If
you put a little alcohol into your eye, your eye would become very
red. When men take alcoholic drinks into their stomachs, the delicate
membrane lining the stomach becomes red in the same way.
How
do we know that alcohol has such an effect upon the stomach? Many
years ago there lived in Michigan a man named Alexis St. Martin. One
day he was, by accident, shot in such a way that a large opening was
made right through the skin and flesh and into the stomach. The good
doctor who attended him took such excellent care of him that he got
well. But when he recovered, the hole in his stomach remained, so
that the doctor could look in and see just what was going on. St.
Martin sometimes drank whiskey, and when he did, the doctor often
looked into his stomach to see what the effect was, and he noticed
that the inside of his stomach looked very red and inflamed.
If
St. Martin continued to drink whiskey for several days, the lining of
the stomach became very red and raw like a sore eye. A sore stomach
cannot digest food well, and so the whole body becomes sick and weak.
What
would you think of a man who would keep putting pepper or alcohol or
some other irritating substance into his eyes every day, keeping them
sore until he destroyed his eyesight? It is equally foolish and wrong
to injure the stomach and destroy one's digestion by the use of
alcoholic drinks!
Alcohol,
even when it is not very strong, not only hurts the lining of the
stomach, but injures the gastric juice, so that it cannot digest the
food well. The liver, as well as the stomach, is greatly damaged by
the use of alcohol. You will recollect that nearly all the food
digested and absorbed is filtered through the liver before it goes to
the heart to be distributed to the rest of the body.
In
trying to save the rest of the body from the bad effects of alcohol,
the liver is badly burned by the fiery liquid, and sometimes becomes
so shriveled up that it can no longer produce bile and perform its
other duties. Even beer, ale, and wine, which do not contain as much
alcohol as do rum, gin, and whiskey, have enough poison in them to do
the liver a great deal of harm, and to injure many other organs of the
body as well.
But
alcohol does more than hurt your body; it also makes a fool and a
slave out of those who use it! A man, who holds a very important
office in the largest prison in the United States, told some
interesting stories.
His
special work is to interview prisoners as they come in. He asks them
about their homes, their families, their work, their education, and
particularly what it was that led them to commit the crime that
brought them into prison.
Do
you know what most of these poor prisoners tell him? Can you guess?
You
should know. Everybody should know. They say, "It was drink,
sir."
You
know what that means? It means that before they broke the law they had
been taking alcoholic drinks such as beer, wine, or whisky. These
things are known as “drink”.
Here
comes a boy of fifteen—there are scores of them here as young as
this. He has stolen somebody's car, and has been arrested and sent to
prison.
"Well,
son," says this kind friend of the prisoners, "why are you
here?"
"We
started drinking, sir, and—"The same old story.
Here
comes a lad of eighteen. He has murdered an old woman, mistakenly
expecting to find money in her house. "Why did you do it?"
"Drink,
sir. Had a drop too much, I suppose, and didn't realize what I was
doing."
Oh,
the sad tragedy of it all! In his particular prison there were more
than two thousand five hundred young men—their average age only
twenty-four—who blame drink for their fall. Sometimes the prisoners
are released on their promise to be good and lead a better life. All
too many come back, and have to face their kindly interviewer again.
"Why
are you here again," he asks, "after having been given your
liberty?"
"Oh,
sir," is the reply, "I went into a saloon. I couldn't help
it. And then—"
Another slave! Just one of thousands upon thousands, in bondage to drink. None of us can take a wiser step than to promise before God, that with His help, we will never, never, NEVER taste a drop of the evil stuff. It is the only way to keep ourselves free from its clutches. Let's make the promise now and keep it! =^..^=
RETURN
|
