stle harvest that society reaps every year is
fearfully great, and the seed from which too large a portion of this
harvest comes is its drinking customs. Men of observation and
intelligence everywhere give this testimony with one consent. All
around us, day and night, year by year, in palace and hovel, the
gathering of this sad and bitter harvest goes on--the harvest of broken
hearts and ruined lives. And still the hand of the sower is not stayed.
Refined and lovely women and men of low and brutal instincts, church
members and scoffers at religion, stately gentlemen and vulgar clowns,
are all at work sowing the baleful seed that ripens, alas! too quickly
its fruit of woe. The _home saloon_ vies with the common licensed
saloon in its allurements and attractions, and men who would think
themselves degraded by contact with those who for gain dispense liquor
from a bar have a sense of increased respectability as they preside
over the good wine and pure spirits they offer to their guests in
palace homes free of cost.

We are not indulging in forms of rhetoric. To do so would only weaken
the force of our warning. What we have written is no mere fancy work.
The pictures thrown upon our canvas with all the power of vivid
portraiture that we possess are but feeble representations of the
tragic scenes that are enacted in society year by year, and for which
every member of society who does not put his hand to the work of reform
is in some degree responsible.

We are not developing a romance, but trying, as just said, to give from
real life some warning pictures. Our task is nearly done. A few more
scenes, and then our work will be laid for the present aside.

There are men who never seem to comprehend the lesson of events or to
feel the pressure of personal responsibility. They drift with the tide,
doing as their neighbors do, and resting satisfied. The heroism of
self-sacrifice or self-denial is something to which they cannot rise.
Nothing is farther from their ambition than the role of a reformer.
Comfortable, self-indulgent, placid, they move with the current and
manage to keep away from its eddies. Such a man was Mr. Birtwell. He
knew of some of the disasters that followed so closely upon his grand
entertainment, but refused to connect therewith any personal
responsibility. It was unfortunate, of course, that these things should
have happened with him, but he was no more to blame for them than if
they had happened with his