Chapter VI: Part 6

Can it be that these men have ever soberly looked forward to see what must be the ultimate effects, upon our free and beloved country, of this hydra-headed evil, unless it be arrested? Can they be aware that, judging by the past proportion of deaths from intemperance in the most regular and moral parts of the land, one third of the six million adults now living will die from the same cause? Do they know how the intemperate entail hereditary diseases and a thirst for ardent spirits upon their descendants, and how rapidly, therefore, the bodily vigor of our citizens is giving way before their deadly influence? And can they doubt that vigor of mind will decay in the same proportion? Corruption of manners and morals too, how rapidly it will spread under the operation of this poison! Nor can religious principle stand long before the overwhelming inundation; and just in the degree in which alcoholic liquors are used, will the Sabbath, and the institutions of religion, and the Bible be neglected and trodden under foot. And when the morality, and religion, and the conscience of the majority of our nation are gone, what but a miracle can save our liberties from ruin? Corrupt the majority, and what security is there in popular elections? Corrupt the majority, and you have collected together the explosive materials that need only the touch of some demagogue's torch to scatter the fair temple of our independence upon the winds of heaven.

But admitting that this picture is not overdrawn, yet the distiller and the furnisher of materials may perhaps say, that all this does not particularly concern them. They are not intemperate, they force no man to drink, or even to buy their spirits: nay, they generally refuse to sell to the intemperate. The intemperate are the persons to whom these expostulations should be addressed. As for the distiller and the farmer, who manufacture the poison, they are following a lawful calling, and have a right to the honest proceeds of their business.

The principle, then, which I understand you to advocate, is this: that provided your employment be not contrary to the laws of the state, you are under no obligation to inquire particularly as to its influence upon the public happiness after the products of your labor get out of your own hands. If this be a correct principle for your guidance, it is certainly a correct one for others. Let us apply it to the intemperate man.

I expostulate with him on the destructive influence of his habits upon his country. "But have I not a right," says he, "to use my own property in such a way as I choose, provided I do not violate the laws of the land? If I may not employ a portion of my money in purchasing spirits, neither have you a right to lay out yours for a carriage, or for painting your house, or for any thing else which some of your neighbors may regard as unnecessary. I buy no more spirits than my health and comfort require; and I have as good a right to judge of the quantity, as you have in respect to the needless articles of dress and furniture which you procure."

I urge the man who keeps a licensed gambling-house to abandon a pursuit that is ruining his country. "But I am not violating the laws," he replies, "nor compelling any man to gamble and drink to excess in my house. The whole responsibility, therefore, rests upon those who do it. Expostulate with them. I have a right to my earnings."

You see where this principle leads. Is it one that a true patriot ought to adopt? No: he alone is a true patriot who is ready to abandon every pursuit that is injuring his country, however profitable it may be to himself, and however tolerated by the civil law. Nor I would not attempt to extenuate the guilt of the intemperate man, nor of the merchant who sells him spirits; but I do say, that if those who distil, and those who furnish the materials, were to abandon the business altogether, it would almost put an end to intemperance in the land. For only a small proportion of the spirits used is imported; and its price must always continue so high that but few could afford to be drunkards were the domestic manufacture to cease. You have it in your power, then, to put a stop to this most dreadful national evil, and thus to save our liberties and all that is dear to us from ruin. Your fathers poured out their blood like water to purchase our independence, and to build up a bulwark around our rights. But the ten thousand distilleries which you ply are so many fiery batteries, pouring forth their forty-four million discharges every year, to level that bulwark in the dust. All Europe combined against us in war could not do us half as much injury as your distilleries are doing every year. Oh, abandon them--tear them down--melt your boilers in the furnace--give your grain and molasses to the poor, or to the fowls of heaven--make fuel of your fruit-trees, rather than destroy your country.

Some may say, that if they cease to manufacture spirits, others will take up the business and carry it on as extensively as they do. And since, therefore, the country will gain nothing by their discontinuance of distillation, they may as well have the profit of it as others. But what course of wickedness will not such reasoning justify? A highwayman robs you, or an assassin invades your dwelling at midnight and slaughters your wife and children. Now, would you think them justified, should they plead that they knew of others about to commit the same outrages, and therefore they thought their commission of these deeds was not wrong, since they needed the avails of the robbery and murder as much as any body? A man could pursue the slave-trade year after year on this principle, with no upbraidings of conscience, if he only suspected that the business would be carried on were he to stop. And a traitor might sell his country for gold, could he only ascertain that some one else was about to do it, and yet be exonerated from blame, if this principle be proper to act upon. Oh, how can any decent man plead a moment for a principle that leads to such monstrous results!

Some will say, however, that they sell the spirits which they manufacture only to those whom they know to be temperate, and therefore they are not accessory to the intemperance in the land; for they are not accountable for the sins of those who sell spirits to improper persons.

