THE BROKEN PLEDGE
"IT is two years, this very day, since I signed the pledge," remarked Jonas Marshall, a reformed drinker, to his wife, beside whom he sat one pleasant summer evening, enjoying the coolness and quiet of that calm hour.
"Two years! And is it, indeed, so long?" was the reply. "How swiftly time passes, when the heart is not oppressed with cape and sorrow!"
"To me, they have been the happiest of my life," resumed the husband. "How much do we owe to this blessed reformation!"
"Blessed, indeed, may it be called!" the wife said, with feeling.
"It seems scarcely possible, Jane, that one, who, like me, had become such a slave to intoxication, could have been reclaimed. I often think of myself, and wonder. A little over two years ago, I could no more control the intolerable desire for liquor that I felt, than I could fly. Now I have not the least inclination to touch, taste, or handle it."
"And I pray Heaven you may never again have!"
"That danger is past, Jane. Two years of total abstinence have completely changed the morbid craving once felt for artificial stimulus, into a natural and healthy desire for natural and healthy aliments."
"It would be dangerous for you even now, Jonas, to suffer a drop of liquor to pass your lips; do you not think so?"
"There would be no particular danger in my tasting liquor, I presume. The danger would be, as at first, in the use of it, until an appetite was formed." Marshall replied, in a tone of confidence.
"Then you think that old, inordinate craving for drink, has been entirely eradicated?"
"O yes, I am confident of it."
"And heartily glad am I to hear you say so. It doubles the guarantee for our own and children's happiness. The pledge to guard us on one side, and the total loss of all desire on the other, is surely a safe protection. I feel, that into the future I may now look, without a single painful anxiety on this account."
"Yes, Jane. Into the future you may look with hope. And as to the past, let it sink, with all its painful scenes,—its heart-aching trials, into oblivion."
Jonas Marshall and his young wife had, many years before the period in which the above conversation took place, entered upon the world with cheerful hopes, and a flattering promise of happiness. They were young persons of cultivated tastes, and had rather more of this world's goods than ordinarily falls to the lot of those just commencing life. A few years sufficed to dash all their hopes to the ground, and to fill the heart of the young wife with a sorrow that it seemed impossible for her to bear. Marshall, from habitual drinking of intoxicating liquors, found the taste for them fully confirmed before he dreamed of danger, and he had not the strength of character at once and for ever to abandon their use. Gradually he went down, down, slowly at first, but finally with a rapid movement, until he found himself stripped of everything, and himself a confirmed drunkard. For nearly two years longer, he surrendered himself up to drink—his wife and children suffering more than my pen can describe, or any but the drunkard's wife and drunkard's children realize.
Then came a new era. A friend of humanity sought out the poor, degraded wretch, in his misery and obscurity, and prevailed upon him to abandon his vile habits, and pledge himself to total abstinence. Two years from the day that pledge was signed, found him again rising in the world, with health, peace, and comfort, the cheerful inmates of his dwelling. Here is the brief outline of a reformed drinker's history. How many an imagination can fill in the dark shadows, and distinct, mournful features of the gloomy picture!
On the day succeeding the second anniversary of Jonas Marshall's reformation, he was engaged to dine with a few friends, and met them at the appointed hour. With the dessert, wine was introduced. Among the guests were one or two persons with whom Marshall had but recently become acquainted. They knew little or nothing of his former life. One of them sat next to him at table, and very naturally handed him the wine, with a request to drink with him.
"Thank you," was the courteous, but firm reply. "I do not drink wine."
Another, who understood the reason of this refusal, observing it, remarked—
"Our friend Marshall belongs to the tee-totallers."
"Ah, indeed! Then we must, of course, excuse him," was the gentlemanly response.
"Don't you think, Marshall," remarked another, "that you temperance men are a little too rigid in your entire proscription of wine?"
"For the reformed drinker," was the reply, "it is thought to be the safest way to cut off entirely everything that can, by possibility, inflame the appetite. Some argue, that when that morbid craving, which the drunkard acquires, is once formed, it never can be thoroughly eradicated."
