Welsh Journals

THE AND GENEÍAL TEMPERANCE MONTHLT. No 7. BRISTOL, MARCH 1, 1872. ONE PENNY. kUá SaU. " IT'S ONLY A DROP." AN IRISH TALE, BY MRS S. C. HALL. MjyARRY, from the fact of his being yhj from a distant part of the country, ^^had no " faction" to take his part, and so stood a chance of being murdered ; but Michael Murphy, who, astonished at his intended brother-in-law's loiteringr had come to the public-house to inquire why he tarried, hearing the riot within, rushed forward, and, but for raising the well-known cry, " A Murphy, a Murphy, hirroo ! here's for a Murphy!" there is little doubt that Lawrence would have been sent, unprepared and unrepentant, out of the world, whose peace and harmony is destroyed by the vices and intemperance of those whom the Almighty created for far different purposes. " I could," said Ellen on the follwing morning—" I could have followed him with a less heart-broken feeling in poverty though the world : I could bave begged with him, begged for him, worked my fìngers to the bone, and at the last, if it had been the will of Heaven, sat a mourning widow on his grave—ay, to the end of my own days—tather than have seen him as I did last night; not so crushed in body as in mind ; unable to speak three plain words, or call me by my own name, while every drunkard in the parish shouted at his disgrace. Och, Michael dear, your poor sister's heart is broken intirely ! I took too much pride out of him ! I thought at the fair of Birr how grand he looked, taking the shine out of every one ; and he so sober, his eyes as pure as crystal, his head strong and his hand ready to save others from the usage which every spalpeen in the place was able to give him last night— and all through 'the drop!' " Poor Ellen felt her lover's degradation more than he felt it himself; though he did feel it when he saw that, however others might think of it who were as bad or worse than he, Ellen's pale cheek and wasted form proved how much she sufFered. It was nearly four weeks before Lawrence was able to resume his employment, and during that time Ellen never reproached him—never said a word that would give him pain—but when he was quite recovered, and again spoke of their marriage, she at first turned away to weep bitterly, and then flrmly told him " that her mind was fìxed ; she never would marry him until he took ' an obligation ' on himself ' at the priest's knee ' never to touch spirits of any kind from that day to the day of his death." There might have been a struggle in Larry's mind as to which he would give up, Ellen or the whisky. Ellen, however, triumphed ; he practised total abstinence for three months. When, from faith in his oath, she married him, experience had convinced him that his tower of strength was total abstinence, his guardian angel his firm yet gentle wife. He never tasted whisky from that time, and Ellen has the proud satisfaction of lcnowing she had sàved him from destruction. I wish all Irish maidens would follow Ellen's example. Women could do a great deal to prove that " the least taste in life " 'is a large taste too much—that " ONLY A DROP " is a temptation fatal if unresisted.