You supply them only to the temperate! The greater the blame and the guilt; for you are thus training up a new set of drunkards to take the place of those whom death will soon remove out of the way. Were you to sell only to the intemperate, you would do comparatively little injury to the community. For you would only hasten those out of the way who are a nuisance, and prevent the education of others to fill their places. But let not any man think that no blame attaches to himself because the poison goes into other hands before it is administered. _A man is to blame for any evil to his fellow-men which he could prevent._ Now, by stopping all the distilleries in the land, you could prevent men from becoming drunkards. The very head and front of the offending, therefore, lies with you. It is as idle for you to attempt to cast all the guilt upon others, in this way, as it was for Pilate, when he endeavored to fix the blood of Christ upon the people by washing his hands before them and declaring himself innocent, and then going back to his judgment-seat and passing sentence of death upon him. Good man! He did not touch a hair of the Saviour's head. It was the cruel soldiers who executed his orders, that, according to this plea, were alone guilty!

Some distillers will probably say that they cannot support themselves and families if they abandon this business; and some farmers will say, if we cannot sell our cider and rye to the distillers, the products of our orchards must all be lost, and rye is the only article which we can raise upon our farms with any profit. And if I were not to purchase these articles, says the distiller, their price must be so low that no farmer could afford to raise them. Thus to reduce a large class of the yeomanry of our country--its very sinews--to poverty, would be a greater evil than even the intemperance that is so common.

Is it indeed true, that in this free and happy country an industrious, temperate, and economical man, cannot find any employment by which he can support himself and family in a comfortable manner without manufacturing poison and selling it to his countrymen? In other words, cannot he live without destroying them? Is land so scarce, or so eaten up with tithes and taxes, that he cannot thence derive subsistence unless he converts its products into money at the expense of others' comfort, reputation, and life? Is every honest calling so crowded, or so unproductive, that every avenue is closed? Have the men who make this plea tried, even for a single year, to live without the manufacture of spirits? It may be, indeed, that for a time they will find other pursuits less productive than this. And is not this, after all, the true reason why they shrink from the sacrifice? But if superior profits be a sufficient reason for continuing distillation, it is a reason that will justify the robber, the thief, and every other depredator upon the rights of others.

But how does it appear that the stoppage of all the distilleries in the land will reduce the price of cider and rye? Their operation has produced a great demand for these articles, and that demand has thrown into the market an immense supply: the consequence is, that the prices are reduced as low as the articles can be afforded, at a very moderate profit, and the great complaint now among farmers is, that they are so low. Let the distilleries cease to exist, and the special demand for these articles will cease; and consequently the market will not be glutted with them, because no extra efforts will be made to raise them: the result will probably be, that in a very short time their price will be very nearly or quite as high as it now is.

But even if we suppose the worst, that the distiller and some farmers should be reduced to absolute beggary by the cessation of this manufacture; no reasonable, or patriotic, or Christian man can for a moment regard this as a reason why he should continue in any business that is productive of immense mischief to his country. Is it not better that he and his family should come to want, than that hundreds of thousands should be ruined, soul and body, for time and eternity? If he has a right to derive his subsistence from the ruin of others, then others, as the thief, the swindler, and the robber, have a right to obtain their subsistence from his ruin.

In the fourth place, I appeal to these men _as a neighbor and a parent, and in behalf of the drunkard's wife and children_. When Providence cast our lot in the same neighborhood, I considered, and doubtless you thought the same, that a regard to our mutual welfare bound us to do every thing in our power to make the community in which we lived intelligent, virtuous, and happy; and to avoid every thing that would mar its peace, degrade its character, or stain its purity. My complaint is, that by the manufacture of ardent spirits you have violated these obligations. The facilities for obtaining spirits, and the temptations to their use and abuse, have been thus so multiplied, and brought so near, that very many who were once kind neighbors and valuable members of society are ruined, or in different stages of the path to ruin. One has got as far as an occasional visit to the grog-shop and the bar-room: another is rarely seen there; but the wretched condition of his house, barn, and farm, his impatience of confinement at home, and his many foolish bargains, tell me, in language not to be mistaken, that the worm which is preying upon the root of his prosperity is the worm of the still. The frequent visits of the sheriff to the house of another neighbor, whose family is healthy and industrious; his bitter complaints of the hardness of the times; his constant efforts to borrow money to prevent executions from being levied; the mortgaging of his farm to the bank; his pimpled face, and bloated body, and dry hacking cough, are painful testimonies of his familiarity with the products of the distillery. It is distressing to look around upon our once happy neighborhood--did you ever do it?--and to see what havoc your manufactory of spirits has made upon the peace, property, reputation, intelligence, morality, and good order of the community. No wasting sickness, no foreign or domestic war, no premature frost; no drought, blasting, or mildew; nor any other visitation of God; no, not all of them combined have been the tenth part as fatal to our prosperity and happiness, as this one self-inflicted curse. And this curse we should never have felt, had not some of you put into operation your distilleries, and others fed them with the products of your farms: I mean, such would have been the happy effect, had the manufacture of spirits ceased in our land before these evils had followed: and I am now supposing that some one in every town and neighborhood throughout the land, where there is a distillery, is addressing the same language to those who conduct it as I am addressing to you. We make a united and earnest appeal to you, in view of the ruin that rises around us, that you would stop the work of destruction and strengthen the things that remain, which are ready to die. You stand at the fountain-head of that fiery stream which is spreading volcanic desolation over the land. Oh, shut up the sluices before every verdant spot is buried beneath the inundation.

