"Pshaw! It's only a pint of wine. Dr. Abernethy, the great English surgeon, bought one hundred and twenty-six gallons at once, and he did not _die a drunkard_," was his contemptuous reply. "But you must remember that Abernethy lived in the days of _good_ port wine, when every man had something to say of the sample his hospitality produced of his popular beverage. The doctor, who never was intemperate, was very hospitable. "'Honest John Lloyd!'--what an anomaly when applied to a rum-seller--was a great wine merchant of London, a particular friend of Abernethy's, and of all great men of his day, who loved wines and brandies. "One day I went to Lloyd's just as Dr. Abernethy left. "'Well,' said Mr. Lloyd, 'what a funny man your master is.' "'Who?' said I. "Why, Mr. Abernethy. He has just been here and paid me for a pipe of wine, and threw down a handful of notes and pieces of paper, with fees. I wanted him to stop to see if they were all right, and said, 'Some of those fees may be more than you think, perhaps.' 'Never mind,' said he; 'I can't stop; you have them as I took them,' and hastily went his way. "In occasional habits we may most safely recollect that faults are no less faults (as Mirabeau said of Frederick the Great) because they have the shadow of a great name; and we believe that no good man would desire to leave a better expiation of any weakness than that it should deter others from a similar error." In fact, the doctor was opposed to drunkenness, and also gluttony, although he himself "was a good liver," as the following anecdote will show:-- A wealthy merchant who resided in the country had been very sick, and barely recovered, when, from the same cause, he was again threatened with a return of the like disease. "I went to see him at home, and dined with him. He seemed to think that if he did not drink deeply, he might _eat like a glutton_," said the doctor. "Well, I saw he was at his old tricks again, and I said to him, 'Sir, what would you think of a merchant, who, having been prosperous in business and amassed a comfortable fortune, went and risked it all in what he knew was an imprudent speculation?' "Why, sir," he exclaimed, "I should say he was a great ass." "'Nay, then, thou art the man,' said Abernethy." The leopard does not change his spots. For the truth of this read the life and fall of Uniac. O, it is a fearful thing to become a drunkard. The habit once acquired is never gotten entirely rid of. It sleeps--it never dies, but with the death of the victim. Young men, avoid the first drink. Never take that first fatal glass; thus, and only thus, are you safe from a drunkard's grave, and the curse entailed upon your progeny. STRENGTH IN WEAKNESS.