The American Missionary — Volume 36, No. 8, August 1882Various
History
The American Missionary — Volume 36, No. 8, August 1882
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
The children are beginning to think of these things. If Ted and
his band should follow the sun, and gather all the temperance
boys and girls they could find on their way, when they reached
the Mississippi their army would be nearly as large as that other
army of young crusaders who started out to rescue the Holy Land
from desecration. Ask papa or mamma where you will find that story
to read for yourselves. I have only time to tell you of a little
company that would join this army when it stopped by the great
river to rest and get ready to cross into Arkansas, where a host
of eager recruits are learning to be loyal to home and honor and
temperance.
This Memphis company, only one of several in the city, are little
people, six, seven, eight and nine years old. Most of them had
learned to like the taste of whisky from eating the sugar left
in glasses after older people had taken a morning toddy, or from
sipping egg-nog Christmas week. Their teacher illustrated the evil
effects of alcohol by pouring a little into a saucer and dropping
a lighted match into it. As the blue flame blazed up, the children
thought it was not safe to take so dangerous an element into their
mouths. Another day they saw some alcohol poured upon the white of
an egg, and the teacher explained that the brain is composed of the
same material as the albumen of the egg. As the bright eyes eagerly
watched the yellowish white turn to milky white, just as they had
seen eggs fried in hot water and grease, they all cried out: “I
will never let any alcohol cook my brain like that.”
Once a lady showed them some large pictures of the stomach under
different conditions. She said the stomach is the kitchen of the
house we live in, and one of its most important rooms. The walls
are lined with soft, delicate pink, as pretty as the paper some
people put on their parlor walls. Alcohol is a fiery-tempered
little fellow, and when he comes into the kitchen he scratches
the beautiful walls, just as naughty boys will sometimes scratch
pins over the paper and plaster in their mother’s nice room. If he
stays long enough he will punch holes, make the clean walls black,
and ruin the room, so that the food can not be properly prepared.
The pictures explained the work of demolition, which the children
readily understood, as they knew of many people whose brains and
stomachs had been destroyed in that way.
These little people have pledged themselves never to touch or taste
the poison. More than that, they speak their convictions to their
friends and neighbors at home. “That glass of toddy will burn and
scratch your stomach.” “That whisky will cook your brain and give
you a headache; you may feel brighter for an hour or two, but then
you will be dull and stupid.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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