Bklki
1328 
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
* ,  .
FOUNDED 1836
WASHINGTON, D. C.
OPO  16—67244-1 
 
 
A  '#  d/Z&*~-  "^

			
&tyi-4' **s&#*'		g&tZ?. .,79 *£**»'	
tit		•	' <fi&440.-'
'	. 'Sj'	/ i	t.; v -' : -/' ""
/ e-r-		*/.	/>,.-< «r.^//-i
:^/^ <&£* &**? 
*\
*    *
'V 
SIX   SERMONS
NATURE, OCCASIONS, SIGNS, EVILS, AND REMEDY
INTEMPERANCE.
BY LYMAN BEECHER, D. D.
                          ..-,-•   ~'\ >"• CT t
    i  SIXTH EDITM)NJ'ii","Vi' Vk-°  ^'  '
    i                     ^               l





PRINTED BY T. R. MARVIN.
SOLD BY CROCKER AND BREWSTER,  JAMES LORING, AND
   HILLIARD, GRAY, LITTLE, AND WILKINS, BOSTON J
     AND J. LEAVITT, AND J. P. HAVEN, NEW-YORK.
1828. 
J54/f
&
      DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS......to wit :
                               District Clerk's Office.
    Be it remembered, that on the twenty-third day of May,
A. D. 1827, in the fifty-first year  of the Independence of the
Unite'd States of America, Theophilus R. Marvin, of the
said District, has deposited in this Office the Title of a Book,
the Right whereof he claims as Proprietor, in the Words follow-
ing, to wit:
    " Six Sermons on the Nature,  Occasions, Signs, Evils, and
Remedy of Intemperance.  By Lyman Beecher, D. D."
    In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United
States, entitled " An Act for the encouragement of learning, by
securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors
and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein  men-
tioned j" and also to an Act entitled " An Act supplementary to
an Act, entitled An Act for the encouragement 01 learning, by
securing the copies of maps, charts, and books to the authors and
proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned ;
and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, en-
graving, and etching, historical and other prints."
JNO  W  DAVIS  $ Clerk °f the Distlict
J1NU. W.  DAVia,j   0f Massachusetts.
         Stereotyped at tlie.
Boston  Type and Stereotype Foundry. 
CONTENTS.
                 SERMON I.               Page
The Nature and Occasions of Intemperance...........  5
                 SERMON II.
The Signs of Intemperance........................................ 35
                 SERMON III.
The Evils of Intemperance../......................................47
                 SERMON IV.
The Remedy of Intemperance................................... 61
                 SERMON V.
The Remedy of Intemperance................................... 75
                 SERMON VI.
The Remedy of Intemperance................................... 89 
 
fa(&w/
SERMON  I.  '
THE  NATURE AND OCCASIONS  OF INTEMPE-
                    RANCE.
               Proverbs, xxiii. 29—35.
  Who hath wo ? who hath sorrow ? who hath contentions ? who
hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath red-
ness of eyes ?
  They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed
wine.
  Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his
colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.  At the last it
biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Thine eye shall
behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.
Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea,
or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.  They hay,e stricken
me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick j  they have beaten me, and
I felt it not: when shall I awake ? I will seek it yet again.

  This is a glowing description of the sin  of in-
temperance.   None but the pencil of inspiration,
could have thrown  upon the canvass so  many
and such vivid traits of  this complicated evil, in
so short a  compass.   It  exhibits its  woes and
sorrows, contentions and babblings, and wounds
and redness of eyes;  its smiling deceptions  in
the beginning, and serpent-bite in the end; the
helplessness  of its  victims,  like  one cast out
upon the deep; the danger of  destruction, like
that of one who sleeps upon the top of a mast;
          1 * 
 \
6        THE NATURE AND OCCASIONS

