University of Virginia Library

STEPS TO RUIN.

By Mrs Jane C. Campbell.

Of all the woe, and want, and wretchedness, which
awaken one's compassion; of all the scenes of misery
which call so loudly for sympathy, there is none that
so harrows up the feelings as the drunkard's home!
Look at him who began life with the love of friends,
the admiration of society, the prospect of extensive
usefulness; look at him in after years, when he has
learned to love the draught, which, we shudder while
we say it, reduces him to the level of a brute. Where
is now his usefulness? Where the admiration, where
the love that once were his? Love! none but the
love of a wife, or a child, can cling to him in his
degradation. Look at the woman who, when she repeated
“for better for worse,” would have shrunk
with terror had the faintest shadow of the “worse”
fallen upon her young heart. Is that she who, on her
bridal day, was adorned with such neatness and taste?
Ah me! what a sad change! And the children, for
whom he thanked God at their birth; the little ones,
of whom he had been so proud, whom he had dandled
on his knees, and taught to lisp the endearing name

of father. See them trembling before him, and endeavouring
to escape his violence! Look at the
empty basket, and the full bottle—the natural wants
of the body denied to satisfy the unnatural cravings
of a depraved appetite! Oh God, have pity upon the
drunkard's home!

The picture is a sad one; and who that looks upon
it but would fearfully turn aside from the first step
to ruin?

We, too, have a tale to tell, which, it pains us to
acknowledge, contains more truth than fiction.

James Boynton was the first born of his parents,
and a proud and happy mother was Mrs. Boynton,
when her friends gathered around her to look at her
pretty babe. Carefully was he tended, and all his
infantile winning ways were treasured as so many
proofs of his powers of endearment.

In wisdom has the Almighty hidden the deep secrets
of futurity from mortal ken. When the mother
first folds her infant to her heart, could she look
through the long vista of years, and see the suffering,
the sin, the shame, which may be the portion of her
child, would she not ask God in mercy to take the
infant to himself? Would she not unrepiningly, nay,
thankfully, bear all the agony of seeing her little one,
with straightened limbs, folded hands, and shrouded
form, carried from her bosom to its baby-grave? And
yet, not one of all the thousands who are steeped in
wickedness and crime, but a mother's heart has gladdened
when the soft eye first looked into hers, and
the soft cheek first nestled on her own. And, still

more awful thought! not one of all these Pariahs of
society but has an immortal soul; to save which, the
Son of God left his glory, and agonized upon the
cross!

James grew up a warm-hearted boy, and among his
young companions was a universal favourite. “Jim
Boynton is too good-natured to refuse doing any thing
we ask,” said Ned Granger one day to a school-fellow,
who feared that James would not join a party of
rather doubtful character, which was forming for what
they called a frolic. And this the truth. Here lay
the secret of James Boynton's weakness—he was too
good-natured; for this very desirable, and truly
amiable quality, unless united with firmness of character,
is often productive of evil. But we pass over
his boyish life, and look at him in early manhood.

He had a fine figure, with a handsome, intelligent
countenance; and his manners have received their
tone and polish from a free intercourse in refined
circles. He passed his college examination with credit
to himself, but, from sheer indecision of character,
hesitated in choosing a profession. At this time, an
uncle, who resided at the South, was about retiring
from mercantile life, and he proposed that James
should enter with him as a junior partner, while he
would remain for a year or two to give his nephew
the benefit of his experience. The business was a
lucrative one, and the proposal was accepted.

James left his home at the North, and went to try
his fortune amid new scenes and new temptations.
His uncle received him warmly, for the old man had

no children of his own, and James was his godchild,
His uncle's position in society, and his own frank
and gentlemanly demeanour, won him ready access to
the hospitality of Southern friends, and it was not
long before he fell in love with a pretty orphan girl,
whom he frequently met at the house of a common
acquaintance. That the girl was portionless, was
no demerit in his uncle's eyes. Not all his treasures,
and they were large, had choked the avenues
of the old man's heart, and the young people were
made happy by his approval of their union.

After a visit to his friends in the North, James returned
with his bride; and, in a modern house, furnished
with every luxury, the happy pair began their
wedded life. And now, who so blessed as Boynton?
Three years passed away, and two children make
their home still brighter. Does no one see the cloud,
not bigger than a man's hand, upon the verge of the
moral horizon?

Boynton's dislike to saying “no,” when asked to
join a few male friends to dinner, or on a party of
pleasure; his very good nature, which made him so
desirable a companion, were the means of leading him
to the steps to ruin.

