Saved as by Fire! CHAPTER 1.
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He came in so noiselessly, that I heard neither the opening nor shutting of the door, and only became aware of his presence, when I felt his hand on my shoulder.
Shall I ever forget the face into which I looked? A face so marred since I had seen it last; so pale, so exhausted, so helpless and despairing, that I was not only shocked by the sight — but filled with inexpressible pain. The hand which he had laid upon me, was trembling violently.
"Why Granger!" I exclaimed, as I startled to my feet. "What does this mean?"
I saw the muscles of his face quiver and spasms run about his lips, as he made an effort to reply. "It can't be possible that you — " I held back, from an instinct of delicacy, the words that were coming to my lips.
"Have fallen so low?" he said, in a husky, shaking voice, finishing the sentence which I had left incomplete. Then, with a steadier utterance: "But it is all too sadly true, Mr. Lyon. The devil of drink has seized me, and I cannot get free from the grip of his terrible hand!"
"Don't say that, my friend. You must resist this devil and, like all other devils, when met by resistance — he will flee from you."
A short, bitter laugh, and then, "He isn't one of that kind."
But, surely, Granger, you will not give up your manhood to the vice of alcohol?"
"Vice! That's a little, easy sort of a word, and doesn't seem to mean much, does it?"
He was sitting, now, and I standing just in front of the chair he had taken. As I looked at him steadily, I saw more distinctly than at first, the ravages which alcoholism had made upon his finely cut, and once handsome features. I had not met him before for many months.
"To the demands of an alcohol? Let me make the proposition stronger," said I.
"Vice, demand, curse; anything you choose. It's all the same."
"But the will-power is above them all — can break the bonds of appetite, and let the man go free."
I saw a change begin passing over his face.
"Free! What would I not give to be free!"
"Resolve, and it is done! In a man's will lies his strength. Neither Heaven nor Hell can move him, if he will not. Set your will against this appetite — and will shall be master."
He looked at me with a gathering wonder in his eyes, as though a new thought were dawning upon his mind. His mouth became a little firmer; and he raised his almost crouching form to a more erect attitude.
"If he will not — will not."
"Just so, my friend. If he will not — then all Hell cannot move him. Self-mastery! Every man has this power. I have it; you have it. It is the common inheritance of all men."
"An inheritance sold, alas! too often for a mess of pottage," Granger answered, bitterly. "And when once sold, has it not gone hopelessly out of our possession?"
"No. Freedom to will is a birthright which no man living can wholly alienate. He may at any time re-assert his right of inheritance. You can do it now — can set your heel on thisserpent of alcohol, and crush it beneath your tread. Be a man, Granger! Let the higher things that are in you, hold the baser things in subjection. Let reason and judgment, rule the appetites and passions, as a master rules his servants. This is the common order of life. God has given us reason as a ruler; and we must see that no usurper gains a foothold in our kingdom."
As I spoke, I saw the signs of strength and confidence coming into Granger's eyes.
"It is because you have let the sensual betray and dethrone the rational, that you are in so sad a plight today. Will has gone over to the wrong side."
"It shall come to the right side again, Mr. Lyon!" His voice had a clear ring. "I see just how it is. Will went over to alcohol, instead of standing firm by the side of reason."
"Yes; you state the case exactly as it stands," I said. "It was an abuse of freedom, so to speak. You were not compelled to drink — for appetite has no power above solicitation. It cannot move your hand, nor place a glass to your lips. Only the will has power over the actions, and so nothing can be done without consent of the will."
"I see! I see!" Mere light and strength coming into his face. "It all lies with myself."
"All," I answered. "There is no help for you outside of your own will. You stand self-confident, or equipoised, with freedom to act in the direction of any force that draws you, be it good or evil."
"Thank you for all this. I see wherein my peril lies, and also the line of a new defense. I will control this dreadful appetite! I will be a man!"
"But, remember," I said, "that eternal vigilance is the price of safety. Appetite is subtle, as well as strong. It is an enemy that never really sleeps."
"I know, I know! But is not safety worth eternal vigilance?"
There was in his countenance the glow of a rising confidence.
"Ah, my friend," he added, as he took my hand and held it tightly, "what would I not do or suffer, to be free from this awful slavery; from this bondage to death and Hell!"
"And the way is so plain and so easy," said I, with all the encouragement I was able to throw into my voice. "Just to will to be free; and then to stand up as a man. To say to appetite, 'So far, and no farther!'"
