numbers of blasted lives, the sorrows, the sins, numberless crimes,
murders, and deaths brought in panoramic review before us, what a
hell-born picture it would be!"

"The effect of alcohol upon the morals is awful. All delicacy, courtesy,
and self-respect are gone; the sense of justice and right is faint or
quite extinct. There is no vice into which the victim of drunkenness
does not easily slide; and no crime from which he can be expected to
refrain. Between this condition and insanity there is but a single
step."

These are only a part of the many evils that come to the one who takes
alcohol into his system. We have already heard something about the
effects of nicotine, the poison that is in tobacco. The constant use of
either poison will impair the health of the strongest person. It saps
the mind of its reasoning qualities; and in nine cases out of ten,
leaves the victim without sufficient strength to seek and obtain his own
deliverance or to live a righteous life. But let us return now to John.




CHAPTER IX

Caught Unawares


At the age of eighteen John had come almost to the point of
discouragement. His health was so poor that he did not know a well
moment; and besides, his longing soul was still unsatisfied. He had