“She urged him still tofill another cup;* * * and in the dark, still night,When God’s unsleeping eye alone can see,He went to her adulterous bed. At mornI looked, and saw him not among the youths;I heard his father mourn, his mother weep;For none returned that went with her. The deadWere in her house; her guests in depths of hell:She wove the winding-sheet of souls, and laidThem in the urn of everlasting death.”
“She urged him still tofill another cup;* * * and in the dark, still night,When God’s unsleeping eye alone can see,He went to her adulterous bed. At mornI looked, and saw him not among the youths;I heard his father mourn, his mother weep;For none returned that went with her. The deadWere in her house; her guests in depths of hell:She wove the winding-sheet of souls, and laidThem in the urn of everlasting death.”
Such is ever the tendency of the insidious cup. For the unerring word declares, “Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived therebyis not wise.” “They are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment.”
Indeed,the whole spirit of the Bible, as well as uncorrupted taste, is in direct hostility to this indulgence. Its language in regard to all such stimulants to evil is,Touch not, taste not, handle not. And to such as glory in being above danger, it says, with emphasis, “We, then, that are strong, ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, andnot to please ourselves.”
He who hath declared,Drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God, cannot, surely, be expected to adopt, as heirs of his glory, any who, under all the light that has been shed on this subject, perseveringly resolve to sip the exhilarating glass for mere selfish pleasure, when they know that their example may probably lead others to endless ruin. Common sense, as well as humanity, revolts at the thought.
On the other hand, strict temperance is pleasing to the Most High. Hence, it is said of him who was honored to announce the Saviour’s advent, “He shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink.”
Moreover, the habit of strict temperance, being allied to other virtues, will secure for you therespect and confidence of the best portions of the community, as well as the approbation of God, and thus lead to your more extensive usefulness. The youth who promptly comes up to the pledge and practice of total abstinence, and persuades others to do so, gives evidence of decision and moral courage—gives evidence of an intellect predominating over selfish indulgence, and superior to the laugh of fools; and such is the man whom an intelligent community will delight to honor.
But you are to live, not merely for self-advancement, or happiness: consider, then, thattrue patriotism and philanthropy rightfully demandyour cordial support of the Temperance cause. A thick, fiery vapor, coming up from the pit, has been overspreading our whole land and blighting half its glory. Thousands, through the noxious influence of this vapor, have yearly sunk to that pit, to weep and lament for ever. Thousands more are groping their miserable way thither, who, but for this pestilence, might be among our happiest citizens. Still greater numbers, of near connections, are in consequence, covered with shame. Ah, who can say, he has had no relative infected by this plague? But Providence, in great mercy, has revealed the only effectual course for exterminating the plague—total abstinence from all that can intoxicate. And the adoption of this course, instead of involving any real sacrifice, might be an annual saving to the nation ofmany millions of dollars. What youth, then, who loves his country, will not cheerfully coöperate with the most respected of every profession in encouraging this course? Who does not see its certain efficacy, and the grandeur of the result?
Were a foreign despot, with his armies, now invading our country, every youthful bosom would swell with indignation. And will you not combine to arrest the more cruel despot, Intemperance, whose vessels are daily entering our ports, whose magazines of death are planted at the corners of our streets, and whose manufactories are like “the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched?”
Were all who have, in the compass of a year, been found drunk in the land, assembled in one place, they would make a greater army than ever Bonaparte commanded. And yet, unless patriot hearts and hands interpose, myriads more, from generation to generation, coming on in the same track, will go down like these to the drunkard’s grave.
Were all the thousands that annually descend to the drunkard’s grave, cast out at once into an open field, their loathsome carcases would cover many acres of ground. And yet thesourceof all this pollution and death is moderate drinking.
Were the thousands of distilleries and breweries, still at work day and night in the land, placed in one city or county, they would blacken all the surrounding heavens with their smoke. And could all the oaths, obscenities, and blasphemies they occasion every hour, be uttered in one voice, it would be more terrific than “seven thunders.”
And are those armies of drunkards, that liquid fire, those carcases of the slain, those ever-burning manufactories, and those blasphemies in the ear of Heaven, less appalling, less stirring to patriotism, because scattered throughout the land? Shall there be no burst of indignation against this monster of despotism and wickedness, because he hasinsidiouslyentered the country, instead of coming in by bold invasion? Shall he still deceive the nation, and pursue his ravages? Or shall he not, at once, be arrested, when it can be done without cost, and with infinite gain?
