midnight
That night we were born into a new physical , mental and moral life . Perhaps it may be better for some to smoke , and study nights , and take exciting temperance beverages ; but we are persuaded that if thousands of people who now go moping , and nervous , and half exhausted through life , down with `` sick headaches '' and rasped by irritabilities , would try a good large dose of abstinence , they would thank God for this paragraph of personal experience , and make the world the same bright place we find it -- a place so attractive that nothing short of heaven would be good enough to exchange for it . The first cigar made us desperately sick ; the throwing away of our last made us gloriously well . For us the croaking of the midnight owl hath ceased , and the time of the singing of birds has come . The first of May is to many the beginning of the year . From that are dated the breakages , the social startings , the ups and downs , of domestic life . One-half New York is moving into smaller houses , the other half into larger .