“Come, Boynton, another glass.”

“Excuse me, my dear fellow, I have really taken
too much already.”

“Nonsense! It is the parting glass, you must
take it.”

And Boynton, wanting firmness of character,
yielded to the voice of the tempter. Need we say

that, with indulgence, the love of poison was strengthened?

For a while the unfortunate man strove to keep up
appearances. He was never seen during the day in
a state of intoxication; and from a doze on the sofa
in the evening, or a heavy lethargic sleep at night,
he would awake to converse with his friends, or attend
at his counting-room, without his secret habit
being at all suspected.

But who that willingly dallies with temptation can
fortell the end? Who can “lay the flattering unction
to his soul,” that in a downward course he can stop
when he pleases, and, unharmed, retrace his steps?
Like the moth, circling nearer and nearer to the flame,
until the insect falls with scorched wing, a victim to
its own temerity, so will the pinions of the soul be
left scathed and drooping.

Soon Boynton began to neglect his business, and
was secretly pointed out as a man of intemperate
habits. At last he was shunned, shaken off, by the
very man who led him astray. Who are most guilty?
Let Heaven judge. Let us pause, and ask why it is,
that so many look upon a fellow being verging to the
brink of ruin, without speaking one persuasive word,
or doing one kindly act, to lead him back to virtue?
Why it is, that when fallen, they thrust him farther
down by taunting and contempt. Oh, such was not
the spirit of Him who came “to seek and save that
which was lost,” such was not the spirit of Him who
said, “neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no more.”
How often, instead of throwing the mantle of charity

over a brother's sin, instead of telling him his fault,
“between thee and him alone,” it is bared to the
light of day, trumpeted to a cold and censure-loving
world, until the victim either sinks into gloomy despondency,
and believes it hopeless for him to attempt
amendment, or else stands forth in bold defiance, and
rushes headlong to his ruin, not one human being
stands so perfect in his isolation, as to be wholly unmoved
by contact with his fellows! what need then,
for the daily exercise of that godlike charity which
“suffereth long and is kind,” which “rejoiceth not in
iniquity,” which “beareth all things, believeth all
things, endureth all things!”

Seven years have gone with their records to eternity;
where is James Boynton now? In one room of
a miserable dilapidated tenement, inhabited by many
victims of poverty and vice, lives he who on his wedding
day entered a home which taste and luxury rendered
enviable. Squalor and discomfort are on every
side. His four children are pale and sickly from
want of proper food, and close confinement in that
deleterious atmosphere, they have learned to hide
away when they hear their father's footsteps, for, alas!
to his own, he is no longer the good-natured man.
Fallen in his own esteem, frequently the subject of
ribald mirth, his passions have become inflamed, and
he vents his ill-nature on his defenceless family. He
no longer makes even a show of doing something for
their support; and to keep them from starving, his
wife works whenever, and at whatever she can find
employment.

A few years more, and where is Mrs. Boynton?
Tremble ye who set an example to your families of
which you cannot foretell the consequences! Tremble
ye whom God has made to be the protectors, the
guides, the counsellors, of the woman ye have vowed
to love and cherish! Mrs. Boynton, like her husband
has fallen. In an evil hour, harassed by want, ill-used
by her husband, she tasted the fatal cup. It
produced temporary forgetfulness, from which she
awoke to a sense of shame and anguish. Ah! she
had no mother, no sister, no women friends, who
truly cared for her, to warn, to plead, to admonish;
again was she tempted, again she tasted, and that
squalid home was rendered tenfold more wretched,
by the absence of all attempt at order. However
great may be the sorrow and distress occasioned by a
man's love of drink, it is not to be compared to the
deep wretchedness by the same cause in a woman,
and it is matter for thankfulness, that so few men
drag down their wives with them in their fall.

Providence raised up a friend who took the bare-footed
children of the Boyntons from being the daily
witnesses of the evil habits of their parents; and so
dulled were all the finer feelings of nature, that
James Boynton parted from them without a struggle.

Like the Lacedemonians of old, who exposed the
vice to render it hateful in the eyes of the beholders,
we might give other and more harrowing scenes from
real life; but let this one suffice! Thank God, for the
change which public opinion has already wrought!
Thank God, for the efforts which have been made

to stay the moral pestilence! Oh, it is fearful to
think how many homes have been desolate—how
many hearts have been broken—how many fine
minds have been ruined—how many lofty intellects
have been humbled! It is fearful to think of the madness—the
crime—the awful death—which follow the
Steps to Ruin!