"It was a good angel who led me here, and who put these hopeful words into your mouth, my dear old friend!" He spoke with much feeling. "I haven't been home since yesterday. I was in no condition to meet my family last night; and am in little better condition this morning. You see, I've not lost all shame and all consideration."
"You will go home now?"
"Yes."
I saw a shadow drifting over his face.
"Where are you living?"
"Away up town; but not as we used to live."
"Shall I go with you?"
He did not reply at once; but the shadows were deeper on his face.
"If you will." There was a returning depression in his voice; and I saw that his nerves, which had grown steady under the pressure of new thoughts and purposes, were giving way again. He drew a hand across his forehead. It was trembling.
"You remember Helen?" he said.
"Oh, yes. How is she?"
There was something like a gasp, or quick catching of the breath. Then, with an effort to control his feelings: "Not as when you saw her last. Ah! sir, what a cruel devil this drink is!"
"As cruel as death," I responded, falling in with his thoughts.
"As death? Oh, no! Death is an angel of mercy; but drink is a devil! My poor Helen!"
What grief and tenderness were in his voice as he uttered the name of his wife.
"For her sake, Granger."
"For her sake!" He spoke with a sudden intense earnestness, while a strong light flashed into his eyes. "If I were to see a wild beast rushing down upon her, do you think I would pause to question about consequences to myself? Not for a single instant! What would I not do, and bear, and suffer for her sake! Ah! sir, she has been a good wife to me. Sopatient, so true, so tender always. And I have tried so hard, and fought so hard, for her sake."
"And now let the new life you are going to lead find, its highest strength in these three words — For her sake. Let the steady will and the better manhood be for her sake. Hold the brief sentence ever against your heart; set it ever before your eyes. For her sake, my friend!"
"Yes, for her sake, God bless her!" His voice shook, and I saw tears coming into his eyes.
"What higher strength than this. Surely you will stand as a rock against which the maddest billows of temptation must break and dissolve into foam and spray."
"For her sake, I will stand! For her sake, and for the sake of my wronged and humiliated children. What a wretch I have been! To fill the lives of those I love with shame and sorrow; and for what? Just to gratify my appetite for alcohol!"
"Which, if you will to deny, must always stand denied. Keep ever in your thought the true order of life, which is the subjection of the sensual to the rational. If the sensual is allowed to rule — then will anarchy and violence reign in the kingdom. But if reason keeps her seat of power — then order, and peace, and happiness will prevail; and the sensual will be as a staff in the hand of Aaron, and not as a biting serpent on the ground."
"Ah! yes, it is growing clearer and clearer. All danger lies in this infirmity of the will, in this hearkening to the lying voice of a serpent, instead of to our God-given reason."
Granger was lifting himself with a more assured air, and there was a growing strength in his face.
"I must go home now," he said, rising.
"And I am to go with you?"
Did I betray a doubt in my voice? Perhaps; for away back and almost out of sight in my mind, lay a doubt of the new-born strength of this man's will. It might endure until he reached his home, or it might yield to enticement along the way. He had not yet recovered his manhood. He was still weak, and must walk for a time with unsteady steps. All this Ifelt, rather than thought.
He set his eyes on me with a keen look just for an instant before replying.
"If you care to see what a poor and wretched home it is."
"I care to give you what help and strength lies in my power." I took my hat as I spoke, and we went out together.
I had not seen Alexander Granger before for nearly a year. He was a lawyer of fine abilities, and in the first ten years of his practice at the bar, had risen steadily into notice, and been connected, as counsel, with many important cases. But, unhappily, his social nature led him too often out of the ways of safety. It was the old, sad story which has been told so many and so many times. Just in the very prime of his life, the subtle power of drink began to bear him down. If he had taken alarm at the first warning he received of the establishment and growth of this power, and broken free from it in a single resolute effort — all would have been well. But here again it was the old story repeated. He had faith in his own manhood; in his ability to go just so far, and no farther; to keep on the edge of danger and never step across. And he held to this, even in the face of one lapse after another, until he became the slave of alcohol.
It took years for all this; for he had a strong, tough brain, and great physical energy; and his steadily increasing practice at the bar held him in earnest work, and for a long time out of the sphere of apparent danger. But no brain can do its best under the stimulant of alcohol. There must always come a loss of clearness. There may be an increased activity, but this very activity, where the reason is obscured and interests at the same time imperiled — leads too often to disaster. It happened so to Granger.
