LITMIR.BIZ

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Meshach, and Abed-nego knew it would have been wrong; and so they refused. And what was the consequence? Why, the names of those three heroes, for heroes they certainly were, have been recorded in the Bible, and translated into every language under heaven, and to this day we hold them up as examples for our sons to follow.

      Reader, if you and I resist the devil, and overcome temptation, there is no likelihood of our names being written in the Bible. No children yet unborn will read the records of our history; no scholar will translate the story into other tongues. But our names, and the account of the temptation, and how we resisted it, will all be written down in the Lamb's great Book of Life. And is it not worth striving against any temptation in order to obtain such honour? Is it not worth while bearing witness for Jesus, if in return we wear the martyr's crown? But I would have you look higher than this. Jesus Christ died to save us; and should we not be grateful to Him for that? It is very little we can do for Him Who has done all for us. But we can do this. The weakest, and the poorest, and the most sinful among us can, when the temptation comes, put up a prayer to Jesus to ask His gracious help. And I know of none shorter, and certainly of none better, than the words He Himself has taught us--"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen[#]."

      [#] S. Matt. vi. 13.

DRINK.

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      "When you see a drunken sot

      From out the tavern reel,

      Be thankful for a better lot,

      And turn not on your heel.

      Go warn him of the dreadful glass,

      And save him, if you can;

      But never scorn him as you pass--

      Remember he's a man."

       John Burbidge.

      Drink! Why is it that when we speak that word we instinctively tremble? Is it not because we feel that it is the great enemy of our country and our race? Is it not because we call to mind strong men and women reeling under its influences? Neglected homes, ragged children, and general wants rise up before our eyes at the first mention of that word, Drink! Have you ever been in any of our large towns late on a Saturday night, and watched a woman waiting patiently outside a public house for the drunken husband, who is spending his time and his wages within? Perhaps there is a babe at her breast, and a ragged child crying at her side. Crying! yes, crying, because it knows that this means no supper, no comfort, no peace. It is an awful sight. I don't know any sight more sad; no not even a weeping mother mourning her only son.

      Look into the newspapers again, week after week filled with cases of drunkenness. A horrible murder is committed; and if it should be peculiarly brutal in its details, we are almost certain to find that the murderer was drunk. Yes, it is drink that fills our prisons to overflowing; it is drink that fills the mad-houses of the country; and it is drink which indirectly taxes every single member of the society in which we live. Then, again, drunkenness leads to the commission of countless other sins. Apart from sins committed under the influence of drink, there are many sins to which drink leads. I have known a case in which a woman, who began life with high motives and honest intentions, being afflicted with a great and deep sorrow, was advised by her friends to seek consolation in drink. The glass which she then took led to another, and that one to another, and so on, until to-day that woman is pronounced by those very friends to be a hopeless and confirmed drunkard. As I said, before she took to drink her character was good; now it is far otherwise. And I am told that so great are her thefts, that everything in that house has to be kept under lock and key.

      Oh, don't you think that is a terrible picture of the influence of drink? Don't you think that at the Day of Judgment God will blame the friends, however kindly they may have meant it, who first advised her to drown her grief in drink? Reader, that is a true story. It is no made-up tale. That poor woman is well known to me; and so far as I can see, the few years more she may have to live, and they cannot be many, must be passed in sorrow, in suffering, and in pain. And, unhappily, this curse of our nation does not end in our own land. Wherever the English tongue is spoken, wherever the English foot treads, there the curse follows. From the swarthy African, who knows the white man's "fire-water," which maddens his brain and dulls his senses, to the red Indian warrior who changes the skins of wild beasts for English gold and English spirits on the shores of Lake Ontario, all men know of the Englishman's curse: and knowing, learn to dread it.

      It is drink which destroys our navy and our army alike. It is drunkenness which saps the strength of many of our greatest minds before they have left the university. And what can I say of our country villages,--of our young men, who year by year are growing up and beginning for themselves the labour of life; of the boys who, almost as soon as they leave school, learn, in many cases, to follow the example of their elders, and find the public house a convenient meeting-place?

      It is for the young men of England to redeem their country's honour. It is for every individual soul to do battle with this mighty foe. Let the work be begun in our villages, in our homes, in ourselves. Let us be moderate in our living, in eating and in drinking; and then, by example rather than by precept, by deed rather than by word, we shall have done what we could; and when we lie down in death, it will be our comfort to reflect that little as it was we did, and poor and weak as were the efforts of our heart, we did it to the Lord and not unto men.

IDLE WORDS.

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      "O, never say a careless word

      Hath not the power to pain,

      The shaft may ope some hidden wound

      That closes not again.

      Weigh well those light-winged messengers;

      God marked thy needless word,

      And with it, too, the falling tear,

      The heart-pang that it stirred."

       Anna Shipton.

      Our Lord, in S. Matthew's Gospel, tells us "that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment[#]." Now there are so many forms of speech which may be called "idle words," that I think it would be best to consider each separately. And so we will divide them under three heads. 1. Needless words. 2. Impure words. 3. Careless words.

      [#] S. Matt. xii. 36.

      1. Now all "idle words" are needless. You may be sure of this, that if God had made, as He has made, many expressions necessary to our ordinary conversation or adapted to our daily wants, such could never be "idle words." I do not mean to say, nor would I have you think by this, that any expressions of joy or merriment, that any of the amusing stories we hear, or any of the ordinary conversation of life, comes under the head of "idle words." But what I do mean by "idle words" and needless words is all that we commonly call gossip. Now gossip is quite needless. It is generally taken up with talk about our neighbours; rarely, very rarely, is any thing said in their favour--most often are their characters blackened. Now you know it is so easy often to say an unkind thing of a person, and so hard to say a kind one, that men prefer the easier method, and the character suffers thereby. But would this be so, think you, if we always remembered that for these and such like "idle words" God would bring us into judgment?

      2. Then again there are impure words and swearing. Now I daresay when you swear you don't think of what it means. When you turn round upon a fellow man and curse him, it does not occur to you that you have solemnly called upon God to give his soul over to everlasting damnation. God Almighty alone can tell what effect that curse, so carelessly spoken, may have. I cannot and do not believe that it will affect the soul of him against whom it is launched. But I do believe, for God

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