But to come again into our own neighborhood: I have a family of beloved children growing up in the vicinity of your distillery; and when I recollect that every fortieth individual among us is a drunkard, and that about every third person above the age of twenty dies prematurely through intemperance, I cannot but feel a deep anxiety lest my boys should be found at length among the number. True, one of the earliest lessons I teach them is total abstinence, and I try to excite in their minds a disgust towards every species of alcoholic mixture. But they go to one of my neighbors and hear him telling of the whiskey and cider-brandy that have been produced upon his farm, and they see him mixing and circulating the bowl among his laborers, his visitors, and even his own children; and it is offered also to mine, accompanied with some jeer against cold water societies. They see the huge accumulations of cider and rye at the distillery, and mark the glee of the men who conduct its operations, and of those who come to fill their barrel or keg with spirits. They go also to the store in the vicinity, and see one after another filling their jugs with the same article. Now, these neighbors who thus distil, and vend, and drink whiskey and brandy, my children are taught to respect; and how is it possible that they should not feel that their father is too rigid in his requirements, and hence be tempted to taste; and tasting, to love; and loving, to be destroyed by the poison? Oh, is there no guilt in thus spreading a snare for my children? Should they fall, will none of their blood be upon your heads? Shall not the entreaties of a parent be felt by those who are themselves parents, and whose days may yet be rendered intolerable by the cruelty of drunken children?

I would invite the manufacturer of spirits, and the farmer who supplies the materials, to go around with me among the people in the vicinity of the distillery, that they may have some nearer views of the miseries produced by their employment. Let us stop for a moment at this tavern.

MYSELF. You seem, landlord, to be quite full of business to-day. What is the occasion?

LANDLORD. Neighbors X and Y have their case tried here, to-day, before Esquire Z, and you know that these matters cannot go on well with dry throats.

MYSELF. What is the point in dispute between your neighbors?

LANDLORD. Something about swapping a horse, I believe; but it is my opinion that both of them hardly knew what they were about, when they made the exchange. It was last town-meeting day, and I recollect that both of them called quite frequently at my bar that day. They are none of your cold water folks, I assure you.

MYSELF. Are these court days generally profitable to you, landlord?

LANDLORD. Better, even, than a town meeting; for those who come on such occasions have no qualms of conscience about drinking, if they have occasion, I assure you. But on town-meeting days, some of the pale-faced temperance men are always about, to frighten away honest people.

MYSELF. Do not these court occasions often lay the foundation for other courts?

LANDLORD. Oh, very frequently: but so much the better, you know, for my business; and so I must not complain.

Let us next call at Mr. A's, who has so fine a farm and orchard, and every means, one would think, of independence and happiness. But hark; there is a family dialogue going on between farmer A, his wife, and son.

SON. What; boozy so early, mother? and father too, and quarrelling, as usual, I perceive. O, I wish our orchard were all burnt down, and the distillery too, rather than live in such a bedlam.

MOTHER. But do you not like a little yourself, son, when eleven o'clock comes?

FATHER. Aye, and at four, and some bitters in the morning. We are old, you must remember, son, and require more to warm us and support nature than you do.

SON. If you would drink only moderately, as I do, I would not complain. For I am not one of your cold water scarecrows, I assure you. But to have you drink half the time, is what vexes me.

What a fine picture is here, my neighbors, for the men to look at who expect to reform the world by _moderate drinking_, without adopting the principle of _total abstinence_.

But look at the sheriff yonder, pointing about neighbor B's house, from which he seems to be excluded.

SHERIFF. You are too late, gentlemen; all the property is attached for twice its value. Rum, bad bargains, and negligence, have done the business with poor B. But I pity his wife and children most, for they have struggled hard to prevent it.

DISTILLER. Is every thing gone? The fellow owed me two hundred dollars.

MYSELF. For whiskey, I suppose.

DISTILLER. He was formerly a partner in my still, you recollect.

Yonder comes from the store the mechanic, neighbor D. Well, neighbor D, how do the times go with you now?

D. Was there ever such a scarcity of money? When the rich are failing all around, how can a poor mechanic stand it?

MYSELF. What have you, friend D, bound up so carefully in your handkerchief?