In the very height of his popularity, he lost a case of great importance. His client did not know that on the previous night he had been over-free with wine at a supper from which he did not get home until after the wee hours of the morning began; and that before coming into court to make his final argument, he had been compelled to steady his nerves with a glass of brandy. No, they did not know this; but what they did know was, that he failed to bring out with logical clearness, the strong point in their case, and the one on which they chiefly relied.
Considered as a mere forensic display, it was one of the most brilliant ever heard in the court-room, and men listened to it breathlessly, admiring its fine periods, its exhibition of learning, and its wealth of imagery and illustration; but, while it extorted admiration, it failed in the chief essential of a legal argument, working no conviction on the minds of the twelve men with whom the decision of the case rested.
It was Granger's first great failure. Did no suspicion of the real cause intrude itself upon his thoughts? Yes, but it was thrust out as false and unworthy. His head was never clearer, nor his mind more active. So he declared to himself in his quick rejection of the very truth it so much concerned him to know. But the incident troubled him; and in the face of his effort to look away from the real cause of failure, and to count it as nothing — he made an almost involuntary resolution to abstain from any free use of stimulants for some days before arguing another important case; and for more than a year, he acted upon this resolution.
But his wine at dinner, his exchange of drinking courtesies with friends, and his indulgence at suppers and social parties, gradually depraved his appetite, and it grew to be more and more exacting. For awhile, only a single glass had been taken with his dinner. Then there was an occasional second glass, and in time two glasses became the regular custom. A third glass now and then marked the steady growth of appetite. So it went on, with a slow but sure increase, until it was no unusual thing for Granger to drink half a bottle of wine every day with his dinner; and to finish the bottle before going to bed.
Fame and fortune were just within his reach. He was regarded as the ablest of all the rising men at the bar of his native city, and many of the best cases were coming into his hands — when the evidences of blight and failure of power became visible. After losing the case to which I have referred, he was on guard for a long time; but the steadily increasing use of alcohol wrought its natural result on his brain, and his second great failure in court was due in all probability as much to a complete abstinence from drink, as the first was to its use and the unhealthy excitement that followed.
This loss of mental clearness in consequence of a loss of the usual brain-tonic, was a fact far more patent to Granger's mind than had been the other fact of loss of mental clearness through unusual stimulation, and he resolved not to risk another experiment of the kind, but rather to give his nerves a firmer tone by an extra glass on the eve of every specially important effort in court. It is surprising how men who are clear-seeing as to cause and effect in almost everything else, can be so blind about the ultimate result of repeated and increasing stimulation on that wonderful and delicate organism, the brain. It shows how subtle, and strong, and self-deceiving is the sensual side of our nature, if, instead of holding it in strict subordination to reason and the laws of order — we give it the reins, and submit even partially to its rule.
After this second important failure, and Granger's clear apprehension of the proximate cause, he did not again venture on complete abstinence as a safe preparation for entrance upon a legal conflict in which large interests hung on victory or defeat. But, for all this, he was never able to bring to his cases, the clear logic and force of argument for which he had once been distinguished. He had, in fact, reached his highest point of success and reputation; and as the causes which had checked his upward movement were still in force, and his power of resistance waning — it was not long before the downward change became apparent to all.
And now, his nearest friends began to warn and to expostulate with him. But only after some disgraceful fall from sobriety, was heed taken, and efforts at reform made. It was the old story, as we have said. Falling, falling slowly. Then a pause and a rallying of strength, and an effort to move upwards again. And then a yielding to the downward drag. He did not at this time show himself to the world as a common drunkard; and the people who met him on the street, at his office, or in the court-rooms, rarely saw him so much under the influence of liquor as to betray the fact in any marked way; and yet, all could see that he was becoming the slave of drink, and that his utter ruin was only a matter of time, unless there should come a total change in his habits.
Down, down, the descent becoming more rapid. Sudden stoppages, as one strong influence after another was brought to bear upon him; solemn promises, and pledges of reform; firm standing for brief periods; and then, down, down again! And thus it went on for years; and there came loss of his honorable position at the bar; loss of practice; loss of social status; moral weakness and degradation; poverty and wretchedness. And still, there were intermitted struggles with the enemy, and efforts to rise into a true manhood. A sad, sad history, running through years of increasing disaster, humiliation and sorrow — until he had reached the level on which the reader finds him.
Yet, as has been seen, some hope and strength were yet remaining; some feeling of self-respect, and an unextinguished love for his unhappy wife and wronged and suffering children, for whom he would have braved any physical peril — even death itself.
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