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SELECT TEMPERANCE TRACTS.

PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW YORK.

CONTENTS.

THE
EFFECTS OF ARDENT SPIRITS
UPON
THE HUMAN BODY AND MIND.

BY BENJAMIN RUSH, M. D.

By ardent spirits, I mean those liquors only which are obtained by distillation from fermented substances of any kind. To their effects upon the bodies and minds of men, the following inquiry shall be exclusively confined.

The effects of ardent spirits divide themselves into such as are of a prompt, and such as are of a chronic nature. The former discover themselves in drunkenness; and the latter in a numerous train of diseases and vices of the body and mind.

I. I shall begin by briefly describing their prompt or immediate effects in a fit of drunkenness.

This odious disease—for by that name it should be called—appears with more or less of the following symptoms, and most commonly in the order in which I shall enumerate them.

1. Unusual garrulity.

2. Unusual silence.

3. Captiousness, and a disposition to quarrel.

4. Uncommon good-humor, and an insipid simpering, or laugh.

5. Profane swearing and cursing.

6. A disclosure of their own or other people’s secrets.

7. A rude disposition to tell those persons in company whom they know, their faults.

8. Certain immodest actions. I am sorry to say this sign of the first stage of drunkenness sometimes appears in women, who, when sober, are uniformly remarkable for chaste and decent manners.

9. A clipping of words.

10. Fighting; a black eye, or a swelled nose, often mark this grade of drunkenness.

11. Certain extravagant acts which indicate a temporary fit of madness. Those are singing, hallooing, roaring, imitating the noises of brute animals, jumping, tearing off clothes, dancing naked, breaking glasses and china, and dashing other articles of household furniture upon the ground or floor. After a while the paroxysm of drunkenness is completely formed. The face now becomes flushed, the eyes project, and are somewhat watery, winking is less frequent than is natural; the under lip is protruded—the head inclines a little to one shoulder—the jaw falls—belchings and hiccough take place—the limbs totter—the whole body staggers. The unfortunate subject of this history next falls on his seat—he looks around him with a vacant countenance, and mutters inarticulate sounds to himself—he attempts to rise and walk: in this attempt he falls upon his side, from which he gradually turns upon his back: he now closes his eyes and falls into a profound sleep, frequently attended with snoring, and profuse sweats, and sometimes with such a relaxation of the muscles which confine the bladder and the lower bowels, as to produce a symptom which delicacy forbids me to mention. In this condition he often lies from ten, twelve, and twenty-four hours, to two, three, four, and five days, an object of pity and disgust to his family and friends. His recovery from this fit of intoxication is marked with several peculiar appearances. He opens his eyes and closes them again—he gapes and stretches his limbs—he then coughs and pukes—his voice is hoarse—he rises with difficulty, and staggers to a chair—his eyes resemble balls of fire—his hands tremble—he loathes the sight of food—he calls for a glass of spirits to compose his stomach—now and then he emits a deep-fetched sigh, or groan, from a transient twinge of conscience; but he more frequently scolds, and curses every thing around him. In this stage of languor and stupidity he remains for two or three days, before he is able to resume his former habits of business and conversation.

Pythagoras, we are told, maintained that the souls of men after death expiated the crimes committed by them in this world, by animating certain brute animals; and that the souls of those animals, in their turns, entered into men, and carried with them all their peculiar qualities and vices. This doctrine of one of the wisest and best of the Greek philosophers, was probably intended only to convey a lively idea of the changes which are induced in the body and mind of man by a fit of drunkenness. In folly, it causes him to resemble a calf—in stupidity, an ass—in roaring, a mad bull—in quarrelling and fighting, a dog—in cruelty, a tiger—in fetor, a skunk—in filthiness, a hog—and in obscenity, a he-goat.

It belongs to the history of drunkenness to remark, that its paroxysms occur, like the paroxysms of many diseases, at certain periods, and after longer or shorter intervals. They often begin with annual, and gradually increase in their frequency, until they appear in quarterly, monthly, weekly, and quotidian or daily periods. Finally, they afford scarcely any marks of remission, either during the day or the night. There was a citizen of Philadelphia, many years ago, in whom drunkenness appeared in this protracted form. In speaking of him to one of his neighbors, I said, “Does he not sometimes get drunk?” “You mean,” said his neighbor, “is he not sometimes sober?”

It is further remarkable, that drunkenness resembles certain hereditary, family, and contagious diseases. I have once known it to descend from a father to four out of five of his children. I have seen three, and once four brothers, who were born of sober ancestors, affected by it; and I have heard of its [spreading] through a whole family composed of members not originally related to each other. These facts are important, and should not be overlooked by parents, in deciding upon the matrimonial connections of their children.

II. Let us next attend to the chronic effects of ardent spirits upon the body and mind. In the body they dispose to every form of acute disease; they moreover excite fevers in persons predisposed to them from other causes. This has been remarked in all the yellow-fevers which have visited the cities of the United States. Hard-drinkers seldom escape, and rarely recover from them. The following diseases are the usual consequences of the habitual use of ardent spirits:

1. A decay of appetite, sickness at stomach, and a puking of bile, or a discharge of a frothy and viscid phlegm, by hawking, in the morning.

2. Obstructions of the liver. The fable of Prometheus, on whose liver a vulture was said to prey constantly, as a punishment for his stealing fire from heaven, was intended to illustrate the painful effects of ardent spirits upon that organ of the body.

3. Jaundice, and dropsy of the belly and limbs, and finally of every cavity in the body. A swelling in the feet and legs is so characteristic a mark of habits of intemperance, that the merchants in Charleston, I have been told, cease to trust the planters of South Carolina as soon as they perceive it. They very naturally conclude industry and virtue to be extinct in that man, in whom that symptom of disease has been produced by the intemperate use of distilled spirits.

4. Hoarseness, and a husky cough, which often terminate in consumption, and sometimes in an acute and fatal disease of the lungs.

5. Diabetes, that is, a frequent and weakening discharge of pale or sweetish urine.

6. Redness, and eruptions on different parts of the body. They generally begin on the nose, and after gradually extending all over the face, sometimes descend to the limbs in the form of leprosy. They have been called “rum-buds,” when they appear in the face. In persons who have occasionally survived these effects of ardent spirits on the skin, the face after a while becomes bloated, and its redness is succeeded by a death-like paleness. Thus, the same fire which produces a red color in iron, when urged to a more intense degree, produces what has been called a white-heat.

7. A fetid breath, composed of every thing that is offensive in putrid animal matter.

8. Frequent and disgusting belchings. Dr. Haller relates the case of a notorious drunkard having been suddenly destroyed, in consequence of the vapor discharged from his stomach by belching, accidentally taking fire by coming in contact with the flame of a candle.

9. Epilepsy.

10. Gout, in all its various forms of swelled limbs, colic, palsy, and apoplexy.

11. Lastly, madness. The late Dr. Waters, while he acted as house-pupil and apothecary of the Pennsylvania hospital, assured me, that in one-third of the patients confined by this terrible disease, it had been induced by ardent spirits.

Most of the diseases which have been enumerated are of a mortal nature. They are more certainly induced, and terminate more speedily in death, when spirits are taken in such quantities, and at such times, as to produce frequent intoxication; but it may serve to remove an error with which some intemperate people console themselves, to remark, that ardent spirits often bring on fatal diseases without producing drunkenness. I have known many persons destroyed by them who were never completely intoxicated during the whole course of their lives. The solitary instances of longevity which are now and then met with in hard-drinkers, no more disprove the deadly effects of ardent spirits, than the solitary instances of recoveries from apparent death by drowning, prove that there is no danger to life from a human body lying an hour or two under water.

The body, after its death from the use of distilled spirits, exhibits, by dissection, certain appearances which are of a peculiar nature. The fibres of the stomach and bowels are contracted—abscesses, gangrene, and schirri are found in the viscera. The bronchial vessels are contracted—the bloodvessels and tendons in many parts of the body are more or less ossified, and even the hair of the head possesses a crispness which renders it less valuable to wig-makers than the hair of sober people.

Not less destructive are the effects of ardent spirits upon the human mind. They impair the memory, debilitate the understanding, and pervert the moral faculties. It was probably from observing these effects of intemperance in drinking upon the mind, that a law was formerly passed in Spain which excluded drunkards from being witnesses in a court of justice. But the demoralizing effects of distilled spirits do not stop here. They produce not only falsehood, but fraud, theft, uncleanliness, and murder. Like the demoniac mentioned in the New Testament, their name is “Legion,” for they convey into the soul a host of vices and crimes.

A more affecting spectacle cannot be exhibited than a person into whom this infernal spirit, generated by habits of intemperance, has entered: it is more or less affecting, according to the station the person fills in a family, or in society, who is possessed by it. Is he a husband? How deep the anguish which rends the bosom of his wife! Is she a wife? Who can measure the shame and aversion which she excites in her husband? Is he the father, or is she the mother of a family of children? See their averted looks from their parent, and their blushing looks at each other. Is he a magistrate? or has he been chosen to fill a high and respectable station in the councils of his country? What humiliating fears of corruption in the administration of the laws, and of the subversion of public order and happiness, appear in the countenances of all who see him. Is he a minister of the gospel? Here language fails me. If angels weep, it is at such a sight.

In pointing out the evils produced by ardent spirits, let us not pass by their effects upon the estates of the persons who are addicted to them. Are they inhabitants of cities? Behold their houses stripped gradually of their furniture, and pawned, or sold by a constable, to pay tavern debts. See their names upon record in the dockets of every court, and whole pages of newspapers filled with advertisements of their estates for public sale. Are they inhabitants of country places? Behold their houses with shattered windows—their barns with leaky roofs—their gardens overrun with weeds—their fields with broken fences—their hogs without yokes—their sheep without wool—their cattle and horses without fat—and their children, filthy and half-clad, without manners, principles, and morals. This picture of agricultural wretchedness is seldom of long duration. The farms and property thus neglected and depreciated, are seized and sold for the benefit of a group of creditors. The children that were born with the prospect of inheriting them, are bound out to service in the neighborhood; while their parents, the unworthy authors of their misfortunes, ramble into new and distant settlements, alternately fed on their way by the hand of charity, or a little casual labor.

Thus we see poverty and misery, crimes and infamy, diseases and death, are all the natural and usual consequences of the intemperate use of ardent spirits.

I have classed death among the consequences of hard drinking. But it is not death from the immediate hand of the Deity, nor from any of the instruments of it which were created by him: it is death from suicide. Yes, thou poor degraded creature who art daily lifting the poisoned bowl to thy lips, cease to avoid the unhallowed ground in which the self-murderer is interred, and wonder no longer that the sun should shine, and the rain fall, and the grass look green upon his grave. Thou art perpetrating gradually, by the use of ardent spirits, what he has effected suddenly by opium or a halter. Considering how many circumstances from surprise, or derangement, may palliate his guilt, or that, unlike yours, it was not preceded and accompanied by any other crime, it is probable his condemnation will be less than yours at the day of judgment.

I shall now take notice of the occasions and circumstances which are supposed to render the use of ardent spirits necessary, and endeavor to show that the arguments in favor of their use in such cases are founded in error, and that in each of them ardent spirits, instead of affording strength to the body, increase the evils they are intended to relieve.

1. They are said to be necessary in very cold weather. This is far from being true, for the temporary warmth they produce is always succeeded by a greater disposition in the body to be affected by cold. Warm dresses, a plentiful meal just before exposure to the cold, and eating occasionally a little gingerbread, or any other cordial food, is a much more durable method of preserving the heat of the body in cold weather.

2. They are said to be necessary in very warm weather. Experience proves that they increase, instead of lessening the effects of heat upon the body, and thereby dispose to diseases of all kinds. Even in the warm climate of the West Indies, Dr. Bell asserts this to be true. “Rum,” says this author, “whether used habitually, moderately, or in excessive quantities, in the West Indies, always diminishes the strength of the body, and renders men more susceptible of disease, and unfit for any service in which vigor or activity is required.”[A] As well might we throw oil into a house, the roof of which was on fire, in order to prevent the flames from extending to its inside, as pour ardent spirits into the stomach to lessen the effects of a hot sun upon the skin.

3. Nor do ardent spirits lessen the effects of hard labor upon the body. Look at the horse, with every muscle of his body swelled from morning till night in the plough, or a team; does he make signs for a draught of toddy, or a glass of spirits, to enable him to cleave the ground, or to climb a hill? No; he requires nothing but cool water and substantial food. There is no nourishment in ardent spirits. The strength they produce in labor is of a transient nature, and is always followed by a sense of weakness [and] fatigue.

DANGER FROM ARDENT SPIRITS.

Every man is in danger of becoming a drunkard who is in the habit of drinking ardent spirits—1. When he is warm. 2. When he is cold. 3. When he is wet. 4. When he is dry. 5. When he is dull. 6. When he is lively. 7. When he travels. 8. When he is at home. 9. When he is in company. 10. When he is alone. 11. When he is at work. 12. When he is idle. 13. Before meals. 14. After meals. 15. When he gets up. 16. When he goes to bed. 17. On holidays. 18. On public occasions. 19. On any day; or, 20. On any occasion.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] See his “Inquiry into the Causes which Produce, and the Means of Preventing Diseases among British Officers, Soldiers, and others, in the West Indies.”

ON THE
TRAFFIC IN ARDENT SPIRIT.

Ardent spirit is composed of alcohol and water, in nearly equal proportions. Alcohol is composed of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen, in the proportion of about fourteen, fifty-two, and thirty-four parts to the hundred. It is, in its nature, as manifested by its effects, a poison. When taken in any quantity it disturbs healthy action in the human system, and in large doses suddenly destroys life. It resembles opium in its nature, and arsenic in its effects. And though when mixed with water, as in ardent spirit, its evils are somewhat modified, they are by no means prevented. Ardent spirit is an enemy to the human constitution, and cannot be used as a drink without injury. Its ultimate tendency invariably is, to produce weakness, not strength; sickness, not health; death, not life.

Consequently, to use it is an immorality. It is a violation of the will of God, and a sin in magnitude equal to all the evils, temporal and eternal, which flow from it. Nor can the furnishing of ardent spirit for the use of others be accounted a less sin, inasmuch as this tends to produce evils greater than for an individual merely to drink it. And if a man knows, or has the opportunity of knowing, the nature and effects of the traffic in this article, and yet continues to be engaged in it, he may justly be regarded as an immoral man; and for the following reasons, viz.

