The Lights and Shadows of Real Life Part 53

"O yes, I am confident of it."

"And heartily glad am I to hear you say so. It doubles the guarantee for our own and children's happiness. The pledge to guard us on one side, and the total loss of all desire on the other, is surely a safe protection. I feel, that into the future I may now look, without a single painful anxiety on this account."

"Yes, Jane. Into the future you may look with hope. And as to the past, let it sink, with all its painful scenes,--its heart-aching trials, into oblivion."

Jonas Marshall and his young wife had, many years before the period in which the above conversation took place, entered upon the world with cheerful hopes, and a flattering promise of happiness. They were young persons of cultivated tastes, and had rather more of this world's goods than ordinarily falls to the lot of those just commencing life. A few years sufficed to dash all their hopes to the ground, and to fill the heart of the young wife with a sorrow that it seemed impossible for her to bear. Marshall, from habitual drinking of intoxicating liquors, found the taste for them fully confirmed before he dreamed of danger, and he had not the strength of character at once and for ever to abandon their use. Gradually he went down, down, slowly at first, but finally with a rapid movement, until he found himself stripped of everything, and himself a confirmed drunkard. For nearly two years longer, he surrendered himself up to drink--his wife and children suffering more than my pen can describe, or any but the drunkard's wife and drunkard's children realize.

Then came a new era. A friend of humanity sought out the poor, degraded wretch, in his misery and obscurity, and prevailed upon him to abandon his vile habits, and pledge himself to total abstinence.

Two years from the day that pledge was signed, found him again rising in the world, with health, peace, and comfort, the cheerful inmates of his dwelling. Here is the brief outline of a reformed drinker's history. How many an imagination can fill in the dark shadows, and distinct, mournful features of the gloomy picture!

On the day succeeding the second anniversary of Jonas Marshall's reformation, he was engaged to dine with a few friends, and met them at the appointed hour. With the dessert, wine was introduced. Among the guests were one or two persons with whom Marshall had but recently become acquainted. They knew little or nothing of his former life. One of them sat next to him at table, and very naturally handed him the wine, with a request to drink with him.

"Thank you," was the courteous, but firm reply. "I do not drink wine."

Another, who understood the reason of this refusal, observing it, remarked--

"Our friend Marshall belongs to the tee-totallers."

"Ah, indeed! Then we must, of course, excuse him," was the gentlemanly response.

"Don't you think, Marshall," remarked another, "that you temperance men are a little too rigid in your entire proscription of wine?"

"For the reformed drinker," was the reply, "it is thought to be the safest way to cut off entirely everything that can, by possibility, inflame the appet.i.te. Some argue, that when that morbid craving, which the drunkard acquires, is once formed, it never can be thoroughly eradicated."

"Do you think the position a true one?" asked a member of the party.

"I have my doubts of it," Marshall said. "For instance: Most of you know that for some years I indulged to excess in drink. Two years ago I abandoned the use of wine, brandy, and everything else of an intoxicating nature. For a time, I felt the cravings of an intense desire for liquor; but my pledge of total abstinence restrained me from any indulgence. Gradually, the influence of my old appet.i.te subsided, until it ceased to be felt. And it is now more than a year since I have experienced the slightest inclination to touch a drop.

Your wine and brandy are now, gentlemen, no temptation to me."

"But if that be the case," urged a friend, "why need you restrict yourself, so rigidly, from joining in a social gla.s.s? Standing, as you evidently do, upon the ground you occupied, before, by a too free indulgence, you pa.s.sed, unfortunately, the point of self-control: you may now enjoy the good things of life without abusing them. Your former painful experience will guard you in that respect."

"I am not free to do so," replied Marshall.

"Why?"

"Because I have pledged myself never again to drink anything that can intoxicate, and confirmed that pledge by my sign-manual--thus giving it a double force and importance."

"What end had you in view in making that pledge?"

"The emanc.i.p.ation of myself from the horrible bondage in which I had been held for years."

"That end is accomplished."

"True. But the obligations of my pledge are perpetual."

"That is a mere figure of speech. You fully believed, I suppose, that perpetual total-abstinence was absolutely necessary for your safety?"

