me the mother of the girl, then a brother and sister, and then
the girl herself. She kissed the cold brow of her father, then
kneeling she took up the disfigured hand and kissed it over and over
again. My boy, your mother has suffered more for you than that father
did for his daughter. I beg you, go home and kiss your mother. If she
is dead or far from you, kiss her memory. Go to your bed room, kneel
there, and pray God to help you to live worthy the love of your
mother.

I now turn from young men to parents and say, use every means possible
to make safe the way of your boys. Some years ago in one of our
cities, after a lecture in which I appealed to parents, a leading
merchant of the city said: "I wish I had heard that lecture years
ago."

"You never used liquor?" I said.

"No, but I am responsible for its use in my family. I am a Methodist,
and a total abstainer. In my employ I had a number of clerks, and let
it be known I would not allow any of them to drink even moderately.
One day a man came to my store with a paper in his hand and said: 'I
want to set up a saloon on the next block and I am getting signers to
my petition. I am one of your customers; you know me and know I will
keep an orderly place.' I said to myself, 'if he doesn't sell others
will and we need the revenue anyway,' so I signed the petition. A few
months later I chanced to see my youngest boy and one of my clerks
coming out of the door of that saloon. Soon after when they entered
the store I called them into my office and said: 'Young men, did I see
you coming out of a saloon, and had you been taking a drink in there?'
When they admitted they had, I said to my son: 'Did I ever set such an
example for you to follow?' He answered: 'No, father, but you signed
that man's petition to set up the saloon; whom did you expect him to
sell to? Did you sign it for him to sell to other fathers' sons and
not yours?' I realized as never before the wrong I had done, not only
to my own son, but to every father's son to whom that saloon-keeper
would sell if they had the money to pay for liquor. I said: "Forgive
me, my boy. Promise me you will never enter a saloon again and I
promise never to sign a petition or vote to have a saloon-keeper sell
to anybody's boy!"

But it was too late; that boy went to ruin and carried his old father
to financial ruin with him. The store was sold and the father went on
to a little farm in Missouri, where he died a disappointed,
g