The Ohio star. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1830-1854, 1853-09-14
CHAPTER III.


Two years have passed since the fall of Harry
Summers-two years of misery and degradation
to him and his family-two years of apparent joy
and plenty to Dixon and his family.
Harry's friends gathered around him after his
fall, and tried to restore him. He would promise
amendment, but his power to resist temptation
seemed gone. He had lost confidence in himself,
and when any of the minions of Dixon would seek
to lead him, he would follow. Thus several months
passed and many of his friends gave him up lost:
few, and few only, still plead with him. Ere
the year was out, he was as heastly a drunksrd as
ever. lie waslost to all sense of shame, drown
ed what little may have been left in the accursed
bowl. He forgot his former brothers-forgot his
pledge to a dying mother-forgot his duty to his
family forgot his God-forfot everything that was
good and pure, and plunged headlong into life OF
the most degraded dissipation. If his former ca
reer toward ruin had been rapid, his present was
tenfold more SO. and, the end of two years, his
family. who had hoped that the night of their lives
had passed, found that it had just begun.
1 said that two years had passed. About this
time, the Rev. Mr.. B.. who had been absent from
W about that length Of time, returned to it on
a visit Among his first inquiries, he asked for
his utter ruin. He sought the home of the DRUMS
ard.
Upon The outskirts of the town, in old and
dlapidated hut, he found this ruined family. The
poor wife met him at the door with tears in her
eyes, the older daughters who were then at home,
welcomed him with melancholy joy. The wife
told him of her sorrows--how rapidly her husband
had hastened to his present state. how cherries
and miserable her life had been, how hard she and
her daughters had struggled TO bear up againstthe
tile of nfamy that an unfeeling world poured upon
them because they were tlruukard's family. But,
amid all her complaints, she uttered no uukind
words about her husband. Drunkard as he was,
she still felt it to be her duty to cling to him.
love him, though all else should forsake and Hate
him. He was her husband, the father of her chill
dren. he might reform. She would still hope on,
hope ever. .-.-... ...,.
And. said she, Il am so glad you have COME
My husband loves you, and you may have inau-
ence enough with him to rescue him from the
power of those who sell him the fquor.'
Il will do all can; will see him and talk to
him.
IF he was only where he could get no liquor
all would be right. Will the time never come,
when those who make our laws shaH HseeA " tlo
pravers. cries aud groans of the many, like my"
self, suffering n living death!
Il trust SO. We will pray, and hope that the
dav will come, even in Ohio, when the man
who sells liquor shall be looked upon and tre6fed
by public opinion and law, as common nuisance,
to be abated by some summary process
Would to God it would come soon, for if it
does not do not know what is to become of poor
women and children, who have no rights in law
against our enemy, the rumseller.' IS. ...ss.
The minister tried to console her, and still bade
her hope. For more than an hour, he sat by her
in-er furnitureless and comforless abode: and. as
he there sat and heard her story of wrongs, and
saw the ruin alcohol had made, he resolved atresh
ever to hate the poisonous stuff-eyer to use his
influence against those infarTions houses where SO
much liquor is sold-ever to assist in heaping up
ON the rumseller the weight ofpublc indignation,
and make that public feel that there must be, in all
the relations of life, line of separation between
the rumseIer and respectable society.
But said Mrs. Summers, 4 want you 10
come round next Sabbath morning and bapsize my
two ycunges, children. viii try to perform slI