I sketch two houses in one street.  The first is bright as home can be.  The father comes at nightfall, and the children run out to meet him.  Bountiful evening meal!  Gratulation and sympathy and laughter!  Music in the parlor!  Fine pictures on the wall!  Costly books on the table!  Well-clad household!  Plenty of everything to make home happy!

House the second!  Piano sold, yesterday by the sheriff!  Wife’s furs at pawnbroker’s shop!  Clock gone!  Daughter’s jewelry sold to get flour!  Carpets gone off the floor!  Daughters in faded and patched dresses!  Wife sewing for the stores!  Little child with an ugly wound on her face, struck by an angry blow!  Deep shadow of wretchedness falling in every room!  Doorbell rings!  Little children hide!  Daughters turn pale!  Wife holds her breath!  Blundering step in the hall!  Door opens!  Fiend, brandishing his fist, cries, “Out! out!  What are you doing here?” Did I call this house second?  No; it is the same house.  Rum transformed it.  Rum embruted the man.  Rum sold the shawl.  Rum tore up the carpets.  Rum shook his fist.  Rum desolated the hearth.  Rum changed that paradise into a hell.

I sketch two men that you know very well.  The first graduated from one of our literary institutions.  His father, mother, brothers and sisters were present to see him graduate.  They heard the applauding thunders that greeted his speech.  They saw the bouquets tossed to his feet.  They saw the degree conferred and the diploma given.  He never looked so well.  Everybody said, “What a noble brow!  What a fine eye!  What graceful manners!  What brilliant prospects!”

Man the second:  Lies in the station-house.  The doctor has just been sent for to bind up the gashes received in a fight.  His hair is matted and makes him look like a wild beast.  His lip is bloody and cut.  Who is this battered and bruised wretch that was picked up by the police and carried in drunk and foul and bleeding?  Did I call him man the second?  He is man the first!  Rum transformed him.  Rum destroyed his prospects.  Rum disappointed parental expectation.  Rum withered those garlands of commencement day.  Rum cut his lip.  Rum dashed out his manhood.  Rum, accurst rum!

This foul thing gives one swing to its scythe, and our best merchants fall; their stores are sold, and they sink into dishonored graves.  Again it swings its scythe, and some of our physicians fall into suffering that their wisest prescriptions cannot cure.  Again it swings its scythe, and ministers of the gospel fall from the heights of Zion, with long resounding crash of ruin and shame.  Some of your own households have already been shaken.  Perhaps you can hardly admit it; but where was your son last night?  Where was he Friday night?  Where was he Thursday night?  Wednesday night?  Tuesday night?  Monday night?  Nay, have not some of you in your own bodies felt the power of this habit?  You think that you could stop?  Are you sure you could?