THE LESSON--That water as a beverage stands for purity and
blessing, while spirituous liquors are always an emblem of impurity
and blight.

The chalk talk here outlined contains in its illustration an
interesting transformation which always commands close attention. The
truth it presents cannot fail to leave an impression. It may be well
to vary the application of the temperance thought to suit your local
conditions.


~~The Talk.~~

"I am going to outline for you a picture of an object which is
everywhere recognized by good people as a symbol of defiance of the
law, a suggestion of immorality, of poverty, depravity and death.
[Draw beer keg, completing Fig. 15.] In plain words, it is a beer keg,
and its close companions are the whiskey barrel, the wine cask and the
demijohn! It well represents the liquor traffic as a whole--that
terrible curse which holds in its grip so many men and boys, whose
lives might be bright, happy and successful but for its blighting,
fatal grasp.

[Illustration: Fig. 15]

"No right-thinking man has a good word for the business which makes
good men into brutes, transforms honorable citizens into murderers,
and brings many a prosperous family to rags and misery. The
saloon-keeper himself has no good word for the business; he merely
defends it because it makes for him a good living with little work on