Ardent spirit, as a drink, is not needful. All men lived without it, and all the business of the world was conducted without it, for thousands of years. It is not three hundred years since it began to be generally used as a drink in Great Britain, nor one hundred years since it became common in America. Of course it is not needful.

It is not useful. Those who do not use it are, other things being equal, in all respects better than those who do. Nor does the fact that persons have used it with more or less frequency, in a greater or smaller quantity, for a longer or shorter time, render it either needful, or useful, or harmless, or right for them to continue to use it. More than a million of persons in this country, and multitudes in other countries, who once did use it, and thought it needful, have, within five years, ceased to use it, and they have found that they are in all respects better without it. And this number is so great, of all ages, and conditions, and employments, as to render it certain, should the experiment be fairly made, that this would be the case with all. Of course, ardent spirit, as a drink, is not useful.

It is hurtful. Its whole influence is injurious to the body and the mind for this world and the world to come.

1. It forms an unnecessary, artificial, and very dangerous appetite; which, by gratification, like the desire for sinning, in the man who sins, tends continually to increase. No man can form this appetite without increasing his danger of dying a drunkard, and exerting an influence which tends to perpetuate drunkenness, and all its abominations, to the end of the world. Its very formation, therefore, is a violation of the will of God. It is, in its nature, an immorality, and springs from an inordinate desire of a kind or degree of bodily enjoyment—animal gratification, which God has shown to be inconsistent with his glory, and the highest good of man. It shows that the person who forms it is not satisfied with the proper gratification of those appetites and passions which God has given him, or with that kind and degree of bodily enjoyment which infinite wisdom and goodness have prescribed as the utmost that can be possessed consistently with a person’s highest happiness and usefulness, the glory of his Maker, and the good of the universe. That person covets more animal enjoyment; to obtain it he forms a new appetite, and in doing this he rebels against God.

That desire for increased animal enjoyment from which rebellion springs is sin, and all the evils which follow in its train are only so many voices by which Jehovah declares “the way of transgressors is hard.” The person who has formed an appetite for ardent spirit, and feels uneasy if he does not gratify it, has violated the divine arrangement, disregarded the divine will, and if he understands the nature of what he has done, and approves of it, and continues in it, it will ruin him. He will show that there is one thing in which he will not have God to reign over him. And should he keep the whole law, and yet continue knowingly, habitually, wilfully, and perseveringly to offend in that one point, he will perish. Then, and then only, according to the Bible, can any man be saved, when he has respect to all the known will of God, and is disposed to be governed by it. He must carry out into practice, with regard to the body and the soul, “Not my will, but thine be done.” His grand object must be, to know the will of God, and when he knows it, to be governed by it, and with regard to all things. This, the man who is not contented with that portion of animal enjoyment which the proper gratification of the appetites and passions which God has given him will afford, but forms an appetite for ardent spirit, or continues to gratify it after it is formed, does not do. In this respect, if he understands the nature and effects of his actions, he prefers his own will to the known will of God, and is ripening to hear, from the lips of his Judge, “Those mine enemies, that would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither and slay them before me.” And the men who traffic in this article, or furnish it as a drink for others, are tempting them to sin, and thus uniting their influence with that of the devil for ever to ruin them. This is an aggravated immorality, and the men who continue to do it are immoral men.

2. The use of ardent spirit, to which the traffic is accessory, causes a great and wicked waste of property. All that the users pay for this article is to them lost, and worse than lost. Should the whole which they use sink into the earth, or mingle with the ocean, it would be better for them, and better for the community, than for them to drink it. All which it takes to support the paupers, and prosecute the crimes which ardent spirit occasions, is, to those who pay the money, utterly lost. All the diminution of profitable labor which it occasions, through improvidence, idleness, dissipation, intemperance, sickness, insanity, and premature deaths, is to the community so much utterly lost. And these items, as has often been shown, amount in the United States to more than $100,000,000 a year. To this enormous and wicked waste of property, those who traffic in the article are knowingly accessory.

A portion of what is thus lost by others, they obtain themselves; but without rendering to others any valuable equivalent. This renders their business palpably unjust; as really so as if they should obtain that money by gambling; and it is as really immoral. It is also unjust in another respect: it burdens the community with taxes both for the support of pauperism, and for the prosecution of crimes, and without rendering to that community any adequate compensation. These taxes, as shown by facts, are four times as great as they would be if there were no sellers of ardent spirit. All the profits, with the exception perhaps of a mere pittance which he pays for license, the seller puts into his own pocket, while the burdens are thrown upon the community. This is palpably unjust, and utterly immoral. Of 1,969 paupers in different almshouses in the United States, 1,790, according to the testimony of the overseers of the poor, were made such by spirituous liquor. And of 1,764 criminals in different prisons, more than 1,300 were either intemperate men, or were under the power of intoxicating liquor when the crimes for which they were imprisoned were committed. And of 44 murders, according to the testimony of those who prosecuted or conducted the defence of the murderers, or witnessed their trials, 43 were committed by intemperate men, or upon intemperate men, or those who at the time of the murder were under the power of strong drink.

The Hon. Felix Grundy, United States senator from Tennessee, after thirty years’ extensive practice as a lawyer, gives it as his opinion that four-fifths of all the crimes committed in the United States can be traced to intemperance. A similar proportion is stated, from the highest authority, to result from the same cause in Great Britain. And when it is considered that more than 200 murders are committed, and more than 100,000 crimes are prosecuted in the United States in a year, and that such a vast proportion of them are occasioned by ardent spirit, can a doubt remain on the mind of any sober man, that the men who know these facts, and yet continue to traffic in this article, are among the chief causes of crime, and ought to be viewed and treated as immoral men? It is as really immoral for a man, by doing wrong, to excite others to commit crimes, as to commit them himself; and as really unjust wrongfully to take another’s property with his consent, as without it. And though it might not be desirable to have such a law, yet no law in the statute-book is more righteous than one which should require that those who make paupers should support them, and those who excite others to commit crimes, should pay the cost of their prosecution, and should, with those who commit them, bear all the evils. And so long as this is not the case they will be guilty, according to the divine law, of defrauding, as well as tempting and corrupting their fellow-men. And though such crimes cannot be prosecuted, and justice be awarded in human courts, their perpetrators will be held to answer, and will meet with full and awful retribution at the divine tribunal. And when judgment is laid to the line, and righteousness to the plummet, they will appear as they really are, criminals, and will be viewed and treated as such for ever.

There is another view in which the traffic in ardent spirit is manifestly highly immoral. It exposes the children of those who use it, in an eminent degree, to dissipation and crime. Of 690 children prosecuted and imprisoned for crimes, more than 400 were from intemperate families. Thus the venders of this liquor exert an influence which tends strongly to ruin not only those who use it, but their children; to render them far more liable to idleness, profligacy, and ruin, than the children of those who do not use it; and through them to extend these evils to others, and to perpetuate them to future generations. This is a sin of which all who traffic in ardent spirit are guilty. Often the deepest pang which a dying parent feels for his children, is lest, through the instrumentality of such men, they should be ruined. And is it not horrible wickedness for them, by exposing for sale one of the chief causes of this ruin, to tempt them in the way to death? If he who takes money from others without an equivalent, or wickedly destroys property, is an immoral man, what is he who destroys character, who corrupts children and youth, and exerts an influence to extend and perpetuate immorality and crime through future generations? This every vender of ardent spirit does; and if he continues in this business with a knowledge of the subject, it marks him as an habitual and persevering violater of the will of God.

3. Ardent spirit impairs, and often destroys reason. Of 781 maniacs in different insane hospitals, 392, according to the testimony of their own friends, were rendered maniacs by strong drink. And the physicians who had the care of them gave it as their opinion, that this was the case with many of the others. Those who have had extensive experience, and the best opportunities for observation with regard to this malady, have stated, that probably from one-half to three-fourths of the cases of insanity, in many places, are occasioned in the same way. Ardent spirit is a poison so diffusive and subtile that it is found, by actual experiment, to penetrate even the brain.

Dr. Kirk, of Scotland, dissected a man a few hours after death who died in a fit of intoxication; and from the lateral ventricles of the brain he took a fluid distinctly visible to the smell as whiskey; and when he applied a candle to it in a spoon, it took fire and burnt blue; “the lambent blue flame,” he says, “characteristic of the poison, playing on the surface of the spoon for some seconds.”

It produces also, in the children of those who use it freely, a predisposition to intemperance, insanity, and various diseases of both body and mind, which, if the cause is continued, becomes hereditary, and is transmitted from generation to generation; occasioning a diminution of size, strength, and energy, a feebleness of vision, a feebleness and imbecility of purpose, an obtuseness of intellect, a depravation of moral taste, a premature old age, and a general deterioration of the whole character. This is the case in every country, and in every age.

Instances are known where the first children of a family, who were born when their parents were temperate, have been healthy, intelligent, and active; while the last children, who were born after the parents had become intemperate, were dwarfish and idiotic. A medical gentleman writes, “I have no doubt that a disposition to nervous diseases of a peculiar character is transmitted by drunken parents.” Another gentleman states that, in two families within his knowledge, the different stages of intemperance in the parents seemed to be marked by a corresponding deterioration in the bodies and minds of the children. In one case, the eldest of the family is respectable, industrious, and accumulates property; the next is inferior, disposed to be industrious, but spends all he can earn in strong drink. The third is dwarfish in body and mind, and, to use his own language, “a poor, miserable remnant of a man.”

In another family of daughters, the first is a smart, active girl, with an intelligent, well-balanced mind; the others are afflicted with different degrees of mental weakness and imbecility, and the youngest is an idiot. Another medical gentleman states, that the first child of a family, who was born when the habits of the mother were good, was healthy and promising; while the four last children, who were born after the mother had become addicted to the habit of using opium, appeared to be stupid; and all, at about the same age, sickened and died of a disease apparently occasioned by the habits of the mother.

Another gentleman mentions a case more common, and more appalling still. A respectable and influential man early in life adopted the habit of using a little ardent spirit daily, because, as he thought, it did him good. He and his six children, three sons and three daughters, are now in the drunkard’s grave, and the only surviving child is rapidly following in the same way, to the same dismal end.

The best authorities attribute one-half the madness, three-fourths of the pauperism, end four-fifths of the crimes and wretchedness in Great Britain to the use of strong drink.

4. Ardent spirit increases the number, frequency, and violence of diseases, and tends to bring those who use it to a premature grave. In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, of about 7,500 people, twenty-one persons were killed by it in a year. In Salem, Massachusetts, of 181 deaths, twenty were occasioned in the same way. Of ninety-one adults who died in New Haven, Connecticut, in one year, thirty-two, according to the testimony of the Medical Association, were occasioned, directly or indirectly, by strong drink, and a similar proportion had been occasioned by it in previous years. In New Brunswick, New Jersey, of sixty-seven adult deaths in one year, more than one-third were caused by intoxicating liquor. In Philadelphia, of 4,292 deaths, 700 were, in the opinion of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, caused in the same way. The physicians of Annapolis, Maryland, state that, of thirty-two persons, male and female, who died in 1828, above eighteen years of age, ten, or nearly one-third, died of diseases occasioned by intemperance; that eighteen were males, and that of these, nine, or one-half, died of intemperance. They also say, “When we recollect that even the temperate use, as it is called, of ardent spirits, lays the foundation of a numerous train of incurable maladies, we feel justified in expressing the belief, that were the use of distilled liquors entirely discontinued, the number of deaths among the male adults would be diminished at least one-half.”

Says an eminent physician, “Since our people generally have given up the use of spirit, they have not had more than half as much sickness as they had before; and I have no doubt, should all the people of the United States cease to use it, that nearly half the sickness of the country would cease.” Says another, after forty years’ extensive practice, “Half the men every year who die of fevers might recover, had they not been in the habit of using ardent spirit. Many a man, down for weeks with a fever, had he not used ardent spirit, would not have been confined to his house a day. He might have felt a slight headache, but a little fasting would have removed the difficulty, and the man been well. And many a man who was never intoxicated, when visited with a fever, might be raised up as well as not, were it not for that state of the system which daily moderate drinking occasions, who now, in spite of all that can be done, sinks down and dies.”

Nor are we to admit for a moment the popular reasoning, as applicable here, “that the abuse of a thing is no argument against its use;” for, in the language of the late Secretary of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Philadelphia, Samuel Emlen, M. D., “All use of ardent spirits,” i. e. as a drink, “is an abuse. They are mischievous under all circumstances.” Their tendency, says Dr. Frank, when used even moderately, is to induce disease, premature old age, and death. And Dr. Trotter states, that no cause of disease has so wide a range, or so large a share, as the use of spirituous liquors.

Dr. Harris states, that the moderate use of spirituous liquors has destroyed many who were never drunk; and Dr. Kirk gives it as his opinion, that men who were never considered intemperate, by daily drinking have often shortened life more than twenty years; and that the respectable use of this poison kills more men than even drunkenness. Dr. Wilson gives it as his opinion, that the use of spirit in large cities causes more diseases than confined air, unwholesome exhalations, and the combined influence of all other evils.

Dr. Cheyne, of Dublin, Ireland, after thirty years’ practice and observation, gives it as his opinion, that should ten young men begin at twenty-one years of age to use but one glass of two ounces a day, and never increase the quantity, nine out of ten would shorten life more than ten years. But should moderate drinkers shorten life only five years, and drunkards only ten, and should there be but four moderate drinkers to one drunkard, it would in thirty years cut off in the United States 32,400,000 years of human life. An aged physician in Maryland states, that when the fever breaks out there, the men who do not use ardent spirit are not half as likely as other men to have it; and that if they do have it, they are ten times as likely to recover. In the island of Key West, on the coast of Florida, after a great mortality, it was found that every person who had died had been in the habit of using ardent spirit. The quantity used was afterwards diminished more than nine-tenths, and the inhabitants became remarkably healthy.

