ill do, while
you are thus once-in-a-way drunk? I, an old sailor, and not an over
strait-laced one either, do warn most solemnly you young midshipmen, and
others, who may read my memoirs, that numbers have had to rue most
bitterly, all their after lives, that once-in-a-way getting drunk, or, I
may say, taking more than a moderate allowance of liquor. Many fine
promising young fellows, who have at first shown no signs of caring for
liquor, have ultimately become addicted to drinking, from that most
dangerous habit of _taking a nip_ whenever they have an opportunity.

"But why call that a dangerous habit?" shipmates have asked me. "A nip
is only _just a taste_ of spirits, raw it may be, or perhaps even
watered. It's a capital thing for the stomach, and keeps out cold, and
saves many a fellow from illness."

So it may, say I. But it is the nip extra I dread, with good reason;
the nip when no such necessity exists, or rather excuse, for a man may
pass years without positively requiring spirits to preserve his health.
However, not to weary my readers with the subject, I will conclude it,
by urging them to be most watchful, lest they take the first step in
this or any other vice. How many fall, because they think that vice is
manly. Which is the most manly person, he who yields to his foes, or he
who, with his back to a tree, boldly keeps them at bay? No greater foes
to a man's happiness and prosperity than his vices--or sin. No man can
expect to escape being attacked by sin, and those who are its slaves
already cry out, "Yield to it; yield to it. It's a pleasant master.
Just try its yoke; you can get free, you know, whenever you like."

Never was a greater falsehood uttered, or one more evidently invented by
the father of lies. The yoke of sin is most galling; it is the hardest
of task-masters. The people who talk thus do their utmost to hide their
chains, to conceal their sufferings, which giving way to sin has brought
upon them. Do not trust to them, whatever their rank or character in
the world. I would urge you from the highest of motives, from love for
the Saviour who died for you, not to give way to sin; and I would point
out to you how utterly low, and degrading, and unmanly it is to yield to
such a foe--a foe so base and cowardly, that if you make any real effort
to withstand him, he will fly before you. Don't be ashamed to pray for
help through Him, and you are not on equal terms unless you do. That