F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 32
Now, you are very provoking, young man-very. Let other people alone;
go your way home, and study your Bible." And with this the old lady
calls Rebecca, the decrepit slave who opened the door, and directs
her to show the young man out. "There now!" she says testily,
turning to the marked page of her Milton.
The young man contemplates her for a few moments, but, having no
alternative, leaves reluctantly.
On reaching the stoop he encounters the tall, handsome figure of a
man, whose face is radiant with smiles, and his features ornamented
with neatly-combed Saxon hair and beard, and who taps the old
negress under the chin playfully, as she says, "Missus will be right
glad to see you, Mr. Snivel-that she will." And he bustles his way
laughing into the presence of the old lady, as if he had news of
great importance for her.
CHAPTER IV.
A FEW REFLECTIONS ON THE CURE OF VICE.
DISAPPOINTED, and not a little chagrined, at the failure of his
mission, the young man muses over the next best course to pursue. He
has the inebriate's welfare at heart; he knows there is no state of
degradation so low that the victim cannot, under proper care, be
reclaimed from it; and he feels duty calling loudly to him not to
stand trembling on the brink, but to enter the abode of the victim,
and struggle to make clean the polluted. Vice, he says to himself,
is not entailed in the heart; and if you would modify and correct
the feelings inclined to evil, you must first feed the body, then
stimulate the ambition; and when you have got the ambition right,
seek a knowledge of the heart, and apply to it those mild and
judicious remedies which soften its action, and give life to new
thoughts and a higher state of existence. Once create the vine of
moral rectitude, and its branches will soon get where they can take
care of themselves. But to give the vine creation in poor soil, your
watching must exhibit forbearance, and your care a delicate hand.
The stubbornly-inclined nature, when coupled with ignorance, is that
in which vice takes deepest root, as it is, when educated, that