A gentleman of great respectability from the south, states, that those who fall victims to southern climes, are almost invariably addicted to the free use of ardent spirit. Dr. Mosely, after a long residence in the West Indies, declares, “that persons who drink nothing but cold water, or make it their principal drink, are but little affected by tropical climates; that they undergo the greatest fatigue without inconvenience, and are not so subject as others to dangerous diseases;” and Dr. Bell, “that rum, when used even moderately, always diminishes the strength, and renders men more susceptible of disease; and that we might as well throw oil into a house, the roof of which is on fire, in order to prevent the flames from extending to the inside, as to pour ardent spirits into the stomach to prevent the effect of a hot sun upon the skin.”

Of seventy-seven persons found dead in different regions of country, sixty-seven, according to the coroners’ inquests, were occasioned by strong drink. Nine-tenths of those who die suddenly after the drinking of cold water, have been habitually addicted to the free use of ardent spirit; and that draught of cold water, that effort, or fatigue, or exposure to the sun, or disease, which a man who uses no ardent spirit will bear without inconvenience or danger, will often kill those who use it. Their liability to sickness and to death is often increased tenfold. And to all these evils, those who continue to traffic in it, after all the light which God in his providence has thrown upon the subject, are knowingly accessory. Whether they deal in it by whole sale or retail, by the cargo or the glass, they are, in their influence, drunkard-makers. So are also those who furnish the materials; those who advertise the liquors, and thus promote their circulation; those who lease their tenements to be employed as dram-shops, or stores for the sale of ardent spirit; and those also who purchase their groceries of spirit dealers rather than of others, for the purpose of saving to the amount which the sale of ardent spirit enables such men, without loss, to undersell their neighbors. These are all accessory to the making of drunkards, and as such will be held to answer at the divine tribunal. So are those men who employ their shipping in transporting the liquors, or are in any way knowingly aiding and abetting in perpetuating their use as a drink in the community.

It is estimated that four-fifths of those who were swept away by the late direful visitation of cholera, were such as had been addicted to the use of intoxicating drink. Dr. Bronson, of Albany, who spent some time in Canada, and whose professional character and standing give great weight to his opinions, says, “Intemperance of any species, but particularly intemperance in the use of distilled liquors, has been a more productive cause of cholera than any other, and indeed than all others.” And can men, for the sake of money, make it a business knowingly and perseveringly to furnish the most productive cause of cholera, and not be guilty of blood—not manifest a recklessness of character which will brand the mark of vice and infamy on their foreheads? “Drunkards and tipplers,” he adds, “have been searched out with such unerring certainty as to show that the arrows of death have not been dealt out with indiscrimination. An indescribable terror has spread through the ranks of this class of beings. They see the bolts of destruction aimed at their heads, and every one calls himself a victim. There seems to be a natural affinity between cholera and ardent spirit.” What, then, in days of exposure to this malady, is so great a nuisance as the places which furnish this poison? Says Dr. Rhinelander, who, with Dr. De Kay, was deputed from New York to visit Canada, “We may be asked who are the victims of this disease? I answer, the intemperate it invariably cuts off.” In Montreal, after 1,200 had been attacked, a Montreal paper states, that “not a drunkard who has been attacked has recovered of the disease, and almost all the victims have been at least moderate drinkers.” In Paris, the 30,000 victims were, with few exceptions, those who freely used intoxicating liquors. Nine-tenths of those who died of the cholera in Poland were of the same class.

In St. Petersburgh and Moscow, the average number of deaths in the bills of mortality, during the prevalence of the cholera, when the people ceased to drink brandy, was no greater than when they used it during the usual months of health—showing that brandy, and attendant dissipation, killed as many people in the same time as even the cholera itself, that pestilence which has spread sackcloth over the nations. And shall the men who know this, and yet continue to furnish it for all who can be induced to buy, escape the execration of being the destroyers of their race? Of more than 1,000 deaths in Montreal, it is stated that only two were members of Temperance societies. It was also stated, that as far as was known no members of Temperance societies in Ireland, Scotland, or England, had yet fallen victims to that dreadful disease.

From Montreal, Dr. Bronson writes, “Cholera has stood up here, as it has done everywhere, the advocate of Temperance. It has pleaded most eloquently, and with tremendous effect. The disease has searched out the haunt of the drunkard, and has seldom left it without bearing away its victim. Even moderate drinkers have been but little better off. Ardent spirits, in any shape, and in all quantities, have been highly detrimental. Some temperate men resorted to them during the prevalence of the malady as a preventive, or to remove the feeling of uneasiness about the stomach, or for the purpose of drowning their apprehensions, but they did it at their peril.”

Says the London Morning Herald, after stating that the cholera fastens its deadly grasp upon this class of men, “The same preference for the intemperate and uncleanly has characterized the cholera everywhere. Intemperance is a qualification which it never overlooks. Often has it passed harmless over a wide population of temperate country people, and poured down, as an overflowing scourge, upon the drunkards of some distant town.” Says another English publication, “All experience, both in Great Britain and elsewhere, has proved that those who have been addicted to drinking spirituous liquors, and indulging in irregular habits, have been the greatest sufferers from cholera. In some towns the drunkards are all dead.” Rammohun Fingee, the famous Indian doctor, says, with regard to India, that people who do not take opium, or spirits, do not take this disorder even when they are with those who have it. Monsieur Huber, who saw 2,160 persons perish in twenty-five days in one town in Russia, says, “It is a most remarkable circumstance, that persons given to drinking have been swept away like flies. In Tiflis, containing 20,000 inhabitants, every drunkard has fallen—all are dead, not one remains.”

Dr. Sewall, of Washington city, in a letter from New York, states, that of 204 cases of cholera in the Park hospital, there were only six temperate persons, and that those had recovered; while 122 of the others, when he wrote, had died; and that the facts were similar in all the other hospitals.

In Albany, a careful examination was made by respectable gentlemen into the cases of those who died of the cholera in that city in 1832, over sixteen years of age. The result was examined in detail by nine physicians, members of the medical staff attached to the board of health in that city—all who belong to it, except two, who were at that time absent—and published at their request under the signature of the Chancellor of the State, and the five distinguished gentlemen who compose the Executive Committee of the New York State Temperance Society, and is as follows: number of deaths, 366; viz. intemperate, 140; free drinkers, 55; moderate drinkers, mostly habitual, 131; strictly temperate, who drank no ardent spirits, 5; members of Temperance societies, 2; and when it is recollected that of more than 5,000 members of Temperance societies in the city of Albany, only two, not one in 2,500, fell by this disease, while it cut off more than one in fifty of the inhabitants of that city, we cannot but feel that men who furnish ardent spirit as a drink for their fellow-men, are manifestly inviting the ravages, and preparing the victims of this fatal malady, and of numerous other mortal diseases; and when inquisition is made for blood, and the effects of their employment are examined for the purpose of rendering to them according to their work, they will be found, should they continue, to be guilty of knowingly destroying their fellow-men.

What right have men, by selling ardent spirit, to increase the danger, extend the ravages, and augment and perpetuate the malignancy of the cholera, and multiply upon the community numerous other mortal diseases? Who cannot see that it is a foul, deep, and fatal injury inflicted on society? that it is in a high degree cruel and unjust? that it scatters the population of our cities, renders our business stagnant, and exposes our sons and our daughters to premature and sudden death? So manifestly is this the case, that the board of health of the city of Washington, on the approach of the cholera, declared the vending of ardent spirit, in any quantity, to be a nuisance; and, as such, ordered that it be discontinued for the space of ninety days. This was done in self-defence, to save the community from the sickness and death which the vending of spirit is adapted to occasion. Nor is this tendency to occasion disease and death confined to the time when the cholera is raging.

By the statement of the physicians in Annapolis, Maryland, it appears that the average number of deaths by intemperance for several years, has been one to every 329 inhabitants; which would make in the United States 40,000 in a year. And it is the opinion of physicians, that as many more die of diseases which are induced, or aggravated, and rendered mortal by the use of ardent spirit. And to those results, all who make it, sell it, or use it, are accessory.

It is a principle in law, that the perpetrator of crime, and the accessory to it, are both guilty, and deserving of punishment. Men have been brought to the gallows on this principle. It applies to the law of God. And as the drunkard cannot go to heaven, can drunkard-makers? Are they not, when tried by the principles of the Bible, in view of the developments of Providence, manifestly immoral men? men who, for the sake of money, will knowingly be instrumental in corrupting the character, increasing the diseases, and destroying the lives of their fellow-men?

“But,” says one, “I never sell to drunkards; I sell only to sober men.” And is that any better? Is it a less evil to the community to make drunkards of sober men than it is to kill drunkards? Ask that widowed mother who did her the greatest evil: the man who only killed her drunken husband, or the man who made a drunkard of her only son? Ask those orphan children who did them the greatest injury: the man who made their once sober, kind, and affectionate father a drunkard, and thus blasted all their hopes, and turned their home, sweet home, into the emblem of hell; or the man who, after they had suffered for years the anguish, the indescribable anguish of the drunkard’s children, and seen their heart-broken mother in danger of an untimely grave, only killed their drunken father, and thus caused in their habitation a great calm? Which of these two men brought upon them the greatest evil? Can you doubt? You, then, do nothing but make drunkards of sober men, or expose them to become such. Suppose that all the evils which you may be instrumental in bringing upon other children, were to come upon your own, and that you were to bear all the anguish which you may occasion; would you have any doubt that the man who would knowingly continue to be accessory to the bringing of these evils upon you, must be a notoriously wicked man?

5. Ardent spirit destroys the soul.

Facts in great numbers are now before the public, which show conclusively that the use of ardent spirit tends strongly to hinder the moral and spiritual illumination and purification of men; and thus to prevent their salvation, and bring upon them the horrors of the second death.

A disease more dreadful than the cholera, or any other that kills the body merely, is raging, and is universal, threatening the endless death of the soul. A remedy is provided all-sufficient, and infinitely efficacious; but the use of ardent spirit aggravates the disease, and with millions and millions prevents the application of the remedy and its effect.

It appears from the fifth report of the American Temperance Society, that more than four times as many, in proportion to the number, over wide regions of country, during the preceding year, have apparently embraced the gospel, and experienced its saving power, from among those who had renounced the use of ardent spirit, as from those who continued to use it.

The committee of the New York State Temperance Society, in view of the peculiar and unprecedented attention to religion which followed the adoption of the plan of abstinence from the use of strong drink, remark, that when this course is taken, the greatest enemy to the work of the Holy Spirit on the minds and hearts of men, appears to be more than half conquered.

In three hundred towns, six-tenths of those who two years ago belonged to Temperance societies, but were not hopefully pious, have since become so; and eight-tenths of those who have within that time become hopefully pious, who did not belong to Temperance societies, have since joined them. In numerous places, where only a minority of the people abstained from the use of ardent spirit, nine-tenths of those who have of late professed the religion of Christ, have been from that minority. This is occasioned in various ways. The use of ardent spirit keeps many away from the house of God, and thus prevents them from coming under the sound of the gospel. And many who do come, it causes to continue stupid, worldly-minded, and unholy. A single glass a day is enough to keep multitudes of men, under the full blaze of the gospel, from ever experiencing its illuminating and purifying power. Even if they come to the light, and it shines upon them, it shines upon darkness, and the darkness does not comprehend it; while multitudes who thus do evil will not come to the light, lest their deeds should be reproved. There is a total contrariety between the effect produced by the Holy Spirit, and the effect of spirituous liquor upon the minds and hearts of men. The latter tends directly and powerfully to counteract the former. It tends to make men feel in a manner which Jesus Christ hates, rich spiritually, increased in goods, and in need of nothing; while it tends for ever to prevent them from feeling, as sinners must feel, to buy of him gold tried in the fire, that they may be rich. Those who use it, therefore, are taking the direct course to destroy their own souls; and those who furnish it, are taking the course to destroy the souls of their fellow-men.

In one town, more than twenty times as many, in proportion to the number, professed the religion of Christ during the past year, of those who did not use ardent spirit, as of those who did; and in another town more than thirty times as many. In other towns, in which from one-third to two-thirds of the people did not use it, and from twenty to forty made a profession of religion, they were all from the same class. What, then, are those men doing who furnish it, but taking the course which is adapted to keep men stupid in sin till they sink into the agonies of the second death? And is not this an immorality of a high and aggravated description? and one which ought to mark every man who understands its nature and effects, and yet continues to live in it, as a notoriously immoral man? What though he does not live in other immoralities—is not this enough? Suppose he should manufacture poisonous miasma, and cause the cholera in our dwellings; sell, knowingly, the cause of disease, and increase more than one-fifth over wide regions of country the number of adult deaths, would he not be a murderer? “I know,” says the learned Judge Crunch, “that the cup” which contains ardent spirit “is poisoned; I know that it may cause death, that it may cause more than death, that it may lead to crime, to sin, to the tortures of everlasting remorse. Am I not, then, a murderer? worse than a murderer? as much worse as the soul is better than the body? If ardent spirits were nothing worse than a deadly poison—if they did not excite and inflame all the evil passions—if they did not dim that heavenly light which the Almighty has implanted in our bosoms to guide us through the obscure passages of our pilgrimage—if they did not quench the Holy Spirit in our hearts, they would be comparatively harmless. It is their moral effect—it is the ruin of the soul which they produce, that renders them so dreadful. The difference between death by simple poison, and death by habitual intoxication, may extend to the whole difference between everlasting happiness and eternal death.”

And, say the New York State Society, at the head of which is the Chancellor of the State, “Disguise that business as they will, it is still, in its true character, the business of destroying the bodies and souls of men. The vender and the maker of spirits, in the whole range of them, from the pettiest grocer to the most extensive distiller, are fairly chargeable, not only with supplying the appetite for spirits, but with creating that unnatural appetite; not only with supplying the drunkard with the fuel of his vices, but with making the drunkard.

“In reference to the taxes with which the making and vending of spirits loads the community, how unfair towards others is the occupation of the maker and vender of them! A town, for instance, contains one hundred drunkards. The profit of making these drunkards is enjoyed by some half a dozen persons; but the burden of these drunkards rests upon the whole town. We do not suggest that there should be such a law, but we ask whether there would be one law in the whole statute-book more righteous than that which should require those who have the profit of making our drunkards to be burdened with the support of them.”

