greeted your success.  I feel honored to have you as a boarder.”  A few months later, on Christmas night, Luke Howard lay drunk on the bar-room floor.  The landlord had borne all he could and, with a kick, he said:  “Get up and get out, you brute; I will not keep you another hour.”  The drunkard with help arose and said:  “Where am I?  Why, this is my boarding place, my home, and you are my landlord.  You said you felt honored to have me board here.  What’s the matter?”

“Luke Howard, you’re not the man you once were, and I want you to leave here at once.”

The poor fellow started for the door muttering:  “I am not the man I was.  I’m not the man I was.”  Missing the step as he went out, he fell, striking his head against the stone curbing.  A physician was summoned and recognizing the injured man as an old friend said:  “Luke, speak to your old college chum; I’m here to help you.”

The poor drunkard, looking through the blood that flowed from the gaping wound said:  “Listen to me, Tom, I’m not the man I was, I’m not the man I was.”  And thus died the poor fellow.

Young man, start wrong and end right?  No, start wrong and you may expect in the autumn of life a penniless, friendless old age; opportunity gone, health shattered, and the “long fingers of memory” reaching out and dragging into its chambers thoughts that will “bite like a serpent and sting like an adder.”  Bad as this is, it is even worse when your depravity involves another life.  What if that other life is your mother, who went to the door of death to give you life, and whose every breath is another thread of sorrow woven into her wasting heart while her boy is bound like Mazeppa to the wild steed of passion.

There are some things I cannot understand about this drink question.  I can understand how a young woman with jeweled fingers can tempt a young man to drink wine.  I had a bit of experience some years ago down in Texas, that helped me to appreciate how young men are tempted.  I gave an address in a Y.M.C.A. lecture course in a city, and at the close of my address a prominent citizen said to me:  “Kentucky has a reputation for beautiful women, but we think Texas has the handsomest women in the world.  At the hotel where you are stopping, there is a leap year ball tonight and the most beautiful women for a hundred miles around are gathered there.  I will call for you at your room in a little while and you must take a look at our Texas girls.”  A little later I stood in a hallway where I could see down the long ball room, and I declare they were as pretty women as I have ever seen, and I live in Kentucky.  I was invited to step inside the door, where between dances I was introduced to couple after couple.  It being leap year the ladies were soliciting their partners for the dance, and a very handsome young lady invited me to be her partner.  Having never danced and being a Methodist steward, I declined.  Another and another asked me to dance, and again and again I declined, giving as an excuse my utter ignorance of the function.  Finally a very beautiful, blue-eyed, charming young lady said:  “Since you do not dance, may I engage you for a promenade around the ball room?” Boys, if I had been a young man the chances are I would have started down the “turkey-trot” road that evening.  I can appreciate how young men are tempted.