MARRIED TO A DRUNKARD

She arose suddenly in the meeting, and spoke as follows:

"Married to a drunkard! Yes, I was married to a drunkard. -- Look at me! I am talking to the girls."

We all turned and looked at her. She was a wan woman, with dark, sad eyes, and white hair, placed smoothly over a brow that denoted intellect.

"When I married a drunkard, I reached the acme of misery," she continued. "I was young, and oh, so happy! I married the man I loved, and who professed to love me. He was a drunkard, and I knew it knew it, but did not understand it. There is not a young girl in this building that does understand it, unless she has a drunkard in her family; then, perhaps, she knows how deeply the iron enters the soul of a woman, when she loves, and is allied to a drunkard; whether father, husband, brother or son. Girls, believe me, when I tell you, that to marry a drunkard, to love a drunkard, is the crown of all misery. I have gone through the deep waters, and know. I have gained that fearful knowledge at the expense of happiness, sanity, almost life itself.

Do you wonder my hair is white? It turned white in a night, 'bleached by sorrow,' as Marie Antoinette said of her hair. I am not forty years old, yet the snows of seventy rest upon my head; and upon my heart-ah! I cannot begin to count the winters resting there," she said, with unutterable pathos in her voice.

"My husband was a professional man. His calling took him from home frequently at night, and when he returned, he returned drunk. Gradually he gave way to temptation in the day, until he was rarely sober. I had two lovely little girls and a boy." Here her voice faltered, and we sat in deep silence listening to her story. "My husband had been drinking deeply. I had not seen him for two days. He had kept away from his home. One night I was seated beside my sick boy; the two little girls were in bed in the next room, while beyond was another room, into which I heard my husband go, as he entered the house. The room communicated with the one in which my little girls were sleeping. I do not know why, but a feeling of terror took possession of me, and I felt that my little girls were in danger. I arose and went to the room. The door was locked. I knocked on it frantically, but no answer came. I seemed to be endowed with superhuman strength, and, throwing myself with all my force against the door, the lock gave way and the door flew open. Oh, the sight! The terrible sight! " She wailed out in a voice that haunts me now; and she covered her face with her hands, and when she removed them it was whiter and sadder than ever.

"Delirium tremens! You have never seen it, girls; God grant that you never may. My husband stood beside the bed, his eyes glaring with insanity, and in his hand a large knife. "Take them away!" he screamed. "The horrible things, they are crawling all over me. Take them away, I say!" and he flourished the knife in the air. Regardless of danger, I rushed up to the bed, and my heart seemed suddenly to cease beating. There lay my children, covered with their life-blood, slain by their own father! For a moment I could not utter a sound. I was literally dumb in the presence of this terrible sorrow. I scarcely heeded the maniac at my side -- the man who had wrought me all this woe. Then I uttered a loud scream, and my wailings filled the air. The servants heard me and hastened to the room, and when my husband saw them, he suddenly drew the knife across his own throat. I knew nothing more. I was borne senseless from the room that contained the bodies of my slaughtered children, and the body of my husband. The next day my hair was white, and my mind so shattered that I knew no one."

She ceased! Our eyes were riveted upon her wan face.

Some of the women present sobbed aloud, while there was scarcely a dry eye in that temperance meeting. We saw that she had not done speaking, and was only waiting to subdue her emotion to resume her story.

"Two years," she continued, "I was a mental wreck; then I recovered from the shock, and absorbed myself in the care of my boy. But the sin of the father was visited upon the child, and six months ago my boy of eighteen was placed in a drunkard's grave; and as I, his loving mother, stood and saw the sod heaped over him, I said: "Thank God! I'd rather see him there than have him live a drunkard;" and I turned unto my desolate home a childless woman -- one on whom the hand of God had rested heavily.

"Girls, it is you I wish to rescue from the fate that overtook me. Do not blast your life as I blasted mine; do not be drawn into the madness of marrying a drunkard. You love him! So much the worse for you; for married to him, the greater will be your misery because of your love. You will marry and then reform him, so you say. Ah! A woman sadly overrates her strength when she undertakes to do this. You are no match for the giant demon 'drink,' when he possesses a man's body and soul. You are no match for him, I say. What is your puny strength beside his gigantic force? He will crush you, too. It is to save you, girls, from the sorrows that wrecked my happiness, that I have unfolded my history to you. I am a stranger in this great city. I am merely passing through it; and I have a message to bear to every girl in America never marry a drunkard!

I can see her now, as she stood there amid the hushed audience, her dark eyes glowing, and her frame quivering with emotion, as she uttered her impassioned appeal. Then she hurried out, and we never saw her again. Her words, "fitly spoken," were not without effect, however, and because of them there is one girl single now. -- Selected.

The Old Landmarks of Faith