels; spreading a golden vail over the setting sun, or a white gauze around the midnight moon; sporting in the cata ract; sleeping in the glacier; glancing in the hail-shower; folding bright snow-curtains softly above the wintery world, and weaving the many-colored rainbow — that seraph's zone of the sky, whose warp is the rain of earth, whose woof is the sunbeam of heaven, all checkered over with celestial flowers by the mystic hand of refraction; still always it is beautiful, that blessed cold water !

4. "No poison bubbles on its brink; its foam brings not madness and murder; no blood stains its liquid glass; pale widows and starving orphans weep not burning tears in its clear depths; no drunkard's shrieking ghost from the grave curses it in words of despair! But everywhere, diffusing all around life, vigor, and happiness, it is the purest emblem

of the Water of Life, of which, if a man drink, he shall never thirst. Speak out, my friends; would you exchange it for the demon's drink, alcohol' ?" A shout, like the roar of a tempest, answered, "No!"

PROFIMA

LESSON XXVIII.

PROFANENESS.

E. H. CHAPIN.

OFANENESS is a low, groveling vice. He who indulges it is no gentleman. I care not what his stamp may be in society, I care not what clothes he wears, or what culture he boasts, despite all his refinement, the light and habitual taking of God's name in vain betrays a coarse nature and a brutal will.

[ocr errors]

2. Profaneness is an unmanly and silly vice. It certainly is not a grace in conversation; and it adds no strength to it. There is no organic symmetry in the narrative which is ingrained with oaths; and the blasphemy which bolsters an opinion does not make it any more correct. Nay, the use of profane oaths argues a limited range of ideas, and a consciousness of being on the wrong side; and, if we can find no other phrases through which to vent our choking passion, we had better repress that passion.

3. Profaneness is a mean vice. It indicates the grossest ingratitude. According to general estimation, he who repays kindness with contumely, he who abuses his friend and benefactor, is deemed pitiful and wretched. And yet, O profane one! whose name is it you handle so lightly? It is that of your best Benefactor! You, whose blood would boil to hear the venerable names of your earthly

« AnteriorContinuar »