the unavailing lamentations of the captive, and
the giving up of hope and effort.   " They have
stricken  me, and I  was not  sick; they have
beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake ?
I will seek it yet again;" again be stricken and
beaten;  again float upon the  deep, and sleep
upon the mast.
  No sin has fewer apologies than intemperance
The suffrage of the world is against it;  and yet
there is no sin so naked in  its character, and
whose commencement and progress is indicated
by so  many signs, concerning which there  is
among mankind such profound ignorance.  All
reprobate drunkenness;  and yet,  not one of the
thousands who fall into it,  dreams of danger
when he enters the way  that leads to it.
  The soldier, approaching the deadly  breach,
and seeing rank after rank of those who preced-
ed him swept away, hesitates sometimes, and
recoils from certain death.  But men behold the
effects  upon  other^,- of going  in  given courses,
they see them begin,  advance,  and end, in con-
firmed  intemperance,  and unappalled rush heed-
lessly upon the same ruin.
  A  part of this heedlessness arises from the
undefined nature of the crime in its early stages,
and the ignorance of men, concerning what may
be termed the  experimental  indications of its
approach.  Theft and falsehood are definite ac-
tions.   But intemperance is a state of*internal
sensation, and the indications may exist long,
and multiply, and the subject of them not bt, 
OF INTEMPERANCE.            7
   aware  that they are the signs of intemperance.
[,  It is  not unfrequent,  that  men  become irre-
|  claimable in their habits, without' suspicion of
I  danger.  Nothing, therefore, seems to be more
   important, than a description of this broad way,
\  thronged by so many travellers, that the tempe-
   rate, when they come in sight of  it, may know
   their danger and pass by it and turn away.
     What I shall deliver on this subject, has been
   projected for several years, has been delayed by
   indisposition, and the pressure of other labors,
   and is advanced now without personal or local
   reference.
     Intemperance is the sin of our land, and, with
   our boundless prosperity, is coming in upon us
'   like a  flood;  and if  anything shall defeat  the
   hopes  of the world, which hang upon our expe-
   riment of civil liberty, it is that  river of fire,
   which is rolling through the land, destroying the
   vital air, and extending around  an atmosphere
   of death.
     It is proposed in this and  the subsequent dis-
   courses, to consider the  nature, the occasions,
   the signs, the evils, and the remedy  of intem-
   perance.  In this discourse we shall consider
             /
   THE NATURE AND OCCASIONS  OF INTEMPERANCE.

     The more common apprehension is, that  no-
   thing is intemperance, which does not supersede
   the regular operations  of the mental faculties
   and tht bodily organs.  However much a man
   may consume  of ardent spirits, if  he  can com- 
8        THE NATURE AND OCCASIONS

mand his mind, his utterance, and his bodily
members, he is not reputed intemperate.  And
yet, drinking within these limits, he may be in-
temperate in  respect to  inordinate desire, the
quantity  consumed, the expense incurred, the
present  effect on his  health  and  temper, and
moral sensibilities, and what is more, in respect
to the ultimate and inevitable results of bodily
and mental imbecility, or sottish drunkenness.
  God has  made the human body to be sustain-
ed by food  and  sleep, and the mind to be invi-
gorated by effort and the regular healthfulness of
the moral system, and the cheering influence of
his moral government.  And whoever, to sustain
the body, or invigorate the mind, or cheer the
heart, applies habitually the stimulus of ardent
spirits, does violence to the laws of his  nature,
puts the  whole  system into disorder, and is in-
temperate long before the intellect falters, or  a
muscle is unstrung.
  The effect of ardent spirits  on the brain, and
the members of the body, is among the last ef-
fects of  intemperance, and  the least destructive
part of the  sin.   It is the moral ruin which  it
works in the soul, that  gives it the  denomina-
tion of giant-wickedness.  If all who are intem-
perate, drank to insensibility, and  on awaking,
could arise from the debauch with intellect and
heart uninjured, it would strip the crime of its
most  appalling evils.   But among the  woes
which the scriptures denounce against crime, one
is,  "wo unto them that are  mighty  to  drink 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
9
wine, and men of strength to consume  strong
drink."  These are captains in the bands of in-
temperance, and will  drink two  generations of
youths into the grave,  before they go to lie down
by their side.  The Lord deliver us from strong-
headed men, who can move the tongue when
all  are mute  around  them, and keep the eye
open when all around them sleep,  and can walk
from the  scene of riot, while their companions
must be aided or wait until the morning.
  It is a matter of  undoubted  certainty,  that
habitual tippling is worse than periodical drunk-
enness.  The poor Indian, who, once a month,
drinks himself dead  all but simple  breathing,
will out-live for years the man who drinks little
and often, and is not, perhaps, suspected of in-
temperance.   The use of ardent spirits daily, as
ministering  to cheerfulness,  or bodily  vigor,   >
ought to be regarded as intemperance.  No per-
son, probably, ever did,  or ever will,  receive ar-
dent spirits into his system once a day, and for-
tify his constitution against its deleterious effects,
or  exercise  such discretion and  self govern-
ment,  as that the quantity will not be increas-
ed, and  bodily  infirmities and  mental  imbeci-
lity be the result, and,  in  more  than half the
instances,  inebriation.  Nature  may hold  out
long against this sapping and mining of the con-
stitution,  which daily tippling is  carrying on;
but, first or last, this  foe of life will bring to the
assault enemies of its own  formation, before 
10       THE NATURE  AND OCCASIONS