D. Aye, you belong to the cold water society, I believe. But I do know that a _little_ now and then does me good.

MYSELF. I should suppose that, shut up as you are in your shop most of the time, you could not be much exposed to heat or cold, or great fatigue, and therefore would hardly need spirits.

D. Well, but I have a weak and cold stomach, and often feel so faint and sick that I must either take an emetic or a glass of spirits. But the latter cures all my bad feelings.

MYSELF. Ah, friend D, I fear the times will prove too hard for you. But why do you try to conceal your jug when you go to the store for whiskey?

D. Why--why--it is more convenient to carry it tied up in this way.

Let us stop next at this skeleton of a house, which you know used to look so tidy before its owner became intemperate. Oh, was misery ever more perfectly personified than in his wife and children, whom you see through the doors and window-frames! And there lies the wretch himself, dead-drunk.

MYSELF. Pray, madam, do these children attend school?

WIFE. Ah, sir, I am ashamed to say it, they have not decent clothes. But it was not always as you see it to-day. When we were first married our prospects were good; and by industry and economy our little farm supported us, and we made some headway. But (turning towards the farmer) yet I would not hurt any one's feelings.

FARMER. Tell your story, madam.

WIFE. Well, sir, you recollect that five years ago your orchard produced abundantly, and you proposed to my husband to assist you in making the cider, and getting it to the distillery, and to take his pay in brandy. He did so, and soon a barrel of the poison, which he could not sell, was deposited in our cellar. Oh, what a winter followed! I have known no peace or comfort since, nor shall I, till I find them in the grave. Were it not for these poor naked children, I could wish to rest there soon. But O, what will become of them? Oh, sir, can you think it strange if all these things should come into my mind every time you and I sit down together at the same communion-table?

We must not return home without calling at the next miserable hovel, where the widow of a drunkard, with half a dozen ragged, squalid children, is dragging out a miserable existence. Hark, she is reading the Bible. Did you hear that stifled groan, as she read in that holy book, _Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor drunkards, shall inherit the kingdom of God_.

MYSELF. I believe I have not seen you, madam, since the death of your husband. I hope you find support.

WIDOW. Oh, sir, resignation is easy if we feel a confidence, or even a feeble hope, that our friends who are taken away will escape the agonies of a second death. But how can we hope against the express declarations of the word of God?

DISTILLER. And yet, madam, your husband had many excellent qualities.

WIDOW. And he would still have lived to bless me and the world by their exhibition, had it not been for your distillery.

DISTILLER. I have no idea of sitting in judgment upon our departed friends, and sending them to hell because they had a few failings.

WIDOW. Ah, sir, if my husband has gone there, it was your distillery that sent him. Before that was built no man was more kind, temperate, and happy. But you persuaded him to labor there, and paid him in whiskey, and it ruined him, and ruined us all. Look at me--look at these children, without food, without raiment, without fire, without friends, except their Friend in heaven. I do not ask you to bestow upon us any articles for the supply of our temporal necessities; but look at us, and be entreated to tear down your distillery, so that you may not multiply upon you the execrations of the widow and the orphan, wrung from them by the extremity of their sufferings.

Gentlemen, let me exhort you to take such a tour of observation as this once a month. Oh, I entreat every one in the land, who has any concern in the manufacture of ardent spirits, to do the same; and ere long, I am persuaded, you would either abandon every claim to humanity, or abandon for ever your pernicious employment.

In the fifth place, I advise and forewarn these men _as their personal friend_. If you distil ardent spirits, or furnish the materials, you must use them yourselves and allow of their use in your families; otherwise your inconsistency, not to say dishonesty, would subject you to universal contempt. Now, to have your children familiar with the sling, the toddy, and the flip, as they grow up! Is here no danger that the temptation will prove too strong for them? _Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?_ And what compensation for the intemperance of a wife, or a child, would be the highest profits of an orchard, a field of rye, or a distillery? Oh, to be a drunkard is to destroy the soul as well as the body: and _what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?_ And are you yourselves in no danger of intemperance, plied as you are by so many allurements? Look around you and see how many strong men, how many of the wise, the moral, the amiable, and the apparently pious, have fallen before the fascinations of this prince of serpents. And are you safe who stand even within the reach of his forky tongue, and lay the bait for his victims, and lure them into his jaws by tasting of it yourselves? Oh, the history of distillers and temperate drinkers, in their last days, furnishes an awful warning for you.

