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Updated: May 15, 2025
He was sober now: he was a pledged abstainer: he had brought his pay in his hand and love in his heart; and that night, while the shadows lay thick around the deserted mansion of "The Firs," and not even the wail of sorrow broke the stillness, there was light and music and peace in that humble cottage; the light of love, the music of thanksgiving, and "the peace of God which passeth understanding."
It is the wife who in both cases is usually the sufferer and good angel, and under her happy influence the bookman will sometimes take the pledge, and for him, it is needless to say, there is only one cure. He cannot be a moderate drinker, for there is no possibility of moderation, and if he is to be saved he must become a total abstainer.
He remained a total abstainer, and his hatred of opium, whisky, and tobacco continued as strong as ever, although he did not now make abstinence from the two latter a test of Church membership. He reserved more of the Sunday as a day of rest, taking only the religious services with the Christians and inquirers, and not, as formerly, setting up his tent on the street.
He was truthful, thorough, and trustworthy. Men knew that they might believe what he said, be sure of the quality of what he did, and could rely upon his promises. There was another thing much in his favour, he was a total abstainer. Drink in this country ruins hundreds of men and women, just as in England. Shun drink, boys, as you would a serpent."
When, therefore, he one day found in his surgery a man of rude Western type, strong-limbed and sunburned, but trembling, hesitating and neurotic in movement, after listening to his symptoms gravely, he asked, abruptly: "And how much are you drinking now?" "I am a lifelong abstainer," stammered his patient in quivering indignation.
That's what comes of being a born total abstainer." Mrs. Bunting had got up from her chair. "What nonsense you do talk!" she said angrily. "Not but what it's a good thing if these murders have emptied the public-houses of women for a bit. England's drink is England's shame I'll never depart from that! Now, Daisy, child, get up, do! Put down that paper. We've heard quite enough.
All this must the wild abstainer feel, as he rolls in the long soaking grass, kicks his ecstatic heels to heaven, and listens to the roaring rain. It is he, the water drinker, who ought to be the true bacchanal of the forests; for all the forests are drinking water.
The Lord be praised for this!" exclaimed Bradly; "you shall sign, with all the pleasure in life. But do your parents give their consent?" "Yes, mother does. I've had a long talk with her, and, though we keep a public-house, she has seen so much of the misery and ruin that have come from the drink, that she says she'll never stand in the way of her child being an abstainer."
You could do more than that you could take a load off my heart, if you would." "Indeed!" he exclaimed; "tell me how." "And will you take it off if I tell you?" "Surely," he replied; but not so warmly as she would fain have had him say it. "You remember," she added, "the day you dined with us a long time ago, when you asked papa about becoming an abstainer?"
I knew that my poor unhappy wife still continued to obtain strong drink, but she did not take it to excess to my knowledge, and it was never placed upon our table. I was myself, at this time, practically a total abstainer, but I had signed no pledge. I didn't see the use of it then, so I had not got my children to sign.
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