whose power the feeble and the mighty will be
alike unable to stand.
  All such occasional exhilaration of  the spirits
by intoxicating liquors, as produces  levity and
foolish jesting, and the loud  laugh, is intempe-
rance, whether we regard those precepts which
require us to  be sober-minded,  or  the  effect
which  such exhilaration and lightness has upon
the cause of Christ, when witnessed  in profes-
sors of religion.  The cheerfulness of health,
and excitement of industry,  and social  inter-
course, is all which nature demands, or health
or purity permits.
  A resort to ardent spirits  as a means of in-
vigorating the intellect, or of  pleasurable sensa-
tion, is  also  intemperance.   It  is  a distraint
upon  nature, to extort, in a  short time,  those
results of mind and feeling, which in her own
unimpelled course would flow with less impetu-
osity, but in a more equable  and healthful  cur-
rent.   The mind has  its limits  of intellectual
application, and the heart its  limits  of feeling,
and the nervous system of healthful exhilaration ;
and whatever you gain through stimulus, by way
of anticipation, is only so much intellectual and
vital power cut off at the latter end of life.   It
is this occult  intemperance,   of daily drinking,
which generates a  host of  bodily  infirmities
and  diseases:  loss of appetite—nausea at the
stomach—disordered  bile—obstructions of the
liver—jaundice—dropsy—hoarseness of voice— 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
11
   coughs-—consumptions—rheumatic ' pains—epi-
   lepsy—gout—colic—palsy—apoplexy—insanity
   —are  the body-guards which attend  intempe-
   rance, in the  form of tippling, and where  the
   odious name  of drunkenness may perhaps be
   never applied.
     A multitude of persons, who are not account-
   ed drunkards, create disease,  and shorten their
   days, by what they denominate a "prudent use
   of ardent spirits."   Let it therefore be engraven
   upon the heart of every man, that the daily
   USE OF ARDENT SPIRITS, IN  ANY  FORM, OR IN
   ANY DEGREE, IS INTEMPERANCE.  Its effects are
   certain, and deeply injurious, though its results
   may be slow,  and  never be ascribed to the real
«   cause.  It is a war upon the human constitution,
   carried on ostensibly by an auxiliary, but which
   never fails to subtract more vital power than it
   imparts.   Like the lotting out of waters by little
   and little, the breach widens, till life  itself is
   poured out.  If all diseases which  terminate in
   death, could speak out at the grave, or tell their
   origin upon  the coffin-lid, we should witness
   the most appalling and  unexpected disclosures.
   Happy the man, who so avoids the  appearance
   of evil, as not to shorten his  days by what he
   may call the prudent use of ardent spirits.
     But we approach now a state of experience,
   in which it is supposed generally that  there is
   some criminal intemperance.   I mean when the
   empire of reason is invaded, and weakness  and
t   folly bear rule; prompting to garrulity, or  sul- 
12       THE  NATURE  AND OCCASIONS