Multitudes who once cherished the fond anticipation of happiness in this life and that to come, there is reason to believe, are now wailing beyond the reach of hope, through the influence of ardent spirit; and multitudes more, if men continue to furnish it as a drink, especially sober men, will go down to weep and wail with them to endless ages.

“But,” says one, “the traffic in ardent spirit is a lawful business; it is approbated by law, and is therefore right.” But the keeping of gambling houses is, in some cases, approbated by human law. Is that therefore right? The keeping of brothels is, in some cases, approbated by law. Is that therefore right? Is it human law that is the standard of morality and religion? May not a man be a notoriously wicked man, and yet not violate human law? The question is, Is it right? Does it accord with the divine law? Does it tend in its effects to bring glory to God in the highest, and to promote the best good of mankind? If not, the word of God forbids it; and if a man who has the means of understanding its nature and effects continues to follow it, he does it at the peril of his soul.

“But,” says another, “if I should not sell it, I could not sell so many other things.” If you could not, then you are forbidden by the word of God to sell so many other things. And if you continue to make money by that which tends to destroy your fellow-men, you incur the displeasure of Jehovah. “But if I should not sell it, I must change my business.” Then you are required by the Lord to change your business. A voice from the throne of his excellent glory cries, “Turn ye, turn ye from this evil way; for why will ye die?”

“If I should turn from it, I could not support my family.” This is not true; at least, no one has a right to say that it is true till he has tried it, and done his whole duty by ceasing to do evil and learning to do well, trusting in God, and has found that his family is not supported. Jehovah declares, that such as seek the Lord, and are governed by his will, shall not want any good thing. And till men have made the experiment of obeying him in all things, and found that they cannot support their families, they have no right to say that it is necessary for them to sell ardent spirit. And if they do say this, it is a libel on the divine character and government. There is no truth in it. He who feeds the sparrow and clothes the lily, will, if they do right, provide for them and their families; and there is no shadow of necessity, in order to obtain support, for them to carry on a business which destroys their fellow-men.

“But others will do it, if I do not.” Others will send out their vessels, steal the black man, and sell him and his children into perpetual bondage, if you do not. Others will steal, rob, and commit murder, if you do not; and why may not you do it, and have a portion of the profit, as well as they? Because, if you do, you will be a thief, a robber, and a murderer, like them. You will here be partaker of their guilt, and hereafter of their plagues. Every friend, therefore, to you, to your Maker, or the eternal interests of men, will, if acquainted with this subject, say to you, As you value the favor of God, and would escape his righteous and eternal indignation, renounce this work of death; for he that soweth death, shall also reap death.

“But our fathers imported, manufactured, and sold ardent spirit, and were they not good men? Have not they gone to heaven?” Men who professed to be good once had a multiplicity of wives, and have not some of them too gone to heaven? Men who professed to be good once were engaged in the slave-trade, and have not some of them gone to heaven? But can men who understand the will of God with regard to these subjects, continue to do such things now, and yet go to heaven? The principle which applies in this case, and which makes the difference between those who did such things once, and those who continue to do them now, is that to which Jesus Christ referred when he said, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin.” The days of that darkness and ignorance which God may have winked at have gone by, and he now commandeth all men to whom his will is made known to repent. Your fathers, when they were engaged in selling ardent spirit, did not know that all men, under all circumstances, would be better without it. They did not know that it caused three-quarters of the pauperism and crime in the land—that it deprived many of reason—greatly increased the number and severity of diseases, and brought down such multitudes to an untimely grave. The facts had not then been collected and published. They did not know that it tended so fatally to obstruct the progress of the Gospel, and ruin, for eternity, the souls of men. You do know it, or have the means of knowing it. You cannot sin with as little guilt as did your fathers. The facts, which are the voice of God in his providence, and manifest his will, are now before the world. By them he has come and spoken to you. And if you continue, under these circumstances, to violate his will, you will have no cloak, no covering, no excuse for your sin. And though sentence against this evil work is not executed at once, judgment, if you continue, will not linger, nor will damnation slumber.

The accessory and the principal, in the commission of crime, are both guilty. Both by human laws are condemned. The principle applies to the law of God; and not only drunkards, but drunkard-makers—not only murderers, but those who excite others to commit murder, and furnish them with the known cause of their evil deeds, will, if they understand what they do, and continue thus to rebel against God, be shut out of heaven.

Among the Jews, if a man had a beast that went out and killed a man, the beast, said Jehovah, shall be slain, and his flesh shall not be eaten. The owner must lose the whole of him as a testimony to the sacredness of human life, and a warning to all not to do any thing, or connive at any thing that tended to destroy it. But the owner, if he did not know that the beast was dangerous, and liable to kill, was not otherwise to be punished. But if he did know, if it had been testified to the owner that the beast was dangerous, and liable to kill, and he did not keep him in, but let him go out, and he killed a man, then, by the direction of Jehovah, the beast and the owner were both to be put to death. The owner, under these circumstances, was held responsible, and justly too, for the injury which his beast might do. Though men are not required or permitted now to execute this law, as they were when God was the Magistrate, yet the reason of the law remains. It is founded in justice, and is eternal. To the pauperism, crime, sickness, insanity, and death temporal and eternal, which ardent spirit occasions, those who knowingly furnish the materials, those who manufacture, and those who sell it, are all accessory, and as such will be held responsible at the divine tribunal. There was a time when the owners did not know the dangerous and destructive qualities of this article—when the facts had not been developed and published, nor the minds of men turned to the subject; when they did not know that it caused such a vast portion of the vice and wretchedness of the community, and such wide-spreading desolation to the temporal and eternal interests of men; and although it then destroyed thousands, for both worlds, the guilt of the men who sold it was comparatively small. But now they sin against light, pouring down upon them with unutterable brightness; and if they know what they do, and in full view of its consequences continue that work of death—not only let the poison go out, but furnish it, and send it out to all who are disposed to purchase—it had been better for them, and better for many others, if they had never been born. For, briefly to sum up what we have said,

1. It is the selling of that, without the use of which nearly all the business of this world was conducted, till within less than three hundred years, and which of course is not needful.

2. It is the selling of that which was not generally used by the people of this country for more than a hundred years after the country was settled, and which by hundreds of thousands, and some in all kinds of lawful business, is not used now. Once they did use it, and thought it needful or useful. But by experiment, the best evidence in the world, they have found that they were mistaken, and that they are in all respects better without it. And the cases are so numerous as to make it certain, that should the experiment be fairly made, this would be the case with all. Of course it is not useful.

3. It is the selling of that which is a real, a subtile and very destructive poison—a poison which, by men in health, cannot be taken without deranging healthy action, and inducing more or less disease, both of body and mind; which is, when taken in any quantity, positively hurtful; and which is of course forbidden by the word of God.

4. It is the selling of that which tends to form an unnatural, and a very dangerous and destructive appetite; which, by gratification, like the desire of sinning in the man who sins, tends continually to increase, and which thus exposes all who form it to come to a premature grave.

5. It is the selling of that which causes a great portion of all the pauperism in our land; and thus, for the benefit of a few—those who sell—brings an enormous tax on the whole community. Is this fair? Is it just? Is it not exposing our children and youth to become drunkards? And is it not inflicting great evils on society?

6. It is the selling of that which excites to a great portion of all the crimes that are committed, and which is thus shown to be in its effects hostile to the moral government of God, and to the social, civil, and religious interests of men; at war with their highest good, both for this life and the life to come.

7. It is the selling of that, the sale and use of which, if continued, will form intemperate appetites, which, if formed, will be gratified, and thus will perpetuate intemperance and all its abominations to the end of the world.

8. It is the selling of that which makes wives widows, and children orphans; which leads husbands often to murder their wives, and wives to murder their husbands; parents to murder their children, and children to murder their parents; and which prepares multitudes for the prison, for the gallows, and for hell.

9. It is the selling of that which greatly increases the amount and severity of sickness; which in many cases destroys reason; which causes a great portion of all the sudden deaths, and brings down multitudes who were never intoxicated, and never condemned to suffer the penalty of the civil law, to an untimely grave.

10. It is the selling of that which tends to lessen the health, the reason, and the usefulness, to diminish the comfort, and shorten the lives of all who habitually use it.

11. It is the selling of that which darkens the understanding, sears the conscience, pollutes the affections, and debases all the powers of man.

12. It is the selling of that which weakens the power of motives to do right, and increases the power of motives to do wrong, and is thus shown to be in its effects hostile to the moral government of God, as well as to the temporal and eternal interests of men; which excites men to rebel against him, and to injure and destroy one another. And no man can sell it without exerting an influence which tends to hinder the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ over the minds and hearts of men, and to lead them to persevere in iniquity, till, notwithstanding all the kindness of Jehovah, their case shall become hopeless.

Suppose a man, when about to commence the traffic in ardent spirit, should write in great capitals on his sign-board, to be seen and read of all men, what he will do, viz., that so many of the inhabitants of this town or city, he will, for the sake of getting their money, make paupers, and send them to the almshouse, and thus oblige the whole community to support them and their families; that so many others he will excite to the commission of crimes, and thus increase the expenses, and endanger the peace and welfare of the community; that so many he will send to the jail, and so many more to the state prison, and so many to the gallows; that so many he will visit with sore and distressing diseases; and in so many cases diseases which would have been comparatively harmless, he will by his poison render fatal; that in so many cases he will deprive persons of reason, and in so many cases will cause sudden death; that so many wives he will make widows, and so many children he will make orphans, and that in so many cases he will cause the children to grow up in ignorance, vice, and crime, and after being nuisances on earth, will bring them to a premature grave; that in so many cases he will prevent the efficacy of the Gospel, grieve away the Holy Ghost, and ruin for eternity the souls of men. And suppose he could, and should give some faint conception of what it is to lose the soul, and of the overwhelming guilt and coming wretchedness of him who is knowingly instrumental in producing this ruin; and suppose he should put at the bottom of the sign this question, viz., What, you may ask, can be my object in acting so much like a devil incarnate, and bringing such accumulated wretchedness upon a comparatively happy people? and under it should put the true answer, money; and go on to say, I have a family to support; I want money, and must have it; this is my business, I was brought up to it; and if I should not follow it I must change my business, or I could not support my family. And as all faces begin to gather blackness at the approaching ruin, and all hearts to boil with indignation at its author, suppose he should add for their consolation, “If I do not bring this destruction upon you, somebody else will.” What would they think of him? what would all the world think of him? what ought they to think of him? And is it any worse for a man to tell the people beforehand honestly what he will do, if they buy and use his poison, than it is to go on and do it? And what if they are not aware of the mischief which he is doing them, and he can accomplish it through their own perverted and voluntary agency? Is it not equally abominable, if he knows it, and does not cease from producing it?

And if there are churches whose members are doing such things, and those churches are not blessed with the presence and favor of the Holy Ghost, they need not be at any loss for the reason. And if they should never again, while they continue in this state, be blessed with the reviving influence of God’s Spirit, they need not be at any loss for the reason. Their own members are exerting a strong and fatal influence against it; and that too after Divine Providence has shown them what they are doing. And in many such cases there is awful guilt with regard to this thing resting upon the whole church. Though they have known for years what these men were doing; have seen the misery, heard the oaths, witnessed the crimes, and known the wretchedness and deaths which they have occasioned, and perhaps have spoken of it, and deplored it among one another; many of them have never spoken on this subject to the persons themselves. They have seen them scattering firebrands, arrows, and death temporal and eternal, and yet have never so much as warned them on the subject, and never besought them to give up their work of death.

An individual lately conversed with one of his professed Christian brethren who was engaged in this traffic, and told him not only that he was ruining for both worlds many of his fellow-men, but that his Christian brethren viewed his business as inconsistent with his profession, and tending to counteract all efforts for the salvation of men; and the man, after frankly acknowledging that it was wrong, said that this was the first time that any of them had conversed with him on the subject. This may be the case with other churches; and while it is, the whole church is conniving at the evil, and the whole church is guilty. Every brother, in such a case, is bound, on his own account, to converse with him who is thus aiding the powers of darkness, and opposing the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and try to persuade him to cease from this destructive business.

The whole church is bound to make efforts, and use all proper means to accomplish this result. And before half the individual members have done their duty on this subject, they may expect, if the offending brother has, and manifests the spirit of Christ, that he will cease to be an offence to his brethren, and a stumbling-block to the world, over which such multitudes fall to the pit of woe. And till the church, the whole church, do their duty on this subject, they cannot be freed from the guilt of conniving at the evil. And no wonder if the Lord leaves them to be as the mountains of Gilboa, on which there was neither rain or dew. And should the church receive from the world those who make it a business to carry on this notoriously immoral traffic, they will greatly increase their guilt, and ripen for the awful displeasure of God. And unless members of the church shall cease to teach, by their business, the fatal error that it is right for men to buy and use ardent spirit as a drink, the evil will never be eradicated, intemperance will never cease, and the day of millennial glory never come.

Each individual who names the name of Christ is called upon, by the providence of God, to act on this subject openly and decidedly for him, and in such a manner as is adapted to banish intemperance and all its abominations from the earth, and to cause temperance and all its attendant benefits universally to prevail. And if ministers of the Gospel and members of Christian churches do not connive at the sin of furnishing this poison as a drink for their fellow-men; and men who, in opposition to truth and duty, continue to be engaged in this destructive employment, are viewed and treated as wicked men; the work which the Lord hath commenced and carried forward with a rapidity, and to an extent hitherto unexampled in the history of the world, will continue to move onward till not a name, nor a trace, nor a shadow of a drunkard, or a drunkard-maker, shall be found on the globe.

Professed Christian—In the manufacture or sale of ardent spirit as a drink, you do not, and you cannot honor God; but you do, and, so long as you continue it, you will greatly dishonor Him. You exert an influence which tends directly and strongly to ruin, for both worlds, your fellow-men. Should you take a quantity of that poisonous liquid into your closet, present it before the Lord, confess to him its nature and effects, spread out before him what it has done and what it will do, and attempt to ask him to bless you in extending its influence; it would, unless your conscience is already seared as with a hot iron, appear to you like blasphemy. You could no more do it than you could take the instruments of gambling and attempt to ask God to bless you in extending them through the community. And why not, if it is a lawful business? Why not ask God to increase it, and make you an instrument in extending it over the country, and perpetuating it to all future generations? Even the worldly and profane man, when he hears about professing Christians offering prayer to God that he would bless them in the manufacture or sale of ardent spirit, involuntarily shrinks back and says, “That is too bad.” He can see that it is an abomination. And if it is too bad for a professed Christian to pray about it, is it not too bad for him to practise it? If you continue, under all the light which God in his providence has furnished with regard to its hurtful nature and destructive effects, to furnish ardent spirit as a drink for your fellow-men, you will run the fearful hazard of losing your soul, and you will exert an influence which powerfully tends to destroy the souls of your fellow-men. Every time you furnish it you are rendering it less likely that they will be illuminated, sanctified, and saved, and more likely that they will continue in sin and go down to the chambers of death.

