The loss of one was accompanied by a most painful, yet deeply warning circumstance.

The father came home from the village one evening, after having taken a larger quantity of liquor than usual.

While the mother was preparing supper, he took the babe that lay fretting in the cradle, and hushed its frettings in his arms.
While holding it, overcome with what he had been drinking, he fell asleep, and the infant rolled upon the floor, striking its head first.
It awoke and screamed for a minute or two, and then sank into a heavy slumber, and did not awake until the next morning.

Then it was so sick, that a physician had to be called.

In a week it died of brain fever, occasioned, the doctor said, by the fall.
For a whole month not a drop of liquor passed the lips of the rebuked and penitent father.