regard for the minister, or some other weak temperance
man, you have the decanter in a side-room, where, after refreshments,
only a select few are invited; and you come back with a glare in your
eye, and a stench in your breath, that shows that you have been out
serving the devil.

Some one asks, "For what purpose are these people gone into that
side-room?"

"O," replies one who has just come out, smacking his lips, "they have
gone in to see the white dog!"

The excuse which Christian men often give for this is, that it is
necessary, after such late eating, by some sort of stimulant to help
digestion. My plain opinion is, that if a man have no more control
over his appetite than to stuff himself until his digestive organs
refuse to do their office, he ought not to call himself a man, but
rather to class himself among the beasts that perish. I take the words
of the Lord Almighty, and cry, "Woe to him that putteth the bottle to
his neighbor's lips!"

Young man, take it as the counsel of a friend, when I bid you _be
cautious where you spend your winter evenings_. Thank God that you
have lived to see the glad winter days in which your childhood was
made cheerful by the faces of fathers and mothers, brothers and
sisters, some of whom, alas! will never again wish you a "happy New
Year," or a "Merry Christmas."

Let no one tempt you out of your sobriety. I have seen respectable
young men of the best families drunk on New Year's day. The excuse
they gave for the inebriation was that the _ladies_ insisted on their
taking it. There have been instances where the delicate hand of woman
hath kindled a young man's taste for strong drink, who after many
years, when the attractions of that holiday scene were all forgotten,
crouched in her rags, and her desolation, and her woe under the
uplifted hand of the drunken monster who, on that Christmas morning
so long ago, took the glass from her hand. And so, the woman stands on
the abutment of the bridge, on the moon-lit night, wondering if, down
under the water, there is not some quiet place for a broken heart. She
takes one wild leap,--and all is over!

Ah! mingle not with the harmless beverage of your festive scene this
poison of adders! Mix not with the white sugar of the cup the snow
of this awful leprosy! Mar not the clatter of cutlery at the holiday
feast with the clank of a madman's chain!

Stop and look into the window of that pawnbroker's shop. Elegant furs.
Elegant watc