I think if I had been raised where liquor was unknown, and had been
taught in early childhood the ruin which follows drinking--if I had had
this impressed on my mind, I would have grown up a sober and happy man,
notwithstanding my inherited appetite. I would have been a sober man,
instead of traversing step by step the downward road of dissipation. I am
easily impressed, and in early life might have been taught such lessons as
would forever have turned my feet from the wrong and desolation in which
they have stumbled so often--in which they have walked so swiftly. Instead
of dwelling with shadows of realities the most terrible, and brooding in
the cell of a maniac, I might have now communed with the pure and noble of
earth.
CHAPTER III.
The old log school house--My studies and discontent--My first drink of
liquor--The companion of my first debauch--One drink always fatal--A
horrible slavery--A horseback ride on Sunday--Raleigh--Return home--"Dead
drunk"--My parents' shame and sorrow--My own remorse--An unhappy and silent
breakfast--The anguish of my mother--Gradual recovery--Resolves and
promises--No pleasure in drinking--The system's final craving for
liquor--The hopelessness of the drunkard's condition--The resistless power
of appetite--Possible escape--The courage required--The three laws--Their
violation and man's atonement.
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