(Show two wine glasses, one full of water colored with black ink, and the other full of water colored with red ink.)
There was once a lad who was very sick indeed. The doctor brought him a little glass, like this, full of this black, ugly-looking medicine. It smelled bad and tasted worse, and the lad struggled and screamed and pushed it away and tried to spill it. He said he was afraid to take it; he believed it was poison. At last they held him and forced him to swallow the medicine, and it cured him.
That same lad, a few years afterwards, was with a lot of his comrades, and they got him to go into a saloon. One of them set before him a little glass of wine, just like this. It looked good, and it smelled good, but the lad shrank back. He had heard what wine would do to his body and his brain and his soul, and he hesitated. “Huh! You’re afraid!” sneered one of the boys standing near. “Who’s afraid?” asked our lad, and he snatched up the glass, drinking all the wine. Then he called for another glass to show that he was not afraid.
The other day this boy, who was afraid of the little glass of black, healing medicine, but was not afraid of the little glass of red, deadly wine, died in a terrible way, and was buried in a drunkard’s grave. Of which will you be afraid?