mute pleading
for forgiveness, forgetting or not knowing that she was dead. But the
moment soon came when the truth was flashed through the blackness of night
upon me, and then my misery was more than I could bear. For years before
her death I had lain in my bed and listened to her moaning in her troubled
sleep, to the sighs which escaped from her heart and that of my father, and
I promised the God of my hoped-for salvation that if he would only let me
live I would no more give them pain. Cold, clammy sweat broke out over my
face, and my heart beat so low, and slow, and weak, that in very terror I
felt that my eyeballs were bursting from my head. Again and again I begged,
and plead, and prayed that God would spare me and let me live until I could
convince my father and mother that I never would drink again. But my
prayers were not answered. My mother went out from me in fear, and dread,
and doubt. My father lives, but for me he has little or no hope. If ever a
mortal longed and yearned for one thing more than another in this uncertain
existence, I long for a peaceful and quiet evening of life for my beloved
father. I implore the Father of all of us to give me grace and strength
enough to keep sober until my remaining parent is fully persuaded that I am
truly and beyond question saved from the curse which has driven me to an
asylum, and well nigh sent him, a broken-hearted man, to his grave. O for
a strength which will forever enable me to resist the hell-born and
hell-supported power of the fiend Alcohol! Could I do this and have my
father know it his dying hour would be full of sweet peace, and a joy so
shining that its light would drive afar off the shadows of his death agony.
In that knowledge death would be vanquished and heaven would stoop to earth
and cover his grave with glory. Oh, God! Grant me this one boon! Give me
this one request! In every step of my life I have disappointed him. In the
future let all other hopes, and joys, and aspirations die, if needs be, all
but this--this one--that I may never in any way touch liquor again. May
every man and woman who sees this allow their hearts to go out in an
earnest prayer that I may succeed in this one thing. It is now too late for
me to reach the bright promises of other years. It is now too late for me
to regain all that has been lost, but this I would do, and it will make me
feel at the last that I have not lived altogether to be a remorse and shame
to those who are