It is always worse for a church-member to do an immoral act, and teach an immoral sentiment, than for an immoral man, because it does greater mischief. And this is understood, and often adverted to by the immoral themselves. Even drunkards are now stating it to their fellow-drunkards, that church-members are not better than they. And to prove it, are quoting the fact, that although they are not drunkards, and perhaps do not get drunk, they, for the sake of money, carry on the business of making drunkards. And are not the men and their business of the same character? “The deacon,” says a drunkard, “will not use ardent spirit himself: he says, ‘It is poison!’ But for six cents he will sell it to me. And though he will not furnish it to his own children, for he says, ‘It will ruin them!’ yet he will furnish it to mine. And there is my neighbor, who was once as sober as the deacon himself, but he had a pretty farm, which the deacon wanted, and for the sake of getting it he has made him a drunkard. And his wife, as good a woman as ever lived, has died of a broken heart, because her children would follow their father.” No, you cannot convince even a drunkard, that the man who is selling him that which he knows is killing him, is any better than the drunkard himself. Nor can you convince a sober man, that he who, for the sake of money, will, with his eyes open, make drunkards of sober men, is any less guilty than the drunkards he makes.

Is this writing upon their employment “Holiness unto the Lord,” without which no one, from the Bible, can expect to be prepared for the holy joys of heaven? As ardent spirit is a poison which, when used even moderately, tends to harden the heart, to sear the conscience, to blind the understanding, to pollute the affections, to weaken and derange and debase the whole man, and to lessen the prospect of his eternal life, it is the indispensable duty of each person to renounce it. And he cannot refuse to do this without becoming, if acquainted with this subject, knowingly accessory to the temporal and eternal ruin of his fellow-men. And what will it profit him to gain even the whole world by that which ruins the soul?

My friend, you are soon to die, and in eternity to witness the influence, the whole influence, which you exert while on earth, and you are to witness its consequence in joy or sorrow to endless being. Imagine yourself now, where you soon will be, on your death-bed. And imagine that you have a full view of the property which you have caused to be wasted, or which you have gained without furnishing any valuable equivalent; of the health which you have destroyed, and the characters which you have demoralized; of the wives that you have made widows, and the children that you have made orphans; of all the lives that you have shortened, and all the souls that you have destroyed. O! imagine that these are the only “rod and staff” which you have to comfort you as you go down the valley of the shadow of death, and that they will all meet you in full array at the judgment and testify against you. What will it profit you, though you have gained more money than you otherwise would, when you have left it all far behind in that world which is destined to fire, and the day of perdition of ungodly men? What will it profit, when you are enveloped in the influence which you have exerted, and are experiencing its consequences to endless ages; finding for ever that as a man soweth so must he reap, and that if he has sowed death he must reap death? Do not any longer assist in destroying men, nor expose yourself and your children to be destroyed. Do good, and good only, to all as you have opportunity, and good shall come unto you.

THE
REWARDS OF DRUNKENNESS.

If you wish to be always thirsty, be a Drunkard; for the oftener and more you drink, the oftener and more thirsty you will be.

If you seek to prevent your friends raising you in the world, be a Drunkard; for that will defeat all their efforts.

If you would effectually counteract your own attempts to do well, be a Drunkard; and you will not be disappointed.

If you wish to repel the endeavors of the whole human race to raise you to character, credit, and prosperity, be a Drunkard; and you will most assuredly triumph.

If you are determined to be poor, be a Drunkard; and you will soon be ragged and pennyless.

If you would wish to starve your family, be a Drunkard; for that will consume the means of their support.

If you would be imposed on by knaves, be a Drunkard; for that will make their task easy.

If you would wish to be robbed, be a Drunkard; which will enable the thief to do it with more safety.

If you would wish to blunt your senses, be a Drunkard; and you will soon be more stupid than an ass.

If you would become a fool, be a Drunkard; and you will soon lose your understanding.

If you wish to unfit yourself for rational intercourse, be a Drunkard; for that will accomplish your purpose.

If you are resolved to kill yourself, be a Drunkard; that being a sure mode of destruction.

If you would expose both your folly and secrets, be a Drunkard; and they will soon be made known.

If you think you are too strong, be a Drunkard; and you will soon be subdued by so powerful an enemy.

If you would get rid of your money without knowing how, be a Drunkard; and it will vanish insensibly.

If you would have no resource when past labor but a workhouse, be a Drunkard; and you will be unable to provide any.

If you are determined to expel all comfort from your house, be a Drunkard; and you will soon do it effectually.

If you would be always under strong suspicion, be a Drunkard; for little as you think it, all agree that those who steal from themselves and families will rob others.

If you would be reduced to the necessity of shunning your creditors, be a Drunkard; and you will soon have reason to prefer the by-paths to the public streets.

If you would be a dead weight on the community, and “cumber the ground,” be a Drunkard; for that will render you useless, helpless, burdensome, and expensive.

If you would be a nuisance, be a Drunkard; for the approach of a Drunkard is like that of a dunghill.

If you would be hated by your family and friends, be a Drunkard; and you will soon be more than disagreeable.

If you would be a pest to society, be a Drunkard; and you will be avoided as infectious.

If you do not wish to have your faults reformed, continue to be a Drunkard, and you will not care for good advice.

If you would smash windows, break the peace, get your bones broken, tumble under carts and horses, and be locked up in watch-houses, be a Drunkard; and it will be strange if you do not succeed.

If you wish all your prospects in life to be clouded, be a Drunkard; and they will soon be dark enough.

If you would destroy your body, be a Drunkard; as drunkenness is the mother of disease.

If you mean to ruin your soul, be a Drunkard; that you may be excluded from heaven.

Finally, if you are determined to be utterly destroyed, in estate, body, and soul, be a Drunkard; and you will soon know that it is impossible to adopt a more effectual means to accomplish your—END.

“All the crimes on earth,” says Lord Bacon, “do not destroy so many of the human race, nor alienate so much property, as drunkenness.”

Drunkenness expels reason—drowns the memory—defaces beauty—diminishes strength—inflames the blood—causes internal, external, and incurable wounds—is a witch to the senses, a devil to the soul, a thief to the purse—the beggar’s companion, the wife’s woe, and children’s sorrow—makes a strong man weak, and a wise man a fool. He is worse than a beast, and is a self-murderer, who drinks to others’ good health, and robs himself of his own. He is worse than a beast, for no animal will designedly intoxicate itself; but a drunkard swallows his liquor, well knowing the condition to which it will reduce him, and that these draughts will deprive him of the use of his reason, and render him worse than a beast. By the effects of liquor his evil passions and tempers are freed from restraint; and, while in a state of intoxication, he commits actions, which, when sober, he would have shuddered to have thought of. Many an evil deed has been done, many a murder has been committed, when those who did these things were intoxicated.

Tremble, then, if ever you taste the intoxicating draught. Reflect, before you put the cup to your lips. Remember that you are forming a habit which will lead on to the commission of every crime to which the propensities of your nature, rendered violent by indulgence, can urge you. Before you are aware, you may find yourself awaking from a fit of intoxication, guilty of offences against the laws of your country which will draw down just vengeance upon your head; abhorring yourself, and an abhorrence in the sight of heaven.

Drunkenness, persisted in, will assuredly destroy your soul, and consign you to everlasting misery. Hear what the word of God declares.

“Awake, ye drunkards, and weep.” Joel 1:5.

“Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contention? who hath wounds without cause? They that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine; at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” Prov. 23:29-32.

“Woe unto them that rise up in the morning, that they may follow strong drink; that continue until night, till wine inflame them.” Isa. 5:11.

“Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink.” Isa. 5:22.

“The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: uncleanness, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of the which I tell you, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Gal. 5:19, 21.

These are awful declarations, and they will certainly be fulfilled upon him who continues to delight in drunkenness; he cannot enjoy the love of God, he will not be received into heaven.

Separate yourself, then, utterly front this ensnaring sin. “Touch not; taste not; handle not.” In ENTIRE ABSTINENCE is your only safety. This persevered in, you shall never fall. Wherever and however the temptation is presented, “avoid it—turn from it, and pass away.” Turn also from every sin. “Commit your way unto the Lord,” and he will “direct your paths.” A glorious provision is made for your salvation, through the atoning blood of Christ. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16. Commit your soul and your all to him. He will guide you through life, enable you to vanquish every foe, and crown you with victory in heaven.

PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.

THE
WELL-CONDUCTED FARM.

Mr. B——, a respectable farmer in Massachusetts, came, a number of years ago, into the possession of a farm of about six hundred acres. On this farm he employed eight or ten men. These men were in the habit, and had been for years, of taking each a portion of ardent spirit, when they labored, every day. They had grown up in the practice of taking it, and the idea was fixed in their minds that they could not do without. It was the common opinion in the place, that, for laboring men, who had to work hard, some ardent spirit was necessary. Mr. B—— for a time followed the common practice, and furnished his men with a portion of spirit daily. But after much attentive observation and mature reflection, he became deeply impressed with the conviction that the practice was not only useless, but hurtful. He became convinced that it tends to lead men to intemperance; to undermine their constitutions; and to sow the seeds of death, temporal and eternal. And he felt that he could not be justified in continuing to cultivate his farm by means of a practice which was ruining the bodies and souls of his fellow-men. He therefore called his men together, and told them, in a kind and faithful manner, what were his convictions. He told them that he was perfectly satisfied that the practice of taking ardent spirits was not only needless, but hurtful—that it tended to weaken and destroy both the body and mind; and that he could not, consistently with his duty, be instrumental in continuing a practice which he had no doubt tended to destroy them both for this world and the world to come. He therefore, from that time, should furnish them with no ardent spirits.

One of them said that he could not work without it; and if he did not furnish them with it, he would not stay with him. “Very well,” said Mr. B——; “hand me your bill, and be off.” The man replied, that he presumed all the others would leave him. “Very well,” said Mr. B——; “tell them, any of them who choose to leave—all of them, if they choose to go—to hand in their bills, and they shall have their money to-night. If they stay, however, they shall have nourishing food and drink, at any time, and in any abundance which they wish; and at the close of the year each one shall have twelve dollars, that is, one dollar a month, in addition to his wages. But I shall furnish no spirits of any kind, neither shall I have it taken by men in my employment. I had rather my farm would grow up to weeds, than be cultivated by means of so pernicious a practice as that of taking ardent spirits.” However, none of the men left, except that one. And when he saw that all the others concluded to stay, he came back, and said, that as the others had concluded to stay, and do without rum, he believed that he could, and he should be glad to stay, too, if Mr. B—— had no objection. But he told him, No, he did not wish him to stay; he would make of him an example, and he must go. So he departed. The rest went to work, and he furnished them with no spirits from that time through the season. Yet his work, he said, was done “with less trouble, in a better manner, and in better season, than ever before.” Some of his men, however, he found, when they went abroad, did take ardent spirits. They sometimes procured it at the tavern, or a store; and in some instances took it secretly, while on his farm. The evil, therefore, although greatly lessened, was not entirely done away.

When he came to hire men again, he let it be known that he did not wish to hire any man who was not willing to abstain entirely, and at all times, from the use of ardent spirits. His neighbors told him that he could not hire men on those conditions; that men could not be found who would do without rum, especially in haying and harvesting. Well, he said, then he would not hire them at all. His farm should grow up to weeds. As to cultivating it by the help of rum, he would not. By allowing men in his employment, and for whose conduct he was in a measure responsible, to take ardent spirits, he should be lending his influence to continue a practice, or he should at least be conniving at a practice, which was [destroying] more lives, making more mothers widows, and children orphans, than famine, pestilence, and sword: a practice which was destroying by thousands, and tens of thousands, not only the bodies, but the souls of men, rendering them, and their children after them, wretched for this world, and the world to come. “No,” said he, “I will clear my hands of this enormous guilt. I will not by practice encourage, or by silence, or having men in my employment who take ardent spirits, connive at this deadly evil.” However, he found no difficulty in hiring men, and of the best kind. And when his neighbors saw, that by giving one dollar a month more than others, he could hire as many men as he pleased, they gave up that objection. But they said, it was bad policy; for the men would not do so much work, and he would, in the end, be a loser. But he told them that, although they might not at first do quite so much, he presumed that they would in the end do more. But if they should not, only let them do, said he, what they easily can, and I shall be satisfied. My Maker does not require of me any more than I can do without rum, (for he used no ardent spirits himself) and I shall require no more of them. His men went to work. And his business prospered exceedingly. His men were remarkably uniform in their temper and deportment; still, and peaceable.

He found them every day alike, and he could always safely trust them. What he expected to have done, he found was done, in good season, and in the best manner. His men never made so few mistakes, had so few disputes among themselves; they never injured and destroyed so few tools, found so little fault with their manner of living, or were, on the whole, so pleasant to one another, and to their employer. The men appeared, more than ever before, like brethren of the same family, satisfied with their business, contented, and happy.

At the close of the year, one of them came to Mr. B——, and, with tears in his eyes, said, “Sir, I thought that you were very hard, in keeping us from drinking rum. I had always been accustomed to it, and I thought that I could not do without it. And for the first three months,” said he, “it was hard, very hard. I had such a caving in here”—putting his hands up to his side—“I had such a desperate caving in here, that I thought I should die. But, as you gave us good wages, and good pay, and the rest resolved to stand it without rum, I thought I would.

“And now,” said he, “I am well and happy. I work with ease, sleep sweetly, and when I get up in the morning, instead of having, as I used to, my mouth and throat”—to use his own words—“so full of cobwebs, as to be spitting cotton wool all the time, my mouth and throat are clear as a whistle. I feel active, have a good appetite, and can eat any thing.