It must not be forgotten, that, in this country, every drunkard has equal power in the elective franchise with the most virtuous citizen. Nor must it be forgotten, that should the reform now cease, and intemperance again increase for the fifty years to come, in only the same ratio that it did for twenty years previous to the commencement of general reform in 1826, about one-third of our voters would be drunkards. What, then, would be the character of our beloved republic?
But should intemperance increase in that ratio foreightyyears, amajorityof our voters would be drunkards, and our population amount to several hundred millions. Who then could turn back the burning tide; or who could govern the maddening multitudes?
It is not a vain thing, then, that patriots have waked up to this subject. Their trumpet should now thrill through the land, and urge all the young to enlist, at once, on the side of virtue. These can, if they will, cause the river of abominations to be dried up.
But the subject of temperance has still another aspect, far more serious. It must be a solemn consideration to such as realize, in any measure, the worth of the soul and the necessity of its regeneration, that indulgence in the use of intoxicating drink, in this day of light,may grieve the Holy Spirit, whose presence alone can insure salvation. Indeed, to say nothing of the deadening influence of such liquor on the conscience, unless heaven and hell can mingle together, we cannot, surely, expect God to sendhisSpirit to coöperatewith thatwhich is peculiarly offensive to the most devoted and self-denying of his friends, and which Satan employs, more than any other agent, in fitting men for his service. For, “what communion hath light withdarkness?”—“what concord hath Christ with Belial?” Beware, then, of the arch-deceiver, in this matter. “It is not a vain thing for you, because it is your life.”
It is obvious that if such stimulants were wholly done away,the Gospel would have far mightier sway, and human nature generally assume a higher character. Pure moral stimulus would take the place of what is low, sensual, and selfish. Better health, better temper, higher intellect, and more generous benevolence would everywhere appear.
It is obvious, likewise, that Providence has great designs to be accomplished by the younger portions of this generation. Unto us are committed those oracles which declare, “Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.” And already do I see, in the silent kindling of unnumbered minds, in our Sabbath-schools and other institutions, the presage of unexampled good to the nations. Who, then, of the rising race, is so dead to generous feeling, so deaf to the voice of Providence, so blind to the beauty of moral excellence, that he will not now aspire to some course of worthy action? Let this motto, then, stand out like the sun in the firmament:He that striveth for the mastery, is temperate in all things.
One word in reference to making and observing apledgefor abstinence. As it respects yourself, it will show a resolute, independent mind, and be deciding the question once for all, and thus supersede the necessity of deciding it a thousand times, when the temptation is offered. It will, moreover, supersede the inconvenience of perpetual warfare with appetite and temptation. And as it respects others, of feebler minds, or stronger appetites, yourexamplemay be immeasurably important. Multitudes may thus be secured to a life of sobriety, who, but for this pledge, would never have had the requisite firmness. Your influence may thus extend on the right hand and on the left, and down to future ages; and by such united pledges and efforts, countless multitudes may be saved from a life of wretchedness, a death of infamy, and an eternity of woe.
But does any one still say, “I will unite in no pledge, because in no danger?” Supposeyou are safe; have you then nobenevolence? Are you utterlyselfish? Think of the bosom now wrung with agony and shame, over a drunkenhusband, or father, or brother. And have you nopity? Think of the millions of hopes, for both worlds, suspended on the success of the temperance cause. And will you do nothing to speed its triumph?
Do you say, your influence is of no account? It was one “poor man” that saved a “little city,” when a “great king besieged it.” Another saved a “great city,” when the anger of Jehovah was provoked against it. Small as your influence may be, you are accountable to God and your country; and your finger may touch some string that shall vibrate through the nation.
But are you conscious of possessing talent? Then rally the circle of your acquaintance, and enlist them in the sacred cause. And do you save a little by abstinence? Thengivea little to extend the benign influence. What youth cannot, at least, circulate a few Tracts, and perhaps enlist as many individuals? And who can estimate the endless influence of those individuals, or their capacity for rising with you in celestial splendor?
