TEMPERANCE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 786, 25 March 1887, Page 6

TEMPERANCE.

A GORGEOUS WEDDING. Young men, what au awful risk you run by intoxication ! Did you ever wake in the morning and wonder how you reached your bed ? Did you ever lie in the morning unable to think, for the life of you, what you did or said the night before ? Down on. your knees, down on your knees, and thank. God, that as you staggered forth, not knowing what you were doing, he did not leave you to that which would cover your whole life with gloom, as with a garment, or plunge you into utter ruin. Why, what is it to get drunk ? Here is one case that I knew, and many of my frieuds were at the wedding —a grand wedding. Fifteen hundred dollars were paid for the flowers, sent expressly from New York for the occasion. The house had been enlarged for the dancing. A fast young man and a beautiful girl ware united. It was a gorgeous wedding, very merry and jolly, plenty of wine ; but the bridegroom became "drunk, and, with his clenched fist, two hours after they had been married, he struck his bride in the month. * Hush, hush ! was the earnest request of hie friends. ‘Don’t say anything about it j

•don't let it get abroad. Hush, hush !it is Ikn-.wn only to those hero. Ho was drunk, and did not know what he was doing, i-Cover it up, cover it up. So they did. Six weeks afterwards, on his wedding trip, -he was drunk again, pnd drew a pistol on • his bride. She felt that her life was not • safe, and went back to her father s house. He went directly to Toronto, Canada, became drunk again, killed a policeman, was tried convicted, and sentenced to be hanged in less than ninety days after his wedding. 'Friends interceded with the Government, and he is now in Kington penitentiary for (life. Three times intoxicated ! Oh, young, men, if God has spared you, and you have .-xiever been drunk in your lives, down on your knees, and, in the gratitude of your soul, declare that yon will never again ■ touch that which may dethrone reason.— -John B. Gough. drink and work. * I drink to make me work, said oue, to which an old man replied, ‘ That’s true; • drink, and it will make mo work. Hearken to me a moment, and I’ll tell you something ’that may do good. I was once a prosperous farmer ; I had a loving wife, and two as fine Vlads-as ever the sun shone on. We had a comfortable home and lived happily together. But we used to drink to make us work. 'Those two lads I have now laid in drunkard’s graves. My wife died brokeu-hearted, - and now she lies by her two son 3. lam now seventy years of age. Had it not been :for drink I might now have been an independent gentleman ; but I used to drink *to make me work, and mark it, it makes me work how. At seventy years of age lam •obliged to work for my daily bread. Brink? drink! and it will make you ■work.