Saved as by Fire! CHAPTER 6.
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My confidence in Granger's ability to control his appetite by means of the new moral element which had been summoned to his aid, was not as strong as I could have wished. A serious ground of fear lay in the fact, which had been fully admitted, of his father's intemperate habits, for I clearly understood the subtle power of all transmitted inclinations; especially when by indulgence these inclinations are lifted above the region of latent impulse and become a living force, the hereditary and the acquired, acting in the same direction. How powerful had been their action in the case of Mr. Granger, was manifest in his sudden fall after a whole year of abstinence. In this renewed struggle, was he not weaker, and these combined forces stronger, than before? I could not get my mind free from the depressing effects which were wrought in me by this view of the case.
But my anxieties were apparently groundless. Granger stood firm again; and I had cause for renewed and stronger hope in the permanence of his reformation, in the fact that he was less boastful as to his strength, and more careful to keep as far away from temptation as possible. I made it a duty to see him frequently, and to give him all the moral support in my power. There were times when he talked to me very freely about his old life, and about the latent force of the old serpent of alcohol on which he had set his heel.
"I am painfully conscious," he said to me, one day — it was several months after his sudden fall, and quick recovery of himself again, "that appetite is only held down by force; and that at any moment it may give a vigorous spring and seek to throw its slimy folds around me!"
"And for this cause, you are always on guard," I replied.
"Always."
"Herein lies your safety. You are stronger than your enemies; but, to be safe, must never unbuckle your armor nor lay aside your shield."
"Always a soldier; always in front of the enemy; always standing on guard! It is a hard life for a man to live. How I long, sometimes, for peace and rest and safety!"
"Better to stand always in full armor, than to give the slightest advantage to your cruel foes. You know too well what falling into their power means."
"Alas! too well. But," he added, with a serious contraction of the brows, "is there no time in the days to come, when these enemies shall be wholly destroyed or cast out? Am Inever to dwell in safety?"
He looked at me with strong and eager questionings in his eyes.
"Sometime, I trust." My reply had in it no assuring quality.
"Sometime! When? In this world, or only in the next? — in Heaven, if I ever should be so fortunate as to get there?"
"Your enemies will grow weaker, the longer you hold them down; and will you not be a steady gainer in strength for every day and year you keep this mastery over them? Every day and year dwelling more and more secure?"
"What do you understand by alcoholism?" he asked, abruptly.
"It is a term used by some medical writers to designate what they regard as confirmed inebriety — when the will-power is completely overthrown, and the demands of the diseased organism for alcoholic stimulus becomes so great, that the man is literally crazy for drink," I replied.
"What do they say about it? — the medical writers, I mean."
"They give but little ground for hope of cure in one so demented."
"Demented? Ah! I can well believe it. Crazy for drink! I have seen men so."
"When this condition is fully developed, these writers say, the brain has become deteriorated in quality, and its functions impaired. All the higher faculties are more or less weakened. Reason, judgment, perception and memory lose their vigor and capacity. The will becomes feeble and powerless. All the moral sentiments and affections become involved. Conscience, a sense of accountability, and of right and wrong, are all deadened, while the baser propensities and passions are aroused, and acquire a new strength.
"Another effect has been observed: No influence can frighten or deter the miserable subject from indulging his passion for drink. To gratify it, he will not only disregard every consideration of a personal nature affecting his standing in society, his financial condition, or the well-being of his family, but the most frightful instances of disasters and crimes, as the consequences of drinking, fail to have any effect upon him. A hundred deaths from this cause, occurring under the most revolting circumstances, fail to impress him with an adequate sense of his own danger. He would pass over the bodies of these wretched victims without a thought of warning, in order to get the means of gratifying his own insatiate thirst. Such, according to medical testimony, is the alcoholic; or, as some say, the subject of confirmed alcoholism; and he is considered as morally insane."
"Fearful!" ejaculated Granger; "and we tamper with a substance that can work such ruin to the souls and bodies of men!"
"There is something mysterious in the action of this substance on the human body and its functions," I replied. "So seductive and pleasant in its first effects — so enticing and soalluring — and yet so deadly and destructive in the end. An almost invisible bond at the beginning and as light as a spider's thread — but at the last, an iron fetter!"
