Page:SermonsFromTheLatins.djvu/601

 cause was  a  drunkard's  example. Read the  records of the  fearful  sacrifice  of  human  life  in  shipwrecks, collisions, fires,  and  explosions,  and  you  will  find  that drink was  at  the  bottom  of  most  of  them. From the same prolific  source  flow  murders,  suicides,  and  a thousand  nameless  sins. Alas, have  not  I  seen  it  all in my  own  school  companions,  the  dearest  friends  of my  school  days! There was  one  drunkard  among them, who  after  five  years  at  a  university  has  opened a saloon. Of his  companions  one  was  tried  for  his life for  malpractice  and  murder,  another  is  serving  a term  for  forgery,  and  a  third  ended  his  drunken  career in  a  ditch. Truly is  drink  the  ruin  of  youth,  the scourge of  manhood,  and  the  dishonor  of  old  age — the devil's  way  to  man  and  man's  way  to  the  devil.

Brethren, in  God's  name  try  to  avoid  this  shocking vice. If you  are  a  total  abstainer,  not  from  necessity but  through  choice,  continue  to  persevere, and be  sure  you  are  doing  a  good  work  for  God,  your neighbor, and  yourself. If you  are  a  moderate drinker, oh  beware,  beware,  for  the  one  cause  of drunkenness  is  drinking,  and  "  he  that  contemneth small  things  shall  fall  by  little  and  little." The drink-habit  partakes  of  the  nature  of  a  snake  and  of  a  tiger. It may  steal  on  you  silently  and  slowly  wind  itself around you  and  crush  you  in  its  embrace;  or  in  the day of  trouble  or  sorrow  or  mental  anxiety  it  may come upon  you  at  a  single  bound  and  destroy  you  in an  instant. But if  you  are  a  habitual  drunkard, oh for  the  love  of  God  and  your  own  soul  abandon your sinful  folly  while  there  is  yet  time. And you,