Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1894 — A NEW YEAR VOW. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A NEW YEAR VOW.

BY HARKLEY HARKER.

NEW YEAH My last glass yesterday, so help me God!” " I ► “On your October {birthday you said the same.” ’ “So I did. Well?” “Well you?” was the response of the

cooler of the two young men. “That is,” rejoined the first speaker, his glass still untouched, “you take exception to my repeating so solemn an oath?” “No. It is a man’Sprtvilege and safety to make an oath solemn. But you ask God to witness so triflingly. I never say, 'so help me God.’ ” “How so? Come and sit down in the hotel rotunda,” said the one called Bob. “For I certainly shall not drink with you tonight, nor ever again, if God will help me.” As they walked away, the other fellow, whom I heard hi m add ress as Gus, stroked the liquor from his mustache, and laughed over Bob’s last remark. “Ah, you jewel of a fellow, I’ve heard you sav all that before. You are a charming companion, except when you mother and sisters, have had you up home for a ” and I lost the rest of the sentence, I finished my glass of ice water — and,by the way. isn’t it an outrage that so many country hotels compel a gentleman to enter the bar room for a glass of water? —and passed out. I sat smoking so near to those two commercial travelers that 1 could not hut hear them. “But 1 tell you I mean to stop.” Tais Bob. ‘‘And I tell you ii is only.the resolution of a moment.” This Gus. “No, sir. I sail, so help me God.” “True Bob, and trifled with the name of the Deity.” ? “Confound you! I did not trifle.

It is only God who can help me. Why, s l I ave twice promised you I’d never drink again. But you are like a wisp of grass to tie a boat to in vonder Niagara. I have vowed it to lots of bar-room fellows, but they only laugh. 1 have vowed it to my mother, but even she is not strong enough to hold me; my hand slips off. Then I just grasp at the strongest stay 1 can think of.—l say, so help me God! Well, three or four times I have broken even that pledge. But what shall I do? lam just like a man in a whirlpool. His boat swings round once, and he snatches at grass and bushes; round again, and he grasps at the rock, holds a little, and then gets swept away, Round he comes again, and again grapples the rock. That’s what I did tonight. JMypu suppose the rock is displeased because the drowning wretch makes another reach for its solid sides? Do you think that God is insulted that I reach for Hirn again? Ah, no! He never laughs over my vows, nor taunts me with my failures. He just stands and waits for my hands. If God cannot help me, who can?”

“Quite a sermon,” sneered the handsome young auditor; and I lost the rest of this conversation a,s they ; moved away restlessly and went out. i But I sat still, thinking on this : much-vexed question of pledges. ' Shall a free man make them? Good resolutions of New Year’s Day, shall i a young man of spirit assume them? | Certainly he may, and For look at it. If a thing is right, a true man is bound to do it, whether he pledges himself to or not. One is no more free to kill himself because he has declined to agree not to. If the love of liquor is ruining a fellow, by every consideration of honor, by duty to himself, to those who love him, to his God, he is bound to stop. What, then, is the pledge but an , agreement to do what he must do in any event? ; Men decline to pledge themselves because they wish to be “free." Free to do what? To engage in wrong doing? Then men should decline to sign checks or notes of hand, or their marriage certificates. “Oh, no. We must pay our debts and be true husbands.” Why “must?” Because it is right; because it is the eternal right made into law; because there is no escape consistent with honor, so a man does not hesitate to say, with jrcn and ink, that he will do right, and here goes mv cheek forYt. ~Very“j well, then. If it is right for you to save your life by stopping dram drinking, a pledge omitted will not make you free to continue destroying yourself. ■ j The fact is, that you are not convinced that it is wholly right for you to continue sober and to keep out of a drunkard's grave. You are experimenting. You want to see how far you can cheat nature and nature’s God. You are not the soul of honor, hut an nxperimenter. If you were the man you sometimes boast yourself to be, you would not have got Into this fix. It would have been enough for you that you saw your ;hand begin to shake, and detected suspicion in the faces of honest men as you breathed close to them. It would have been enough for you to have made one bad trade because “a little set up;” enough to have cursed your young wife a single evening, and befouled her with a thick, unruly tongue. If you were a true man you Would have turned on your heel then; you would have needed no other pledge than the one you then whispered to your own soul. But how few of us are the soal of honor! We need to grasp some one's

hand. We need to fence ourselves about with a spoken word. We neec to compel ourselves, by a fear of being called liars by others. Who has not, over and over again, lied to. himself? Whose heart has not whispered to his head, “Thou art a liar!" But we know ourselves We gpt used to ourselves. We break vows made to ourselves —if no one else ’ knows them—a- thousand times a year. Then let us vow to others. 1 et, if we vow to others, we ought to take the noblest spirit we can find in all our circle of acquaintance. You “shake hands” with a weak fellow, and he will frequently “let you off this time,” because he wants to be let off himself. As if he had any privilege to permit you to turn liar! Is he a priest, to absolve your sin? As if you might turn false because 1 he nas broken the hand shake! Does a pair of liars make one honest man? Yet so the world goes. Hence, de ( not tie up to a rotten wharf. And. for that matter, one’s best friends will not do. How frequently even a good mother will laugh in sad regret, but yet find excuses for a son who has turned liar, and broken his good resolution to her. She mitigates bis offense, “not counting this time.” It is impossible almost for her to look him in the face, and say, “Nevertheless, my child, it is a lie, and you are false at heart.” Our nearest friends are like our own excusing hearts. I think many men would break a promise to a fond wife which they would keep to a Stranger, if they died for it. Therefore it is better to say, “so help me God.” If you really want and mean to do the thing, if it is right to do, pledge to the Changeless and the Holy. Be sure He will not let you off. If you stumble, be sure He will forgive. Yet hold you .to the old vow. A vow to God, is always good. The contract never is outlawed. You hesitate? It is too late. You have made vows to God by the thousand 'No man lives whojhas not prom ised God in mapy crises. You vowed in sickness, vowed when in peril of / -your life, vowed on the staggering I' l deck of a castaway ship; vowed when i out of employment, and praying for ■ His help; vowed in financial peril; i vowed over the pale face of your lit- * i tie child gasping for life, “If God will be merciful, I will.” What righteousness you agreed upon! Has He not kept His part of the pledge? : Have you? Why, if a man or a woi man were to profess to you that he ■ or she had never made ft promise to i the Great Father, you might po- ! litel.y smile, but in your heart you j wouldsay, “I do not believe it.” Why. then, hesitate at the beginj ning of this New «Year? Pledges or i no pledges, you are in God’s power j You live in His world. You are ; bound to try to keep His Laws. Nay, z ; if you breathe His air, if you exist, ■ you become a party to an agreement ito serve Him. And you cannot escape from existence. The suicide is a fool, for he rushes into the very throneroom of the Deity. | And now may that merciful 1 Friend, the feaviour of the world, take your hand and mine, dear reader, in a new covenant. As to ■ the flag the staff and halyards are— I as to the sail the yard is, that the gales shall not float it to seas; as to green fruit the boUgh is the hope of t ripening; so is God the Great Friend |to man. And it is the vow that : makes us one with Him. Hail New ’ Year! It shall be a better one than the last, hnln n-c X.