ert to blossom as the rose. Reversed, love and discord have
broken more hearts, caused more sorrow, estrangement, and downright
death than war, pestilence, and all other causes combined. It palsies
energy and ambition, engenders gloom and despair, and transforms
manhood into an icicle. Statistics prove that the married live longer,
on the average, by several years than the unmarried, a most
satisfactory proof that the married state is pre-eminently the life
designed for man. Therefore let all interested do their utmost to make
it the happiest. (The Budget.)

INTEMPERANCE.

BY MRS. M. A. M'CURDY, ROME, GA.

Intemperance has so rapidly grown to be the crowning curse of all
nations and has taken so deep root in the heart of many influential
countrymen as to cause the impediments that are thrown in the pathway
of those who try to promote the cause of "God, home, and native land"
to appear to be legions.

The horrors of intemperance have never been fully portrayed. No pencil
is black enough to paint the picture and do it full justice. No tongue
is eloquent enough to tell the sad, sad story in all its details. It
has so spread itself as to compel us to style it a wide and verily a
withering curse. It is the parent of many physical disorders, that
begin with bleared eyes, a blistered tongue, general derangement of
the stomach, paralysis of the nerves, and hardening of the liver; and
to so great an extent it poisons the blood as to cause coagulation of
the brain. All of which, as a natural consequence, induce and
aggravate many diseases, ending with causing to be dug a myriad of
premature graves.

Intemperance is a mental curse, and it clouds the judgment, dethrones
reason, promotes ignorance to the extent that to approach the
unenlightened upon the subject of temperance is the means of incurring
the displeasure of many, and in numerous instances causes vile
epithets to be applied to those who are advocates of the cause of
temperance.

[Illustration: MRS. M. A. M'CURDY, ROME, GA.]

Another great and startling reason why all persons should abstain from
the use of intoxicating liquors is that it is a mental curse, because
it produces imbecility and transforms its unhappy victims into maniacs
and fools. Intemperance or the use of alcoholic liquors brings a curse
upon the morals of all nations, and thereby proves to be a moral
curse. It weakens the will and so influences the passions as to hush
the voice of consci