PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 371 anonymous favours. But having to travel to the north side of the island, where Betsey resided, for the purpose of taking part in the opening services of a new chapel, the grateful Negro woman came to see me; and then I discovered, from several questions she put concerning them, that these gifts had been forwarded by her, in token of the fervent gratitude she cherished towards the donor of the precious volume, which had been her greatest earthly treasure, and on which she based the hopes of life and immortality that filled her with unspeakable joy. N XXII. BLIGHTED LIVES. Beware the bowl! though rich and bright An adder coils its depths beneath, Whose lure is woe, whose sting is death. Street. o finite mind can justly estimate the amount of evil and ruin that is wrought by intemperance. People stand aghast when the pestilence that walketh in darkness and the destruction that wasteth at noonday are abroad, accomplishing their terrible mission upon the earth, and when they hear of multitudes dropping into the grave; the old, the middle-aged, and the young, the rich and the poor, all alike disappearing before the invisible foe. They lift their hands in horror when the statistics of the sanguinary battle field, succeeding the announcement of "the glorious victory," are unrolled before their eyes, and they read of tens of thousands that have thus been cut off in the vigour of youth and the prime of lusty manhood; swept away, with all unholy and vengeful passions raging in their breasts, and without opportunity afforded for preparation, into the presence of the awful realities of eternity. They shudder when they read of thousands more strewn in masses upon the blood-sodden ground, mangled and helpless, to languish, it may be, through hours of untold anguish, and then sink unpitied into the grave, feeling how miserably empty and vain is the honour that is gathered upon the field of mortal strife, "Where men like fiends each other tear, But our world is cursed with an evil more terrible than either of these, more wide-stretching in its destructive sweep, and more constant and unintermitting in its work of havoc and death; an evil, too, that destroys both soul and body together, gorging incessantly with marred and ruined millions of the most precious and favoured works of the Divine Creator's hand the ever-craving maw of hell and the grave. Pestilence slays its thousands; war, deadly war, sweeps away its tens of thousands; but intemperance kills, both for time and eternity, more than both of them together. No wonder that Addison, in one of his impressive and instructive allegories, in which he describes the king of terrors seated upon his throne, giving audience to those who represent whatever causes disease and death and ruin and destruction among men, in order to weigh and determine their respective claims to be appointed prime minister to the grisly monarch, describes him as deciding in favour of Intemperance with her fiery, bloated countenance, and her train of dancing bacchanals. Of all the agencies of death that are at work in this sinful world, there is none equal to intemperance for spreading disease and misery in the earth, and sweeping away the children of men to an untimely grave. Go where you will, to any country under heaven, the evil is there. Amongst all classes of society, from the ruler on the throne to the lowest grade of subjects, it is at work. It lays low the mighty in the dust; it blights the noblest intellect; it withers the bloom of beauty, subverts all moral excellence, undermines all principles of virtue, wrecks the fairest character, blasts the finest promise of usefulness and eminence, and scatters broadcast the seeds of disease and suffering aud death in all directions. The pestilence rages with terrific energy for a season; and when it has gathered a large harvest of victims, sweeping through many lands in its terrible range, it is then heard of no more, perhaps through a long interval of years. There are seasons when the gates of the temple of Janus are closed, and war's sad ravages are suspended amongst the nations of the earth: savage passions are hushed the lust of ambition and dominion is restrained, and men find other occupation than that of shooting, stabbing, mangling, and slaughtering each other, multiplying widows and fatherless children, and filling happy homes with sorrow, bereavement, and poverty. But this ruthless enemy of the human race, intemperance, works at all times and in all parts of the world. Night and day, and every day, from the opening of January to the close of December, with an energy that is never exhausted, an appetite for destruction that is never satiated, this prime minister of death, this purveyor for the grave, gathers its hecatombs of victims and sweeps them away from life; while it imparts fearful intensity to all unhallowed passions, debases and brutalizes the immortal nature of beings made only a little lower than the angels, and produces a catalogue of crimes and evils amongst those who are bound to each other by the most sacred ties of kindred, at the contemplation of which fiends rejoice and angels weep. Within the tropics the danger of forming intemperate habits is greater than in a milder clime. There is a more rapid exhaustion of the fluids in the system by increased perspiration, requiring a more frequent supply to meet the demands of nature; and if recourse be had to beverages of an alcoholic nature, it requires but little sagacity to see that danger is hidden there. It is also the natural effect of a tropical climate to produce a degree of lassitude, of which the denizens of cooler regions are unconscious, except occasionally, when the fierce heat of a Midsummer day brings them a temporary experience of those relaxing influences which are constantly felt, in a greater or less degree, within the torrid zone. One of the effects of alcoholic drink is to counteract the lassitude for a brief season, and produce a considerable degree of artificial excitement and energy, which, for the time, is exceedingly grateful. But the effect is temporary and soon passes away, followed by a reaction which augments the physical relaxation natural to the climate, and seems to call for a renewal of the grateful restorative. Here also danger lurks unseen and unsuspected; and it is one of the easiest things possible to glide insensibly into the practice of using dangerous stimulants, until a habit is formed not easy to be shaken off; until all the faculties of PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE UNDER DIFFICULTIES. 365 religious ordinances. They designedly arranged her duties so as to keep their dependent fully occupied, and leave her only very few and brief opportunities of attending to the religious duties she loved so well. But the fervent, unobtrusive piety of the humble slave-woman, and the clear, intelligent statements of Christian experience she gave at her class-meeting, and in the lovefeasts of the society, had caused her to be well known in the church she belonged to; and the meek and quiet spirit she exhibited on all occasions, and her successful efforts to win souls to Christ, had procured for her in more than an ordinary degree the respect of all who were acquainted with her. Betsey Taylor was the name she bore. Her features were plain and coarse, exhibiting much of the true African type; but were rendered almost beautiful with the radiancy of the settled peace and love that ruled the heart within. There was the stamp of heaven upon that coal-black face. Within a few months past the missionaries in that locality had been consigned to a loathsome prison for preaching the Gospel, or assailed with brutal violence and their lives. placed in jeopardy by ferocious slaveholders. Some of the sanctuaries of God had been shut up by magisterial intolerance, and others pulled down or burnt to ashes by planter mobs. And in these seasons of sore trial none were more prompt to sympathize with the persecuted pastors than Betsey Taylor, or more ready to tender such expressions of regard as could be conveyed, by offerings of fruit, &c., to the ministers who had been God's instruments in bringing her to the enjoyment of religion, which was to her more precious than rubies, and greater gain than fine gold. When I lifted my eyes to the opening door to greet my visitor, it was Betsey's pleasant homely face that I saw beaming upon me. "Good morning, Betsey," I said, as she entered the study. "Good morning, minister," she replied. "Me come to ask one favour, and hope minister will not think me too bold." Betsey had so far profited by her position as servant in an opulent white family that she spoke less broken English |