Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1898-05-16
w. c. T. u. COLUMN.
rotto: "God and Home and Native Land.
WHY ARE MY BOYS DRUNKARDse

by distressed mother. She is a good
woman, has been devout Christian
from child. is faithful wife and a
kind, loving, praying mother. But
alas, she has lived to see her fine
looking, hardy boys grow up and be-
come drunkards!
She has done all she could in the
way of kindly admonishing against
the seduction of the wine cup, and
| lovingly warning them of the ruin
which the rum fend infiicts upon it's
victims Many, many hours in the
stiffness of the night has she spent on
her knees, her heart almost broken,
pleading with God to save her boys
from being ruined by strong drink,
only to see them waxing worse and
| worse.
And now, almost in despair, she
asks, ''Why are my boys drunkards?
Why does not God interpose and save
them in answer to my prayers? Does
He no longer hear and answer the
prayers of His sorrow stricken chill
dren? Is the fault mine?N Have [ not
faithfully done my duty-done all
that fond mother could do to save
my boys?"
Alas for that mother! Our heart
bleeds for her and her boys as well.
God does hear and answer prayer;
but the same God who says, "Call up
on Me in the day of trouble and I will
deliver thee" also says, 'Be not de-
ceived; God is not Knocked: for what
soever a man soweth, that shall he
also reap" And He also says that
He visits the iniquities of the fathers
upon the children unto the third and
fourth generation.
"But," one asks, "what have those
passages to do with this poor, dis
tressed mothers case?"
Only this: She is reaping what she
has sowed. Years ago when she was
happy, beautiful young woman she
made the awful mistake, made by SO
many others, of accepting the atten-
lions of young man whom she knew
to be given to strong drink, and per-
mitted him to WOO and win her. She
not only knew that he was in the hab-
it of becoming intoxicated, but she
also knew that the appetite for strong
drink was characteristic of his family.
Of course, like many another. fool
ish girl, she felt sure she could ere
form him. Her parents and friends
warned her; but despite their admo-
nitions and protestations she would
have her own way and did give her
self to be the wife of a drunken hus
band, and in doing so doomed herself |
to be the sorrowing mother of drunk
en- sons!
We will not say that they cannot |
and will not be saved from drunk
ards hell, but experience teaches
that, as a rule, such are not saved |
from the inherited appetite for
strong drink; and when, in addition,
they are exposed to the seductive in
f1uence of the open saloon and the So
ciety of those who drink, how are
they to escape?
Joseph Cook has well said that the
right time to begin to reform a man
is three generations before he is born;
and the best medical authorities of |
the world declare that the appetite
for strong drink in the father is trans
mitted to the children to the third and
fourth generations.
There are ten thousand wives and
mothers in this country to day whose
hearts are broken and whose homes
are but novels of want, violence, and
sorrow, simply because they, lured by
the seductive, false hope they could
reform them, married men whom they
knew before they married them were
given to tampering with the drunk
ard making beverage. They mourn,
and suffer, and pray, but the adaman
tine law of cause and effect holds,
and, as in the case of Esau, their re-
pentance and tears are of no avail in
SO far as undoing what they have
done is concerned. They are only
reaping what they sowed, and there
Oy verifying the truth that "God is
not mocked.''
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4. G. Pierce. Barton; H. S. Webster,