Again, it is so difficult to retrace one's steps once that vice has got a firm hold, that the danger of the first cup becomes apparent at a glance. Hence we must see how necessary that we should neither touch, taste nor handle the inebriating cup. The steps toward final and complete ruin are in the first instance at times so imperceptible that we scarcely know we are transgressing and pursuing a downward track until we may be almost past redemption. Often we see the fond mother and the fond father tempting their children to taste some sweetened beverage that is simply alcohol in disguise. Such kindness is fraught with the utmost danger, for the tastes and habits of the young are easily formed. Youth has a tendency to reckless indulgences, which in this relation, as well as in others, should be narrowly watched; and, as for the most part these tastes are engendered in the first case beneath the eye of the parent, surely the greatest prudence and caution should prevail. Man is an imitative animal in every sense of the word. Consequently, how all-important it is that in the respect now under consideration we should set a pure example before the younger members of our families by both word and act. If the child perceives the father or the mother indulging to any extent whatever in those mixtures falsely called wines or pure spirits--that is, if they should be given to their wine-glass of punch after dinner, or at any period during the day--the child, whether boy or girl, is, of course, tempted to follow the example; and so on the very hearthstone which should have fostered the germs of sobriety and purity we sometimes find this viper warmed into life whose fangs are so pregnant with poison that the first touch often proves fatal.