Two of the sons of this unhappy man have gone down to death in an awful
manner. Another, in an affray occasioned by intoxication, received such
an injury in the head that his intellect has suffered, and he is subject
to fits of partial derangement. The other two are very intemperate; one
of them apparently lost to all sense of shame.
The circumstances attending the death of one of these young men were
extraordinary. He had become subject to fits in consequence of his
intemperate life; and his wife following the same course, they were
obliged to give up keeping a public-house, and he maintained himself by
fishing. He frequently stopped colored people and others who were
advertised as runaways, and obtained a reward for returning them to
their masters. He was brutally cruel in his treatment of those who thus
fell into his hands, and on one occasion, having apprehended a young
colored man on suspicion of his being a runaway, he confined him; and
taking him in a boat to his master--who had sent him from home on
business--as he was returning, he fell from the boat, probably in a fit,
and sunk like lead into the mighty waters. On the following day search
was made for his body, which was found swollen and disfigured, and laid
in the grave.
His brother, the youngest of the five, had not reached his twentieth
year, but had given himself up to the influence of the vice which has
proved the destruction of his family, until he also was subject to fits.
Not many months ago he was seized with one, being then intoxicated; he
was recovered by the by-standers, and crawled to a small sloop lying
partly on the shore for repairs: he laid himself down there, and was
found, ten minutes afterwards, _dead_, with his head partly under water.
It was supposed that another fit had seized him, and that in his
struggle he had fallen and suffocated.
This is a melancholy history, but a true one. Many circumstances
rendering it more striking are suppressed, as some of the parties are
living. The old man, but a short time ago, was warned again, and the
question put to him, "What are the benefits of this practice?" "It
_fattens graveyards_!" he replied, with a distorted countenance and a
horrid laugh.
Yes, such are the dire results of intemperance; and of intemperance not
born with one, but brought on by a temperate use of ardent spirit. These
facts are well known. They are published with the hope of their proving
a restraint to some one who, trusting in the strength of principle, may
occasionally taste this destructive poison.
"Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in the
cup, when it moveth itself aright: at the last it biteth like a serpent,
and stingeth like an adder." Go to God for strength to resist
temptation; practise entire abstinence from all that can intoxicate;
repent of sin, and trust in the mercy of Christ; and you shall be safe
for the present life, and that which is to come.
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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