len silence,- inspiring petulance, or anger, or
insipid good humour,  and silly  conversation;
pouring out oaths, and curses, or opening the
storehouse of secrets, their  own and  others.
And yet, by some, all these have  been thought
insufficient evidence  to support the  charge of
drinking, and to justify a  process of discipline
before the church.  The tongue must falter, and
the feet must trip, before,  in the  estimation of
some, professors of religion can be convicted of
the crime cf intemperance.
  To a just and comprehensive knowledge, how-
ever, of the crime of intemperance,  not only a
definition is required, but a philosophical analy-
sis of its  mechanical effects  upon the  animal
system.
  To those who look only on  the outward ap-
pearance,  the  triumphs of intemperance  over
conscience, and talents, and learning, and cha-
racter,  and  interest, and  family  endearments,
have appeared wonderful.  But the wonder will
cease, when we consider the raging desire which
it enkindles, and the  hand of torment which it
lays, on every fibre of the body and  faculty of
the soul.
  The stomach is the great organ  of accelerated
circulation to the blood, of elasticity to the ani-
mal spirits, of pleasurable or painful vibration to
the nerves, of vigor  to the mind, and  of ful-
ness to the cheerful affections of the soul.  Here
is the silver cord of life, and the golden bowl at
the fountain, and the wheel at the cistern;  and 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
13
 as these fulfil their duty, the muscular and men-
 tal  and moral powers act in unison, and  fill the
 system with vigor and deiight.  But as these
 central energies are  enfeebled, the  strength of
 mind and body declines, and  lassitude, and de-
 pression, and melancholy, and sighing, succeed
 to the  high beatings  of health, and the light of
 life becomes as darkness.
  Experience has decided, that any  stimulus
 applied statedly to the stomach, which raises its
 muscular tone above the point at which it  can be
 sustained by food  and sleep, produces, when it
 has passed  away, debility—a  relaxation  of  the
 over-worked organ, proportioned to its  preter-
 natural excitement.  The life-giving power of
 the stomach falls of course as  much below the
 tone of cheerfulness and health, as it was  injudi-
 ciously raised above it.   If  the experiment be
 repeated often, it  produces an artificial tone of
 stomach, essential  to cheerfulness and muscular
 vigor, entirely above  the power of the regular
 sustenance of nature to  sustain,  and creates a
 vacuum, which nothing can fill, but the destruc-
 tive power which made it—and when protracted
 use has made the difference great, between the
 natural  and  this artificial tone, and habit  has
made it a second nature, the man is  a drunkard,
 and, in ninety-nine instances  in  a  hundred, is
irretrievably undone.  Whether his tongue  fal-
ter, or  his feet fail him  or  not, he  will die of
intemperance.  By whatever  name  his disease
may be called, it will be one of the legion which
         2 
14
THE NATURE AND OCCASIONS
 lie in wait about  the path of intempei ance, and
 which abused Heaven employs to execute wrath
 upon the guilty.
   But of all  the ways to hell, which the feet of
 deluded mortals tread, that  of  the  intemperate
 is the most  dreary and terrific.  The demand
 for  artificial stimulus to supply the  deficiencies
 of healthful aliment, is like the rage of thirst, and
 the  ravenous  demand of famine.  It is famine :
 for the artificial excitement  has become as es-
 sential now  to strength and cheerfulness, as
 simple nutrition once was.  But nature,  taught
 by habit to require what once she did not need,
 demands gratification now with a decision  inexo-
 rable as  death,  and to most men as  irresistible.
 The denial is  a living death.   The stomach, the
 head,  the  heart, and arteries, and  veins,  and
 every  muscle, and every nerve, feel the exhaus-
 tion, and the  restless, unutterable wretchedness
 which puts out the light of life, and curtains the
 heavens, and  carpets the  earth  with sackcloth.
 All these varieties  of sinking nature, call upon
 the wretched  man with trumpet tongue, to  dis-
 pel this darkness, and raise the  ebbing tide of
 life, by the application of the  cause  which pro-
 duced these woes, and after a momentary allevia-
 tion will produce them  again with deeper  ter-
rors, and more urgent importunity;  for the re-
petition,  at each  time  renders  the darkness
deeper, and the torments  of self-denial  more
irresistible and intolerable.
  At length, the excitability of nature flags, and 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
15
stimulants of higher power, and in greater quan-
tities, are required to rouse the impaired ener-
gies  of life, until at length  the whole process'
of dilatory murder,  and worse  than purgatorial
suffering, having been passed  over, the silver
cord is loosed, the golden bowl is broken, the
wheel at the cistern stops, and the dust returns
to the earth as it wag, and the spirit to God who
gave it.
  These sufferings, however, of animal nature,
are not to be compared with the moral  agonies
which convulse the  soul.   It  is an immortal
being who sins, and suffers;  and as his earthly
house dissolves, he is approaching the judgment
sent,  in  anticipation  of a miserable  eternity.
He fetris his captivity, and in anguish of spirit
clanks his chains and cries for help.  Conscience
thunders, remorse goads, and as the gulf opens
before hiia, he recoils, and trembles, and weeps,
and prays, amid resolves, and promises, and re-
forms, and  " seeks  it  yet again,"—again  re-
solves, and weeps, and prays, and " seeks it yet
aguiu !"  Wretched man, he  has placed himself
in the hands of a giant, who never pities, and
never relaxes his iron gripe.  He may struggle,
but he is in chains.  He may cry for release,
but it comes not; and lost!  lost! may be in-
scribed upon the door posts of his dwelling.
  In the mean time these paroxysms of his dying
moral nature decline, and a fearful apathy, the
harbinger of spiritual death, comes  on.   His
resolution fails, and his mental energy, and his 
16       THE NATURE AND OCCASIONS
 vigorous enterprise ;  and nervous irritation and
 depression ensue.   The social  affections lose
 their fulness  and  tenderness, and conscience
 loses its power,  and the heart  its sensibility,
 until all that was once lovely and of good report,
 retires and leaves the wretch abandoned to the
 appetites of a ruined animal.  In  this deplora-
 ble  condition, reputation expires, business fal-
 ters and becomes perplexed, and temptations to
 drink multiply as inclination to do  so increases,
 and the power  of  resistance  declines.   And
 now the vortex  roars, and the struggling victim
 buffets the fiery wave with  feebler stroke, and
 warning supplication, until despair flashes upon
 his soul, and with  an outcry that pierces the
 heavens, he ceases to strive, and disappears.
   A sin so terrific  should  be  detected  in its
 origin and strangled in the cradle ; but Ordina-
 rily, instead of this, the  habit is  fixed, and the
 hope of reformation  is gone, before the subject
 has the least suspicion of danger.  It is of vast
 importance therefore, that the various occasions
 of intemperance  should  be  clearly described,
that those whose condition  is not irretrievable,
 may perceive their danger, and escape, and that
all  who are free,  may be warned off from these
places of temptation and  ruin.  For the benefit
of the young, especially, I propose to lay down
 a map of the way to destruction, and to rear a
monument  of warning upon every spot where
 a  wayfaring man has been ensnared and de-
stroyed. 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
17
  The first  occasion  of intemperance  which I
6hall mention, is found in the free and  frequent
use of ardent spirits in  the family, as an incen-
tive to appetite, an alleviation of lassitude, or an
excitement to cheerfulness.   In these reiterated
indulgences, children are  allowed to  partake,
and  the tender organs  of their stomachs are
early  perverted, and  predisposed to habits of
intemperance.   No family, it is believed, accus-
tomed to the  daily use of ardent spirits, ever
failed to plant the seeds of that dreadful disease,
which sooner or later produced a harvest of wo.
The material of  so  much  temptation and  mis-
chief, ought not to be  allowed a place in the
family, except only as  a  medicine,  and  even
then  it would be  safer in the  hands of the
apothecary, to be  sent  for like other medicine,
when^irescribed.
  Ardent spirits, given as a matter of hospitali-
ty, is  not unfrequently the occasion of intempe-
rance.  In this case  the temptation is a stated
inmate of the family.  The utensils are  present,
and the  occasions  for their  use are not unfre-
quent.  And when there is no guest, the  sight
of the liquor,  the  state of the health,  or  even
lassitude of spirits, may indicate the propriety of
the " prudent „use," until the prudent  use be-
comes, by repetition, habitual use—and habitual
use becomes  irreclaimable intemperance.   In
this manner, doubtless, has many a father, and
mother,  and son,  and  daughter, been ruined
forever. 
18        THE NATURE AND OCCASTONS

