t of alcohol absorbed. The
average number of beats of the heart, allowing for its slower action
during sleep, is 100,000 beats per day. Under a small supply of alcohol
this rose to 127,000, and in actual intoxication to 131,000.

The flush upon the cheek is only a token of the same fact within; every
organ is congested. The brain has been examined under such circumstances,
and "looked as if injected with vermilion ... the membrane covering both
brains resembling a delicate web of coagulated red blood, so tensely were
its fine vessels engorged."

At a later stage the muscular power is paralyzed, the rule of mind over
body suspended, and a heavy, brutal sleep comes, long or short according
to the amount taken. This is the extreme of alcoholism, and death the only
ending to it, as a habitual condition. Alcohol seems a necessary evil; for
that its occasional beneficence can modify or neutralize the long list of
woe and crime and brutality following in its train, is more than doubtful.

"Whatever good can come from alcohol, or whatever evil, is all included in
that primary physiological and luxurious action of the agent upon the
nervous supply of the circulation.... If it be really a luxury for the
heart to be lifted up by alcohol, for the blood to course more swiftly
through the brain, for the thoughts to flow more vehemently, for words to
come more fluently, for emotions to rise ecstatically, and for life to
rush on beyond the pace set by nature; then those who enjoy the luxury
must enjoy it--with the consequences."

And now, at the end of our talks together, friends, there is yet another
word. Much must remain unsaid in these narrow limits; but they are wide
enough, I hope, to have given the key by which you may find easy entrance
to the mysteries we all may know, indeed must, if our lives are truly
lived. If through intemperance, in meat or drink, in feeling or thought,
you lessen bodily or mental power, you alone are accountable, whether
ignorant or not. Only in a never-failing self-control can safety ever be.
Temperance is the foundation of high living; and here is its definition,
by one whose own life holds it day by day:--

"Temperance is personal cleanliness; is modesty; is quietness; is
reverence for one's elders and betters; is deference to one's mother and
sisters; is gentleness; is courage; is the withholding from all which
leads to excess in daily living; is the eating and drinking only of that
which will i