But there is another danger before you, of which, as a faithful friend, I wish to forewarn you. I see a dark storm gathering over your heads. You cannot be ignorant of the mighty movement that is making in our land on the subject of temperance. You must have felt the heavy concussion, and heard the rolling thunder. The religious, the moral, the patriotic, the learned, and the wise, as intemperance has been developing its huge and hateful features more and more, have been aroused to effort; they have closed together in a firm phalanx; and as they move on with the standard of _total abstinence_ waving before them, the great, and the good, and the valiant of every name, are swelling their ranks. The cry is waxing louder and louder, "Where are the strong holds of the monster; point out to us the fountains that supply his insatiable thirst, and who it is that feeds them; and who it is that opens the enormous floodgates? and thither we will march, and against such men will we point our heaviest artillery." And to this cry there is an answer more and more distinctly breaking out: "To the distilleries--to the distilleries." My friends, wait not till this storm of public indignation bursts upon you, nor fancy that you can face it. Oh, no; it will be a steady, fiery blast, that will bear you down; and you will find that none but the dregs of the community will be left with you to sustain you. You will be left with the drunkards, to be distinguished from them only as their abettors and supporters; and from you will every virtuous and patriotic man turn away in disgust, as enemies to himself, his children, and his country. Think not that all this is imagination: look up, and you will see the cloud blackening, and the lightning beginning to play, and hear the thunder roaring. But it is not yet too late to escape from the fury of the storm.

Finally, I would entreat these men _as a Christian_. Some of them profess a personal and experimental knowledge of vital Christianity, and are members of the visible church. What, can it be that a real Christian should, at this day, be concerned in the manufacture of ardent spirits for general use? When I think of the light that now illuminates every man's path on this subject so clearly, and think how the horrors of intemperance must flash in his face at every step, I confess I feel disposed indignantly to reply, No; this man cannot be a Christian. But then I recollect David, the adulterer; Peter, the denier of his master, profanely cursing and swearing; and John Newton, a genuine convert to Christianity, yet for a long time violating every dictate of conscience and of right; and I check my hasty judgment, and leave the secret character of the manufacturer of ardent spirits to a higher and more impartial tribunal. But if such a man be really a Christian, that is, if he do really love God supremely and his neighbor as himself, in what a state of awful alienation and stupidity must he be living! Remaining in such a state, that is, while persevering in so unchristian an employment, can he have any evidence himself, or afford any evidence to others, of possessing a Christian character?

I would not apply these remarks in their unqualified severity to every professor of religion who supplies the distillery with materials, or who vends or uses wine or ardent spirits; for we shall find some of this description who really suppose that, instead of being condemned for such conduct in the Bible, they are rather supported by some parts of it: they not only find Christ converting water into wine at a marriage, and Paul directing Timothy to use a little wine for his health, but that, in one case, the Jews had liberty to convert a certain tithe into money, and bring it to Jerusalem and bestow it for what their _soul lusted after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or strong drink_, and _they were to eat there before the Lord their God, and rejoice, they and their household_. Deut. 14:26. But before any one settles down into a conclusion that this passage warrants the use of wine and ardent spirits, in our age and country, let him consider that there may have been, as there doubtless were, peculiar reasons, under the Levitical dispensation, for permitting the Jews to partake of what their soul desired _before the Lord_, which would not apply to mankind generally; as was the case in respect to several other things. But not to urge this point, I would say, further, that the fact that _Judea was a wine country_, that is, a country where the grape for the manufacture of wine was easily and abundantly raised, puts a different aspect upon this permission. In our country, the apple takes the place of the grape, and our cider is nearer equivalent to the wine of Judea; because there the apple does not flourish, and here, the grape cannot be extensively cultivated. _To use wine in wine countries, therefore, is essentially the same thing as to use cider in cider countries_; and it does not appear that the one, in such cases, is much more productive of intemperance than the other. The fact is, the wines used in countries where they are manufactured, contain but little more then half as much alcohol as most of the wine sold in this country, where, as a very respectable authority states, "for every gallon of pure wine which is sold, there is perhaps a pipe, or fifty times the quantity of that, which is adulterated, and in various manners sophisticated--the whole, without exception, the source of a thousand disorders, and in many instances an active poison, imperfectly disguised."

But after all, I am not obliged, in this place, to prove that God has forbidden the use of wine, though led into this digression from the desire to correct a general misapprehension of the Scriptures on this subject; for the inquiry now relates to ardent spirits. And what shall we say concerning the permission, above pointed out, for the Jews to use _strong drink_? I say, it was merely a permission to use wine; for the strong drink several times mentioned in the Bible was, in fact, _nothing more than a particular kind of wine_, made of dates and various sorts of seeds and roots, and called strong drink, merely to distinguish it from the wine made from grapes. Nor is there any evidence that it was in fact any stronger, in its intoxicating qualities, than common wine. The truth is, _ardent spirits were not known until many centuries after Christ_: not until the art of distillation was discovered, which was not certainly earlier than the dark ages. _Not a word, therefore, is said in the Bible concerning distilled spirits._ All its powerful descriptions of drunkenness, and awful denunciations against it, were founded upon the abuse men made of wine. How much louder its notes of remonstrance and terror would have risen, had distillation thus early taught men how to concentrate the poison, may be imagined by the reader.