But have you wealth, or power with the pen? Then speak by ten thousand tongues: send winged messengers through the city, the country, the town, the village, the harbor; and thus may you enjoynowthe highest of all luxuries—the luxury ofdoing good. And, at the same time, trusting inHimwho came from the abodes of light, “to seek and save the lost,” you may securedurable richesin that world, where, saith the Scripture, neithercovetous, nordrunkards, nor extortioners, nor revilers, nor theslothful, nor merelovers of pleasure, norany thing that defileth, shall ever enter; but wherethey that be wiseshall shine forth as the brightness of the firmament for ever and ever.
When these opposite characters and their changeless destinies areseriouslyweighed, none, surely, can hesitate which to prefer. But, “what thou doest, do quickly.”
Note.—A premium of fifty dollars, offered by a friend, was awarded to the author of this Tract.
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.
The art of turning the products of the earth into a fiery spirit was discovered by anArab, about nine hundred years ago. The effects of this abuse of nature’s gifts were soon viewed with alarm. Efforts were made, even by a heathen people, to arrest the evil; and it shows the mighty agency and cunning of Satan, that Christian nations should ever have been induced to adopt and encourage this deadliest of man’s inventions. In the guilt of encouraging the destructive art, our own free country has largely participated. In the year 1815, as appears from well-authenticated statistics, our number of distilleries had risen to nearlyforty thousand; and, until within a few years past, the progress of intemperance threatened all that was fair and glorious in our prospects. The reformation recently commenced is one of the grandest movements of our world; and to secure its speedy triumph, the concurrence of distillers is obviously indispensable. They must cease to provide the destroying element. This they are urged to do by the following considerations:
1. The business of distillingconfers no benefits on your fellow-men. Ardent spirit is not needed as an article of living. In the first ages of the world, when human life was protracted to hundreds of years, it was unknown. By the first settlers of this country it was not used. It was scarcely used for a whole century. And those temperate generations were remarkably robust, cheerful, and enterprising. To this we may add, that several hundred thousand persons, accustomed to use it, have given it up entirely within a few years past; and their united testimony is, that they have made no sacrifice either of health, orstrength, or any real comfort. Indeed few, if any, except such as have the intemperate appetite, will now seriously contend that distilled liquor is necessary or useful. The little that may perhaps be desirable as medicine, might be made by the apothecary, or the physician.
The talents God has given youmightbe applied to advance the welfare of your fellow-men. It is your duty—your highesthonor—thus to apply them. And on the bed of death, in near prospect of the judgment, it will surely be a melancholy reflection that, as regards the happiness of mankind, your life has been an utterblank.
2. The business of distilling is not only useless, butis the occasion of many and great evils. Recent examination has developed a number of appalling facts, which few, if any, pretend to question. It is admitted that the use of ardent spirit has been a tax on the population of our country, of fromfifty to a hundred millions of dollarsannually. It is admitted that three-fourths of all thecrimesof the land result from the use of intoxicating liquor. It is admitted that at least three-fourths of all the sufferings ofpovertyarise from the same source. It is admitted that upwards ofthirty thousandof our citizens have annually descended to thedrunkard’s grave. It is admitted, by those who believe the Bible, thatdrunkards shall not inherit eternal life, but musthave their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone. In a word, it is admitted that health, fortune, social happiness, intellect, conscience, heaven, are all swept away by the tide of intemperance.
And now, what you are specially bound to ponder is, that this burning tide, with all its desolations, flows from those very fountainsyouhave opened—the boiling flood can be perpetuated only by those fires whichyourhands kindle, and which it is your daily task to tend.
The position you occupy, then, is one of most fearful responsibility. You are directly and peculiarly accessary to a degree of guilt and misery which none but the infinite mind can comprehend. I hear for you a loud remonstrance from every court of justice, from every prison of collectedcrime, from every chamber of debasement, and from every graveyard, as well as from the dark world of despair. I hear the cries of unnumbered mothers, and widows, and orphans, all with one voice imploring you to extinguish those fires, to dry up those fountains, and to abandon an occupation pregnant with infamy, and death, and perdition.
