The first edition of this book is dated 1865. The edition used is dated 1865. The publisher was The Religious Tract Society, London, Manchester, Brighton. The number of pages is 60.

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General information

This book was transcribed with acknowledgements to Early Canadiana Online from their website. The scans available there were of good quality, and the transcription went easily and well.

The book warns against the effects of the Demon Drink, at least at that time, for it appears that wages were low but that alcohol was expensive, so that a drunkard father could easily ruin the life of his wife and children, and perhaps cause serious, even fatal, accidents, due to violence or causing fires from a carelessly placed candle.

There are three families involved in this short book. The Morelys, where the father is a drunkard who runs out of job and money just as a very severe winter is coming on; the Grattans, where the father had previously been a drunkard, and all of whose children had perished in a house-fire which he probably had caused; the Muirs, where the old mother had been married to a dreadful old drunkard, but whose son had never drunk, and so proved, through Stephen Grattan’s recommendation, to be Morely’s saviour.

It is a very short book, but the story is very well told, and quite adequately so. You arrive at the end of the book with a very clear idea of what the author intended to convey.

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Contents

Chapter I.
An Old Story.

Chapter II.
A Snow Storm.

Chapter III.
Home Trials.

Chapter IV.
Help in the Hour of Need.

Chapter V.
Working and Waiting.

Chapter VI.
A Life History.

Chapter VII.
Waiting for News.

Chapter VIII.
John Morely’s Friend.

Chapter IX.
Right at last.

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