Tell of what dreadful disease people die who are bitten by a mad dog.—­“Of hydrophobia.”

Of what dreadful disease do people sometimes die who are bitten by the serpent in alcoholic liquors?—­“Of delirium tremens.”

Which is the more dreadful, hydrophobia or delirium tremens?—­“One is as dreadful as the other.”

How can you be sure never to have delirium tremens?—­“By drinking nothing which has alcohol in it.”

Will a little beer or wine hurt you?—­“Yes, it may make me love the taste of alcohol.”

What harm is there in loving the taste of alcohol?—­“I may love it so much as to become a drunkard.”

Tell once more how you should treat alcoholic liquors.—­“I should never drink a drop of them.”

[4] See Appendices.

* * * * *

ALCOHOL.

THE STORY ABOUT ALCOHOL.

Several hundred years ago many people were trying to discover something that would keep them young and strong, and prevent them from dying.  It is said by some that a man named Paracelsus, in making experiments, discovered alcohol.  He called it “the water of life,” and boasted that he would never be weak and never die; so he went on drinking alcoholic liquors until at last he died in a drunken fit.

What is this alcohol which has done and is doing so much mischief in the world?  I will show you some.  What does it look like?—­“Water.”  Yes; and if you were to smell it you would say it has a somewhat pleasant odor; if you were to taste it, that it has a hot, biting taste, i.e., is pungent.  If you put a lighted match to it you would notice that it burns easily, and with a flame, and may therefore be said to be combustible and inflammable.

What does it come from?  Is it one of the drinks God has given us?  Some of the class think it is; we will try to learn whether this answer is correct or not.  If we study about it very carefully we shall discover that it is not a natural drink, that it is not found except where it has been made from decayed or rotten fruits, grains, or vegetables.

If you take some apples, and squeeze the juice out of them, you will find it sweet and pleasant; let that juice stand for several days and what will happen to it?—­“It will get bad.”  Yes; or, as grown people say, it will work or ferment; that is, the sugary part of the juice will be separated into a kind of gas and a liquid.  The gas is called carbonic acid gas; the liquid is alcohol.  Both the gas and the liquid are poisonous.

Alcohol may also be obtained from other fruits, as grapes, and from some grains and vegetables.  But all these must first become rotten before alcohol will come out of them.  This is one reason why we think that God, who gives us good, wholesome food, did not intend alcohol to be a drink for man, else He would have put it into the delicious ripe fruit, and not made it impossible to get until they decay.