3. The business of distillingdestroys, to a great extent, the bounties of Providence. Many of the substances converted into ardent spirit are indispensable to the comfort of man—some of them the very staff of life. But the work of distillation not only destroys them as articles of food, but actually converts them to poison. An incalculable amount of grain, and tens of thousands of hogsheads of sugar and molasses, besides enormous quantities of other useful articles, are every year thus wickedly perverted in this Christian land. Who does not know the odious fact that, in many places, thedistilleryhas regulated the price of bread? Who does not know that this engine of iniquity has at times so consumed the products of industry as to make it difficult for the poorer classes to get a supply? “The poor we have always with us;” and cries of the suffering are often heard from other lands. Such facts, it would seem, might reach the conscience of all who are wantonly destroying Heaven’s gifts. Can you, for a little selfish gain, persist in converting the bread of multitudes into pestilential fire? How utterly unlike the example of Him who, while feeding thousands by miracle, could still say, “Gather up the fragments which remain, that nothing be lost.”
4. By continuing this destructive business,you greatly offend the virtuous and respectable part of the community. The temperance reformation has been commenced and prosecuted by enlightened men. It is not the enterprise of any political party or religious sect. It has the general support of ministers and Christians of different denominations, of statesmen, judges, lawyers, physicians, and hundreds of thousands in the walks of private life. They regard the enterprise as one, on the success of which hang the liberties of our republic and the happiness of future millions.
You cannot be surprised, then, that they look with pain on operations directly adapted to defeat their plans, and perpetuate the dread evil they deplore. You cannot suppose that their eye will light on thefountainsof this mighty evil but with inexpressible grief, disgust, and indignation. And if you have the common magnanimity of our nature, you will surely cease to outrage the feelings of the virtuous throughout the nation.
5. You pursue a pernicious calling,in opposition to great light. The time was when good men extensively engaged in the distilling business, and when few seemed to be aware of its fearfully mischievous tendency. The matter had not been a subject of solemn and extensive discussion. The sin was one of comparative ignorance. But circumstances have changed. Inquiry has thrown upon the community a flood of light. The evil of intemperance has been exhibited in its complicated horrors. Ardent spirit has been found to be not only useless, but fearfully destructive; so that the guilt of manufacturing it is now enormously aggravated.
Good men were once engaged in importing slaves. They suspected not the iniquity of the business; and an apology can be offered for them, on the ground of ignorance. But their trade has now come to be regarded by the civilized world in the same odious light as piracy and murder. The man who engages in it is stamped with everlasting infamy. And the reason is, that, like the distiller, he now sins amid that fulness of light which an age of philanthropy has poured around him.
6. Perseverance in the business of distillingmust necessarily be at the expense of your own reputation and that of your posterity. You are creating and sending out the materials of discord, crime, poverty, disease, and intellectual and moral degradation. You are contributing to perpetuate one of the sorest scourges of our world. And the scourge can never be removed till those deadly fires you have kindled are all put out. That public sentiment which is worthy of respect calls upon you to extinguish them. And thenote of remonstrance will wax louder and louder till every smoking distillery in the land is demolished. A free and enlightened people cannot quietly look on while an enemy is working his engines and forging the instruments of national bondage and death.
Without a prophet’s vision, I foresee the day when the manufacture of intoxicating liquor, for common distribution, will be classed with the arts of counterfeiting and forgery, and the maintenance of houses for midnight revelry and corruption. Like these, the business will become a work only of darkness, and be prosecuted only by the outlaw.
Weigh well, then, the bearing of your destructive employment on personal and familycharacter. The employment may secure for you a little gain, and perhaps wealth. But, in a day of increasing light and purity, you can never rid treasures, thus acquired, of astigma, which will render him miserably poor who holds them. Upon the dwelling you occupy, upon the fields you enclose, upon the spot that entombs your ashes, there will be fixed an indescribable gloom and odiousness, to offend the eye and sicken the heart of a virtuous community, till your memory shall perish. Quit, then, this vile business, and spare your name, spare your family, spare your children’s children such insupportable shame and reproach.
7. By prosecuting this businessin a day of light and reform, you peculiarly offend God, and jeopard your immortal interests. In “times of ignorance,” God, in a sense, “winked at” error. But let the error be persisted in under a full blaze of light, and it must be the occasion of a dread retribution from his throne.
The circumstances of the distiller are now entirely changed. His sin was once a sin of ignorance, but is such no longer. Heknowshe is taking bread from the hungry, and perverting the bounties of Providence. Heknowshe is undermining the very pillars of our republic. Heknowsthat, by distilling, he confers no benefits upon mankind. Heknowshe is directly accessory to the temporal wretchedness and the endless wailing of multitudes. And knowingthese things, and keeping on his way, he accumulates guilt which the Holy One cannot overlook. If endless exclusion from heaven be the drunkard’s doom, canhebe held guiltless who deliberately prepared for him, and perhaps placed in his hand, the cup of death and damnation? This is not the decision either of Scripture or of common sense. Wilfully persevering to furnish the sure means of death, you carry to the judgment the murderer’s character as clearly as the midnight assassin.
