The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1886-03-12
TEMPTATION.
The Sad Result of One Glass of Wine just
for Old Acquaintance's sake"

The Sad Result of One Glass of Wine just
for Old Acquaintance's sake"
''Dear sir, have heard that you love
young men, and have come to ask if
you viii take my poor son here, and
do something for him. Don't refuse
me, for I seem to be passing through
the valley and the shadows, and to be
forsaken." The speaker was an aged,
Woodworking woman.
Il have no authority to admit any
one to the Home, but that power be-
longs to the superintendent. "
"Will you ask him?"
$50 right to the house and get that
boy, said the superintendent, to whom
presented the case. ''Fll give him a
good room and keep him as long as
you think best; and if you find the
woman needs coal, or food, or money
to pay her rent, I'll help her."
found him on the verge of delirium-
tremens, trembling like an aspen leaf
and in that condition in which a person
Graves for something to cling to, and
for the support and control of a.
stronger nature. took him to the in
stitution, gave him warm bath, adj
ministered a sudoritic, and put him to
bed in a dark room. After sleeping
about three hours, he awoke, with a
frantic craving for liquor, begging me
on his knees to allow him ''just one glass,
with; only one glass, and then he could
go to sleep, and would love me as long
as he lived" protesting he ''shot'ld die
if he didn't have it." | refused. but
gave him strong coffee and some light
food, and finally got him into bed,
/ when, after sleeping more than five
hours, his rest broken with convulsive
starts, he awoke somewhat refreshed,
and submitted to my control like
child. talked with him, took long walks
with him in the open country till his
strength and appetite returned, and he
obtained command of himself, and re-
solved to make another effort to con-
quer the demon of appetite. His old
master under whom he had worked,
consented to try him again, saying that,
''when sober, he was the best work
men he ever employed" He was then
able to return home. At the end of
three months his mother came To see
me; there were tears in her eyes, but
they were tears of gratitude and JOY.
'Ohn' she said, 1--WE are happy once
more, both of us. My son is himself
again; ne says he is done forever with
liquor and with his old associates. He
sits and reads to me in the evenings,
while l sew or knit, or plays on his
flute; we 90 out together to lectures
He seems to feel safe only while he is
with me.
This happy state of affairs continued
for nearly three years, when l received
summons from Mrs. L to come
Immediately, for George was dying
One of his former companions had per-
suaded him to take tea with him, just
to show that the latter retained no
hardness, and finally induced him to
drink glass of wine, merely for old
Acquaintance sake, nothing more,
''for he was a sober man now, and
could take a glass without injury"
The result of this was to wake up the
old appetite. He drank again and
again, and went home to his mother in
toxicated. Despairing now of his ability
to resist temptation, he procured some
laudanum, and lying down on bed in
the room where his mother was at
work, unperceived by her, drank the
poison. So long time had elapsed
before his mother discovered his condI-
ton and could procure physicians, that
the poison had passed into the circula-
ton, and could neither be removed nor
neutralized. He soon after died.
Could imagination conceive a rIore
somber picture than is here presented
in the hardest lines of naked fact or
fiction portray any thing more affecting
than the melancholy experience of that
mother when compelled to realize that
all maternal anxieties, long years of I'M
renting toll and struggles with pow
erty, endured for the sake of that son,
had resulted in rearing him to die by
his own act and fill drunkard' S grave?
We pity him, but the man that
tempted him-what shall we say Of
him? Society has too many men like
hina.-ReU. Elijah Kellogg, in Youths
Companion.