"Do you think the position a true one?" asked a member of the party.
"I have my doubts of it," Marshall said. "For instance: Most of you know that for some years I indulged to excess in drink. Two years ago I abandoned the use of wine, brandy, and everything else of an intoxicating nature. For a time, I felt the cravings of an intense desire for liquor; but my pledge of total abstinence restrained me from any indulgence. Gradually, the influence of my old appetite subsided, until it ceased to be felt. And it is now more than a year since I have experienced the slightest inclination to touch a drop. Your wine and brandy are now, gentlemen, no temptation to me."
"But if that be the case," urged a friend, "why need you restrict yourself, so rigidly, from joining in a social glass? Standing, as you evidently do, upon the ground you occupied, before, by a too free indulgence, you passed, unfortunately, the point of self-control: you may now enjoy the good things of life without abusing them. Your former painful experience will guard you in that respect."
"I am not free to do so," replied Marshall.
"Why?"
"Because I have pledged myself never again to drink anything that can intoxicate, and confirmed that pledge by my sign-manual—thus giving it a double force and importance."
"What end had you in view in making that pledge?"
"The emancipation of myself from the horrible bondage in which I had been held for years."
"That end is accomplished."
"True. But the obligations of my pledge are perpetual."
"That is a mere figure of speech. You fully believed, I suppose, that perpetual total-abstinence was absolutely necessary for your safety?"
"I certainly did."
"You do not believe so now?"
"No. I have seen reason, I think, to change my views in that respect. The appetite which I believed would remain throughout life, and need the force of a solemn bond to restrain it, has, under the rigid discipline of two years, been destroyed. I now feel myself as much above the enslaving effects of intoxicating liquors, as I ever did in my life."
"Then, it is clear to my mind, that all the obligations of your pledge are fulfilled; and that, as a matter of course, it ceases to be binding."
"I should be very unwilling to violate that pledge."
"It would be, virtually, no violation."
"I cannot see it in that light," Marshall said, "although you may be perfectly correct. At any rate, I am not now willing to act up to your interpretation of the matter."
This declaration closed the argument, as his friends did not feel any strong desire to see him drink, and argued the matter with him as much for argument sake as anything else. In this they acted with but little true wisdom; for the particular form in which the subject was presented to the mind of Marshall, gave him something to think about and reason about. And the more he thought and reasoned, the more did he become dissatisfied with the restrictions under which he found himself placed. Not having felt, for many months, the least desire for liquor, he imagined that even the latent inclination which existed, as he readily supposed, for some time, had become altogether extinguished. There existed, therefore, in his estimation, now that he had begun to think over the matter, no good reason why he should abstain, totally, from wine, at least, on a social occasion.
The daily recurrence of such thoughts, soon began to worry his mind, until the pledge, that had for two years lain so lightly upon him, became a burden almost too intolerable to be borne.
"Why didn't I bind myself for a limited period?" he at last said, aloud, thus giving a sanction and confirmation by word of the thoughts that had been gradually forming themselves into a decision in his mind. No sooner had he said this, than the whole subject assumed a more distinct form, and a more imposing aspect in his view. He now saw clearly, what had not before seemed perfectly plain—what had been till then encompassed by doubts. He was satisfied that he had acted blindly when he pledged himself to total-abstinence.
"Three hundred signed the pledge last night," said his wife to him, a few weeks after the occurrence of the dinner-party, just mentioned.
"Three hundred! We are carrying everything before us."
"Who can tell," resumed the wife, "the amount of happiness involved in three hundred pledges to total-abstinence? There were, doubtless, many husbands and fathers among the number who signed. Now, there is joy in their dwellings. The fire, that long since went out, is again kindled upon their hearths. How deeply do I sympathize with the heart-stricken wives, upon whom day as again arisen, with a bright sun shining down from an unclouded sky!"
"It is, truly, to them, a new era—or the dawning of a new existence.—Most earnestly do I wish that the day had arrived, which I am sure will come, when not a single wife in the land will mourn over the wrong she suffers at the hand of a drunken husband."