“Formerly, when I worked hard, I was at night tired, and could not sleep. When I got up in the morning I was so sore and stiff, so filled up in my throat, and my appetite was so gone, that I could do nothing till I had taken a glass of rum and molasses. I then stood it till breakfast. But my breakfast did not relish, and what I took did not seem to nourish me. Soon after I got to work I was so hollow and so tired, that I felt desperate ugly till 11 o’clock. Then I took a new vamper. And by the strength of that I got on till dinner. Then I must have a little more to give me an appetite. At three o’clock in the afternoon I must have recourse”—these were his words—“to the hair of the same dog, to keep up my sinking spirits. And thus I got along till night. Then I must have a little to sharpen appetite for supper. And after supper I could not sleep, till I had taken another nightcap.

“Thus I continued,” said he, “year after year, undermining a constitution which was naturally very robust; and growing worse and worse, until I came under your wise and excellent regulations. And now,” said he, “I am cured. I am cured. I can now do more labor than when I took spirits, without half the fatigue, and take nothing stronger than pure cold water. If a man would give me the same wages that you do, and a dollar a day in addition, to return to the practice of drinking rum, I would laugh at him.” All this was the free, spontaneous effusion of his own mind, in view of the great change wrought in his feelings by leaving off entirely the use of ardent spirits.

Another of the workmen came to Mr. B—— and said, that he had found it very hard to do without rum at first; but he could now freely say, that he never enjoyed so good health, or felt so well, as he did then. He said that in cold weather in the winter, and after chopping all day in the woods, especially if exposed to rains, or if his feet were wet, he had for a long time been accustomed to a very bad rheumatism, and at night to a dreadful headache. He took spirits temperately, and he supposed it was necessary to guard him against these evils. Still he suffered them; and he found nothing that would prevent them. But since he had left off entirely the use of spirits, he had had no rheumatism, and been entirely free from the headache.

Another of the workmen said he thought at first that he could do very well without spirits three quarters of the year; but that, in haying and harvesting, he should want a little. But he had found that a dish of bread and milk, or some other nourishing food, at 11 o’clock, answered his purpose at all times just as well as grog, and he thought a little better. And as he was now entirely free from the habit of taking spirits, he would not on any account be placed in a situation where he should be tempted to renew it.

Such were the feelings of men who had always been accustomed to the practice of taking spirits, till they came into Mr. B——’s employment, and who afterwards had not taken a drop. They had tried both sides, and had found, by experience, that the practice of taking ardent spirits is utterly useless; nay, that it is positively hurtful. It was their united testimony, that they enjoyed better health, were more happy, could do more work, and with less fatigue, than when they took spirits.

They said, to be sure, that they found it hard to do without it at first. And so would a man who had been in the habit of taking laudanum, or any poison, that was not fatal, but was stimulating and pleasant to the taste, however destructive it might be in the end to his constitution. But after they had freed themselves from the habit of taking spirits, they found no inconvenience; but were in all respects better than they were before. And they acknowledged that they were exceedingly indebted to him, who, by his wise regulations, had been the means of improving their condition. The following were some of the advantages to them.

1. They had a better appetite, partook of their food with a keener relish, and it was more nourishing to them than before.

2. They possessed much greater vigor and activity, both of body and mind.

3. They performed the same labor with much greater ease; and were in a great measure free from that lassitude and fatigue to which they were before accustomed.

4. They had greater wages, and they laid up a much greater portion of what they had. Before, numbers used to spend a great portion of their wages in scenes of amusement and dissipation. Now, they have no inclination to frequent such scenes. The consequence is, they lay up more money. They are, also, more serious in their deportment, spend more of their leisure time in useful reading, much oftener peruse the Scriptures, and attend public worship; and they are more attentive to all the means of grace. In a word, they are more likely to become useful and happy in this life, and to be prepared for lasting blessedness in the life to come.

5. Their example will be more likely to be useful to those around them; and that for both worlds.

The following are some of the advantages to their employer.

1. The men, he says, in the course of the year, do more work, in a better manner, and at a much less expense of tools.

2. He can now with much greater ease have a place for every thing, and every thing in its place.

3. When a stone has fallen from the wall it is now laid up, as the men are passing by, without his mentioning it. The gates are locked, and the bars put up; so that the cattle do not, as before, get in and destroy the crops.

4. His summer work is done in such season, that earth, loam, etc., is carted into the yard in the fall, instead of being carted in in the spring, as before. The consequence is, when carried out it is richer, and renders the farm more productive.

5. His barns, in winter, are kept clean, and less fodder is wasted. The cattle and horses are daily curried, and appear in better order.

6. When his men go into the forests, instead, as before, of cutting down the nearest, thriftiest, and largest trees, they cut those that are decayed, crooked, and not likely to grow any better; pick up those that are blown down, and thus leave the forests in a better state.

7. The men are more uniform, still, and peaceable; are less trouble in the house, and more contented with their manner of living.

8. At morning and evening prayer, they are more ready than before to attend, and in season; appearing to esteem it not only a duty, but a privilege and a pleasure to be present, and unite with the family in the daily worship of God.

9. On the Sabbath, instead of wishing, as before, to stay at home, or to spend the day in roving about the fields, rivers, and forests, they choose statedly and punctually to attend public worship. In a word, their whole deportment, both at home and [abroad], is improved, and to a greater extent than any, without witnessing it, can well imagine.

All these and many more advantages resulted from their abstaining entirely, and at all times, from the use of ardent spirits.

Nor were the benefits confined to them and their employer. Some of his neighbors, witnessing the complete success of his system, have themselves adopted it. When Mr. B—— went into that part of the country, many of the farmers in his neighborhood were in debt. Their farms were mortgaged, some for $300, some for $500, and some for $1000, or more. They complained much of hard times, especially for farmers.

Mr. B—— told them that so long as they continued to drink rum, they must expect hard times; for it was no profit, but a great expense, and in more ways than they imagined. They came to him to borrow money to save their farms from attachment. But he told them, No. It will do men who continue to drink rum no good to have money. Nay, it will be to them an evil. The sooner their property is gone, and they have nothing with which to buy rum, the better. For then they will do less mischief than if they have money, and continue to drink rum. But, said he, if you will leave off the use of spirits, and not take a drop for three months, I will lend you money, and you may keep it, by paying the interest, as long as you continue to take no ardent spirits. But when I learn that you begin to take it, I shall call for the money. Some went away in disgust. Others said, As Mr. B—— can do without rum, why cannot we? and if we can, it will be a great saving of expense. They made the experiment, and found that they could, without the least inconvenience, do without it. After a few months, they made known to Mr. B—— the result; and he helped them to as much money as they needed. They continued to do without spirits, and they had none used by men in their employment. Their business began to prosper, and their prospects to brighten. Their debts are now paid, and their farms free from all incumbrance. The times with them have altered, and they are now thriving, respectable, and useful members of the community.

Others, who a few years ago were in no worse a condition than they, but who continued the practice of drinking spirits, have lost their farms; lost their reputation; lost their health, and eventually their lives; and there is reason to fear, their souls. By the temperate but habitual use of spirits, they formed an intemperate appetite. This at first was occasionally, and then habitually indulged; and they were ruined for both worlds. The evil may extend to their children, and children’s children.

But those who have entirely relinquished the use of spirits, until the desire for it is removed, have experienced a wonderful transformation in their feelings, their conduct, and their prospects. And the change is visible not only in them, but their families, and all their concerns. Their windows are not broken out as before; nor their gates and garden-fences falling down. The kitchen does not smoke as it used to do, because they keep it more clean, have drier and better wood, and lay it on the fire in a better manner. The wife does not scold as she once did, because she is well provided for, is treated kindly, and has encouragement to labor. The children are not now in rags, but are comfortably and decently clad; they are obedient, respectful, and mannerly; and appear to be growing up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. In short, they appear almost like a new race of beings. And if they should never again adopt the practice of taking ardent spirits, there is vastly more reason than before, to hope that they will be led by the word and Spirit of God to such a course of conduct as will greatly increase their happiness and usefulness on earth, and be the means of preparing them, through grace, for the everlasting joys of heaven.

Should each individual in our country adopt the same course, the following are some of the advantages which would result from it.

1. They would enjoy better health, be able to perform more labor, and would live to a greater age.

2. The evils of intemperance would soon be done away: for all who are now intemperate, and continue so, will soon be dead, and no others will be found to succeed them.

3. There will be a saving every year of more than thirty millions of dollars, which are now expended for ardent spirits. There will be a saving of more than two-thirds of all the expense of supporting the poor, which, in Massachusetts alone, would amount to more than $600,000 annually. And there would be a saving of all that idleness and dissipation which intemperance occasions, and of the expense of more than two-thirds of all the criminal prosecutions in the land. In one of our large cities, in which there were one thousand prosecutions for crimes, more than eight hundred of them were found to have sprung from the use of ardent spirits.

4. There would be a saving of a vast portion of sickness; and of the lives probably of thirty thousand persons every year.

Let these four considerations be added together, and traced in their various bearings and consequences upon the temporal and eternal welfare of men; and then let each individual say, whether, in view of all the evils connected with the practice of taking ardent spirits, he can, in the sight of God, be justified in continuing the practice. That it is not necessary, has been fully proved. No one thinks it to be necessary, except those who use it. And they would not think so, if they were not in the habit of using it. Let any man leave off entirely the use of ardent spirits for only one year, and he will find by his own experience that it is not necessary or useful. The fathers of New England did not use it, nor did their children. They were never, as a body, in the practice of taking it. And yet they enjoyed better health, attained to a larger stature, and, with fewer comforts of life, performed more labor, endured more fatigue, and lived, upon an average, to a greater age than any generation of their descendants who have been in the practice of taking spirits. As it was not necessary for the fathers of New England, it is certain that it is not necessary for their descendants, or for any portion of our inhabitants. Hundreds of healthy, active, respectable, and useful men, who now do not use it, can testify that it is not necessary. And this will be the testimony of every one who will only relinquish entirely the use of it.

It is by the temperate and habitual use of ardent spirits, that intemperate appetites are formed. And the temperate use of it cannot be continued, without, in many cases, forming intemperate appetites; and after they are formed, multitudes will be destroyed by their gratification.

Natural appetites, such as are implanted in our constitution by the Author of nature, do not by their gratification increase in their demands. What satisfied them years ago, will satisfy them now. But artificial appetites, which are formed by the wicked practices of men, are constantly increasing in their demands. What satisfied them once, will not satisfy them now. And what satisfies them now, will not satisfy them in future. They are constantly crying, “Give, give.” And there is not a man, who is in the habitual use of ardent spirits, who is not in danger of dying a drunkard. Before he is aware, an intemperate appetite may be formed, the gratification of which may prove his temporal and eternal ruin. And if the practice should not come to this result with regard to himself, it may with regard to his children, and children’s children. It may with regard to his neighbors, and their children. It may extend its baleful influences far and wide; and transmit them, with all their innumerable evils, from generation to generation.

Can, then, temperate, sober men be clear from guilt, in continuing a practice which is costing annually more than $30,000,000; increasing more than threefold the poor-rates, and the crimes of the country; undermining the health and constitution of its inhabitants; and cutting of annually thirty thousand lives!

There is tremendous guilt somewhere. And it is a truth which ought to press with overwhelming force upon the mind of every sober man, that a portion of this guilt rests upon every one who, with a knowledge of facts, continues the totally unnecessary and awfully pernicious practice of taking ardent spirits. Each individual ought, without delay, in view of eternity, to clear himself, and neither by precept nor example, ever again encourage or even connive at this deadly evil.

ADDRESS
ON
THE EFFECTS OF ARDENT SPIRITS.

BY JONATHAN KITTREDGE, ESQ.

Fellow-citizens—That intemperance, in our country, is a great and growing evil, all are ready to admit. When we look abroad, and examine into the state of society, we find the number of those who are in the constant and habitual practice of an excessive use of ardent spirits to be alarming. We see the effects that they produce among our friends and our neighbors, but the evil is so common, and it is so fashionable to drink, and I had almost said, to drink to excess, that the sight of it has lost half its terror, and we look upon an intemperate man without those feelings of disgust and abhorrence which his real situation and character are calculated to produce. This is the natural result of things. The mind becomes familiar with the contemplation, the eye accustomed to the sight; we pay but little attention to the object—he passes on—we laugh at the exhibition, and grow callous and indifferent to the guilt. Our pity is not excited, our hearts do not ache at the scenes of intoxication that are almost daily exhibited around us. But if for a moment we seriously reflect upon the real situation of the habitually intemperate; if we call to mind what they have been—what they now are; if we cast our eye to the future, and realize what, in a few years, they will be; if we go further, and examine into the state of their families, of their wives and their children, we shall discover a scene of misery and wretchedness that will not long suffer us to remain cold, and indifferent, and unfeeling.

This examination we can all make for ourselves. We can all call to mind the case of some individual, whom we have known for years, perhaps from his infancy, who is now a poor, miserable drunkard. In early life his hopes and prospects were as fair as ours. His family was respectable, and he received all those advantages which are necessary, and which were calculated to make him a useful and respectable member of society. Perhaps he was our school-fellow, and our boyhood may have been passed in his company. We witnessed the first buddings of his mental powers, and know that he possessed an active, enterprising mind. He grew up into life with every prospect of usefulness. He entered into business, and, for a while, did well. His parents looked to him for support in old age, and he was capable of affording it. He accumulated property, and, in a few years, with ordinary prudence and industry, would have been independent. He married, and became the head of a family, and the father of children, and all was prosperous and happy around him. Had he continued as he began, he would now have been a comfort to his friends, and an honor to the community. But the scene quickly changed. He grew fond of ardent spirits. He was seen at the store and the tavern. By degrees he became intemperate. He neglected his business, and his affairs went to gradual decay. He is now a drunkard, his property is wasted, his parents have died of broken hearts, his wife is pale and emaciated, his children ragged, and squalid, and ignorant. He is the tenant of some little cabin that poverty has erected to house him from the storm and the tempest. He is useless, and worse than useless: he is a pest to all around him. All the feelings of his nature are blunted; he has lost all shame; he procures his accustomed supply of the poison that consumes him; he staggers through mud and through filth to his hut; he meets a weeping wife and starving children; he abuses them, he tumbles into his straw, and he rolls and foams like a mad brute, till he is able to go again. He calls for more rum—he repeats the scene from time to time, and from day to day, till soon his nature faints, and he becomes sober in death.