And now, what is theapologyfor prosecuting a business so manifestly offensive to God, and ruinous to yourself, as well as others? Do you say,It is necessary as a means of support? But whence have you derived authority to procure a living at the sacrifice of conscience, character, and the dearest interests of others? And is the maintenance of apublic nuisancereally necessary to your support? In a country like this, the plea of necessity for crime is glaringly impious. Many and varied departments of honest and honorable industry are before you, all promising a generous reward; and, neglecting them for a wicked and mischievous occupation, you must bear the odium of a most sordid avarice, or implacable malignity.
You virtually, too, impeach the character of God. You proclaim that he has made your comfort, and even subsistence, to depend upon the practice of iniquity. It is an imputation he must repel with abhorrence and wrath. Nor is it sustained by the conscience, reason, or experience of any man.
But possibly you urge, in self-justification,Others will manufacture spirit, if I do not. But remember, the guilt of one is no excuse for another. “Every one of us shall give account ofhimselfto God.” If others pursue a business at the sacrifice of character and of heaven, it becomes you to avoid their crime, that you may escape their doom.
It is not certain, however, that others will prosecute the destructive business, if you abandon it. Men of fore-thought will not now embark their silver and gold on a pestilential stream, soon to be dried up under that blaze of lightand heat which a merciful God has enkindled. They will not deem it either wise or safe to kindle unholy and deadly fires where the pure river of the water of life is so soon to overflow. In the eye of thousands, the distillery on your premises adds nothing to their value. Indeed, should they purchase those premises, the filthy establishment would be demolished as the first effort of improvement. And every month and hour is detracting from its value, and blackening the curse that rests upon it.
Let the thousands now concerned in distilling at once put out their fires, and the act would cause one general burst of joy through the nation; and any effort to rekindle them would excite an equally general burst of indignation and abhorrence. None but a monster of depravity would ever make the attempt.
But again, perhaps you say,No one is obliged to use the spirit that is made. But remember, that you make it only to be used. You make it with the desire, with the hope, with the expectation that it will be used. You know it has been used by thousands—by millions—and has strewed the land with desolation, and peopled hell with its victims; and you cannot but acknowledge that you would at once cease to make the liquor, did you nothope it would continue to be used. Indeed, you must see thatjust in proportion to your successwill be the amount of mischief done to your fellow-men.
It seems hardly needful to say that the foregoing considerations are all strictly applicable tosuch as furnish the materialsfor the distiller. Were these withheld, his degrading occupation would of course cease. By suffering, then, the fruits of your industry to pass into his hands, you perpetuate his work of death. You share all his guilt, and shame, and curse. And remember, too, that the bushel of grain, the barrel of cider, the hogshead of molasses, for which you thus gain a pittance, may be returned from the fiery process only to hasten the infamy and endless ruin of a beloved son, or brother, or friend.
Nor is the crime of theretailerof ardent spirit essentially different. He takes the poison from the distiller, and insidiously deals it out to his fellow-men. It is truly stirring to one’s indignation to notice his variety of artifice for rendering it enticing. His occupation is one which the civil authorities have, in some places, with a noble consistency, ceased to tolerate; and one which must soon be put down by the loud voice of public sentiment.
Indeed, theretailer, thedistiller, and he whofurnishes the materials, must be looked upon as forming atriple league, dangerous alike to private and social happiness, and to the very liberties of the nation. And an awakened people cannot rest till the deadly compact is sundered. Why not, then, anticipate a little the verdict and the vengeance of a rising tone of public sentiment, and at once proclaim theunholy alliancedissolved? Why not anticipate the verdict of an infinitely higher tribunal—why not believe God’s threatening, and escape the eternal tempest that lowers forhim who putteth the cup to his neighbor’s lips? Why not coöperate promptly in a public reform that is regarded with intense interest in heaven, on earth, and in hell?