  Of the guests, also, who partake in  this family
hospitality, the number  is not  small, who be-
come ensnared; especially among those whose
profession calls them to visit families  often, and
many on the  same  day.   Instead  of  being re-
garded, therefore, as an  act  of  hospitality, and
a token of friendship, to invite our  friends to
drink,  it ought to be  regarded  as an act of in-
civility, to place ourselves and them  in circum-
stances of such high temptation.
  Days of public convocation are extensively
the occasions of excess which  eventuate in in-
temperance.   The  means and  temptations are
ostentatiously multiplied, and multitudes go forth
prepared and resolved to yield to temptation,
while  example and exhilarated feeling secure
the  ample, fulfilment  of their  purpose.—But
when  the  habit is once acquired of drinking
even "prudently," as it will be called, on all the
days of public convocation  which occur  in  a
year, a desire will be soon formed of drinking at
other times, until the healthful appetite of nature
is superseded by the artificial thirst produced by
ardent  spirits.
  Evening resorts for conversation, enlivened by
the cheering bowl, have proved  fatal to thou-
sands.   Though nothing should be boisterous,
and all  should seem only the " feast of reason,
and the flow  of soul," yet  at the latter end  it
biteth like a serpent and  stingeth like an adder:
many  a wretched man  has  shaken  his chains
and cried out in the anguish  of  his spirit,  oh! 
             OF INTEMPERANCE.            19

that accursed resort of social drinking; there my
hands were bound and my feet put in fette/s;
there I went a  freeman and became a slave, a
temperate man and became a drunkard.
  In the same class of high temptation are to be
ranked all convivial associations for the purpose
of drinking,  with or without gambling, and late
hours.   There  is nothing which young men of
spirit fear less, than the exhilaration of drinking
on such occasions;  nor  any thing  which they
are less able to resist, than the charge of cow-
ardice when challenged to drink.   But there is
no one form of temptation before which more
young men of promise have fallen into irretriev-
able ruin.  The connexion between such begin-
nings  and  a fatal end is so manifest, and the
presumptuous daring  of Heaven is so great, that
God in  his righteous displeasure is  accustomed
to withdraw his  protection and  abandon the
sinner to his own way.
  Feeble health and mental depression are to be
numbered among the  occasions of intemperance.
The  vital sinking, and  muscular  debility,  and
mental darkness, are for a short time alleviated
by the application of  stimulants.  But the cause
of this momentary alleviation is applied and re-
peated, until the habit of excessive drinking is
formed and has become irresistible.
  Medical prescriptions  have  no doubt contri-
buted to increase the  number of the intempe-
rate.  Ardent  spirits, administered  in the form
ot bitters, or as the medium of other medicine, 
20        THE NATURE AND OCCASIONS

have let in the destroyer; and while the patient
was. seeking health at the hand of the physician,
he was dealing out debility and death.
  The  distillation of ardent spirits fails  not to
raise up around  the  establishment a generation
of drunkards.   The  cheapness of the article,
and the ease with which  families can provide
themselves with large quantities, the product of
their own labor, eventuate in frequent drinking,
and wide spread intemperance.
  The vending of ardent spirits, in places licen-
sed or unlicensed, is a tremendous evil.  Here,
those  who have  no  stated employment loiter
away the day for a  few potations  of rum,  and
here, those who have finished the toils of the
day meet to spend a vacant hour ; none content
to be lookers  on: all drink, and none for any
length of time drink temperately.   Here too the
children of a neighborhood, drawn in by entice-
ments,   associate  for  social drinking,  and  the
exhibition of courage  and premature manhood.
And here the iron hand of the monster is fas-
tened upon them, at  a period  when they ought
not to have been beyond the reach of maternal
observation.
  The  continued habit  of dealing out  ardent
spirits, in various  forms and mixtures, leads also
to frequent tasting, and tasting to drinking, and
drinking to tippling,  and tippling to drunken-
ness.
  A resort to  ardent spirits as an alleviation of
trouble, results often  in habits of confirmed in- 
              OF INTEMPERANCE.            21

