TEMPERANCE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 705, 4 September 1885, Page 5

TEMPERANCE.

BESSIE WENDOVER’S PRAYER. By Fanny Forrester. In a small cottage in one of our provincial townships on a bright sunny afternoon in. the month of January, a woman sat sewing. She was quite young, and seemed to be in comfortable circumstances. ' The room was well furnished ; the flowers in the window, a few well-chosen pictures on the wall, and the bookcase stocked with books, gave the place an air of refinement. A little girl about six years of age came running into the room; she had just returned from school, and her childish face seemed sadly troubled, as running up to the inmate of the cottage she said—‘Oh ! mother, is father a drunkard ?’ ‘ Bessie, why do you ask me such a question ?’ Little Bessie Wendover was very much excited as she answered her mother :— ‘ Amy Garfield said to-day that my father was & drunkard, and that drunkards never go to heaven.’ ‘My dear Bessie,’ said her mother, ‘yon should not listen to the tales the girls tell> you.’ ‘ But is he really a drunkard ?’ persisted little Bessie, ‘ and won’t he go to heaven with us V * My dear, we must just pray to God to

save him from being a drunkard,’ said her mother. _ , It was the one trouble of Lucy W endover’s life, which she had begun with the brightest of prospects. They had been married seven years, and for a long time things went very happily until George got into bad company, where he acquired the fatal habit of intemperance. Step by step he had gone on the downward course, until his employers had intimated that unless he paid more attention to business they could not keep him in their employ. It was the one secret that Lucy had endeavored to keep from her children and friends, and now they had found it out. George came home that evening as usual, and after tea the little ones knelt at their mother’s knee to say their evening prayer. After repeating their hymns, Bessie waited a moment, then putting her little hands together, she said in her sweet childish voice, ‘Pray God bless father and mother and little Bobbie,'and make Bessie a good little girl—and don’t let father be a drunkard—for Jesus Christ’s sake. Lucy hurriedly put the little ones to bed without daring to look at her husband, who sat gazing moodily into the fire, and as she left the room, her heart too gave utterance to Bessie’s prayer, ‘ God save him from being a drunkard.’ v7hen she returned he _was still sitting m the same posture, and evidently affected by the strange and startling prayer of his little girl. Lucy went up to him and, placing her arms round his neck, recounted the events of the day. When she had finished he said, Lucy, by God’s help I will never drink another drop of intoxicating liquor. My children shall never be again told that their father is a drunkard.’ George Wendover has been for six months a member of our tent, and bids fair to become one of its most active members. Be never tires of telling the story of how he was saved from being a drunkard by the prayer of his little girl.