The Middlebury people's press. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1841-1843, 1842-08-16
GeIpeTIogee 5epTgGIeogG.
PREPARED FOR THE VERMONT PRESS BY
THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE VT.
TEMPERANCE SOCIETY.
G O n lu d C d .

R, born of respectable parentage, and
reared in the circle of refinement, descended
into the Club, the grand charnel house of
character, talent, and every virtue that can
render life calm and desirable, and death
happy. He followed the mercantile profess
sion but drinking, gambling, and sport,
were so linked with his business, that every
thing like prosperity was out ofthe question.
The regimen necessary to be sustained by
a member of the Cogniac Club. was as lily
consistent with success and happinessi in life,
as with Joy and bliss in death. The victim
of the cogniac was unfit for life or heaven,
as he was,every jot and tittle,itted for per-
dition. R lived on his life of depravity
and idleness, till on one fatal carouse, when
riding out with his inebriate companions.
he was thrown from his carriage and recei-
we'd his mortal wound. He soon found
home in the silence of the tomb Violence
was the closing feature of life marked
throughout its whole course by scenes OF
recklessness and depravity. He left a wife
and children, who have made their passage
up life's steep and rugged ACTIVITY, without
the aid of a husband and a father. How
hard that tine gentle ivy, intended merely TO
beautiiy the noble and ma estic oak, around
whose form it chung, must yet live to bear,
on its slender frame, the pitiless peltings Of
that storm whose lightnings have blasted its
natural protector; and harder still when
cluster of sapliDgs, Just opening into exIs-
tence, are all to be reared under its tender
protection R, like all the rest, dated
his ruin from the day of his joining the Club.
How many immortal spirits are hurried to
the grave by the aid of their associates
While our duty is to rally about our friends,
TO sound in their ears the cry of alarm upon
the approach of the enemy, and entreat
them to do themselves no harm, we owe it
to ourselves to fly from the destruction which
is about to overtake them, if they will turn
deaf ear to all our entreaties.
s. and r entered the Club to-
gether,--an awful setting out. 1t is related
that at the very first meeting both became
intoxicated, and cancelled all their former
friendship with quarrel. s. struck
T tremendous blow with the presi-
dents club, large knotty piece of wood.
"a trident worthy of its Neptune" From
that day they went no more-oh what
fortunate quarrel. Had it even resulted in
the loss of valuable limb, it were light
matter comparatively, if the loss of that had
thrown them off wholly and safely from the
vortex within whose tremendous whirl they
had come. And it would seem that the
quarrel did result in the rescue of one.
s. became sober man and removed
soon to a neighboring town. There, being
cut off from the influences that were threat
ening his destruction,-away from that
cogniac atmosphere, the very breathing of
which seemed to contaminate every thing
decent or moral it had not already poisoned,
he entered into business. regained his char
acter, and is now living at the head of re-
spectacle and lovely family. =
One is remainded by such an adventu-
rous escape as that of s., Of that East
Indiaman who headed party Of the Eng
lish in the hunting of a Bengal tiger. The
Infatuated animal, goaded and chafed by
wounds and hunger, sprung upon the daring
leader, thew him upon his back and bore
him off. But the Indiaman was as yet
unhurt, and employed the solemn interval
between life and death in contriving for his
own escape. Feeling about for the beat oil
the heart Of the monster, he found it, and
thrust his poniard to its hilt at one dire
blow. and the tiger fell dead beneath him.
Thus s. escaped; but T--is to this
day common tiPpler, and is burying up
liberal education, and all his former brilliant
prospects of manliness in the fumes and
smoke of the cup. The case of Sc
vinces what we needed no stronger evidence
of, that good education and respectable
parentage are no proof against the power
of cogniac. We are happy to know that
in this solitary case there was neither wife