Need I tell you what
has wrought all this ruin? Need I say that intemperance is at the bottom of
it?
The country where I lived in youth and boyhood was equal, if not superior,
to any surrounding it. My father's neighbors were all kind-hearted,
generous people, and some of them--many of them, indeed--were good
Christians, and yet I repeat that twenty years ago there was not a place of
a mile in extent but presented the opportunity for drinking. In every
little town and village whisky was kept in public and private houses. There
was, and yet is, near my father's farm two very small but ancient towns,
containing each some twenty or thirty houses, and both of these places have
been cursed with saloons in which liquor has been sold for the last thirty
years. Both of these towns were favorite resorts with me, especially the
one called Raleigh. I have been drunk oftener and longer at a time in
Raleigh than in any one place in Indiana. I have written thus of my
birthplace and surroundings, that the reader may know the temptations that
encompassed me about, and not to speak against any place or people. The
country in my father's neighborhood is peopled at this time with noble men
and women--prosperous, noted for kindness, generosity, and unpretending
virtue.
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