"I certainly did."

"You do not believe so now?"

"No. I have seen reason, I think, to change my views in that respect. The appet.i.te which I believed would remain throughout life, and need the force of a solemn bond to restrain it, has, under the rigid discipline of two years, been destroyed. I now feel myself as much above the enslaving effects of intoxicating liquors, as I ever did in my life."

"Then, it is clear to my mind, that all the obligations of your pledge are fulfilled; and that, as a matter of course, it ceases to be binding."

"I should be very unwilling to violate that pledge."

"It would be, virtually, no violation."

"I cannot see it in that light," Marshall said, "although you may be perfectly correct. At any rate, I am not now willing to act up to your interpretation of the matter."

This declaration closed the argument, as his friends did not feel any strong desire to see him drink, and argued the matter with him as much for argument sake as anything else. In this they acted with but little true wisdom; for the particular form in which the subject was presented to the mind of Marshall, gave him something to think about and reason about. And the more he thought and reasoned, the more did he become dissatisfied with the restrictions under which he found himself placed. Not having felt, for many months, the least desire for liquor, he imagined that even the latent inclination which existed, as he readily supposed, for some time, had become altogether extinguished. There existed, therefore, in his estimation, now that he had begun to think over the matter, no good reason why he should abstain, totally, from wine, at least, on a social occasion.

The daily recurrence of such thoughts, soon began to worry his mind, until the pledge, that had for two years lain so lightly upon him, became a burden almost too intolerable to be borne.

"Why didn't I bind myself for a limited period?" he at last said, aloud, thus giving a sanction and confirmation by word of the thoughts that had been gradually forming themselves into a decision in his mind. No sooner had he said this, than the whole subject a.s.sumed a more distinct form, and a more imposing aspect in his view. He now saw clearly, what had not before seemed perfectly plain--what had been till then encompa.s.sed by doubts. He was satisfied that he had acted blindly when he pledged himself to total-abstinence.

"Three hundred signed the pledge last night," said his wife to him, a few weeks after the occurrence of the dinner-party, just mentioned.

"Three hundred! We are carrying everything before us."

"Who can tell," resumed the wife, "the amount of happiness involved in three hundred pledges to total-abstinence? There were, doubtless, many husbands and fathers among the number who signed. Now, there is joy in their dwellings. The fire, that long since went out, is again kindled upon their hearths. How deeply do I sympathize with the heart-stricken wives, upon whom day as again arisen, with a bright sun s.h.i.+ning down from an unclouded sky!"

"It is, truly, to them, a new era--or the dawning of a new existence.--Most earnestly do I wish that the day had arrived, which I am sure will come, when not a single wife in the land will mourn over the wrong she suffers at the hand of a drunken husband."

"To that aspiration, I can utter a most devout amen," Mrs. Marshall rejoined, fervently.

"A few years of perseverance and well-directed energy, on our part, will effect all this, I allow myself fondly to hope, if we do not create a reaction by over-doing the matter."

"How, over-doing it?" asked the wife.

"There is a danger of over-doing it in many ways. And I am by no means sure that the pledge of perpetual abstinence is not an instance of this."

"The pledge of perpetual abstinence! Why, husband, what do you mean?"

"My remark seems to occasion surprise. But I think that I can make the truth of what I say apparent to your mind. The use of the pledge, you will readily admit, is to protect a man against the influence of a morbid thirst for liquor, which his own resolution is not strong enough to conquer."

"Well."

"So soon, then, as this end is gained, the use of the pledge ceases."

"Is it ever gained? Is a man who has once felt this morbid thirst, ever safe from it?"

"Most certainly do I believe that he is. Most certainly do I believe that a few years of total abstinence from everything that intoxicates, will place him on the precise ground that he occupied before the first drop of liquor pa.s.sed his lips."

"I cannot believe this, Jonas. Whatever is once confirmed by habit, it seems to me, must be so incorporated into the mental and physical organization, as never to be eradicated. Its effect is to change, in a degree, the whole system, and to change it so thoroughly, as to give a bias to all succeeding states of mind and body--thus transmitting a tendency to come under the influence of that bias."

"You advance a thing, Jane, which will not hold good in practice.