"I met with an extract from a medical journal today that gave me a startling impression of insecurity," said Granger. "As you intimated, there must be something occult and mysterious in the way alcohol works its insidious changes in the human economy. We know, alas! too well, that here effect does not cease with the removal of the cause. Thethirst, which increases the more it is indulged — is not extinguished by prolonged denial. The man never gets back to his normal state — to a point where a single glass of liquor will produce no more desire for a second glass than did the first he drank in youth or early manhood. One would suppose that, after a longer or shorter period of abstinence, the man would regain his old condition, and be able to taste wine or spirits without immediate danger. That the appetite, if indulged, would have only gradual increase as before. But all experience and observation testify that this is not so, and the extract from a medical journal to which I have just referred professed to give the pathological reason."
"And what is the reason so given?" I asked.
"It startled me, as I have said," he answered. "The statement alleges that a physician of some eminence made careful examination, by examination of the blood and internal organs of people who, before death, had used intoxicating drinks freely, and found in these subjects an enlargement of the blood globules, as well in the brain as in the other organs, so that they stood, as it were, open-mouthed, athirst always, and eager for drink."
"But," I said, "abstinence from alcoholic beverages must, in time, change this condition, and the blood globules shrink to their old dimensions."
"The facts do not bear out that inference. It is farther stated, that the physician referred to, after clearly ascertaining the existence of this morbid change, had the opportunity to dissect the brain of a man who, after being a drunkard for many years, reformed and lived soberly until he died. His surprise was great when he discovered that the unnaturally large globules of the blood had not shrank to their proper size. Though they did not exhibit the inflammation seen in the drunkard's brain — they were enlarged, and ready, it seemed, on the instant, to absorb the waited-for alcohol, and resume their old diseased condition. The conclusion to which the physician came was given in the brief article. He believed that he saw in this morbid state of the brain, the physical part of the reason why a man who has once been a drunkard, can never again as long as he lives, safely take one drop of alcoholic liquor. He thought he saw why a glass of wine put a man back instantly to where he was when he drank all the time. He saw the citadel free from the enemy, but undefended — incapable of defense — its doors wide open, so that there was no safety except in keeping the foe at a distance, away beyond the outermost wall."
"If this be true, every reformed man should know it!" I said. "The statement is remarkable, and great pains should be taken to ascertain, by repeated examinations, whether it holds good in other cases or not. That there is a change in the physical condition of inebriates, we all know; and we also know that this change is permanent. But whether it be in the blood globules or not, the fact itself should stand as a perpetual warning to men who have at any time been the slaves of this appetite to alcohol. And I do not think, Mr. Granger, that you should find in the philosophy of inebriation here educed, anything to discourage you, but rather a new motive for keeping your foe at a distance, away beyond the outermost wall, as has been said."
"But the citadel incapable of defense — its doors wide open! Think of that, Mr. Lyon!"
"Yes; but the enemy dislodged, and driven over the frontier — held in the far distance, and the man able, if he will, to hold him there forever."
"Ah! yes, yes. The old story. No safety but in eternal vigilance." Granger spoke as one who felt weary and despondent.
"But safety. Don't forget that, my friend! Peace and safety. Rich harvest-fields, and secure abiding. Are not these worth all the vigilance one may give?"
"Yes, yes; his eternal vigilance!" He roused himself as he spoke. "What a weak coward I am! But I know my enemy, and the vantage ground he holds."
"The vantage ground is yours, instead," I made reply. "Don't forget that; and let each new revelation you get of your enemy's strength, alertness and malignant hate — only act upon you as a new motive for watchfulness. Let the resolute will that held you safe for a whole year, add its strength to the new motives and considerations which are influencing you now."
He withdrew his gaze from me, and remained in thought for a considerable time.
"You are not a church-member?" lifting his eyes to my face. I noticed a new quality in his tone of voice.
"No; I have never connected myself with any religious society."
"Why not?"
"It might be difficult to assign a reason that would be entirely satisfactory to any but myself, seeing that I am a reverent believer in Holy Scripture and in the divinity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But I do not find in the sphere of worship, in the ordinary range of preaching, and in the practical illustrations of Christianity seen in the lives and conversation of most of the church-members I happen to know — anything to awaken a desire to cast in my lot with 'God's people,' as they are in the habit of styling themselves. They have too much cant of Sunday piety — and too little week-day charity to suit me. The teachings of Christ are very explicit, and no man is a Christian, let him profess what he may, who does not live according to His divine precepts. To be a Christian, means a great deal more than to be called by His name; as so many really seem to think. To join a church, and take part in its worship and ordinances, doesn't make a Christian. It may make a self-deceiving Pharisee or hypocrite; which is to be in a more dangerous spiritual condition than that of honest unbelief. I have too deeply-seated a reverence for these things, to enter into them lightly, or to make of them a stepping-stone to influence and respectability, as I fear is so frequently the case."
