satisfying their appetites: while thousands of ale-houses and gin-hells
are pouring forth their poisonous liquids, where crowds of miserably
degraded wretches of both sexes in human shape are swallowing down the
deadly elements and rioting in hellish revelry. Alas! how many a home
has been converted into a mad-house, yea, even into a very hell, by
these dens of pollution, in which dwell the accursed spirit-dealers of
iniquity.

Alas! how many a fond wife, with her little ones, perhaps destitute of
every domestic comfort, is at that very moment anxiously awaiting the
return of her husband. Hour after hour may pass away, until the very
depths of night appear to grow sad with the dreary sorrow of her heart,
and at length he returns--but not as a loving and sober husband; not as
a tender and home-providing father; not as a man, with all the noble
attributes of the human nature; not as a Christian, with the spiritual
Balm of Gilead, with which to soothe the cankering ills of his
household;--no, not as either he returns, but rather as a madman escaped
from the prison walls of Bedlam, or as fiend let loose from the nether
kennel.

But, nevertheless, there were thousands of happy households that evening
enjoying the domestic comforts of a peaceful home,--that place, the
dearest of all on earth, when sanctified by the affection of a united,
sober, and industrious family. Such was the home and household of Mr.
Charlston.

Mr. and Mrs. Charlston, their two sons and three daughters, were on that
night comfortably seated in their little sitting room after tea; the
mother and her daughters engaged at needlework; the father and his
eldest son, George, reading the newspapers, while Frederick, the