rtaining travel, books of congenial history, books of pure fun,
books of poetry ringing with merry canto, books of fine engravings,
books that will rest the mind as well as purify the heart and elevate
the whole life? My hearers, there will not be an hour between this
and the day of your death when you can afford to read a book lacking
in moral principle.

VI. Another temptation hovering all around our watering-places is the
intoxicating beverage. I am told that it is becoming more and more
fashionable for woman to drink. I care not how well a woman may dress,
if she has taken enough of wine to flush her cheek and put glassiness
on her eyes, she is intoxicated. She may be handed into a $2500
carriage, and have diamonds enough to confound the Tiffanys--she is
intoxicated. She may be a graduate of Packer Institute, and the
daughter of some man in danger of being nominated for the
Presidency--she is drunk. You may have a larger vocabulary than I
have, and you may say in regard to her that she is "convivial," or she
is "merry," or she is "festive," or she is "exhilarated," but you can
not with all your garlands of verbiage cover up the plain fact that it
is an old-fashioned case of drunk.

Now, the watering-places are full of temptations to men and women to
tipple. At the close of the tenpin or billiard-game they tipple. At
the close of the cotillon they tipple. Seated on the piazza cooling
themselves off they tipple. The tinged glasses come around with bright
straws, and they tipple. First they take "light wines," as they call
them; but "light wines" are heavy enough to debase the appetite. There
is not a very long road between champagne at $5 a bottle and whiskey
at five cents a glass.

Satan has three or four grades down which he takes men to destruction.
One man he takes up, and through one spree pitches him into eternal
darkness. That is a rare case. Very seldom, indeed, can you find a man
who will be such a fool as that.

When a man goes down to destruction Satan brings him to a plane. It is
almost a level. The depression is so slight that you can hardly see
it. The man does not actually know that he is on the down grade, and
it tips only a little toward darkness--just a little. And the first
mile it is claret, and the second mile it is sherry, and the third
mile it is punch, and the fourth mile it is ale, and the fifth mile it
is porter, and the sixth mile it is brandy, and then it gets steeper
and steeper and s