Take a large number of blocks, and before the meeting build up a square pile one block thick and about twenty blocks square. Tell the children that the top represents a road, along which a bright young fellow set out to go to the Castle of Happiness, where all good things were for him to enjoy and use. Describe the beauties of the road and of the castle at the end of it.
But our young man fell in with bad companions, and the first thing he knew, they had pulled him down into a lower road—just one step lower, but it would be harder to reach the Castle of Happiness from that road. (Here remove the top layer of blocks, all but the first block, making one step down.)
It was not long before the young man got into the habit of swearing. The other fellows did it, and why shouldn’t he? I thought it sounded and manly. In reality, it pulled him down to another road a little lower than the second road, and from it it would be a little more up-hill work to get to the Castle of Happiness. (Here remove the second line of blocks, all but two, making two steps down.)
In the same way proceed, making with your blocks successive steps downwards. Disobedience to parents, the first glass, gambling, stealing, the gutter, the prison, death,—these may be made the steps downward. At the end make a precipice with your remaining layers of blocks. It will stand for the drunkard’s final ruin. No drunkard can enter the kingdom of heaven.