The latch was raised, and in there came
The neighbors with a din;

They say I stole the baker's bread,
Which was a grievous sin.

They took me to the Judge, who said

'Twas larceny--no less;

And doom'd me to the gloomy jail
For wanton wickedness.

He asked me why the penalty
Of guilt should not be paid;
And when I strove to state the case,
He laughed at what I said.

Then growing grave he rated me
And told me it was time
To check the vices of the poor,
And stop the spread of crime.

In Jail for three long months I lay--
Three months of bitter wo-

And then they opened wide the door
And told me I might go.

From out the prison I did not walk
But ran with trembling feet,

Down through the hall and past the door,

And up the busy street.

My feet had scarce devoured ten rods
Of ground, before a hearse,
Came slowly on with coffins three,
Each coffin with a corse.

I asked the driver as he sung,

Therein who might he bear;

He answered not, but stopped his voice," And on me fixed a stare.

The one beside him turned his head,'

And when the hearse had past,

I heard him to the other say-

"His brain is turned at last."

I heeded not-I hastened home

And entered in my door,

Where silence like a snake crept out
And slimed along the floor.

Our old cat from the corner came
And crooked her back and cried;
I stooped me down and patted her
And then I stood and sighed.

I left the house and sought the street-
My mind was growing wild;
And playing with a pile of dust,
I saw a chubby child.

"Come hither, my little dear," said I, "Where did the people go,

Who lived, within yon empty house,
Two years or nearly so?"

Then spake outright the little child,
While I grew deadly pale-
"The man, sir, was a wicked thief,
And he was sent to jail.

"His wife and children hid themselves, But they were found to-day,

And in the gloomy poor-house hearse
Were taken far away.

"They say, they never will come back, Because the three are dead

BUT WAS IT NOT A WICKED THING

FOR THE MAN TO STEAL THE BREAD?"

LEAF TWELFTH.

THERE is no doubt but liquor, and those associations formed in places where the poison is sold, produce many of the evils which are attendant on, if not the cause of that poverty and distress, which it has been the painful duty of the Missionary to witness in all their worst features. In the following sketch, I have endeavoured to portray the gradual increase of the power of liquor over the human mind, until it becomes maddened, and distraught. The Rev. John Street, in his report, makes mention of several cases similar to the one which follows, and which will be found under their respective heads.

THE CONFESSIONS OF A DRUNKARD*

CHAPTER I.

"When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be on the earth."

The confessions of a drunkard have but little interest to the virtuous and the moral portion of the community. They are but the record of a maniac's actions, the wild ravings of one lost to honor, to virtue, and shame; a being destitute alike of moral courage, and a mind to render that confession suitable to the public ear. He is a lost wretch, tossed on the billowy waves of life without a guide or rudder, hurried through his brief existence without a knowledge of himself and those around him. I have, therefore, undertaken to

*Founded on facts.

write the confessions of one, and in laying it before my readers, I beg leave to state that the material points are founded on recent and melancholy facts.

"My life began under promising circumstances; the sun of prosperity rose at my birth, and at the age of nineteen, I found myself in possession of fifty thousand dollars. I need not describe what pleasing dreams floated in the perspective scenes before me: nor need I paint feelings excited by an intuitive inclination to act with propriety; and in accordance with those principles, imbibed at an early age from good and virtuous parents. But alas! how fleeting are these transient visions! They arouse feelings within us to destroy and crush us!

:

I mingled in society. My company was courted, and as I refrained from liquor, my exhilarated spirits were not occasioned by artificial stimulus. No-they were the buoyant, gay aspirations of youth, animated by prosperity, and warmed by friendship. Love had not yet entered the peaceful dwelling of my heart, and thus I basked in the sunshine. of life without an obscuring cloud. My companions were not choice, my disposition being open and volatile, manners bland and unassuming all were welcome to my friendship and my purse. Society has her forms, her ways, and her fashions-thus the fatal introduction of liquor leads into her precincts all those baneful vices which are its concomitants. Liquor is the footstool to corruption, and its plentitude the ruin of our whole moral system. Society is corrupt at best; but, alas! how much more so when fashion, custom, and generous feelings, introduce into their circles the veriest monster that ever hell produced, and sent unchained to roam over our earth.

Liquor stirs up the passions, naturally fierce. The gratification of these passions overcome virtue, the strictest rules

of propriety and etiquette, and finally subdues all the nobler qualities of man; and wo to him or her on whom rests its infernal mantle-the fangs of hell are not more powerfulthe grasp of Satan not more dangerous.-But to proceed:

I became fond of liquor. It opened to my view a world of fancy, and in imagination another sphere became perceptible and while standing on earth, wine conveyed the sense to those scenes far surpassing this dull monopolising sphere. I was entranced and breathed another atmosphere. Wine became my god-I worshipped it as the idol of my soulthe very source of my existence for it renewed the pleasures of life, and re-created me ;-my companions were like me, they became disciples of my god, and followers of thought, feeling, and sentiment. Our days were spent in brothels: a whirlwind of unspeakable joy, buoyant hopes, exalted notions, carried me from earth through ether, to regions erected by the brain--infatuation led me on to insanity, and the brain yielded its natural powers to that of a superior quality, and made it conceive worlds of its own, and defy the simple bounds prescribed by the laws of man. The monarch whose imperial brow holds a diadem, was a slave to me, and my infuriate ambition led me to defy the gods, and call them secondary beings in the order of my grand and incomprehensive scale of things; and in the madness of intoxicating fury, I even defied that Being whom I believed only metaphysical, one of dreaming philosophers. Madness has bounds infuriate as man is beneath its power, it still has governing principles. I struck in its fury a friend-he reeled and fell:--life became extinct beneath the desperate blow, and I stood in reality, though not in law, a murderer!

Did this astounding fact which came (through the hellish atmosphere, liquor had created around me) like a flash of lightning upon my benighted sense ?--No--there was a