SPEECHES“AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION”[Delivered at a meeting of the Temperance Society in Boston in 1861]Were I called upon, Mr. Chairman, to define intemperance by its effects, I would say: “It is that which covers the fields of the husbandman with tares and thorns, and strews the ocean with wrecks. It is that which renders the clerk unfaithful to his employer, the public man to his constituents, the magistrate to his oath of office, the parent to his family, and all who are trusted to every trust. It is that which stirs to mutiny every corrupt passion, weakens every motive to virtue, adds strength to vicious allurements, and pushes the reluctant will over the verge of every damnable and desperate enterprise. So well is this understood by the doers of evil that it is in the armies of evil the regular weapon whose value is unquestioned after the experience of ages. Is a seaman to be enticed to desert his ship or asoldier his colors? Ply him with liquor. Is a ruffian steeped in crime to be urged to some deed of horror from which even his hardened nature revolts? Ply him with liquor. Is a young man with his curiosity awake, his passions pure and jubilant, and his heart throbbing with warm impulses of budding life to be put upon that same descending grade opening to a like abyss of utter loathsomeness, his fair face to be rendered shameless, and his lips to reek of the pit? Then go, thou familiar spirit, whose abode is in the sparkling cup, assume the form of beauty and youth, show him not at once thy craven features, but while his arm is linked in thine, accustom him by slow gradations to the festive and genial cup.”The ways and methods of doing good are not intuitive. They are, as in the arts and crafts, the result of effort and experience. Good men by long practice into which they have flung their very hearts have learned more and more effective methods of grappling with intemperance. At first they began with cure; now they try prevention, not forgetting the other. Once they went alongside the old hulk stranded on the beach, her masts goneby the board, her rigging white and weather-worn hanging over her bulwarks, ochre hanging from her opening seams, and refitting and relaunching her, they obtained from the stranded hulk a few years of inferior service. Now they buoy the channel and light the beacon, and thus prevent the shipwreck. Noble men went to the inebriate crawling in the gutter; with kindly sympathy they raised him up and restored him to usefulness and power. But who, save the inebriate himself, can tell the bitterness of that struggle between the man, the husband, the father, struggling to rise, and the demon that strives to drag him back? How true it is that that accursed longing never dies! How true it is that we need never learn to drink but once! What temperance reformer is there who has not shed bitter tears over the final wreck of those whom he thought he had saved?Thus noble efforts were made, multitudes partially, and many really reformed, but all the time behind there was a thronging army of young men treading the same paths. But, taught by experience, men have now begun to grapple with this evil on its strongest ground; that is, in its social aspect, thatwhich is most alluring to the romantic and the young.I may safely say that from the beginning of social life the great mass of the literature, genius, and wealth of the world has been, and is now, on the side of intemperance. The greatest poets that ever lived have sung in strains of beauty that captivated the young heart the praises of the ruby wine. It has for ages been interwoven with all festivals,—the meeting and parting of social life. It is this more than the love of liquor that attracts. In this view wine becomes the exponent of all that is genial and warm; temperance of all that is cold, forbidding, and repulsive. It is for just this purpose and to meet the enemy at just this point that associations like this have been formed. They seek to show that the flowing bowl is not of necessity the quickener of the intellect, or of all ardent and generous feeling; that it is not the only elixir for the heavy heart. They would show that there are other pleasures as exhilarating as those of the wine cup—pleasures that leave no sting behind. They would show that men can be earnest scholars, sympathetic friends, jovial companions, andat the same time taste not, touch not, and handle not the wine cup, or be under any obligations to alcohol for their enjoyment. May this association in the heart of this great city accomplish its purpose, and be the young man’s friend.
[Delivered at a meeting of the Temperance Society in Boston in 1861]
Were I called upon, Mr. Chairman, to define intemperance by its effects, I would say: “It is that which covers the fields of the husbandman with tares and thorns, and strews the ocean with wrecks. It is that which renders the clerk unfaithful to his employer, the public man to his constituents, the magistrate to his oath of office, the parent to his family, and all who are trusted to every trust. It is that which stirs to mutiny every corrupt passion, weakens every motive to virtue, adds strength to vicious allurements, and pushes the reluctant will over the verge of every damnable and desperate enterprise. So well is this understood by the doers of evil that it is in the armies of evil the regular weapon whose value is unquestioned after the experience of ages. Is a seaman to be enticed to desert his ship or asoldier his colors? Ply him with liquor. Is a ruffian steeped in crime to be urged to some deed of horror from which even his hardened nature revolts? Ply him with liquor. Is a young man with his curiosity awake, his passions pure and jubilant, and his heart throbbing with warm impulses of budding life to be put upon that same descending grade opening to a like abyss of utter loathsomeness, his fair face to be rendered shameless, and his lips to reek of the pit? Then go, thou familiar spirit, whose abode is in the sparkling cup, assume the form of beauty and youth, show him not at once thy craven features, but while his arm is linked in thine, accustom him by slow gradations to the festive and genial cup.”
The ways and methods of doing good are not intuitive. They are, as in the arts and crafts, the result of effort and experience. Good men by long practice into which they have flung their very hearts have learned more and more effective methods of grappling with intemperance. At first they began with cure; now they try prevention, not forgetting the other. Once they went alongside the old hulk stranded on the beach, her masts goneby the board, her rigging white and weather-worn hanging over her bulwarks, ochre hanging from her opening seams, and refitting and relaunching her, they obtained from the stranded hulk a few years of inferior service. Now they buoy the channel and light the beacon, and thus prevent the shipwreck. Noble men went to the inebriate crawling in the gutter; with kindly sympathy they raised him up and restored him to usefulness and power. But who, save the inebriate himself, can tell the bitterness of that struggle between the man, the husband, the father, struggling to rise, and the demon that strives to drag him back? How true it is that that accursed longing never dies! How true it is that we need never learn to drink but once! What temperance reformer is there who has not shed bitter tears over the final wreck of those whom he thought he had saved?
Thus noble efforts were made, multitudes partially, and many really reformed, but all the time behind there was a thronging army of young men treading the same paths. But, taught by experience, men have now begun to grapple with this evil on its strongest ground; that is, in its social aspect, thatwhich is most alluring to the romantic and the young.
I may safely say that from the beginning of social life the great mass of the literature, genius, and wealth of the world has been, and is now, on the side of intemperance. The greatest poets that ever lived have sung in strains of beauty that captivated the young heart the praises of the ruby wine. It has for ages been interwoven with all festivals,—the meeting and parting of social life. It is this more than the love of liquor that attracts. In this view wine becomes the exponent of all that is genial and warm; temperance of all that is cold, forbidding, and repulsive. It is for just this purpose and to meet the enemy at just this point that associations like this have been formed. They seek to show that the flowing bowl is not of necessity the quickener of the intellect, or of all ardent and generous feeling; that it is not the only elixir for the heavy heart. They would show that there are other pleasures as exhilarating as those of the wine cup—pleasures that leave no sting behind. They would show that men can be earnest scholars, sympathetic friends, jovial companions, andat the same time taste not, touch not, and handle not the wine cup, or be under any obligations to alcohol for their enjoyment. May this association in the heart of this great city accomplish its purpose, and be the young man’s friend.