After these statements, I trust none of those whom I address will any longer resort to the Bible for proofs of a divine permission to manufacture or use ardent spirits. But do the principles of the Bible _condemn_ such use and manufacture?

What do you think of the golden rule of _doing unto others as we would they should do unto us_? Should you suppose your neighbors were conducting towards you according to this rule, were they unnecessarily to pursue such a business, or to set such an example as would inevitably lead any of your children or friends into confirmed drunkenness? If not, then how can you, consistently with this rule, distil, use, or furnish materials for the manufacture of ardent spirits, when you thereby, directly or indirectly, render intemperate from two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand of your fellow-citizens, and every year also raise up new recruits enough to supply the dreadful ravages which death makes in this army? This you are certainly doing; for were your distilleries to stop, and you to stop drinking, few would become drunkards, from want of the means.

How would you like to have your neighbors one after another break down your fences, and turn their cattle into your corn-fields, cut down your fruit and ornamental trees, set your house or barn on fire, and threaten you with poverty and slavery? If you would not have your neighbor do thus to you, provided he had the power, then how can you, by preparing the food for intemperance, subject the property, the peace, the morality, the religion, and the liberties of your country to those dangers and fearful depredations which you are now inflicting upon her?

How would you like to have your neighbors, directly or indirectly, but unnecessarily, cause the premature death of every fortieth of your children and friends, and of one in three of those above the age of twenty? I know you would not that they should do thus to you, and yet your manufacture of spirits causes the premature death of five hundred of your fellow-citizens every week; in other words, about that number die every week through the intemperance produced by your distilleries.

Again, I ask the men whom I am addressing, how they reconcile their manufacture and sale of spirits with another command of the Bible? _Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness._ True, this applies most emphatically to the retailer of spirits: but what could the retailer do if there were no distillery; and what could the distiller do if the farmer withheld the materials? All these men are engaged, directly or indirectly, in giving their neighbors drink; and though it may pass through many hands before it reaches all their mouths, yet where must the burden of the guilt rest, if not upon those who stand at the head of the series, and first convert the articles which God has given to nourish and sustain life into active poison for its destruction; and then, for the sake of a paltry pecuniary profit, send it round amongst their neighbors, accompanied with all the plagues that issued from the fabled Pandora's box?

Finally, let me ask these men how the business of preparing ardent spirits for the community appears to them when they think most seriously of another world? In the hours of sober reflection, on the Sabbath, during seasons of devotion, when sickness overtakes you, and death seems near, or you stand by the dying-bed of some one of your family or neighbors; at such seasons can you look back upon this pursuit with pleasure? If conscience then tells you that this business ought to be given up, Oh remember, that conscience is an honest and faithful friend at such times, and that, as this pursuit then appears to you, so will it appear when you come actually to die. Test this business, I beseech you, by bringing it in imagination to the scrutiny of your dying hour. Whether it be lawful or unlawful, certain it is that it sends five hundred drunkards into eternity every week; and you have the express testimony of the Bible, that no drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God. As the Bible is true, then, are not the manufacturers of ardent spirits in our land the means of sending five hundred souls to hell every week? Tell me, my friends, how will this awful truth appear to you on the bed of death? And how does it appear when you look forward to the final judgment, and realize that you must meet there fifty or an hundred, or five hundred times five hundred drunkards, made such through your instrumentality, for one, or two, or ten years, and must there justify yourselves for this instrumentality, or go away with them into perdition, covered with their blood and followed by their execrations?

Oh, my friends, these are realities; and they are near. Do you begin to doubt whether you are in the path of duty? Listen, I beseech you, to the first whispers of the faithful monitor in your bosom.

By the reasonings of philosophy, by the testimony of physicians, by the expostulations of your bleeding country, by the tears, the rags, and the wretchedness of three hundred thousand drunkards, with their wives and children; by the warnings of personal friendship, and by the sanctions of the divine law, the solemnities of death and the judgment, and the groans of ten thousand drunkards, rising from the pit, I entreat you, abandon at once and for ever this most unrighteous employment, and save yourselves from the eternal agonies of conscience, the execrations of millions, and the wrath of Omnipotence.

ADDRESS TO THE YOUNG MEN OF THE UNITED STATES, ON TEMPERANCE.

BY RT. REV. C. P. M'ILVAINE, D. D.

In addressing the Young Men of the United States in regard to the great enterprise of promoting the universal prevalence of Temperance, we are not aware that any time need be occupied in apology. Our motives cannot be mistaken. The magnitude of the cause, and the importance of that cooperation in its behalf which this address is designed to promote, will vindicate the propriety of its respectful call upon the attention of those by whom it shall ever be received.

