for what he has done; that he has raised up a new instrumentality for
rescuing thousands of our race from the lowest degradation. It is a
token of good for our country and the world. Enter into this field of
labor. "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ; that though he was
rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty
might become rich." Go imitate his example; become poor, if need be, to
save the lost. "Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to
come in."
Try it, Christian philanthropist. "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor
to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is
offended, or made weak." Sacrifices make the world happy, and God
glorious.
Try it, Christian female. It is work for your sex. Woman is the greatest
sufferer from intemperance: driven by it from her home; made an outcast
from all the comforts of domestic love, while her babes cry for bread,
and she has no relief. Lost men will listen to your words of kindness,
be cheered by your benefactions, encouraged by your smiles.
Try it, young men. Have you no companions early palsied, withered, and
scathed by alcoholic fires, treading now on the verge of the drunkard's
grave? Go after them in their misery. Go, thanking God that you are not
as they are. Go, believing that you may save them; that they will
receive you thankfully; that they must have your help, or be lost. Go,
and be strong in this work. The movements of Providence call you to
effort for the unfortunate and wretched, that you may pull them out of
the fire. What you do in the blessed work, do quickly. O, if it be in
your power to save one young man, do it quickly. Run and speak to that
young man. He will thank you for it. His father will thank you. His
mother will thank you. His sisters will thank you. His immortal soul,
rescued and saved, will love you for ever.
TO THE POOR UNFORTUNATE DRUNKARD.
MY FRIEND AND BROTHER--You are poor and wretched. A horrid appetite
hurries you on in the road to ruin. Abroad you are despised. Home is a
desolation. A heart-broken wife weeps over you, yet does not forsake
you. She hopes, she waits for your reform and for better days.
Conscience bids you stop. But appetite, companions, and custom say, _One
glass more_. That is a fatal glass. You rise but to fall again, and you
feel that you can never reform. But you CAN REFORM. Thousands and
thousands around you have reformed, and would not for worlds go back to
drinking. They are happy at home; respected abroad; well dressed; well
employed; have no thirst for the dreadful cup. They feel for you. They
say, "Come thou with us, and we will do thee good." Come _sign the
pledge_, the pledge of total abstinence. In this is your only hope. This
is a certain cure. Touch not, taste not, handle not rum, brandy,
whiskey, wine, cider, beer, or any thing that intoxicates, and you will
be a new man, a happy man. Begin now. Try it now in the strength of the
Lord. From this good hour resolve that none of these accursed drinks
shall ever enter your lips. The struggle may be severe, but it will soon
be over. Say then, "Come life, come death, by the help of God I will be
free."
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.
TOM STARBOARD
AND
JACK HALYARD.
A NAUTICAL TEMPERANCE DIALOGUE.
[Illustration: Tom Starboard and Jack Halyard]
JACK. Halloo, shipmate; what cheer? Mayhap, however, you
don't choose to remember an old crony.
TOM. Why, Jack, is that you? Well, I must say, that if you hadn't hailed
me I should have sailed by without knowing you. How you're altered! Who
would have supposed that this weather-beaten hulk was my old messmate
Jack Halyard, with whom I've soaked many a hard biscuit, and weathered
many a tough gale on old Ocean? and then you used to be as trim in your
rigging as the Alert herself; but now it's as full of ends as the old
Wilmington brig that we used to crack so many jokes about at Barbadoes.
Give me another grip, my hearty, and tell me how you come on.
JACK. Bad enough, Tom--bad enough. I'm very glad, however, to overhaul
you again, and to find you so merry, and looking so fat and hearty. The
world must have gone well with you, Tom.
TOM. You may well say that, Jack, and no mistake. The world has gone
well with me. My appetite is good, my sleep sound; and I always take
care to have a shot in the locker, and let alone a snug little sum in
the seamen's savings-bank, that I've stowed away for squally times, or
when I get old, so as to be independent of hospitals and retreats, and
all that sort of thing. And what's more to the purpose, Jack, I try to
have a clean conscience--the most comfortable of all; don't you think
so?
JACK. Why yes, Tom, I do think that a clean conscience must be a very
comfortable thing for a man to have. But I can't brag much of mine
now-a-days; it gives me a deal of trouble sometimes.