temperance.   The  loss  of friends, perplexities
of business,  qr the wreck of  property, bring
upon the spirits the distractions of care and the
pressure of sorrow; and, instead of casting their
cares upon the Lord, they resort to the exhilarat-
ing draught, but, before the occasion  for it has
ceased, the remedy itself has become  a calami-
ty more intolerable than the  disease.   Before,
the woes were temporary;  now, they have mul-
tiplied and have become eternal.
  Ardent spirits employed to invigorate the in-
tellect, or restore exhausted nature under severe
study, is often a fatal experiment.  Mighty men
have been cast down  in this  manner  never to
rise.  The quickened circulation does for a time
invigorate intellect  and  restore exhausted  na-
ture.  But, for the adventitious energy imparted,
it exhausts the native energy  of the  soul, and
induces that faintness of heart, and flagging of
the spirits, which cry incessantly, "give, give,"
and  never,  but. with expiring breath, say it is
enough.
  The use of  ardent  spirits, employed as  an
auxiliary to labor, is among the most  fatal, be-
cause  the  most  common and least suspected,
causes of intemperance.  It is justified as inno-
cent, it is insisted on  as necessary : but no fact
is more  completely established by experience
than that it is utterly useless, and ultimately in-
jurious, beside all the fearful evils of habitual in-
temperance, to which it so often leads.  There
IS NO NUTRITION  IN ARDENT SPIRIT.  All THAT 
22       THE NATURE AND OCCASIONS

IT DOES IS, TO CONCENTRATE THE STRENGTH OF
THE  SYSTEM FOR THE TIME,  UEYOND ITS CA-
PACITY for regular exertion. It is borrowing
strength  for an occasion, which will  be needed
for futurity,  without any provision for payment,
and with the certainty of ultimate bankruptcy.
  The early settlers of New-England  endured
more hardship,  and performed more labor, and
carried through life  more health and vigor, than
appertains to the existing generation of  labor-
ing men.   And they did it without the use of
ardent spirits.
  Let two  men, of equal  age and  firmness of
constitution,  labor  together through  the  sum-
mer, the one with and the other without the ex-
citement of ardent  spirits, and the  latter  will
come out at the end with  unimpaired  vigor,
while the other will  be comparatively exhausted.
Ships navigated as  some now are  without the
habitual use of ardent spirits—and manufactur-
ing establishments carried  on without—and ex-
tended agricultural operations—all move on with
better industry, more peace, more health, and a
better income to the employers and the employ-
ed.  The workmen are cheerful  and vigorous,
friendly and  industrious, and their  families are
thrifty, well  fed,  well  clothed and instructed;
and  instead  of distress and  poverty,  and dis-
appointment and contention—they are cheered
with the full flow of social affection, and often by
the sustaining power of religion.  But where ar-
dent spirit is received as a daily auxiliary to la- 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
23
   bor, it is commonly^taken at stated  times—the
   habit soon creates a vacancy in the  stomach,
   which indicates at length the hour of the  day
j  with as much accuracy as a clock.  It will be
'ff  taken besides, frequently, at other times, wiii::h
   will accelerate the destruction of nature's health-
   ful tone, create artificial debility, and the neces-
   sity of artificial excitement to remove it;  and
   when so much has been consumed  as the eco-
   nomy of the employer can allow, the growing de-
   mand will be supplied by the evening and morn-
   ing dram, from the wages  of labor—until  the
   appetite has become insatiable, and the habit of
   intemperance nearly universal—until the nervous
   excitability has obliterated the social sensibilities,
   and turned the family into a scene of babbling
   and wo—until voracious appetite has  eaten  up
   the children's bread, and abandoned them to ig-
   norance and crime—until conscience has become
   callous, and fidelity and industry have disappear-
   ed, except as the result of eye service;  and wan-
   ton  wastefulness and contention,  and reckless
   wretchedness characterize the establishment. 
 
SERMON II.
THE  SIGNS OF  INTEMPERANCE.
               Proverbs, xxiii. 29—35.

 Who hath wo ? who hath sorrow ? who hath contentions ? who
hath babbling? who hath wounds without causei who hath red-
ness of eyes ?
 They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed
wine.
 Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his
colour in the cup, when it moveth  itself aright.  At the last it
biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder. Thine eye shall
behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.
Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of  the sea,
or as he that lieth upon the top of a mast.  They have stricken
me,  shalt thou say, and I was not sick ; they have beaten me, and
I felt it not: when shall I awake ?  I will seek it yet again.


