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From Wealth to Poverty

A >> Austin Potter >> From Wealth to Poverty




"But supposing he does not succeed," said Rivers, "what will you
do then?"

"I don't think there is much danger of that in the present house.
In fact we have calculated pretty closely, and have every reason
to be satisfied with the conclusion at which we have arrived; but
if he fails we hold another trump card. Allsot, in the senate,
will introduce a rider to it, which will be so heavy as to break
its back."

McWriggler laughed at his play upon words, manifesting the fact
that one person, at least, could enjoy his attempt at wit.

We will now bid a final farewell to these worthies. Their plots
have so far been successful, but the end is not yet. The untimely
death of the majority of those who were their associates in
iniquity should, one would think, be to them as the handwriting
upon the wall, to warn them, what would be their fate if they
still persisted in their course. But such men seem to forget that
God's word, which is certain of fulfilment, says:

"The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with
his teeth.

"The Lord shall laugh at him: for he seeth that his day is
coming....

"I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like
a green-bay tree.

"Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not: yea, I sought him, but
he could not be found."

Mr. and Mrs. Gurney still reside in Bayton, and his business is
the most prosperous in the town. They have not grown weary in
well-doing, but are now actively engaged agitating the public mind
for the submission of the Scott Act in King's County, and they
ardently hope they will live to see the day when a prohibitory law
shall be passed in our Dominion, and the liquor curse shall be
banished forever.

Mrs. Holman is still actively engaged in helping on, with pen and
voice, the good cause of temperance, and has deservedly won for
herself a continental fame.

Eddy Ashton, who is a fine specimen of handsome, intellectual
manhood, has, by his business tact and energy, so engratiated
himself into the good will of his employer that he has now for
over a year occupied the position in Mr. Gurney's establishment
which was formerly held by his father. He removed with his mother
and sister to the house which was their home the first happy year
they spent in Bayton, and it is as beautiful and cosy as ever.

Allie developed into a beautiful and cultured woman, and shortly
after they were again settled in their old home, desisted from
giving music lessons; there were, however, for some time those
mysterious preparations which are the certain precursors of a
wedding. And a wedding, my dear young friends, in due time there
was. Allie was the happy bride, the bridegroom being Frank
Congdon, the young man who so chivalrously came to her rescue when
she was so grossly insulted by the brutal Joe Porter. Congdon's
father, who was a retired merchant, had had extensive business
transactions with some of the Bayton establishments. It was to
settle some old standing accounts that Frank first went there,
and, while taking a stroll for the purpose of viewing the town and
its surroundings, he went into Joe Porter's to make certain
enquiries, and met with the adventure which we have already
narrated to the reader.

He had at that time formed such a liking for Bayton that he
resolved, with his father's consent, to purchase a partnership in
one of the leading dry goods firms in the town, of which he is at
the present sole proprietor, and doing a flourishing business.

He had not been long there when he sought out Allie, who had made
such an impression upon him that it was a case of love at first
sight. Closer acquaintance served to deepen that impression; for
he, who was himself a noble, intelligent young fellow, when he
became more intimate loved her, not only from a mere passing
impulse or fancy, but from a deep and ever deepening respect for
her intelligent, womanly, self-sacrificing nature. In fact, they
became affianced lovers, and the wedding day came as such days do.
Mrs. Gurney insisted upon furnishing the trouseau, and there was a
small but select company at the wedding.

As Allie stood by her husband a fair young bride, her mother, in
memory, went back to a wedding that took place over twenty-five
years before in the dear home land, and she prayed that the
daughter might not have to "pass under the rod" as she had done.

Eddie is still unmarried, and lives with his mother. And Ruth is
now happy, though that happiness is mellowed by the sorrows
through which she has passed, and the memories of the loved ones
she has lost; but the hope of meeting them again is the rainbow
that spans the sky of her existence, shining out radiantly in her
hours of mist and gloom, enabling her to say, even when most cast
down: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the
name of the Lord."

Friends, we will now say farewell. The sad tale which you have
read but faintly conveys an idea of the misery, degradation, and
sin which is caused in thousands of homes by this blighting;
withering traffic.

Oh, rum! cursed rum! I hate it with intensest hatred: for it dims
the brightest intellects; it sullies and makes impure the most
spotless and the best; it spares neither frail and unprotected
womanhood, innocent childhood, nor hoary age; it enters like a
serpent the Eden called home and seduces its inmates to their
fall, thus turning this paradise of love into a hell of fiercest
passions and intensest hate; it entails upon the drunkard's
children in their very existence a patrimony of depraved appetites
and unholy passions; and it supplies the prisons and lunatic
asylums with a large percentage of their inmates, the gallows with
its victims, and hell with lost souls. If what he has written will
be effective in winning any from the ranks of the indifferent, or
from the ranks of those who oppose prohibitory laws, to become
active, energetic workers in the cause of temperance, and what he
is convinced is the cause of God, it will amply repay



THE AUTHOR.

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