TOM. Ah, that's bad, Jack--very bad. But come, let me hear something
about you since we parted, some four years or so ago. Where have you
last been, in what craft, etc.? Give me a long yarn: you used to be a
famous hand at spinning long yarns, you know, Jack. Don't you remember
how angry old copper-nosed Grimes used to get when the larboard watch
turned in, and, instead of sleeping, we made you go ahead with the story
you were on, which made him wish us all at Davy Jones' locker? Ha, ha,
ha.
JACK. O yes, Tom, I remember it all very well; but--
TOM. And then, don't you recollect how we used to skylark in the lee
scuppers with those jolly fellows, Buntline and Reeftackle, until the
Luff had to hail, and send a Middy with his _compliments_ to the
_gentlemen_ of the larboard watch, and to say, that if _quite agreeable
to them_, less noise would be desirable? I say, Jack, you seem to have
forgotten all these funny times in the Alert. Cheer up, man; don't be
downhearted. Give me your flipper again; and if you are really in
trouble, you may be sure, that as long as your old messmate Tom
Starboard has a shot in the locker, or a drop of blood in his veins,
he'll stand by Jack Halyard--aye, aye, to the last.
JACK. Thank you, Tom--thank you. You were always an honest fellow, and
meant what you said; so let us steer for the sign of "The Jolly Tar,"
round the corner, and over a bowl of hot flip we'll talk over old times,
and--
TOM. Avast there, Jack--avast, my hearty. None of your hot flip, or cold
flip, or any other kind of flip for me. "The burnt child dreads the
fire," as the old proverb says; and I am the child that was once pretty
well scorched: but now I give it a wide berth. If you will come with me
to my quiet boarding-house, "THE SAILOR'S HOME," I will be very glad to
crack a joke with you; but you won't catch me in any such place as "The
Jolly Tar," I can tell you. I mind what the old Philadelphia Quaker said
to his son, who, as he was once coming out of a house of ill-fame, spied
old Broadbrim heaving in sight, and immediately wore ship. The old chap,
however, who always kept his weather-eye open, had had a squint of young
graceless, and so up helm and hard after he cracked, and following him
in, hailed him with, "Ah, Obadiah, Obadiah, thee should never be
ashamed of _coming out_--thee should always be ashamed of _going in_."
No, no, Jack, I side with friend Broadbrim: I won't enter such places.
JACK. Well, I don't know, Tom, but that you are about half right. I
think, myself, that "The Jolly Tar" is not what it's cracked up to be. I
am sure that neither the landlord nor the landlady look half as kindly
on me as they did when I first came in, with plenty of money in my
pocket. Indeed, they have been pretty rough within the last few days,
and tell me that I must ship, as they want my advance towards the score
run up, of the most of which I am sure I know nothing; but it's always
the way.
TOM. Yes, Jack, it's always the way with such folks. The poor tar is
welcomed and made much of as long as his pockets are well lined; but let
them begin to lighten, and then the smiles begin to slacken off; and
when the rhino is all gone, poor Jack, who was held up as such a great
man, is frowned upon, and at last kicked out of doors: or if, mayhap,
they have let him run up a score, he is hastily shipped off, perhaps
half naked, and the advance is grabbed by the hard-hearted landlord, who
made poor Jack worse than a brute with his maddening poison. Oh, Jack,
how my heart has bled at witnessing the cruel impositions practised upon
our poor brother sailors by these harpies. But come, I want to hear all
about my old messmate. If I am not greatly out of my reckoning, grog is
at the bottom of all your troubles, and long faces, and sighs, and
groans. Cheer up, Jack, and unbosom yourself to your old friend and
pitcher.
JACK. Well, Tom, as I know you to be a sincere fellow, I will unbosom
myself. You were never nearer your right latitude than when you said
that grog was at the bottom of my troubles. Yes, grog has pretty nearly
used up poor Jack Halyard. A few years ago I was a light-hearted, happy
fellow, and only drank because others did--not that I liked the taste
particularly in those days, but I did it for good-fellowship, as it was
called; and moreover, I did not like to seem odd; and when I shipped on
board the man-of-war, where it was served out to us twice a day, I soon
became fond of it. And you know we both used to long for the sun to get
above the fore-yard, and for the afternoon middle watch, that we might
splice the main-brace. Sure I am that it was _there_ I first took a
liking to the stuff; and O, Tom, don't you think the government will
have much to answer for, in putting temptation in the way of us poor
sailors? Instead of being our protector, it is our seducer. Our blood
will stick in its skirts.