Let us reflect, that this guilty, wretched creature had an immortal mind—he was like us, of the same flesh and blood—he was our brother, destined to the same eternity, created by, and accountable to, the same God; and will, at last, stand at the same judgment-bar; and who, amid such reflections, will not weep at his fate—whose eye can remain dry, and whose heart unmoved?

This is no picture of the imagination. It is a common and sober reality. It is what we see almost every day of our lives; and we live in the midst of such scenes and such events. With the addition or subtraction of a few circumstances, it is the case of every one of the common drunkards around us. They have not completed the drama—they are alive—but they are going to death with rapid strides, as their predecessors have already gone. Another company of immortal minds are coming on to fill their places, as they have filled others. The number is kept good, and increasing. Shops, as nurseries, are established in every town and neighborhood, and drunkards are raised up by the score. They are made—they are formed—for no man was ever born a drunkard—and, I may say, no man was ever born with a taste for ardent spirits. They are not the food which nature has provided. The infant may cry for its mother’s milk, and for nourishing food, but none was ever heard to cry for ardent spirits. The taste is created, and in some instances may be created so young, that, perhaps, many cannot remember the time when they were not fond of them.

And here permit me to make a few remarks upon the formation, or creation of this taste. I will begin with the infant, and I may say that he is born into rum. At his birth, according to custom, a quantity of ardent spirits is provided; they are thought to be as necessary as any thing else. They are considered as indispensable as if the child could not be born without them. The father treats his friends and his household, and the mother partakes with the rest. The infant is fed with them, as if he could not know the good things he is heir to without a taste of ardent spirits. They are kept on hand, and often given to him as medicine, especially where the parents are fond of them themselves. By this practice, even in the cradle, his disrelish for ardent spirits is done away. He grows up, and during the first months or years of his existence, his taste and his appetite are formed. As he runs about, and begins to take notice of passing events, he sees his father and friends drink; he partakes, and grows fond of them. In most families, ardent spirits are introduced and used on every extraordinary occasion. Without mentioning many, that the knowledge and experience of every man can supply, I will instance only the case of visitors.

A gentleman’s friends and acquaintance call on him. He is glad to see them, and fashion and custom make it necessary for him to invite them to the sideboard. This is all done in his best style, in his most easy and affable manner. The best set of drinking-vessels are brought forward, and make quite a display. The children of the family notice this; they are delighted with the sight and the exhibition; they are pleased with the manners, and gratified with the conversation of the visitors on the occasion. As soon as they go abroad, they associate the idea of drinking with all that is manly and genteel. They fall into the custom, and imitate the example that is set them. Circumstances and situations expose one to more temptations than the rest. Perhaps his resolution, or his moral principle, is not so strong; and in this way, one out of twenty-five of those who live to thirty years of age becomes intemperate. He becomes so, perhaps not from any uncommon predisposition to the vice, but is at first led on by fashion, and custom, and favorable circumstances, till at last he plunges headlong into the vortex of dissipation and ruin. Our natural disrelish for ardent spirits is first done away—a relish for them is then created. They next become occasional, next habitual drinks. The habit gains strength, till, at last, the daily drinker is swept away by the first adverse gale.

It is on this principle, and let the fact operate as a caution to those who need it, that many men of fair unblemished characters, who have made a temperate, but habitual use of ardent spirits in days of prosperity, have, on a change of fortune, become notorious drunkards; while those who have refrained in prosperity, have encountered all the storms of adversity unhurt. We frequently hear a man’s intemperance attributed to a particular cause, as loss of friends, loss of property, disappointed love, or ambition; when, if the truth were known, it would be seen that such men had previously been addicted to the use of ardent spirits, perhaps not immoderately, and fly to them on such events as their solace and support. Intemperance requires an apprenticeship, as much as law or physic; and a man can no more become intemperate in a month, than he can become a lawyer or a physician in a month. Many wonder that certain intemperate men, of fine talents, noble hearts, and manly feelings, do not reform; but it is a greater wonder that any ever do. The evil genius of intemperance gradually preys upon the strength of both body and mind, till the victim, when he is caught, finds, that although he was a giant once, he is now a child. Its influence is seductive and insinuating, and men are often irretrievably lost before they are aware of it. Let them beware how they take the first step. It is by degrees that men become intemperate. No man ever became so all at once—it is an impossibility in the nature of things. It requires time to harden the heart, to do away shame, to blunt the moral principle, to deaden the intellectual faculties, and temper the body. The intemperance of the day is the natural and legitimate consequence of the customs of society—of genteel and respectable society. It is the common and ordinary use of ardent spirits, as practised in our towns and villages, that has already peopled them with drunkards, and which, unless checked, will fill them with drunkards. The degree of intemperance that prevails, and the quantity of ardent spirits used, in our most respectable towns, is almost incredible. Perhaps some facts on this subject will be interesting.

As it regards the degree of intemperance that prevails, it may be safely said, that one out of a hundred of the inhabitants of this part of the country is a common drunkard. By a common drunkard is meant one who is habitually intemperate, who is often intoxicated, and who is restrained from intoxication neither by principle nor shame. Of such there are from ten to twenty, and upward, in every inhabited township. There is another class who are intemperate, and many of them are occasional drunkards. This class is more numerous than the former, and one out of about forty of the inhabitants belongs to one or the other class. Is not this a horrid state of society? But any one can satisfy himself of the truth of the statement, by making the examination himself.

The quantity of ardent spirits yearly consumed in our towns, varies from six to ten thousand gallons. It will answer the argument I intend to draw from it, to state the annual quantity in this town to be six thousand gallons, although short of the truth. This would be three gallons to every inhabitant, or twenty-one gallons to every legal voter. The cost of this liquid, at the low price of fifty cents per gallon, will be three thousand dollars, which will pay all your town, county, and state taxes three years, and is as much as it costs you to support and maintain all your privileges, civil, religious, and literary. In one hundred years you would drink up all the town in ardent spirits; or it would cost just such a town as this, with all your farms, stock, and personal property, to furnish the inhabitants with ardent spirits, at the present rate of drinking, only one hundred years. But should the town continue to drink as they now do for fifty years, and in the mean time suffer the cost of the spirits to accumulate by simple interest only, the whole town, at the end of the term, could not pay their rum bills. It can be no consolation that all other towns would be alike insolvent.

But this is not all. Add to this sum the loss of time and the waste of property occasioned by it, independent of its cost, and it swells the amount to a monstrous size. Here you have an account of the cost of ardent spirits, calculated within bounds. At present there is a great complaint about the pressure of the times, and the complaint is doubtless well-founded. “Hard times” is in every body’s mouth; but if you had for the last year only abstained from the use of ardent spirits, you would now have been independent and easy in your circumstances. Three thousand dollars, which you have paid for them, divided among you, would pay all the debts you are called upon to pay. I do not mean that no one wants more than his proportion of this sum, but there are some who want none of it, and who would circulate it, by loan or otherwise, among those who do want it, and it would relieve the whole town from the distress they are now in.

If this town had an income that would pay all its taxes, you would consider it a matter of great joy and congratulation. But if it had an income that would discharge all its taxes, and each man, instead of paying, should receive the amount he now pays, you would consider your situation highly prosperous and enviable. Discontinue the use of ardent spirits, and you have it. Use none, and your situation, as a town, will be as good, yea, far better than if you had an income of three thousand dollars yearly, to be divided among its inhabitants.

If we carry this calculation farther, we shall find, on the principle adopted, that there are in the state of New Hampshire 2,441 common drunkards, and 3,663 intemperate, or occasional drunkards—in the whole, 6,104; and that the state consumes 732,483 gallons of ardent spirits annually, which cost, at 50 cents a gallon, $366,241. In the United States, there would be 96,379 common, and 240,949 common and occasional drunkards; and the country would consume annually 28,913,887 gallons of ardent spirits, which cost, at 50 cents per gallon, $14,456,943—as much as it costs to support the whole system of our national government, with all that is laid out in improvements, roads, canals, pensions, etc., etc., and is more than one-half of the whole revenue of the Union for the last year. It must be remembered that this calculation embraces only the quantity and cost of the spirits, and is on the supposition that this town consumes only 6,000 gallons, at 50 cents per gallon, and is a fair criterion for the state and nation. As it regards this state, it would be safe nearly to double the quantity, and to treble the cost of the spirits; and as it regards the nation, it would be safe to double all my calculations. In the United States, the quantity of ardent spirits yearly consumed, may be fairly estimated at 60,000,000 gallons, the cost at $30,000,000, and the number of drunkards, of both kinds, at 480,000.

But we all know, and it is common to remark, that the cost of the article is comparatively nothing; that it hardly makes an item in the calculation of pernicious consequences resulting from the consumption of ardent spirits. Were we to embrace the usual concomitants, and estimate the value of time lost, the amount of property wasted, of disease produced, and of crime committed, where ardent spirits are the only cause, it would transcend our conceptions, and the imagination would be lost in the contemplation. The number of drunkards in the United States would make an army as large as that with which Bonaparte marched into Russia; and would be sufficient to defend the United States from the combined force of all Europe. Convert our drunkards into good soldiers, and one-tenth of them would redeem Greece from the Turks. Convert them into apostles, and they would Christianize the world. And what are they now? Strike them from existence, and who would feel the loss? Yes, strike them from existence, and the United States would be benefited by the blow.

But this is not half. I cannot tell you half the effects of ardent spirits. And yet ardent spirits are said to be useful and necessary. It is false! It is nothing but the apology that love of them renders for their use. There are only two cases in which, Dr. Rush says, they can be administered without injury, and those are cases of persons like to perish, and where substitutes may be applied of equal effect. What rational man would use them, for the sake of these two possible cases? As well might he introduce rattlesnakes among his children, because their oil is good in diseases with which they may possibly be afflicted.

The number of persons in the United States who are mentally deranged, I do not know; probably there are several thousands; and it is ascertained, that one-third of those confined in the insane hospitals of Philadelphia and New York, are rendered insane by the use of ardent spirits. Yes, one-third of the poor, miserable maniacs of our land, are made such by the use of that which, in the opinion of some, is a very useful and necessary article, and which they cannot do without. This article has deprived one-third of the crazy wretches of our land of their reason—of that which makes them men—of the very image of their God.

Out of the number of the intemperate in the United States, ten thousand die annually from the effects of ardent spirits. And what a death! To live a drunkard is enough; but to die so, and to be ushered into the presence of your angry Judge, only to hear the sentence, “Depart, thou drunkard!” Ah! language fails, and I leave it to your imagination to fill up the horrid picture.

This death happens in various ways. Some are killed instantly; some die a lingering, gradual death; some commit suicide in fits of intoxication; and some are actually burnt up.

I read of an intemperate man, a few years since, whose breath caught fire by coming in contact with a lighted candle, and he was consumed. At the time, I disbelieved the story, but my reading has since furnished me with well authenticated cases of a combustion of the human body from the use of ardent spirits. Trotter mentions ten such cases, and relates them at length. They are attended with all the proof we require to believe any event. They are attested by living witnesses, examined by learned men, and published in the journals of the day without contradiction. It would be unnecessary to relate the whole, but I will state one of them, and from this an idea can be formed of the rest. It is the case “of a woman eighty years of age, exceedingly meagre, who had drunk nothing but ardent spirits for several years. She was sitting in her elbow-chair, while her waiting-maid went out of the room for a few moments. On her return, seeing her mistress on fire, she immediately gave an alarm; and some people coming to her assistance, one of them endeavored to extinguish the flames with his hands, but they adhered to them as if they had been dipped in brandy or oil on fire. Water was brought and thrown on the body in abundance, yet the fire appeared more violent, and was not extinguished till the whole body had been consumed. The lady was in the same place in which she sat every day, there was no extraordinary fire, and she had not fallen.”[B]

This, with nine other cases, related by the same author, was a consumption of the body produced by the use of ardent spirits. The horror of a drunkard’s death beggars description. Need I point to yonder grave, just closed over the remains of one who went from the cup of excess to almost instant death? You all know it.

But this is not all. One half the poor you support by taxes and individual charity, are made poor by the use of ardent spirits. This has been demonstrated by actual inquiry and examination. In the city of New York, where there are more poor, and where more is done for them than in any other city of the United States, a committee appointed for the purpose, ascertained by facts, that more than one half of the city poor were reduced to poverty by intemperance. This is also the case throughout the Union. And here permit me to state a case, with which I am acquainted. I do it with a double object. I do it to show that the use of ardent spirits produces poverty and distress, and the disuse of them restores to wealth and comfort.

A gentleman in the city of New York, who carried on ship-building on an extensive scale, and employed a great number of hands daily, and paid them all in the same manner, and nearly to the same amount, was struck with the difference in their situations. A few, and only a few, were able, from their wages, to support their families; but these were out of debt, and independent in their circumstances. They always had money on hand, and frequently suffered their wages to lie in the hands of their employer. The rest were poor and harassed, the former easy and comfortable in their circumstances, and he resolved, if possible, to ascertain the cause of the difference. On inquiry and examination, he found that those of them who were above-board used no ardent spirits, while the others were in the constant and daily use of them. He satisfied himself that this use of ardent spirits was the only cause of the difference in their condition. He determined, if he could, to prevail upon them all to abstain altogether from their use. On a thorough and parental representation of the case to them, he succeeded, and they all agreed to make use of none for a year. At the end of the year they were all, to a man, out of debt, had supported their families in better condition, had done more work, destroyed fewer tools, and were hearty and robust, and enjoyed better health.

This fact speaks volumes, and needs no comment. Adopt the same practice in this town, and the result will be the same. “What, drink none?” Yes, I say, drink none—one gallon for this town is just four quarts too much. In addition to the miseries of debt and poverty which they entail upon a community, they are the parent of one half the diseases that prevail, and one half the crimes that are committed. It is ardent spirits that fill our poor-houses and our jails; it is ardent spirits that fill our penitentiaries, our mad-houses, and our state prisons; and it is ardent spirits that furnish victims for the gallows. They are the greatest curse that God ever inflicted on the world, and may well be called the seven vials of his wrath. They are more destructive in their consequences than war, plague, pestilence, or famine; yea, than all combined. They are slow in their march, but sure in their grasp. They seize not only the natural, but the moral man. They consign the body to the tomb, and the soul to hell.