O review, as men of reason, and conscience, and immortality, this whole business. And if you have no ambition tobenefit your fellow-men—if you can consentto ruin many for both worlds—if you can persist inwasting and perverting the bounties of a kind Providence—if you can outrage the feelings of the mostenlightened and virtuous—if you can pursue a work of darknessamid noonday light—if you can sacrifice agood name, and entailodium on all you leave—and if you can deliberatelyoffend God, and jeopardyour immortal interestsfor paltry gain, then go on—go on a little longer; but, “O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united.”
Note.—A premium, offered by a friend of temperance, was awarded to the author of this Tract.
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.
A drunkard and his family
I remember, when a boy, reading a story which chilled my blood in my veins; but which taught me never to sit down and try to bear an evil which might, by bold and persevering effort, be remedied. The story was this. A certain district of country was infested by a wild beast. The nuisance was intolerable. The inhabitants rallied, and hunted it day and night, until they drove it into a deep den. There, with dogs, guns, straw, fire, and sulpher, they attacked the common enemy; but all in vain. The hounds came back badly wounded, and refused to return. The smoke of blazing straw had no effect; nor had the fumes of burnt brimstone. The ferocious animal would not quit its retirement. And now the shadows of evening gatheredaround them. The clock struck nine, and ten. And should they lose their prey? They must, unless some one should be so daring as to descend into this den of monsters and destroy the enemy. One man offered to go; but his neighbors remonstrated against the perilous enterprise. Perilous indeed it was; but live so they could not, and stripping off his coat and waistcoat and having a long rope fastened round his legs, by which he might be pulled back, he entered with a flaming torch in his hand, head foremost. The most terrifying darkness appeared in front of the dim circle afforded by his light. It was still as the house of death. But proceeding onwards with unparalleled courage, he discovered the glaring eyeballs of the ferocious beast, who was sitting at the extremity of the cavern. For a moment he retreated; but again descended with his musket. The beast howled, rolled its eyes, snapped its teeth, and threatened him with instant death, when he levelled, fired, and brought it forth dead, to the view of his trembling and exulting neighbors.
Little did I then think that I should one day see the country rallied on the same spot, to hunt a more terrible monster, whose destruction will require Putnam courage.
The old enemy, gentlemen, which your fathers hunted about these hills and dales, was visible to the eye, and could be reached with powder and ball; but the enemy whom you assault is, like the foe of human bliss which entered the garden of Eden, invisible, and therefore not to be described, and not to be destroyed by force of arms. That enemy did, indeed, to effect his purpose, assume the form of a serpent; and ours has been said, as belonging to the same family, to have occasionally the same aspect. A gentleman in Missouri has recently described a dreadful worm which, he says, infests that country. “It is of a dead lead color, and generally lives near a spring, and bites the unfortunate people who are in the habit of going there to drink.The symptoms of its bite are terrible. The eyes of the patient become red and fiery; the tongue swells to an immoderate size and obstructs utterance, and delirium of the most horrid character ensues. The name of this reptile is, ‘the worm of the still.’” I suspect it is one of the same family which is infesting the peaceful villages of New England, and whose ravages have alarmed the country, and caused you this day to leave your homes and seek its destruction. I would not here inquire minutely into its history. It is said to have originated in Arabia, the country of the false prophet. The aborigines of our forests never knew it. They could proudly tread on the rattlesnake and copperhead, but never fell before the worm of the still. O woful day when it found its way to our coasts; when here it first generated its offspring.
Yet there are men who think we belie it; who say that we are needlessly alarmed; that we are hunting a friend; that we are driving one from our country without whose aid we can never check the ravages of disease, or perform our labor, or have any hilarity. It is not, say they, a poisonous foe. It is a pleasant cordial; a cheerful restorative; the first friend of the infant; the support of the enfeebled mother; a sweet luxury, given by the parent to the child; the universal token of kindness, friendship, and hospitality. It adorns the sideboards and tables of the rich, and enlivens the social circles of the poor; goes with the laborer as his most cheering companion; accompanies the mariner in his long and dreary voyage; enlivens the carpenter, the mason, the blacksmith, the joiner, as they ply their trade; follows the merchant to his counter, the physician to his infected rooms, the lawyer to his office, and the divine to his study, cheering all and comforting all. It is the life of our trainings, and town-meetings, and elections, and bees, and raisings, and harvests, and sleighing-parties. It is the best domestic medicine, good for a cold and a cough, for pain in the stomach,and weakness in the limbs, loss of appetite and rheumatism, and is a great support in old age. It makes a market for our rye and apples; sustains 100,000 families who are distilling and vending, and pours annually millions of dollars into our national treasury. Had the wolf possessed the cunning of the fox, she would have told Putnam as smooth a story as this. But it would have made no difference. The old man’s cornfields were fattened by the blood of his sheep, and he would give no quarter. And the blood of our countrymen has been poured out at the shrine of the demon Intemperance, and we must give none. Talk we of alcohol as a friend! As well may a mother praise the crocodile which has devoured her offspring.