"To that aspiration, I can utter a most devout amen," Mrs. Marshall rejoined, fervently.
"A few years of perseverance and well-directed energy, on our part, will effect all this, I allow myself fondly to hope, if we do not create a reaction by over-doing the matter."
"How, over-doing it?" asked the wife.
"There is a danger of over-doing it in many ways. And I am by no means sure that the pledge of perpetual abstinence is not an instance of this."
"The pledge of perpetual abstinence! Why, husband, what do you mean?"
"My remark seems to occasion surprise. But I think that I can make the truth of what I say apparent to your mind. The use of the pledge, you will readily admit, is to protect a man against the influence of a morbid thirst for liquor, which his own resolution is not strong enough to conquer."
"Well."
"So soon, then, as this end is gained, the use of the pledge ceases."
"Is it ever gained? Is a man who has once felt this morbid thirst, ever safe from it?"
"Most certainly do I believe that he is. Most certainly do I believe that a few years of total abstinence from everything that intoxicates, will place him on the precise ground that he occupied before the first drop of liquor passed his lips."
"I cannot believe this, Jonas. Whatever is once confirmed by habit, it seems to me, must be so incorporated into the mental and physical organization, as never to be eradicated. Its effect is to change, in a degree, the whole system, and to change it so thoroughly, as to give a bias to all succeeding states of mind and body—thus transmitting a tendency to come under the influence of that bias."
"You advance a thing, Jane, which will not hold good in practice. As, for instance, it is now two years since I tasted a drop of wine, brandy, or anything else of a like nature. If your theory were true, I should still feel a latent desire, at times, to drink again. But this is not the case. I have not the slightest inclination. The sight, or even the smell of wine, does not produce the old desire, which it would inevitably do, if it were only quiescent—not extirpated—as I am confident that it is."
"And this is the reason why you think the pledge should not be perpetual?"
"It is. Why should there be an external restraint imposed upon a mere nonentity? It is absurd!"
"Granting, for the sake of argument, the view you take, in regard to the extirpation of the morbid desire, which, however, I cannot see to be true," Mrs. Marshall said, endeavouring to seem unconcerned, notwithstanding the position assumed by her husband troubled her instinctively,—"it seems to me, that there still exists a good reason why the pledge should be perpetual."
"What is that, Jane?"
"If a man has once been led off by a love of drink, when no previous habit had been formed, there exists, at least, the same danger again, if liquor be used;—and if it should possibly be true that the once formed desire, if subdued, is latent—not eradicated—the danger is quadrupled."
"I do not see the force of what you say," the husband replied. "To me, it seems, that the very fact that he had once fallen, and the remembrance of its sad consequences, would be a sure protection against another lapse from sobriety."
"It may all be so," Mrs. Marshall said, in a voice that conveyed a slight evidence of the sudden shadow that had fallen upon her heart. And then ensued a silence of more than a minute. The wife then remarked in an inquiring tone—
"Then, if I understand you rightly, you think that the pledge should be binding only for a limited time?"
"I do."
"How long?"
"From one to two years. Two, at the farthest, would be sufficient, I am fully convinced, to restore any man, to the healthy tone of mind and body that he once possessed. And then, the recollection of the past would be an all-sufficient protection for the future."
Seeing that the husband was confirming himself more and more in the dangerous position that he had assumed, Mrs. Marshall said no more. Painfully conscious was she, from a knowledge of his peculiar character, that, if the idea now floating in his mind should become fixed by a rational confirmation, it would lead to evil consequences. From that moment, she began eagerly to cast about in her mind for the means of setting him right,—means that should fully operate, without her apparent agency. But one way presented itself,—(argument, she was well aware, as far as it was possible for her to enter into it with him, would only set his mind the more earnestly in search of reason, to prove the correctness of his assumed positions,)—and that was to induce him to attend more frequently the temperance meetings, and listen to the addresses and experiences there given.
"Come, dear," she said to him, after tea, a few evenings subsequent to the time Marshall had begun to urge his objections to the pledge. "I want you to go with me to-night to this great temperance meeting. Mr.—is going to make an address, and I wish to hear him very much."
