friend, "What is the matter with that young man?" The fact is that one
winter of dissipation has done the work of ruin.

This is the season for parties; and, if they are of the right kind,
our social nature is improved, and our spirits cheered up. But many
of them are not of the right kind; and our young people, night after
night, are kept in the whirl of unhealthy excitement until their
strength fails, and their spirits are broken down, and their taste for
ordinary life corrupted; and, by the time the spring weather comes,
they are in the doctor's hands, or sleeping in the cemetery. The
certificate of their death is made out, and the physician, out of
regard for the family, calls the disease by some Latin name, when the
truth is that they died of too many parties.

Away with these wine-drinking convivialities! How dare you, the
father of a household, trifle with the appetites of our young people?
Perhaps, out of regard for the minister, or some other weak temperance
man, you have the decanter in a side-room, where, after refreshments,
only a select few are invited; and you come back with a glare in your
eye, and a stench in your breath, that shows that you have been out
serving the devil.

Some one asks, "For what purpose are these people gone into that
side-room?"

"O," replies one who has just come out, smacking his lips, "they have
gone in to see the white dog!"

The excuse which Christian men often give for this is, that it is
necessary, after such late eating, by some sort of stimulant to help