“You’re the right sort, dominie!” he said, with a roar of laughter, filling the tumbler until it ran over and into the pastor’s cuffs.  Whereat the farmer laughed yet more uproariously.

One of the four young men died a while ago of delirium tremens, and not one of the other three has drawn a sober breath in years.  The parents are dead, the old farm is sold, and the brothers are all poor.  Rum has done it all.

I do not imply that either of these scenes had any marked influence upon the destiny of the slaves of appetite, except as they were encouraged to pursue a course tacitly approved by the wise and good.  But I am thankful that I did not lend the weight of a straw to the downward slide.  “Woe unto him that putteth the cup to his neighbor’s lips!” says the Book of books.  There might be subjoined, “Or helps to hold it there when the neighbor’s own hand has lifted it!”

Had I my way, not one drop of intoxicating liquors should be sold, except by druggists, and then only by a physician’s prescription.  For—­and here comes the answer to the second part of my querist’s appeal—­I hold that pure brandy, wine and whiskey are of inestimable value as medicine.  I know that the judicious use of them as restoratives has saved many lives.  I know, too, how nearly worthless they are where the system of the patient is used to them as daily or frequent beverages.

I hold, furthermore, that there is no sin or even danger—­unless the taste be already enkindled—­in the occasional use of them in the kitchen, as one would handle vanilla, lemon or bitter-almond flavoring extracts.  I do not believe that a single drunkard was ever made by the tablespoonful of wine that goes into a half pint of pudding-sauce, or the wineglassful that “brightens” a quart of jelly.  Every house-mother knows for whom she is catering.  If one of her family or guests already loves and craves the stimulant, it is prudent to omit it.  The same man would be tempted by the wine of the consecrated cup.  When the disease of inebriety has gone thus far she cannot save him, but she can look to it that her hand does not give the final touch, which is death.

I have written frankly, and I think temperately.  I am not a “crank” upon this—­I hope not upon any subject.  I am a temperance woman who does not scruple to avow what is her practice, as well as her belief.  That thousands of better people than I will think my creed goes too far, and as many that it stops short of temporal and spiritual safety, ought not to trouble me.  Upon the individual conscience lies the responsibility of principle and action.  Yet holding as I do that each of us is his brother’s keeper, I lift my hand in protest against the crying sin of the age, and the mistaken toleration of good people with that which leads to it.

CHAPTER XXXII.

FAMILY MUSIC.