drinks and one morning his wife said:  “Husband, you were drunk last night.”  A few months later he resigned his position and went west, hoping to break the spell of his habit.  But no mountain was high enough, nor cavern dark enough for him to hide from his mad pursuer.  He returned to Louisville and gave himself up to the maddening bowl.  His wife left him and went to a country home which she had saved out of her wealth.  One night when he was sleeping drunk in one room, his old mother in another said:  “Oh God, is my cup of sorrow not yet full?” The pitying angel pushed ajar the golden gates and the broken heart entered into rest.

Time and again this man took the pledge, but only to fail.  When the “blue ribbon” wave swept the country he again took the pledge, and this time went on the platform as a temperance advocate.  He drew great audiences, and when he had kept his pledge for months we invited him to Louisville.  It was my privilege to introduce him, or rather to present him to the great audience.  Before going on the platform he said:  “I have made a mistake in coming here.  It was here I lost everything a man could ask to make him happy.  The memory of my sainted mother comes over me, and my wife is so near and yet so far from me.”

To bring him back to himself I said:  “These things will help you to give the greatest lecture of your life.  Come, a great audience of old friends are waiting.”

When introduced he said:  “My friends, if I ever did a dishonorable act before I fell from the pulpit through drink, rise and tell me.”  Soon he had his audience in tears and lifting his eyes heavenward he said:  “O my sainted Mother, look down from your home in glory and see your poor drunken boy.  He has staggered all the way back, his feet upon the up-hillward way, and will travel it with a martyr’s step.”

He further said:  “Will I ever drink again?  No; this brow was not made to wear the brand of a vassal, nor these hands the chains of a drunkard.  Here in Louisville, where I fell in my manhood’s might, I vow I will never drink again.”  Manhood’s might is too weak to win alone in the battle against sin.  Poor J.J.  Talbott went down to rise no more, and on his dying bed, when a minister quoted passage after passage of promise from God’s word, the answer came:  “Not for me!  Not for me!” Peace to his ashes.

Young man, will you tamper and trifle with strong drink?  Do you say you can drink or let it alone?  I admit you can drink but are you sure you can let it alone?  If you can now, are you sure you can two years hence?  I saw a giant oak tree lying in the track of the wind.  It had been called “the monarch of the Sierras.”  Under the very nests where tempests hatch out their young, it grew to its greatness.  It had seen many a storm, clad in thunder, armed with lightning, leap from its rocky bed and go bellowing down the world.  But the storms that shook it only sent its roots down