"It will be so crowded, Jane, that you will not have the least satisfaction," objected her husband—"and, besides, the evening is very warm."
"But I don't mind that, Jonas. I am very anxious to hear
Mr.—speak."
"I am sorry, Jane," Marshall said, after the silence of a few moments. "But I recollect, now, that I promised Mr. Patton to call down and see him this evening. There are to be a few friends there, and he wished me, particularly, to meet them."
Poor Mrs. Marshall's countenance fell at this, and the tears gathered in her eyes.
"So, then, you won't go with me to the temperance meeting," she said, in a disappointed tone.
"I should like to do so, Jane," was the prevaricating reply, "but you see that it is out of my power, without breaking my promise, which you would not, of course, have me do."
"O, no, of course not."
"You can go, Jane. I will leave you at the door, and call for you when the meeting is out."
"No, I do not feel like going, now I should have enjoyed it with you by my side. But to go alone would mar all the pleasure."
"But surely that need not be, Jane. You know that I cannot be always with you."
"No, of course not," was uttered, mechanically; and then followed a long silence.
"So you will not go," Marshall at length said.
"I should not enjoy the meeting, and therefore do not wish to go," his wife replied.
"I am sorry for it, but cannot help it now, for I should not feel right were I not to comply with my promise."
"I do not wish you to break it, of course. For a promise should ever be kept sacred," Mrs. Marshall said, with a strong emphasis on the latter sentence.
This emphasis did not escape the notice of her husband, who felt that it was meant, as it really was, to apply to his state of mind in regard to the pledge. For it was a fact, which the instinctive perception of his wife had detected, that he had begun, seriously, to argue in his own mind, the question, whether, under the circumstances of the case, seeing, that, in taking the pledge, the principle of protection was alone considered, he was any longer bound by it. He did not, however, give expression to the thoughts that he had at the time. The subject of conversation was changed, and, in the course of half an hour, he left to fulfil his engagement, which had not, in reality, been a positive one. As he closed the door after him, Mrs. Marshall experienced a degree of loneliness, and a gloomy depression of feeling, that she could not fully account for, though she could not but acknowledge that, for a portion of it, there existed too certain a cause, in the strange and dangerous position her husband had taken in regard to the pledge.
As Marshall emerged from his dwelling, and took his way towards the friend's house, where he expected to meet a select company, his mind did not feel perfectly at ease. He had partly deceived his wife in reference to the positive nature of the engagement, and had done so in order to escape from an attendance on a temperance meeting. This did not seem right. There was, also, a consciousness in his mind that it would be extremely hazardous to throw off the restraints of his pledge, at the same time that a resolution was already half formed to do so. The agitation of mind occasioned by this conflict continued until he arrived at his friend's door, and then, as he joined the pleasant company within, it all subsided.
"A hearty welcome, Marshall!" said the friend, grasping his hand and shaking it warmly. "We were really afraid that we should not have the pleasure of your good society. But right glad am I, that, with your adherence to temperance men and temperance principles, you do not partake of the exclusive and unsocial character that so many assume."
"I regard my friends with the same warm feelings that I ever did,"
Marshall replied,—"and love to meet them as frequently."
"That is right. We are social beings, and should cultivate reciprocal good-feelings. But don't you think, Marshall, that some of you temperance folks carry matters too far?"
"Certainly I do. As, for instance, I consider this binding of a man to perpetual total-abstinence, as an unnecessary infringement of individual liberty. As I look upon it, the use of the pledge, is to enable a man, by the power of an external restraint, to gain the mastery over an appetite that has mastered him. When that is accomplished, all that is wanted is obtained: of what use is the pledge after that?"
"Very true," was the encouraging reply.
"A man," resumed Marshall, repeating the argument he had used to his wife, which now seemed still more conclusive, "has only to abstain for a year or two from liquor to have the morbid craving for it which over-indulgence had created, entirely eradicated. Then he stands upon safe ground, and may take a social glass, occasionally, with his friends, without the slightest danger. To bind himself up, then, to perpetual abstinence, seems not only useless, but a real infringement of individual liberty."