  In  the  preceding discourse I  considered the

nature and occasions of intemperance.   In  this

I shall  disclose  some of the  symptoms  of  this

fearful malady,  as they affect both the body and

the mind, that  every one, who is in any degree

addicted to the sin, may be apprised of his dan-

ger, and save himself before it be too late.

  In  the  early stages of intemperance reforma-

tion is practicable.   The  calamity is, that intem-

perance is a  sin so  deceitful,  that most men go

               3 
26
THE  SIGNS
on to irretrievable ruin, warned indeed by many
indications, but unavailingly, because they un-
derstand not their voice.
  It is  of vast importance, therefore, that the
symptoms of intemperance should be universally
and  familiarly known;  the effects of the sin
upon the body, and  upon  the  mind, should be
so described  in  all its stages, from the  begin-
ning to the end, that  every one may see, and
tel, and recognise these  harbingers  of death
as soon"as they begin to show themselves upon
him.
  1.  One of the early indications  of intempe-
rance may be found in the associations or' time
and place.
  In the commencement of this evil habit, there
are  many who drink to excess only  on particular
days, such  as  days for military exhibition, the
anniversary of our  independence, the  birth-day
of Washington,  Christmas,  new  year's day,
election, and others of the  like nature.   Wlien
any of these  holidays arrive, and they come as
often almost as saints' days  in the  calendar.
they bring with them,  to  many, the insatiable
desire of drinking,  as  well  as  a  dispensation
from the sin, as efficacious and quieting to the
conscience, as papal indulgences.
  There are some I am aware that have recom-
mended the multiplication of holidays and public
amusements, as a remedy for  intemperance:—
about as wise a prescription—as the multiplying
gambling houses to supersede gambling, or the 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
27
building of theatres to correct the evils of the
stage.
  There are others who feel the desire of drink-
ing stirred up within  them  by the  associations
of place.   They could go from end to end of a
day's journey without ardent spirits, were there
no taverns on the road.   But the very sight of
these receptacles of pilgrims awakens the desire
"just to step in and take something."  And so
powerful does this association become, that many
will no more pass the tavern  than they would
pass a fortified place  with all the engines of
death directed against them. There are in every
city, town, and village, places of resort, which in
like manner, as soon as the eye falls upon them,
create the thirst of drinking,  and  many, who,
coming  to market  or  on  business, pass  near
them, pay toll there as regularly as they do at
the gates; and sometimes both when they come
in and when they go out.   In cities  and their
suburbs, there are hundreds of shops at which a
large proportion of those who bring in produce
stop regularly to receive the customary beverage.
   In every community you may  observe  par-
ticular persons also who can never meet without
feeling the simL't vious  desire of  strong drink.
What can be the  reason of this? All  men,
when they meet, are not affected thus.  It is not
uncommon for men of similar employments to
be drawn by association, when they meet, to the
same topics of conversation :—physicians, upon
the concerns  of  their profession:—politicians, 
28
THE  SIGNS
upon the events of the day:—and Christians,
when they meet, are drawn by a common inte-
rest to  speak of the things of the kingdom of
God.   But this is upon the principle of  a com-
mon interest in these subjects, which  has  no
slight hold upon  the thoughts  and  affections.
Whoever then finds himself tempted on meeting
his companion or friend to say, ' come  and  let
us go  and  take something,' or, to  make it his
first business to set out his decanter and  glasses,
ought to  understand  that  he  discloses his own
inordinate attachment to ardent spirits,  and ac-
cuses his friend of intemperance.
  2. A disposition to multiply the circumstances
which  furnish the occasions and opportunities
for  drinking, may justly create alarm that the
habit is begun.   When you  find occasions  for
drinking  in  all the  variations of the  weather,
because it is so hot or so  cold—so wet or so
dry—and in  all the  different states  of the sys-
tem—when you are vigorous, that you need not
tire—and when tired, that your vigor  may be
restored, you have approached near to  that state
of intemperance in which you will drink in all
states  of the  weather,  and conditions  of the
body, and will drink with these pretexts, and
drink without them whenever their frequency
may not  suffice.   In like  manner if, on your
farm, or in your store, or workshop, or on board
your vessel, you love to multiply the catches and
occasions of drinking, in the forms of treats  for
new comers—for  misiakes—for  new articles of 
              OF INTEMPERANCE.           29