TOM. Yes, Jack, I think that Uncle Sam has a great deal to answer for on
that tack; and I can say, too, that the love of rum that I acquired in
the government service had pretty nearly fixed my flint, both for this
world and the next. But still, Jack, it wont do for seamen to drink grog
because the government supplies it, and think to excuse themselves by
blaming it. No, no; that is a poor excuse. Men who brave the dangers of
the mighty deep, as our class do, and face death in every form with
unshrinking courage, ought to be able to resist such a temptation. It
will be a poor reason to hand in to the Almighty when the angel summons
all hands before his dread tribunal, in palliation of our drunkenness
and the sins committed by us when under the influence of liquor, that
the government, instead of comforting us, and fortifying us against heat
and cold, etc., with coffee, and tea, and other wholesome small stores,
poisoned our bodies and souls with vile rum. No, indeed, Jack, that will
avail us naught in that awful day; and it will be poor consolation _in
the drunkard's hell_, to blame the government. But go on.
JACK. Well, when the Alert's cruise was up, and we were paid off, about
a dozen of us went to lodge with old Peter Hardheart, at the sign of the
Foul Anchor; and as we had plenty of money, we thought we would have a
regular blow-out. So Peter got a fiddler and some other unmentionable
requisites for a jig, and we had a set-to in firstrate style. Why, our
great frolic at Santa Martha, when Paddy Chips, the Irish carpenter,
danced away his watch, and jacket, and tarpaulin, and nearly all his
toggery, you know, and next morning came scudding along the beach
towards the Alert, as she lay moored near shore, and crept on board on
all-fours, like a half-drowned monkey, along the best bower, wouldn't
have made a nose to it. Well, next morning I had a pretty smart touch of
the horrors, and felt rather muddy about the head; but old Peter soon
set us agoing again, and we kept it up for three days and three nights,
carriage-riding, and dancing, and drinking, and theatre-going, etc.; and
we thought the world was too little for us: when all at once old
Hardheart took a round turn on us with, "I'll tell you what it is, you
drunken swabs, I'll not have such goings-on in my house--my house is a
decent house--you must all ship; yes, ship's the word. I must have the
advance--you're more than a month's wages apiece in my debt." Tom, I was
sober in an instant. My conscience smote me. In three days I had
squandered the wages of a three years' cruise, and had not a dollar left
to take to my poor old mother in the country, whom I had intended to go
to see after the frolic was over, and give all my money to. O Tom, what
a poor, pitiful, sneaking wretch I felt that I was. The two letters that
I had received from her during my absence--so kind, so affectionate,
and so full of fervent prayers to God that her poor boy might be
preserved from the temptations that beset the sailor, and be brought
safely back to her widowed arms--rushed to my remembrance, and
overwhelmed me with grief; and I--I, who ought to have denied myself
even innocent gratification until I had ministered to her wants, had
forgotten the best of mothers, and had spent all of my hard earnings
with the vilest of the vile.
TOM. Poor Jack, my heart bleeds for you; but cheer up, and go on.
JACK. Well, to shorten a long story, I was the next day bundled, when
about three sheets in the wind, on board a merchantman, with an empty
chest, although it was winter, old Hardheart nabbing the whole of my
advance; and for two or three days, Tom, I suffered awfully from the
horrors. I thought I was already in the hell to which the wicked who
don't repent must go. Awake, asleep, at the helm, on the yard, in the
storm, in the calm, everywhere I was haunted with the remembrance of my
ingratitude to my poor dear mother--to her who had watched over me in
helpless infancy and childhood; who had prayed over and for me so much;
who had pinched herself to give me a snug outfit when I first went to
sea; and who I knew had strained her poor old eyes in watching for the
loved form of her Jack--for the papers must have apprised her of the
arrival of the Alert two days after we got in. But, dear old woman, she
watched in vain; Jack had forgotten his best friend; he had herded with
beasts, and had became a beast himself. O Tom, what a miserable wretch I
was. I sometimes tried to read in the Bible that she had given me, but
it seemed as if every verse was a fiery scorpion stinging me for my
crimes and ingratitude. As the ship in which I was, sailed under the
temperance clause, I could get no liquor on board, and I determined to
shun the accursed thing ever after; to turn over a new leaf in my
log-book of life; to save my money; and to become a steady, sober lad,
so that I might after a while be made a mate, and then a master, and
have a shot in the locker for my dear old mother. These good resolutions
lasted as long as I had no liquor; but you will see that they vanished
like smoke when I came ashore, on the return of the vessel. As the wind
was light in the bay in coming up, we were boarded by several boats from
sailor boarding-houses, and among the rest by old Hardheart. When I saw
him I fairly gritted my teeth with rage, for I had not forgotten how he
treated me before; but he came up to me in so kind a manner, and
inquired so affectionately after my health, and seemed to feel such a
real interest in me, that I swallowed all his blarney and coaxing, and
at last agreed to stop with him again for the night that I would be in
the city, intending, the moment that we should be paid off next day, to
steer straight for my old mother, if, mayhap, my cruelty had not broken
her heart; and moreover, determining not to drink a drop of liquor in
his house.