"So it presents itself to my mind," rejoined one of the company.
"I feel it to be so in my case," was the reply of the reformed man to this, thus going on to invite temptation, instead of fleeing from it.
"Certainly, if I were the individual concerned," remarked one of the company, "I should not be long in breaking away from such arbitrary restrictions."
"How would you get over the fact of having signed the pledge?" asked
Marshall, with an interest that he dared not acknowledge to himself.
"Easy enough," was the reply.
"How?"
"On the plea that I was deceived into signing such a pledge."
"How deceived?"
"Into a belief that it was the only remedy in my case. There is no moral law binding any man to a contract entered into ignorantly. The fact of ignorance, in regard to the fundamental principles of an agreement, vitiates it. Is not that true?"
"It certainly is," was the general reply to this question.
"Then you think," said Marshall, after reflecting for a few moments, "that no moral responsibility would attach to me, for instance, if I were to act independently of my pledge?"
"Certainly none could attach," was the general response; "provided, of course, that the end of that pledge was fully attained."
"Of that there can be no doubt," was the assumption of the reformed man. "The end was, to save me from the influence of an appetite for drink, against which, in my own strength, I could not contend. That end is now accomplished. Two years of total abstinence has made me a new man. I now occupy the same ground that I occupied before I lost my self-control."
"Then I can see no reason why you should be denied the social privilege of a glass with your friends," urged one of the company.
"Nor can I see it clearly," Marshall said. "Still I feel that a solemn pledge, made more solemn and binding by the subscription of my name, is not a thing to be lightly broken. The thought of doing so troubles me, when I seriously reflect upon it."
"It seems to me that, were I in your place," gravely remarked one of the company, heretofore silent, "I would not break my pledge without fully settling two points—if it is possible for you, or any other man, under like circumstances, to settle them."
"What are they?" asked Marshall, with interest.
"They are the two most prominent points in your case;—two that have already been introduced here to-night. One involves the question, whether you are really free from the influence of your former habits?"
"I have not a single doubt in regard to that point," was the positive reply.
"I do not see, Mr. Marshall, how it is possible for you to settle it beyond a doubt," urged the friend. "To me, it is not philosophically true that the power of habit is ever entirely destroyed. All subsequent states of body or mind, I fully believe, are affected and modified by what has gone before, and never lose the impression of preceding states,—and more particularly of anything like an overmastering habit—or rather, I should say, in this case, of an overmastering affection. The love, desire, or affection, whichever you may choose to call it, which you once felt for intoxicating drinks, or for the effects produced by them, never could have existed in the degree that they did, without leaving on your mind—which is a something far more real and substantial than this material body, which never loses the marks and scars of former abuse—ineradicable impressions. The forms of old habits, if this be true, and that it so, I fully believe, still remain; and these forms are in the endeavour, if I may so speak, to be filled with the affections that once made them living and active. Rigidly exclude everything that can excite these, and you are safe;—but, to me it seems, that no experiment can be so dangerous, as one which will inevitably produce in these forms a vital activity."
"That, it seems to me," was the reply of one of the company, "is a little too metaphysical—or rather, I should say, transcendental—for, certainly, it transcends my powers of reasoning to be able to see how any permanent forms, as you call them, can be produced in the mind, as in the body—the one being material, and the other immaterial, and, therefore, no more susceptible of lasting impressions, than the air around us."
"You have not, I presume, given much thought to this subject," the previous speaker said, "or you would not doubt, so fully, the truth of my remark. The power of habit, a fact of common observance, which is nothing but a fixed form of the mind, illustrates it. And, certainly, if the mind retained impressions no better than the air around us, we should remember but little of what we learned in early years."
"I see," was the reply to this, "that my remark was too broad. Still, the memory of a thing is very different from a permanent and inordinate desire to do something wrong, remaining as a latent principle in the mind, and ready to spring into activity years afterwards, upon the slightest provocation."
