National Baptist world., 1894-09-21
TEMPERANCE NOTES.
WRECKED BY DRINK.
The Sad Story OF Mothers Heart Broken
by a harvard Son.

tains of north Georgia, in the comfort |
able home of a well-todo farmer, was
a young man just past his majority.
He was splendid. physical specimen,
warm -natured as the glow of south
ern sun, tender. as a brave man ever is.
His general Iowa bleness won countless
friends. Little children found in him
a comrade and hero. Personal friend
ship with Christ seemed to be the one
thing lacking to round a character so
naturally attuned to the highest.
He studied law in the neighboring
town, was admitted to the bar. The
mother waited and hoped. But the at
mosphere of ''good-fellowship" around
him, his own warmth of nature, the
| prevailing intemperance of the times
! alas! there were no ''crusaders" then to
raise a voice of protest heard round
| the world"-all these were cultivating
tastes and habits that made the mother
anxious.
The California gold fever had reached
even his quiet community, and that
Mecca of youth and pluck and enter
prise drew him with the irresistible
force that to us, of later generation,
fills all that time and the western Eldo-
rado with romance. So, one day, the
mothers wayward, yet loving boy. said
good-by to his friends, with hope high
in his heart and ringing in his voice;
took farewell look at the fields where
he had plowed and sowed and reaped
with farmer boys hardy strength;
wrung the brothers hands, kissed the
sisters tender good-by, and heard the
last word of counsel from the great
hearted father. On the mothers pale
cheeks and trembling lips, as he kissed
them. his hot tears fell like rain. He
saw the unspeakable sorrow in those
eyes, felt it in her clinging arms. But
''wilful lad will have his way, and the
wind no man can hold" Would he not
come back in few years rich, and they
should all live happy ever after?'
The four years of the civil war made
; great silence between him and his
home. The war over, the letters fire.
quent at first. in a clear, bold hand,
gladdening the mothers misty eyes,
became few and unsatisfactory. A
fortune of thousands and thousands
= was made several times with the quick
ness and readiness Of their peculiar
conditions-made easily, lost easily
recklessness became the order of life.
s Glimpses of the old tender, lOvable
l nature we're given. Preachers return
2 ing from missionary tours out there
2 told of his successes, his losses, hls
t popularity, his carelessneSs OF life
3 The mother wept and loved and prayeC
: and waited.
4 Fifteen years passed; twenty, twenty
l five. The father died; the sisters mar
e ried; the brothers scattered; the ole
;, home was broken up. To the younge
members of the family the absen
- brother became almost unreal.
r Faint as figure seen in early dawn
\ Down at the far end of an avenue
Going we know not where.
The letters now had almost ceaseC
poor fellow! The last one the age
mother carried in her Old-fashlone
leather pocket-boOk. 1t was an lrre2
ular scrawl barely legible; lines S
wavering that they crossed one anotf
err. She could never find a word {
blame-it was all love and hope an
PRAYER with her. Sometimes when he
grandchildren gathered about her sh
would tell them of their nncles frollt
some childhood and boyhood, his brigh
sallies of wit, his daring escapades, hi
tender. chivalric love to everythin
weak and defenseless. When the
y asked: do you think he will eve
come back to see us, grandma" tn
sigh that gave an answer made thel
? feel that they must not talk any more
but must run away and leave her b
herself-poor granc mother! How tha
son would have wept to see her old, sa
~ face! How tendcrly he would hav
- kissed the dear, wrinkled hands ths
&C were never idle.
There came a silence of three or fOr
,,c years. Then one summer day, to
~ young nephew bearing the same mann
2r came a letter postmarked Sacrament
~ InclOsed was letter the child ha
,;o written over a year ago to the dlstan
. never-seen uncle and a long clppln
~ from a Sacramento newspaper statl1
that at the hospital in that city on
m certain date. that mothers boy, no
- - himself a 1niddle-aged man, nearir
~. fiftv. had. in an attack of deliriu
~ tremenS. cut MS IIIOd1! 1IiS NiAlN
- letter. carried for many months IN tt
~ poor wanderers pocket, the last feeb
~ link between him and home and hop
- was the only clue to the address of h
- family The paper bore testimony
his success at fortune-mal1ing only
-, lose again, his noble possibilities, al
- the traits that won him admirati'
.L and esteem. Can anyone ever know
~ mothers thoughts as she pillows h
- head at night, not to sleep-but tn
- her heart may break in the silence
~' darkness where none but God CT
- know! There was no complaining
- she knew in whom she had believe
.wue w The day after she heard it found t
~ blessed old saint in her place in Coz
~. ~ house while the minister talked of t
-, - power of prayer. believe she son
80 how felt that her prayers for near
4oA fftv years could not remain unheal
"a, God knows.
~; But the tired body with the weig
:. /; and wear Of eighty-three years whl
-. she had tried to make last until S
could see her boy again in the tes
and could read in his face and life It
pi; victory that overcometh the worlt
gh, the weary body failed rapidly, and so
va, the lifelong heartbreak was ende
tn, But oh, the pity of it, and the ~sett