Mr. Granger drew a long sigh as I stopped speaking, and I saw a disappointed expression in his face.
"Have you thought of joining the church?" I inquired.
"Oh, yes! I've thought of everything." He spoke with a slight disturbance of manner. "But the question has always been, 'What help will the church give me?' and so far the answer has not been satisfactory. That case of Mr. Talbot, about which we talked once, has been a source of considerable discouragement. He was a clergyman, you know, in the church, and one of its teachers; and yet the church did not save him from drunkenness."
"And you remember," I added, "that he used often, as he said, to pray to God on bended knees for strength to resist the demon of drink, but all without avail."
"Yes, I remember it." His voice despondent, and a gloom settling over his face.
What did this mean? The truth began to dawn on me. There had been one reserve of hope left in the mind of Granger. When all else failed, he would go to God for help; and in my seeming depreciation of the church as a means of rescue, had I not well near destroyed this hope?
"You do not believe in the value of prayer?" He put the question sharply.
"I must reject the Bible — if I reject the value of prayer. It is full of exhortations to pray. 'Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation,' are the words of our blessed Lord himself. But you will notice that the first injunction was to 'watch;' this is the man's part. If he is not watchful — ever on guard and ready to resist the tempter — his prayers will be offered in vain. In the clergyman's case, prayer on bended knees could not have been supplemented with a due degree of watchfulness. In far too many cases, prayer goes for nothing, I fear. Is a man secure from robbers, if he only prays for protection, and give no care to the bolting and barring pf his house? Or saved from drowning, if he puts to sea in a leaky vessel, trusting that God will keep the wretched craft afloat through the agency of prayer? There must be praying and working, asking and doing; the putting forth of our utmost strength, at the same time that our cry for help goes up. This is my idea of effective prayer."
There came back into Granger's face a more assured expression.
"I see reason in that," he said. "And yet," after a pause, "how much easier just to cry out, as Peter did, 'Save me, Lord!' and be saved without an effort to bear yourself above the engulfing water."
"Did Peter make no effort?" I asked.
"None. He just cried out, 'Lord, save me!'"
"What was he doing?"
"Trying to go to the Lord over the angry waters."
"Walking, as steadily as he could, on the turbulent billows. Walking, you see; trying to get to Jesus; doing his best. And this means, I think, that we must do something in the way of going to the Lord besides mere looking toward him, and calling upon Him. We must endeavor to walk — that is, to live right — and the first step in right living, is to cease to do evil.' He who thus tries to go to Christ, over the tempestuous waves of sin which leap about his feet, will, when his 'Save me, Lord,' breaks out in a half-despairing cry, find himself grasped by one who is mighty to save."
The strength of his countenance increased.
"You have given me some light. Help does not come to effortless weakness."
"Not the help that saves a man from the wretchedness which sin has brought upon him. He sinned freely, and God did not hold him back from sin with a force greater than his will, for that would have been to destroy in him all that makes him human, his rationality and his freedom. As he sinned freely, breaking God's laws — so he must repent and return freely. He must come back of himself, as did the prodigal son; but God will see him afar off and run to meet him, and throw His loving arms about him and rejoice over him. But, in all this, He will not touch his freedom; will do nothing for him in which the man does not, as it were, do the things for himself, God being his helper."
I saw Granger's countenance begin to fall again.
"If I could only see it clearly," he answered. "If I only knew just how God saves to the uttermost, all who come unto Him."
"Don't let us talk any more about it just now," I replied; "it is disturbing your mind, and that isn't good. Hold fast where you now stand; resist all allurement; give no place to the enemy, and while keeping vigilant watch — pray for help from God. You will be safer for this, I am sure."
He sat silent for a little while, and then, as he arose, said, speaking as if to himself: "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it; except the Lord keep the city, the watchman wakes in vain."
I did not think it well to make any reply. He stood for a few moments, as if waiting my response; but as I gave none, he wished me a good-day and retired.
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