Look, my countrymen, at the ravages of intemperance. Fix your eye on its waste of property.
At the lowest calculation, it has annually despoiled us of a hundred millions of dollars—of thirty millions for an article which is nothing worth, and seventy or eighty millions more to compensate for the mischiefs that article has done—money enough to accomplish all that the warmest patriot could wish for his country, and to fill, in a short period, the world with Bibles and a preached Gospel. What farmer would not be roused, should a wild beast come once a year into his borders and destroy the best cow in his farmyard? But 61/4cents a day for ardent spirit wastes $22 81 cents a year, and in 40 years nearly $1,000, which is a thousand times as much as scores of drunkards are worth at their burial.
See the pauperism it has produced. We have sung of our goodly heritage, and foreign nations have disgorged their exuberant population that they might freely subsist in this land of plenty. But in this granary of the world are everywhere seen houses without windows, fields without tillage, barns without roofs, children without clothing, and penitentiaries and almshouses filled to overflowing; and atraveller might write—beggars made here. We are groaning under our pauperism, and talking of taxes, and hard times, and no trade; but intemperance has stalked through our land and devoured our substance. It has entered the houses of our unsuspecting inhabitants as a friend, and taken the food from their tables, and the clothing from their beds, and the fuel from their fire, and turned their lands over to others, and drove them from their dwellings to subsist on beggary and crime, or drag out a miserable existence in penitentiaries and almshouses. Two-thirds, or 150,000 of the wretched tenants of these abodes of poverty in the United States, were reduced by intemperance. So themselves confess. It was rum, brandy, and whiskey, that did it. And the Prison Discipline report tells of 50,000 cases of imprisonment for debt annually in the United States, in consequence of the use of ardent spirits. O, its sweeps of property can never be known.
Look at the crime it has occasioned.
It is said that there is a spring in China which makes every man that drinks it a villain. Eastern tales are founded on some plain matter of fact. This spring may be some distillery or dram-shop; for this is the natural effect of alcohol. It breaks down the conscience, quickens the circulation, increases the courage, makes man flout at law and right, and hurries him to the perpetration of every abomination and crime. Excite a man by this fluid, and he is bad enough for any thing. He can lie, and steal, and fight, and swear, and plunge the dagger into the bosom of his nearest friend. No vice is too filthy, no crime too tragical for the drunkard. The records of our courts tell of acts committed under the influence of rum, which curdle the blood in our veins. Husbands butcher their wives; children slaughter their parents. Far the greater part of the atrocities committed in our land, proceed from its maddening power. “I declare in this public manner, and with the most solemnregard to truth,” said Judge Rush, some years ago in a charge to a grand jury, “that I do not recollect an instance since my being concerned in the administration of justice, of a single person being put on his trial for manslaughter which did not originate in drunkenness; and but few instances of trial for murder where the crime did not spring from the same unhappy cause.” Of 895 complaints presented to the police court in Boston in one year, 400 were under the statute against common drunkards. Of 1,061 cases of criminal prosecution in a court in North Carolina, more than 800 proceeded from intemperance. Five thousand complaints are made yearly in New York to the city police of outrages committed by intoxicated persons; and the late city attorney reports, that of twenty-two cases of murder which it had been his duty to examine, every one of them had been committed in consequence of intemperate drinking. “Nine-tenths of all the prisoners under my care,” says Captain Pillsbury, warden of our own state prison, “are decidedly intemperate men, and were brought to their present condition, directly or indirectly, through intoxicating liquor. Many have confessed to me with tears, that they never felt tempted to the commission of crime, thus punishable, but when under the influence of strong drink.” And the Prison Discipline report states, “that of 125,000 criminals committed to our prisons in a single year, 93,750 were excited to their commission of crime by spirituous liquors.”
