happy wife and a pleasant home, what I am sure you hadn't before?"

"You are right in that. I certainly had neither of them before. Oh!
yes. I am much better off all around. I only felt a little
despondent, because I can't get regular employment as I used to, and
good wages; for now, if I had these, I could do so well."

"Be patient, friend Gordon; time will make all right. There are
three words that every reformed man should write on the walls of his
chamber, that he may see them every morning. They are 'Time, Faith,
Energy.' No matter how low he may have fallen; no matter how
discouraging all things around him may appear; let him have energy,
and faith in time, and all will come out well at last."

Gordon went home, feeling in better heart than when he met the
temperance friend who had spoken to him these encouraging words.

Henry Gordon, when he married, had just commenced business for
himself, and went on for several years doing very well. He laid by
enough money to purchase himself a snug little house, and was in a
good way for accumulating a comfortable property, when the habit of
dram-drinking, which he had indulged for years, became an
over-mastering passion. From that period he neglected his business,
which steadily declined. In half the time it took to accumulate the
property he possessed, all disappeared--his business was broken up,
and he compelled to work at his trade as a journeyman to support his
family. From a third to a half of the sum he earned weekly, he spent
in gratifying the debasing appetite that had almost beggared his
family and reduced him to a state of degradation little above that
of the brute. The balance was given to his sad-hearted wife, to get