Father Hyatt's Story.
IF you had known Charlie P., and had seen his little struggle, and
had felt as I did the anguish caused by his tragic death, you would
not talk of moderate drinking as a remedy for intemperance.
I was away from my parish when I first heard of it. I very well
remember the start with which I read the first line of the note,
"Charlie P-- is dead;" and how after I had finished the account,
written in haste and partaking of the confusion of the hour, the
letter dropped from my hands, and I sat in the gathering darkness of
the summer twilight, rehearsing to myself the story of his life, and
the sad, sad story of his tragic death. Years have passed since, but
the whole is impressed upon my memory in figures that time cannot
fade. If I were an artist, I could paint his portrait, I am sure, as
I see him even now. Such a grand, open-hearted, whole-souled fellow
as he was.
It was about a year before that I first saw him in my church. His
peculiar gait as he walked up the center aisle, first attracted my
attention. He carried a stout cane and walked a little lame. His
wife was with him. Indeed, except at his office, I rarely saw them
apart. She loved him with an almost idolatrous affection; as well
she might, for he was the most lovable man I ever knew; and he loved
her with a tenderness almost womanly. I think he never for a moment
forgot that it was her assiduous nursing which saved his life. His
face attracted me from the first, and I rather think I called on the
new-comers that very week. At all events we soon became fast
friends, and at the very next communion husband and wife united with
my church by letter from --, but no matter where; I had best give
neither names nor dates. They lived in a quite, simple way, going
but little into society, for they were society to each other. They
rarely spent an evening out, if I except the weekly prayer-meeting.
They came together to that. He very soon went into the
Sabbath-school. A Bible-class of young people gathered about him as
if by magic. He had just the genial way, the social qualities, and
the personal magnetism to draw the young to him. I used to look
about sometimes with a kind of envy at the eager attentive faces of
his class.
Judge of my surprise when, one day, a warm friend of Charlie's came
to me, privately, and said, "Charlie P. is drinking."
"Impossible," said I.
"Alas!" said he, "it is too true. I have talked with him time and
again. He promises reform, but keeps no promise. His wife is almost
broken-hearted, but carries her burden alone. You have influence
with him, more than any one else I think. I want you to see him and
talk with him."
I promised, of course. I made the effort, but without success. I
called once or twice at his office. He was always immersed in
business. I called at his house. But I never could see him alone. I
was really and greatly perplexed, when he relieved me of my
perplexity. Perhaps he suspected my design. At all events one
morning he surprised me by a call at my study. He opened the subject
at once himself.
"Pastor," said he, "I have come to talk with you about myself. I am
bringing shame on the Church and disgrace on my family. You know all
about it. Everybody knows all about it. I wonder that the children
do not point at me in the street as I go along. Oh! my poor wife! my
poor wife! what shall I do?"
He was intensely excited. I suspected that he had been drinking to
nerve himself to what he regarded as a disagreeable but unavoidable
duty. I calmed him as well as I could, and he told me his story.
He was formerly a temperate though never a total abstinence man. He
was employed on a railroad in some capacity-express messenger I
think. The cars ran off the track. That in which he was sitting was
thrown down an embankment. He was dreadfully bruised and mangled,
and was taken up for dead. It seemed at first as though he had
hardly a whole bone in his body; but by one of those marvelous
freaks, as we account them, which defeat all physicians'
calculations, he survived. Gradually he rallied. For twelve months
he lived on stimulants. His wife's assiduous nursing through these
twelve months of anxiety prostrated her upon a bed of sickness. From
his couch he arose, as he supposed, to go through life on crutches.
But returning strength had enabled him to substitute a cane. Her
attack of typhoid fever left her an invalid, never to be strong
again. Alas! his twelve months' use of stimulants had kindled a fire
within him which it seemed impossible to quench.
"I cannot do my work," said he, "without a little, and a little is
enough to overset me. I am not a hard drinker, Pastor, indeed I am
not. But half a glass of liquor will sometimes almost craze me."
I told him he must give up the little. For him there was but one
course of safety, that of total abstinence. He was reluctant to come
to it. His father's sideboard was never empty. It was hard to put
aside the notions of hospitality which he had learned in his
childhood, and adopt the principles of a total abstinence, which he
had always been taught to ridicule. However, he resolved bravely,
and went away from my study, as I fondly hoped, a saved man.
I had not then learned, as I have since, the meaning of the
declaration, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."
I saw him every few days. He never showed any signs of liquor. I
asked him casually, as I had opportunity, how he was getting along.
He always answered, "Well." I sounded others cautiously. No one
suspected him of any evil habit. I concluded he had conquered it.
Though I did not lose him from my thoughts or prayers, I grew less
anxious. He kept his Bible-class, which grew in numbers and in
interest. Spring came, and I relaxed a little my labors, as that
climate-no matter where it was, to me the climate was bad
enough-required it. Despite the caution, the subtle malaria laid
hold of me. I fought for three weeks a hard battle with disease.
When I arose from my bed the doctor forbade all study and all work
for six weeks at least. No minister can rest in his own parish. My
people understood that, as parishes do not always. One bright spring
day, one of my deacons called, and put a sealed envelope into my
hand to be opened when he had left. It contained a check for my
traveling expenses, and an official note from the officers of the
church bidding me go and spend it. In three days I was on my way to
the White Mountains. It was there my wife's hurried note told me the
story of Charlie's death. And this was it:
The habit had proved too strong for his weak will. He had resumed
drinking. No one knew it but his wife and one confidential friend.
He rarely took much; never so much as to be brutal at home, or unfit
for business at the office; but enough to prove to him that he was
not his own master. The shame of his bondage he felt keenly,
powerless as he felt himself to break the chains. The week after I
left home his wife left also for a visit to her father's. She took
the children, one a young babe three months old, with her. Mr. P.
was to follow her in a fortnight. She never saw him again. One night
he went to his solitary home. Possibly he had been drinking-no one
ever knew-opened his photograph album, covered his own photograph
with a piece of an old envelope, that it might no longer look upon
the picture of his wife on the opposite page, and wrote her, on a
scrap of paper torn from a letter, this line of farewell:
"I have fought the battle as long as I can. It is no use. I will not
suffer my wife and children to share with me a drunkard's shame.
God-bye. God have mercy on you and me."
The next morning, long after the streets had resumed their
accustomed activity, and other houses threw wide open their shutters
to admit the fragrance of flowers, and the song of birds, and the
glad sunshine, and all the joy of life, that house was shut and
still. When the office clerk, missing him, came to seek him, the
door was fast. Neighbors were called in. A window was forced open.
Lying upon the bed, where he had fallen the night before, lay poor
Charlie P. A few drops of blood stained the white coverlet. It oozed
from a bullet wound in the back of his head. The hand in death still
grasped the pistol that fired the fatal shot.