heart
sickened at his wife's story, and not without cause. They had but two
children, Samuel and Betty. Samuel worked in the pits; his sister, who
was a year younger, was employed at the factory. Poor children! their
lot had been a sad one indeed. As a neighbour said, "yon lad and wench
of Johnson's haven't been _brought_ up, they've been _dragged_ up." It
was too true; half fed and worse clothed, a good constitution struggled
up against neglect and bad usage; no prayer was ever taught them by a
mother's lips; they never knew the wholesome stimulant of a sober
father's smile; their scanty stock of learning had been picked up
chiefly at a night-school; in the Sunday school they had learned to read
their Bibles, though but imperfectly, and were never more happy than
when singing with their companions the hymns which they had practised
together. They were specially dear to one another; and in one thing had
ever been in the strictest agreement, they would never taste that drink
which had made their own home so miserable and desolate.

About a fortnight before our story opens, Langhurst had been placarded
with bills announcing that an able and well-known total abstinence
advocate would give an address in the parish schoolroom. Many went to
hear, and among them Samuel and Betty Johnson. Young and old were urged
to sign the pledge. The speaker pictured powerfully a drunkard's home--
he showed how the drink enticed its victims to their ruin like a
cheating fiend plucking the sword of resistance from their grasp while
it smiled upon them. He urged the young to begin at once, to put the
barrier of the pledge between themselves and the peculiar and subtle
array of tempters and temptations which hedged them in on all sides. In
the pledge they had something to point to which could serve as an answer
to those who could not or would not hear reason. He showed the _joy_ of
a home into which the drink had never found an entrance--total
abstinence was safety--"never to taste" was "never to crave." He
painted the vigour of a mind unclouded from earliest years by alcoholic
stimulants; he pointed to the blessing under God of a child's steady
practical protest, as a Christian abstainer, against the fearful sin
which deluged our land with misery and crime, and swept away every spark
of joy and peace from the hearthstones of thousands of English homes.
Every word went deep into the hearts of Samuel and his sister: the
drunkard's h