It is presumed that every reader is already aware of the extensive and energetic movements at present advancing in our country in behalf of Temperance. That an unprecedented interest in this work has been recently excited, and is still rapidly strengthening in thousands of districts; that talent, wisdom, experience, learning, and influence are now enlisted in its service, with a measure of zeal and harmony far surpassing what was ever witnessed before in such a cause; that great things have already been accomplished; that much greater are near at hand; and that the whole victory will be eventually won, if the temperate portion of society are not wanting to their solemn duty, must have been seen already by those living along the main channels of public thought and feeling. Elevated, as we now are, upon a high tide of general interest and zeal--a tide which may either go on increasing its flood till it has washed clean the very mountain tops, and drowned intemperance in its last den; or else subside, and leave the land infected with a plague, the more malignant and incurable from the dead remains of a partial inundation--it has become a question of universal application, which those who are now at the outset of their influence in society should especially consider: "What can _we_ do, and what _ought_ we to do in this cause?" For the settlement of this question we invite you to a brief view of the whole ground on which temperance measures are now proceeding.

It cannot be denied that our country is most horribly scourged by intemperance. In the strong language of Scripture, _it groaneth and travaileth in pain, to be delivered from the bondage of this corruption_. Our country is free; _with a great price obtained we this freedom_. We feel as if all the force of Europe could not get it from our embrace. Our shores would shake into the depth of the sea the invader who should presume to seek it. One solitary citizen led away into captivity, scourged, chained by a foreign enemy, would rouse the oldest nerve in the land to indignant complaint, and league the whole nation in loud demand for redress. And yet it cannot be denied that our country is enslaved. Yes, we are groaning under a most desolating bondage. The land is trodden down under its polluting foot. Our families are continually dishonored, ravaged, and bereaved; thousands annually slain, and hundreds of thousands carried away into a loathsome slavery, to be ground to powder under its burdens, or broken upon the wheel of its tortures.

What are the statistics of this traffic? Ask the records of madhouses, and they will answer, that one-third of all their wretched inmates were sent there by Intemperance. Ask the keepers of our prisons, and they will testify that, with scarcely an exception, their horrible population is from the schools of Intemperance. Ask the history of the 200,000 paupers now burdening the hands of public charity, and you will find that two-thirds of them have been the victims, directly or indirectly, of Intemperance. Inquire at the gates of death, and you will learn that no less than 30,000 souls are annually passed for the judgment-bar of God, driven there by Intemperance. How many slaves are at present among us? We ask not of slaves to man, but to Intemperance, in comparison with whose bondage the yoke of the tyrant is freedom. They are estimated at 480,000! And what does the nation pay for the honor and happiness of this whole system of ruin? _Five times as much, every year, as for the annual support of its whole system of government._ These are truths, so often published, so widely sanctioned, so generally received, and so little doubted, that we need not detail the particulars by which they are made out. What, then, is the whole amount of guilt and of woe which they exhibit? Ask Him "unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid." Ask _Eternity_!

The biographer of Napoleon, speaking of the loss sustained by England on the field of Waterloo, says, "Fifteen thousand men killed and wounded, threw half Britain into mourning. It required all the glory and all the solid advantages of that day to reconcile the mind to the high price at which it was purchased." But what mourning would fill _all_ Britain, if every year should behold another Waterloo? But what does every year repeat in our peaceful land? Ours is a carnage not exhibited only once in a single field, but going on continually, in every town and hamlet. Every eye sees its woes, every ear catches its groans. The wounded are too numerous to count. Who is not wounded by the intemperance of this nation? But of the dead we count, year by year, more than double the number that filled half Britain with mourning. Ah, could we behold the many thousands whom our destroyer annually delivers over unto death, collected together upon one field of slaughter, for one funeral, and one deep and wide burial-place; could we behold a full assemblage of all the parents, widows, children, friends, whose hearts have been torn by their death, surrounding that awful grave, and loading the winds with tales of woe, the whole land would cry out at the spectacle. It would require something more than "_all the glory_," and "_all the solid advantages_" of Intemperance, "_to reconcile the mind to the high price at which they were purchased_."

But enough is known of the intemperance of this country to render it undeniable by the most ignorant inhabitant, that a horrible scourge is indeed upon us.

Another assertion is equally unquestionable. _The time has come when a great effort must be made to exterminate this unequalled destroyer._ It was high time this was done when the first drunkard entered eternity to receive the award of Him who has declared that no drunkard shall enter the kingdom of God. The demand for this effort has been growing in the peremptory tone of its call, as "the overflowing scourge" has passed with constantly extending sweep through the land. But a strange apathy has prevailed among us. As if the whole nation had been drinking the cup of delusion, we saw the enemy coming in like a flood, and we lifted up scarcely a straw against him. As if the magicians of Egypt had prevailed over us by their enchantments, we beheld our waters of refreshment turned into blood, and a destroying sword passing through till "there was a great cry" in the land, for there was scarcely "a house where there was not one dead;" and still our hearts were hardened, and we would not let go the great sin for which these plagues were brought upon us. It seems as if some foul demon had taken his seat upon the breast of the nation, and was holding us down with the dead weight of a horrid nightmare, while he laughed at our calamity and mocked at our fear--when our fear came as desolation, and our destruction as a whirlwind.

