deserted you. You are fast losing your self-respect, wrecking your
health, and dragging your wife and children down with you.
Consider, my darling, what you are sacrificing, and don't be
tempted to drink again!"

She might have reminded him of how he formerly boasted of his
strength, and denounced the weakness of the habitual drunkard, but
she refrained from so doing. She determined, no matter what she
suffered, never to madden him by a taunt or unkind word, but to
save him if possible by love and gentleness. He as yet, though
harsh and peevish to others, had never spoken an unkind word to
her. He had once or twice been unnecessarily severe to the
children, which caused pain to her mother's heart, but she had by
a quiet word thrown oil upon the troubled waters of her husband's
soul, and applied a balm to the wounded hearts of her children.

Sometimes, when she with tears in her eyes appealed to him, he
would promise not to drink again. There is no doubt but it was his
intention to keep his word, but yet it was invariably broken. The
fact was he had become a slave to drink, such a slave that neither
what he owed to wife, nor children, nor man, nor God, could
restrain him. His word was broken; his honor stained, his wife and
children ruined, his God sinned against, and he had become that
thing which formerly he so despised--a poor, miserable drunkard.

His friends had seen this for some time, and now he himself could
not fail to recognize his awful situation; for his thirst for
spirituous liquor had become so strong that he would sacrifice
everything he held dear on earth to obtain it--in fact, it had
become a raging, burning fever, which nothing but rum could allay.