Look at its destruction of intellect.
It reduces man to a beast, to a fool, to a devil. The excessive drinker first becomes stupid, then idiotic, then a maniac. Men of the finest geniuses, most acute minds, and profound learning, have dwindled under the touch of this withering demon to the merest insignificance, and been hooted by boys for their silly speeches and silly actions, or chained in a madhouse as unsafe in society. Of eighty-seven admitted into the New York hospital in one year, theinsanity of twenty-seven was occasioned by ardent spirit; and the physicians of the Pennsylvania hospital report, that one-third of the insane of that institution were ruined by intemperance. What if one-sixth of our maniacs were deprived of their reason by the bite of the dogs, the friendly inmates of our houses, or by some vegetable common on our table; who would harbor the dangerous animal, or taste the poisonous vegetable? But, one-third of our maniacs are deranged by alcohol. Indeed, every drunkard is in a temporary delirium; and no man who takes even a little into his system, possesses that sound judgment, or is capable of that patient investigation or intellectual effort, which would be his without it. Just in proportion as man comes under its influence, he approximates to idiotism or madness.
Look at its waste of health and life.
The worm of the still, says the Missouri gentleman, never touches the brute creation, but as if the most venomous of all beings, it seizes the noblest prey. It bites man. And where it once leaves its subtle poison, farewell to health—farewell to long life. The door is open, and in rush dyspepsia, jaundice, dropsy, gout, obstructions of the liver, epilepsy—the deadliest plagues let loose on fallen man—all terminating in delirium tremens or mania a potu, a prelude to the eternal buffetings of foul spirits in the world of despair. One out of every forty, or three hundred thousand of our population, have taken up their abode in the lazar-house of drunkenness, and thirty thousand die annually the death of the drunkard. These sweeps of death mock all the ravages of war, famine, pestilence, and shipwreck. The yellow-fever in Philadelphia, in 1793, felt to be one of the greatest curses of heaven, destroyed but four thousand. In our last war the sword devoured but five hundred a year: intemperance destroys two hundred a week. Shipwrecks destroy suddenly, and the countrygroans when forty or fifty human beings are suddenly engulfed in the ocean; but more than half of all the sudden deaths occur in fits of intoxication. It needed not a fable to award the prize of greatest ingenuity in malice and murder to the demon who invented brandy, over the demon who invented war.
Look at its murder of souls.
Not satisfied with filling jails, and hospitals, and graveyards, it must people hell. Every moral and religious principle is dissipated before it. The heart becomes, under its influence, harder than the nether mill-stone. It has gone into the pulpit and made a Judas of the minister of Christ. It has insinuated itself into the church, and bred putrefaction and death among the holy. It has entered the anxious room in seasons of revival, and quenched conviction in the breast of the distressed sinner, or sent him, exhilarated with a false hope, to profess religion, and be a curse to the church. It has accompanied men, Sabbath after Sabbath, to the house of God, and made them insensible as blocks of marble to all the thunders of Sinai and sweet strains of Zion. It has led to lying, profane swearing, Sabbath-breaking, tale-bearing, contention; and raised up an army, I may almost say, in every village, who wish for no Sabbath, and no Bible, and no Saviour, and who cry out with stammering tongues, “Away with him, crucify him.” It has, without doubt, been the most potent of all the emissaries of Satan, to obliterate the fear of the Lord, turn men away from the Sabbath and the sanctuary, steel them against the word, the providence, and grace of God, stupefy the conscience, bring into action every dark and vile passion, and fill up with immortal souls the dark caverns of eternal night. Let a man, day by day, hover around a dram-shop, and sip and sip at his bottle, and the devil is sure of him. No ministers, no Sabbaths, no prayers, no tears from broken-hearted and bleeding relatives, can availto save him. He holds that man by a chain which nothing but Omnipotence can break.
And look, too, at its waste of human happiness.
Yes, look—look for yourselves. The woes of drunkenness mock all description. Some tell of the happiness of drinking. O, if there is a wretched being on earth, it is the drunkard. His property wasted, his character gone, his body loathsome, his passions wild, his appetite craving the poison that kills him, his hopes of immortality blasted for ever; it is all
“Me miserable,Which way I fly is hell, myself am hell.”
“Me miserable,Which way I fly is hell, myself am hell.”
And his family. I can never look at it but with feelings of deepest anguish.