Shall this state continue? Is not the desolation advancing? Have not facilities of intemperance, temptations to intemperance, examples to sanction intemperance, been fast increasing ever since this plague began? Without some effectual effort, is it not certain they will continue to increase, till intemperate men and their abettors will form the public opinion and consequently the public conscience and the public law of this land--till intemperance shall become, like leviathan of old, "king over all the children of pride," whose breath kindleth coals, and a "flame goeth out of his mouth?" Then what will effort of man avail? "Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook? His heart is as firm as a stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone. He drinketh up a river, and hasteth not. When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are afraid."

It is too late to put off any longer the effort for deliverance. It is granted by the common sense, and urged by the common interest; every feeling of humanity and every consideration of religion enforces the belief that the time has come when a great onset is imperiously demanded to drive out intemperance from the land.

This, to be great, _must be universal_. The whole country is enslaved; and the whole country must rise up at once, like an armed man, and determine to be free. Of what lasting avail would it be for one section of territory, here and there, to clear itself, while the surrounding regions should remain under the curse? The temperance reformation has no quarantine to fence out the infected. Geographical boundaries are no barriers against contagion. Rivers and mountains are easily crossed by corrupting example. Ardent spirits, like all other fluids, perpetually seek their level. In vain does the farmer eradicate from his fields the last vestige of the noisome thistle, while the neighboring grounds are given up to its dominion, and every wind scatters the seed where it listeth. The effort against intemperance, to be effective, _must be universal_.

Here, then, are three important points which we may safely assume as entirely unquestionable: that _our country is horribly scourged by intemperance_; that _the time has come when a great effort is demanded for the expulsion of this evil_; and that _no effort can be effectual without being universal_. Hence is deduced, undeniably, the conclusion that it is the duty, and the solemn duty of the people, in every part of this country, to rise up at once, and act vigorously and unitedly in the furtherance of whatever measures are best calculated to promote reformation.

* * * * *

Here the question occurs, _What can be done? How can this woe be arrested?_ The answer is plain. Nothing can be done, but in one of the three following ways. You must either suffer people to drink _immoderately_; or you must endeavor to promote _moderation_ in drinking; or you must try to persuade them to drink _none at all_. One of these plans must be adopted. Which shall we choose? The first is condemned already.

What say we to the second, the _moderate use_ of intoxicating drinks? It has unquestionably the sanction of high and ancient ancestry. It is precisely the plan on which intemperance has been wrestled with ever since it was first discovered that "wine is a mocker," and that "strong drink is raging." But hence comes its condemnation. Its long use is its death-witness. Were it new, we might hope something from its adoption. But it is old enough to have been tried to the uttermost. The wisdom, the energy, the benevolence of centuries have made the best of it. The attempt to keep down intemperance by endeavoring to persuade people to indulge only moderately in strong drink, has been the world's favorite for ages; while every age has wondered that the vice increased so rapidly.

At last we have been awakened to a fair estimate of the success of the plan. And what is it? So far from its having shown the least tendency to exterminate the evil, it is the mother of all its abominations. All who have attained the stature of full-grown intemperance, were once children in this nursery, sucking at the breasts of this parent. All the "men of strength to mingle strong drink," who are now full graduates in the vice, and "masters in the arts" of drunkenness, began their education and served their apprenticeship under the discipline of moderate drinking. All that have learned to lie down in the streets, and carry terror into their families, and whom intemperance has conducted to the penitentiary and the madhouse, may look back to this as the beginning of their course--the author of their destiny. No man ever set out to use strong drink with the expectation of becoming eventually a drunkard. No man ever became a drunkard without having at first assured himself that he could keep a safe rein upon every disposition that might endanger his strict sobriety. "_I am in no danger while I only take a little_," is the first principle in the doctrine of intemperance. It is high time it were discarded. It has deluged the land with vice, and sunk the population into debasement. The same results will ensue again, just in proportion as the moderate use of ardent spirits continues to be encouraged. Let the multitude continue to drink a little, and still our hundreds of thousands will annually drink to death.

It is settled, therefore, that to encourage moderate drinking is not the plan on which the temperance reformation can be successfully prosecuted. The faithful experiment of generation after generation, decides that it must be abandoned. A cloud of witnesses, illustrating its consequences in all the tender mercies of a drunkard's portion, demand that it should be abandoned. Its full time is come. Long enough have we refused to open our eyes to the evident deceitfulness of its pretensions. At last the country is awaking, and begins to realize the emptiness of this dream. Let it go as a dream, and only be remembered that we may wonder how it deceived, and lament how it injured us.