John learned to handle an _oath_ quite fluently, while Charlie was one Sunday morning discovered playing _euchre_ with Will on the hay loft, where they kept their cards hidden. But all this was nothing compared to the night when both the boys were brought home so intoxicated that neither of them was able to stand alone or speak! They had been to a “raising,” where the brandy bottle circulated freely, Will, as a matter of course, drinking from the beginning. Charlie, however, hesitated until they taunted him with “being afraid of the old deacon,” daring him “to drink and be a _man_.” Then he yielded, and with fiendish pleasure the crowd gathered around, urging him on, until he was undeniably drunk; after which they chuckled with delight as they wondered what the “blue Presbyterian” would say. We were sitting down to supper when they brought him home, and the moment mother saw him, she darted forward, exclaiming, “Is he dead? Tell me, is my boy dead?” “Yes, _dead—drunk_,” answered the man, with a cold, ironical sneer at her distress. _He_ was used to it, for of five noble sons who once called him their father, four slept in a drunkard’s grave, and the fifth had far better have been there than the wreck he was. My father had risen from his seat, but at the words “he is drunk,” he dropped upon the floor as if scathed with the lightning’s stroke. You who think it a light matter—the holding of the wine-cup to the lips of your neighbor’s child—you should have seen my father that night, as moan after moan of anguish came from his pale lips, while the great drops of perspiration stood thickly upon his forehead and about his mouth. The effect it had upon him was terrible; crushing him to the earth, and weaving in among his hitherto brown locks more than one thread of silver. Once when Charlie was with me, I heard him in the barn, praying that the promise of a covenant God might be remembered towards him, and that his son might yet be saved. Charlie’s feelings were touched, and dropping on his knees at my side he made a solemn vow that never again should ardent spirits of any kind pass his lips; and God, who heard that vow mingled with my father’s prayer, registered it in Heaven, and from that day to this, amid all the temptations which come to early manhood, it has been unbroken.