ndred little school boys
who think it manly to ape the follies of their predecessors. Back of
them, one hundred thousand little toddlers whose feet stagger in their
innocent helplessness. Back of them, one hundred thousand mothers with
babies in their arms. Oh, how sweetly those baby eyes look up into the
loving eyes that are brooding over them. Is it possible those baby brows
will ever lie low in the gutter, those sweet lips be stained by oath or
glass; those crumpled rose-leaf fingers ever strike the murderous blow
incited by alcohol? It must be, if that front rank of one hundred
thousand drunkards is to be recruited, for the drunkards of the future
are to-day babies in their mother's arms. Do you who read these words
intend to join this vast army of prospective drunkards, or will you
belong to the cold-water army that is marching on accompanied by health,
vigor, industry, prosperity, success and long life?

We must not be so interested in the inheritance of evil qualities as to
forget the transmission of good. We read in Exodus, twentieth chapter,
that the sins of the fathers are to be visited upon the children unto
the third and fourth generations of them that hate the Lord, but mercy
will be shown to _thousands of generations_ of them that love Him and
keep his commandments. As we have seen the sins of the fathers are
visited upon the children in transmission of diseased bodies, perverted
moral natures and weakened wills, and realize that the promise is being
fulfilled in the visitation of the sins of the fathers upon the
children, let us see if the other promise is being fulfilled also, in
the mercy shown to thousands of them that love the Lord and keep His
commandments.

An English specialist in children's diseases has carefully noted the
difference between twelve families of drinkers and twelve families of
sober parents during a period of twelve years.

INTEMPERATE. | TEMPERATE.
|
Produced 57 children; 25 died in | Produced 61 children; 6 died
the first week of life. These | in first week, of weakness.
deaths due to convulsions, or | 4 had curable diseases. 2
oedema of brain and membranes. | showed inherited nervous defects.
2 were idiots. 5 dwarfs. 5 | This leaves 50 who were in
epileptics. 1 had chorea. 5 were | every way normal, sound in body
deformed. 2 became drunkards. | and mind.
This leaves onl