"It certainly is a different thing; and if it be really so, its establishment is a matter of vital importance. In regard to reformed drinkers, there has been much testimony in proof of the position. I have heard several men relate their experiences; and all have said that time and again had they resolved to conquer the habit that was leading them on headlong to destruction; and that they had, on more than one occasion, abstained for months. But that, so soon as they again put liquor to their lips, the old desire came back for it, stronger and more uncontrollable than before."
"That was, I presume," Marshall remarked, "because they had not abstained long enough."
"One man, I remember to have heard say, that he did not at one period of his life use any kind of intoxicating drink for three years. He then ventured to take a glass of cider, and was drunk and insensible before night! And what was worse, did not again rise superior to his degradation for years."
"I should call that an, extreme case," urged the infatuated man. "There must have been with him a hereditary propensity. His father was, doubtless, a drunkard before him."
"As to that, I know nothing, and should not be willing to assume the fact as a practical principle,"—the friend replied. "But there is another point that ought to be fully settled."
"What is that?"
"No one can, without seriously injuring himself, morally, violate a solemn pledge—particularly, as you have justly said, a pledge made more binding and solemn, by act and deed, in the sign-manual. A man may verbally pledge himself to do or not to do a thing. To violate this pledge deliberately, involves moral consequences to himself that are such as almost any one would shrink from incurring. But when a man gives to any pledge or contract a fulness and a confirmation by the act of subscribing his name to it, and then deliberately violates that pledge or contract, he necessarily separates himself still further from the saving power of good principles and influences than in the other case, and comes more fully under the power of evil principles and evil influences. After such an act, that man's state is worse, far worse than it was before. I speak strongly and earnestly on this subject, because I feel deeply its importance. And I would say to our friend Marshall here, as I would say to my own brother, let these two points be fully settled before you venture upon dangerous ground. Be sure that the latent desire for stimulating drinks is fully eradicated—and be certain that your pledge can be set aside without great moral injury to yourself, before you take the first step towards its violation, which may be a step fraught with the most fatal consequences to yourself and family."
This unlooked-for and serious turn which the discussion assumed, had the effect to make Marshall hesitate to do what he had too hastily made his mind up that he might venture upon without the slightest danger. It also furnished reasons to the company why they should not urge him to drink. The result was, that he escaped through all the temptations of the evening, which would have overcome him, inevitably, had his own inclination found a general voice of encouragement.
But none of the strong arguments why he should not again run madly into the way of evil, which had been so opportunely and unexpectedly urged, had the effect to keep his eye off of the decanters and brim-full glasses that circulated far too freely;—nor to prevent the sight of them from exciting in his mind a strong, almost unconquerable desire, to join with the rest. This very desire ought to have warned him—it should have caused him to tremble and flee away as if a raging wild beast had stood in his path. But it did not. He deceived himself by assuming (sic) hat the desire which he felt to drink with his friends arose from his love of sociality, not of wine.
The evening was lonely and long to Mrs. Marshall, and there was a shadow over her feelings that she endeavoured in vain to dispel. Her husband's knock, which came between ten and eleven o'clock, and for which she had been listening anxiously for at least an hour, made her heart bound and tremble, producing a feeling of weakness and oppression. As she opened the door for him, it was with a vague fear. This was instantly dispelled by his first affectionate word uttered in steady tones. He was still himself! Still as he had been for the blessed two years that had just gone by!
"What is the matter, Jane? You look troubled," the husband remarked, after he had seated himself, and observed his wife's appearance.
"Do I?—If so, it is because I have felt troubled this evening."
"Why were you troubled, Jane?"
"That question I can hardly answer, either to your satisfaction or my own," Mrs. Marshall said. "From some cause or other, my feelings have been strangely depressed this evening; and I have experienced, besides, a consciousness of coming misery, that has cast a shadow over my spirits, even now but half dispelled."
"But why is all this, Jane? There must be some cause for such a change in your feelings."
"I know but one cause, dear husband!" Mrs. Marshall said, in a voice of deep tenderness, laying her hand upon her husband's arm as she spoke, and looking him in the face with an expression of earnest affection.
"Speak out plainly, Jane. What is the cause?"