While on earth, the victim of intemperance is as stupid as an ass, as ferocious as a tiger, as savage as a bear, as poisonous as the asp, as filthy as the swine, as fetid as a goat, and as malignant as a fiend. No matter what may be the original materials of the man; his figure may possess every grace of the sculptor; his mind may be imbued with every art and science; he may be fit to command at the head of armies, to sway a Roman senate, to wield the destinies of nations; his heart may be the seat of every virtue; but ardent spirits will strip him of the whole, and convert him into a demon. Need I tell how? Need I point out the change that ebriety produces in the moral and social affections? Need I present the sword red with a brother’s blood? It was in a drunken revel that the infuriate Alexander slew his best friend and most beloved companion Clytus. And it was in a drunken revel that he proclaimed himself a god, and died.

“But have not ardent spirits one good quality, one redeeming virtue?” None. I say, none. There is nothing, not even the shadow of a virtue, to rescue them from universal and everlasting execration.

“But they are good as a medicine.” No, not as a medicine. There is no physician, that does not love them, that needs them in his practice. There is no disease that they cure or relieve, that cannot be cured or relieved without them. They add to no man’s health; they save no man’s life.[C]

It is impossible to name a single good thing that they do. Give them to the divine; do they add to his piety, to his zeal, to his faithfulness, to his love of God or man? No; they destroy them all. Give them to the physician; do they increase his skill, his power to discriminate amid the symptoms of disease, his judgment to apply the appropriate remedies, his kind and affectionate solicitude? Nay, verily, they destroy them all. Give them to the legal advocate; do they increase his knowledge, his perception to discover the points of his case, his readiness to apply the evidence, his ability to persuade a court and jury? No; they destroy them all. Give them to the mechanic; do they assist his ingenuity, his judgment, or his taste? No; they destroy them all. Give them to the laborer; do they add to his strength? Do they enable him to bear fatigue, to endure heat and cold? Can he do more work, or do it better? No; they are the ruin of the whole. They reduce his strength, weaken his frame, make him more susceptible to heat and cold, disorganize his whole system, and unfit him for labor.

“But there are some men,” say you, “who use ardent spirits, and who get along very well.” Admitted. They endure it. So there are some men who get along very well with poor health and feeble constitutions. Are poor health and feeble constitutions, therefore, no evils? Is the prosperity of such to be attributed to them? As much as is that of the former to the use of ardent spirits. Was ever a man made rich by the use of ardent spirits? Never; but millions have been made beggars by it.

Yet some say, they feel better by drinking ardent spirits. Let us examine this excuse. It is nothing but an excuse, and he who loves rum and is ashamed to own it, says he feels better to drink it. Let us inquire how. Are they conducive to health? On this subject let the physician decide. One, as great as this country has produced, Dr. Rush, says that the habitual use of ardent spirits usually produces the following diseases: A loss of appetite, sickness at the stomach, obstruction of the liver, jaundice and dropsy, hoarseness and a husky cough, which often ends in consumption, diabetes, redness and eruptions of the skin, a fetid breath, frequent and disgusting belchings, epilepsy, gout, and madness. This is the train of diseases produced by the use of ardent spirits, and the usual, natural, and legitimate consequences of their use. And now, I ask, can that which, of its own nature, produces these diseases, make a man feel better? Reason might answer; and were she on her throne, uninfluenced and unbiassed by the love of ardent spirits, she would unequivocally answer, No. And we find that those who say they feel better to drink ardent spirits, are those who are in health, but love rum, and it gratifies their appetite, and this is what they mean by feeling better.

I will examine for a moment the effect, the immediate effect of ardent spirits upon the man. I will take a man in health, and give him a glass of ardent spirits. The effect is, to produce mental derangement and false notions and conceptions. But one glass will not have much effect. I will give him another, and, if he loves rum, he feels better; another, and he feels better; another, better yet. By this time he has got to feel pretty well; quite happy. He has no fear or shame. He can curse, and swear, and break things. “He is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils.” He fears no consequences, and can accomplish impossibilities. If he is a cripple, he fancies he can dance like a satyr; if he is slow and unwieldy, he can run like a hart; if he is weak and feeble in strength, he can lift like Samson, and fight like Hercules; if he is poor and pennyless, he is rich as Crœsus on his throne, and has money to lend. This is all a correct representation. It is what happens universally with the drunkard. I know one man who is intemperate, who is poor, and never known to have five dollars at a time, who, when he is intoxicated, has often, and does usually, offer to lend me a thousand dollars. Poor, miserable, and deluded man! But he feels well; he is one of those who feel better to drink. He is mentally deranged; his imagination is disordered. He fancies bliss, and felicity, and plenty, and abundance, which do not exist; and he awakes to misery, and poverty, and shame, and contempt. Yet this is the exact feeling of all those who feel better to drink spirits. He who drinks but a glass, has not the same degree, but precisely the same kind of feeling with the one I have described.

And this is all—this is all that rum does to make a man feel better. If his wife and children are starving, he feels it not. He feels better. If his affairs are going to ruin, or are already plunged into ruin, he is not sensible to his condition. If his house is on fire, he sings the maniac’s song, and regards it not. He feels better.

Let him who likes this better feeling enjoy it. Enjoy it, did I say? No. Reclaim him, if possible. Convince him that he labors under a delusion. Restore him to truth, and to reason; banish the cup from his mouth, and change the brute into the man.

And now, need any more be said to persuade mankind to abandon the use of ardent spirits? the appalling facts, in relation to them, are known to all. Experience and observation teach us that they are the source of ruin, and misery, and squalid wretchedness, in a thousand shapes. They are the three-headed monster; they are the Gorgons with their thousand snakes; their name is Legion. And shall I yet find advocates for their use? Will this enlightened community yet say, they are useful and necessary? All those who have used them, and discontinued the use of them, say they are totally unnecessary and useless. We see that those who live without them enjoy more happiness and better health than those who use them—that they live longer lives. But oh, the folly, the stupidity, and the delusion of rum-drinkers!

But perhaps it may be said, that the effects and consequences that I have mentioned, result from the abuse, and not from the proper and moderate use of ardent spirits; and that on many occasions, in small quantities, they are useful. Let us examine the circumstances and occasions when they are said to be necessary; and perhaps I cannot do it better than in the words of another.

“They are said to be necessary in very cold weather. This is far from being true; for the temporary heat they produce is always succeeded by a greater disposition in the body to be affected by cold. Warm dresses, a plentiful meal just before exposure to the cold, and eating occasionally a cracker or any other food, is a much more durable method of preserving the heat of the body in cold weather.” In confirmation of this, the case of the vessel wrecked off the harbor of Newburyport, a few years since, may be adduced. On an intensely cold night, when all the men of that vessel were in danger of freezing to death, the master advised them to drink no ardent spirits. He told them, if they did, they must surely freeze. Some took his advice, while others, notwithstanding his most earnest entreaties, disregarded it. The result was, that of those who used the spirits, some lost their hands, some their feet, and some perished; while the rest survived unhurt.

“They are said to be necessary in very warm weather. Experience proves that they increase, instead of lessening the effects of heat upon the body, and thereby expose it to diseases of all kinds. Even in the warm climate of the West Indies, Dr. Bell asserts this to be true. Rum, says this author, whether used habitually, moderately, or in excessive quantities, always diminishes the strength of the body, and renders man more susceptible to disease, and unfit for any service in which vigor or activity is required. As well might we throw oil into a house, the roof of which was on fire, in order to prevent the flames from extending to its inside, as pour ardent spirits into the stomach, to lessen the effects of a hot sun upon the skin.” And here permit me to add, that they are said to be necessary in cold weather to warm, and in warm weather to cool. The bare statement of the argument on these two points confounds itself.

“Nor do ardent spirits lessen the effects of hard labor upon the body. Look at the horse, with every muscle of his body swelled from morning till night, in a plough or a team. Does he make signs for a glass of spirits, to enable him to cleave the ground or climb a hill? No; he requires nothing but cold water and substantial food. There is no nourishment in ardent spirits. The strength they produce in labor is of a transient nature, and is always followed by a sense of weakness and fatigue.”[D]

Some people, nevertheless, pretend that ardent spirits add to their strength, and increase their muscular powers; but this is all a delusion. They think they are strong when they are weak. Rum makes them boast, and that is all. The truth is, it weakens them in body, but strengthens them in imagination. Was not one reason why Samson was forbidden by the angel of God to drink either wine or strong drink, that he might thus increase and preserve his strength? When you hear a man telling how strong rum makes him, you may be sure he is weak, both in body and mind.

There is one other occasion for using ardent spirits, which it will be proper to examine. They are said to be necessary to keep off the contagion of disease, and are recommended to attendants upon the sick. But the united testimony of all physicians proves, that the intemperate are first attacked by epidemic disorders. This is almost universally the case in the southern states, and in the West Indies. Experience also proves that those attendants upon the sick, who refrain from the use of ardent spirits, escape, while those who use them are swept away. If facts could convince, the use of ardent spirits would be abolished. But the love of rum is stronger on the human mind than the truth of Heaven.

If, then, ardent spirits are not necessary in sickness; if they do not prevent the effects of heat and cold; if they do not add to our strengths, and enable us to perform more labor; when are they necessary? Why, people in health say, they want to drink them now and then—they do them good. What good? If they are well, why do they need them? For nothing but to gratify the taste, and to produce a feeling of intoxication and derangement, slight in its degree when moderately used, as they are by such people, but the character of the feeling is no less certain. It is the same feeling that induces the drunkard to drink. One man takes a glass to do him good, to make him feel better; another wants two; another three; another six; and by this time he is intoxicated, and he never feels well till he is so. He has the same feeling with the man who drinks a single glass, but more of it; and that man who, in health, drinks one glass to make him feel better, is just so much of a drunkard; one-sixth, if it takes six glasses to intoxicate him. He has one-sixth of the materials of a drunkard in his constitution.

But it is this moderate use of ardent spirits that produces all the excess. It is this which paves the way to downright and brutal intoxication. Abolish the ordinary and temperate use of ardent spirits, and there would not be a drunkard in the country. He who advises men not to drink to excess, may lop off the branches; he who advises them to drink only on certain occasions, may fell the trunk; but he who tells them not to drink at all, strikes and digs deep for the root of the hideous vice of intemperance; and this is the only course to pursue. It is this temperate use of ardent spirits that must be discontinued. They must be no longer necessary when friends call, when we go to the store to trade, to the tavern to transact business, when we travel the road on public days—in fact, they must cease to be fashionable and customary drinks. Do away the fashion and custom that attend their use, and change the tone of public feeling, so that it will be thought disgraceful to use them as they are now used by the most temperate and respectable men, and an end is for ever put to the prevalence of the beastly disease of intoxication. Let those who cannot be reclaimed from intemperance go to ruin, and the quicker the better, if you regard only the public good; but save the rest of our population; save yourselves; save your children! Raise not up an army of drunkards to supply their places. Purify your houses. They contain the plague of death; the poison that, in a few years, will render some of your little ones what the miserable wretches that you see staggering the streets are now. And who, I ask, would not do it? What father, who knew that one of his sons that he loves was, in a few years, to be what hundreds you can name are now, would hesitate, that he might save him, to banish intoxicating drinks from his premises for ever?

But if all will do it, he is saved; and he who contributes but a mite in this work of God, deserves the everlasting gratitude of the republic. If the names of a Brainerd, of a Swartz, of a Buchanan, have been rendered immortal by their efforts to convert the heathen to Christianity, the names of those men who shall succeed in converting Christians to temperance and sobriety, should be written in letters of ever-during gold, and appended by angels in the temple of the living God. The sum of their benevolence would be exceeded only by His, who came down from heaven for man’s redemption. Then banish it; this is the only way to save your children. As long as you keep ardent spirits in your houses, as long as you drink it yourselves, as long as it is polite and genteel to sip the intoxicating bowl, so long society will remain just what it is now, and so long drunkards will spring from your loins, and so long drunkards will wear your names to future generations. And there is no other way given under heaven, whereby man can be saved from the vice of intemperance, but that of total abstinence.

And, if ardent spirits are the parent of all the poverty, and disease, and crime, and madness, that I have named, and if they produce no good, what rational man will use them? If he loves himself, he will not; if he loves his children, he will not; and as Hamilcar brought Hannibal to the altar, at eight years of age, and made him swear eternal hatred to the Romans, so every parent should bring his children to the altar, and make them swear, if I may so speak, eternal hatred to ardent spirits. He should teach them by precept and example. He should instil into his children a hatred of ardent spirits, as much as he does of falsehood and of theft. He should no more suffer his children to drink a little, than he does to lie a little, and to steal a little.

And what other security have you for your children, or for yourselves? Yes, for yourselves. I knew a man who, a few years ago, was as temperate as any of you; was as respectable as any of you, as learned as any of you, and as useful in life as any of you; I have heard him from the sacred desk again and again; but by the same use of ardent spirits that most men justify and advocate, under the mistaken notion that they were beneficial to him, he has at last fallen the victim of intemperance. And this is not a solitary example. I had almost said, it is a common example. I could easily add to the number.

And now, what security have you for yourselves? You have none but in the course I have recommended. If it is necessary for the intemperate man to write on every vessel containing ardent spirits, “Taste not, touch not, handle not,” and to brand them as full of the very wrath of God, it is also necessary for the temperate man to do so, to save himself from intemperance.

But the difficulty on this subject is to convince men of their individual danger; that intemperance stands at their own doors, and is knocking for an entrance into their own houses; that they and their children are the victims that he seeks.

But if the places of the present generation of drunkards are to be supplied, whence will the victims come but from your own children? And who knows but that the infant the mother is now dandling upon her knee, and pressing to her bosom, however lovely he may appear, however respectable and elevated she is, will be selected to be one of that degraded, and squalid, and filthy class that, in her old age, will walk the streets as houseless, hopeless, and abandoned drunkards? You have no security, no assurance.