TOM. Dear Jack, I trust that you were able to keep that resolution.
JACK. You shall hear, Tom. When we got to old Peter's, I found, as
usual, a good many people in the house; and the old woman and the girls
were rejoiced to see me again, as they made out. The old woman at once
proposed that we should celebrate my safe return in the big punch-bowl;
but Peter said, "No, Jack has turned cold-water man, and he can't drink;
but we'll drink for him." I observed that Peter sneered whilst he said
this, and so did all the rest, and it galled me a good deal. While the
punch was brewing, some of the men whispered, "_White-liver_"--"_poor
sneak_"--"_no sailor_;" and after the punch had passed round amongst
them once or twice, I thought I would just take _one swig_, to show them
that I was not the poor sneak they took me for, and no more. But, Tom,
that one swig sealed my doom: THE DANGER'S ALWAYS IN THE FIRST GLASS.
The men cheered, and said they knew I was a man, and a _real seaman_, by
the cut of my jib, and that I was too good for the Temperance Society;
and the girls cast sheep's-eyes at me, and said that I was just the chap
to run away with a woman's heart, and that my eyes were not made for the
good of my soul, and such-like foolish and wicked talk. My weak head
could not stand the punch, nor my vain heart the flattery, and I was
soon regularly used up. Instead of having a dollar to take home to my
poor old mother, I found myself, in a few days, the second time
penniless; was forced to ship again; got back; the same scenes were
acted over; and here I am, the miserable wretch that you see me--light
in purse, sick in body, and tormented in mind; the past a curse, the
future despair.
TOM. Well, Jack, I must say, that your case is hard enough. But don't
despair, my boy. Many a poor fellow who has hung to a plank in mid-ocean
until he thought it was surely all over with him, has been picked up and
saved. The same kind Providence who has watched over us, and preserved
us in so many dangers, will not desert us. What we have to do is, to
turn from every evil way, and humbly trusting in the merits of Christ
our Saviour, look up to him for mercy, repent of all sin, and resolve,
in his strength, to fear and obey him in future. And I trust, Jack, that
all will yet be well with you; and I rejoice that I have wherewithal to
give you a lift towards fitting you out, and heading you off towards
your old mother.
JACK. A thousand thanks, Tom--a thousand thanks. "A friend in need is a
friend indeed." You have lightened my mind of a heavy cargo of care by
your kind offer, made with the frankness of a sailor, and which I must
gratefully accept. And now that I have finished my long and mournful
yarn, it is your turn; and to tell the truth, Tom, I am exceedingly
anxious to hear all about you. So heave ahead.
