I was standing on the sidewalk in a Southern city where at the
time I was engaged in evangelistic work. A physician who was an
active helper came along in his buggy, and, stopping his horse,
requested me to take a seat at his side.
“I want to take you,” he said as we drove off, “to see a most
deplorable and helpless case--a widow and her son. She is
totally blind; in fact, she has cried her eyes out. You have
heard of people who cried their eyes out, but now you will see
one of whom it is literally true. The son is only twenty-four
years of age, and a splendid machinist; but he got to fooling
with drink and wild young men, until now the habit is so fixt
upon him he is almost an imbecile. I have a commitment for him
in my pocket to send him to the asylum. It is the only hope for
him now.”
We arrived at the house, a poor little desolate-looking place,
in painful accord with the pitiful lives within. The woman rose
to greet us at the sound of the doctor’s voice. She was of
medium size, neatly drest, but plainly. Her white face, without
the slightest suggestion of color, was partly framed with
grayish-brown hair. Her eyes did not seem sightless to me, but
only a dull dark blue.
There sat the young man, his face buried in his hands, the
picture of misery, a life surrendered to the evil of drink,
and in ruins. “I have brought the minister,” said the doctor,
“because I knew you’d like to have him pray with you and talk
with your son.” She assented readily, and even with an effort
to smile; but the smile died upon her lips. The young man was
perfectly sane, and talked willingly of his condition. “I just
can’t help it,” he said. “I love mother, and I can easily take
care of her; but, when I get where whisky is, I can’t help
getting drunk. Then it looks as if I’d never get sober any
more. Yes, sir,” he said in reply to the doctor, “I’ll be glad
to go. I hate to leave mother,” nodding his head toward the
frail creature who sat silent while the tears literally rolled
down her face; “but I’m willing to do anything to get right.”
Months passed. I was there again. Meeting the doctor one day in
the street, I stopt him.
“Tell me about the poor woman, doctor, and her boy,” I asked.
“Get into my buggy, and we will take a drive, and you shall see
for yourself.” We drove along, talking as we went; but he did
not explain. He continued his drive out of the city, and finally
turned his horse’s head into what I saw was the cemetery.
Passing monuments and vaults and richly carved marble, we went
on to the very outer edge. “Now we will get out and walk a few
steps,” he said. I followed him, knowing now, of course, what it
meant; but I knew only in part. Stopping at two unmarked graves,
not a stone or board or flower, desolate in death as in life,
he pointed to one, and said: “That’s the son. He came back from
the asylum, and we thought he was cured; but he fell in with his
old companions, and a few days later his body was found in a
pond near the city, and a bottle half filled with whisky in his
pocket. And that’s the mother. She survived him only a few days.
When they brought his body into her little home, she sank under
her weight of grief, and never rallied. She had cried herself to
sleep.”--H. M. WHARTON, _Christian Endeavor World_.
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