TOM. Well, Jack, here goes. You know when we left the Alert we had
plenty of rhino in our pockets. So I intended to steer straight for my
native village, in the state of Pennsylvania, where I had left my old
father and a sweet, dear little sister, three years before, to cheer
their hearts with a sight of their sailor-boy, and to make them
comfortable with the cash. Unfortunately, as I passed through
Philadelphia, I went with some wild fellows to the theatre--to so many
the gateway to hell--and having grog enough aboard to make me pretty
crank and foolish, I soon found myself in the third tier among the
painted fire-ships; and as the proverb says, "When the wine is in, the
wit is out," so I was led as the simple one of Scripture, "like an ox to
the slaughter." Truly, Jack, "her house is the way to hell, going down
to the chambers of death." The consequences you may readily imagine. I
was made to drink until I was quite insensible; was robbed of all my
money, and then turned out of doors into the cold street. When I came to
myself it was nearly sunrise, and I could not imagine how I had got
there. My head swam, my bones ached, and I felt as if it was "blue
Monday" with me. I staggered off not knowing where I was or whither I
went, for half an hour or more, when I sat down on a flight of steps,
and fell asleep. When I awoke, all the horrors of my situation rushed
upon my mind; and O, Jack, I felt the raging hell in my bosom that you
did when Hardheart first shipped you off. How sunk and degraded in my
own eyes. I determined, however, upon going home, as the distance was
short--only fifteen miles--and a bitter journey it was, Jack. I thought
on my madness and folly, and wondered, with the poor ignorant Indian,
why people would put an enemy into their mouths to steal away their
brains. Instead of going to meet my dear father and sweet little sister
with a joyous face and a pocket full of money, with which to make their
hearts sing for joy, I was returning, like the prodigal son, from
feeding upon husks with swine--poor, and with a heavy heart and a
gnawing conscience. O the hell, Jack, of a bad conscience. It is the
beginning of the existence of the worm that never dies, and of the fire
that is never quenched. It is a foretaste of that eternal hell prepared
for those who persist in violating God's holy laws. Well, I reached home
at last, and a sad home I found it. The sand of my dear father's glass
was almost run out--the poor old man was about slipping his cable. But
O, Jack, how happy he looked; and so calm and resigned to the will of
his heavenly Father, as he said--ready to set sail on the great voyage
of eternity, or to stay and weather more of the rough gales of adversity
in this life, just as God pleased. He held out his thin, white hand to
me, and welcomed his boy, and thanked the Lord that he had given him a
sight of me before his eyes were scaled in death. My poor sister hung
weeping on my neck. But, Jack, bad as I then felt, I felt a thousand
times worse when my dear old father beckoned me to him, and laying his
hand on my head, prayed that God--his God, the Friend who had stood by
him in every gale and tempest of life, and proved true to him till the
last--would bless his dear boy Thomas, and take him into his especial
keeping, and lead him to the blessed Jesus; and finally, when the voyage
of life was over, that we all three might join the dear mother who had
gone before us, at the right hand of the throne of God, to bless and
praise his holy name for ever. He then put Susan's hand into mine, and
blessed us both again, and said, "Thomas, I leave this dear, precious
girl with you; watch over her, cherish and protect her, and be to her
both father and brother. May the great God bless you, my dear children,
and make you his. I have but little time to say more, for the icy hand
of death is on me; my Saviour beckons, and I must away. Come, Lord
Jesus." With these words the glorified spirit of my beloved father
winged its flight to mansions in the skies--to that "rest prepared for
the people of God;" and I was left with my weeping sister, almost
stupefied with grief. Three days after, the clods of the valley covered
the mortal remains of my honored parent, and then poor Sue and I felt
that we were all in all to each other. I told her of all my troubles,
and that I had robbed her by my vileness; but the dear girl kissed me,
and said, "Dear brother, do not mourn on my account; I am young and
healthy, and can easily support myself by my needle; but mourn on your
own account--mourn over your sins, and your ingratitude to the great
Being who has upheld you and preserved you in so many dangers, known and
unknown, on the mighty deep. And promise me, dear brother, that you will
never touch another drop of liquor again; it will be the first step
towards reformation."
JACK. Poor dear girl. Of course, Tom, you promised?
TOM. Aye, aye, Jack, I did promise; and what's more, I kept my promise.
But you must know how I was able to do it. Before I left the village a
great Temperance-meeting was held there, and several of the friends of
the cause delivered addresses, in which they showed so clearly and
conclusively the great evils resulting from the use of spirituous
liquors, that nearly every body in the village signed the pledge of
total abstinence--at least, all of the respectable part of the
community, and even a good many sots who had been given up as
incorrigible. O Jack, if you had heard the awful accounts they gave of
broken-hearted wives and beggared children; of the widows and orphans
made by rum; of the misery and degradation attendant upon it; of the
crimes committed under its influence--robbery, murder, suicide--leading
to the penitentiary, the gallows, and death, it would have made your
blood freeze in your veins. And these accounts were all true, Jack, for
many of the horrible scenes had taken place about the neighborhood.
JACK. I don't doubt it at all, Tom. And moreover, I believe that not one
half of the misery caused by rum--no, not the thousandth part, is ever
known by the public. Many an injured wife and suffering and ruined child
have concealed the history of their woes from the eye and ear of the
world, and buried their sorrows deep in their own bosoms.