dress—or furniture—until in some places a man
can scarcely wear an article of dress, or receive
one of equipage or furniture, which has not been
"wet," you may rely on it that all these usages,
and rules, and laws, are devices to gratify an
inordinate and dangerous love of  strong drink;
and though  the  master of the shop should not
himself come down  to such little measures, yet
if he permits such things to be done, if he hears,
and sees, and smiles, and sometimes sips a little
of the forfeited  beverage, his heart  is  in  the
thing, and he is under the  influence of a danger-
ous love of that hilarity which is produced by
strong drink.
  3.  Whoever finds the  desire of drinking ar-
dent spirits returning  daily at stated times, is
warned to deny himself instantly, if he  intends
to escape confirmed intemperance.
  It is infallible evidence  that you have already
done violence to nature—that  the  undermining
process  is begun—that the  over-worked organ
begins to flag, and cry out for adventitious aid,
with an importunity which, if indulged, will be-
come more deep toned,  and importunate,  and
irresistible,  until the  power  of self-denial is
gone, and  you are a ruined man.   It is the vor-
tex begun, which, if not checked, will become
more  capacious,  and deep,  and powerful,  and
loud, until the interests of time and eternity are
engulfed.
  It is here then—beside  this commencing vor-
tex—that  I would take ray  stand, to warn off
             3* 
30               THE S1GN3
the heedless navigator from destruction.   To all
who do but heave in sight, and with voice that
should rise above the winds and waves, I would
cry—" stand  off!!!"—spread the sail,  ply the
oar, for death is  here—and could I command
the elements—the blackness of darkness should
gather over this  gate-way to  hell—and  loud
thunders should  utter  their voices—and lurid
fires should blaze—and the groans of unearthly
voices should be heard—inspiring consternation
and flight in all who came near.  For this is the
parting point between those who forsake danger
and hide themselves, and the foolish who pass on
and are punished.  He who escapes this period-
ical thirst of times  and seasons, will  not be a
drunkard, as he who comes within the  reach of
this powerful attraction will be sure to perish.  It
may not be certain that every one will become a
sot; but it is certain that every one will enfeeble
his body, generate disease, and shorten his days.
It may not be certain that every one will sacrifice
his reputation, or squander his property,  and die
in the alms house; but it is certain that a large
proportion  will come to poverty and infamy, of
those who yield daily to the periodical appetite
for ardent spirits.  Here  is the stopping place,
and though beyond it men may struggle, and
retard,  and modify their  progress, none, com-
paratively, who go by it, will return again  to
purity of enjoyment, and the sweets of temperate
liberty.  The servant has become the  master,
and, with a rod of iron and a whip of scorpions, 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
31
he will torment, even before their time, the can-
didates for misery in a future state.
  4.  Another sign of  intemperance may  be
found in  the  desire of concealment.  When a
man finds himself disposed to drink oftener, and
more than he is willing  to  do before his family
and the world, and begins to drink slily and in
secret places, he betrays a consciousness that he
is disposed to drink more than to others will ap-
pear safe and  proper, and what he suspects others
may think, he ought to suppose they have cause
to think,  and  reform instantly.  For now he has
arrived at a period in the  history of intempe-
rance, where, if he does  not stop, he will hasten
on to ruin with accelerated movement.  So long
as  the eye of friendship and a regard to pub~
lie  observation  kept him within  limits, there
was some hope  of reformation;  but when he
cuts this  last cord, and launches out  alone with
his boat and bottle, he has committed himself to
mountain waves and furious winds, and probably
will never return.
  5. When a man  allows  himself to drink al-
ways in company so much as he  may think he
can bear  without awakening in others the suspi-
cion of inebriation, he will deceive himself, and
no  one beside.   For abused nature herself will
publish the excess in the bloated  countenance,
and  flushed  visage, and tainted breath, and in-
flamed eye;  and were  all  these  banners of in-
temperance struck, the man with, his own tongue
will reveal his shame.   At first  there will be 
32
THE  SIGNS
 something strange in his appearance or conduct,
 to awaken observation, and induce  scrutiny,
 until at length, with all his carefulness, in some
 unguarded moment he will  take  more than he
 can bear.  And now the secret is out, and these
 unaccountable things  are explained; these ex-
 posures will become more frequent, the unhappy
 man still dreaming that though he erred a little,
 he took  such  good care to  conceal it, that no
 one knew it but himself.   He will even talk
 when his tongue is palsied, to ward off suspicion,
 and thrust himself into company, to show that
 he is not drunk.
   6.  Those  persons  who  find themselves for
 some cause always  irritated when efforts are
 made to suppress intemperance, and  moved by
 some instinctive  impulse to make  opposition,
 ought to  examine instantly whether the love of
 ardent spirits is not the cause of it.
   An aged country merchant, of an acute mind
 and sterling reputation, once said to me, " I
 never knew an attempt made to suppress intem-
 perance, which was not,  opposed  by  some per-
 sons, from whom I should not have expected
 opposition; and  I  never failed to find, first or
 last, that these persons were themselves impli-
 cated in  the sin."   Temperate men  seldom if
 ever oppose the reformation of intemperance.
  7. We now  approach some of those symp-
toms of intemperance which abused nature first
or last never fails to give.
  The eyes.  Who hath redness of eyes ?  All 
             OF INTEMPERANCE.           83

are not of course intemperate whose  visual or-
gans become inflamed and weak.   But there are
few intemperate persons who escape this malady,
and yet when it comes, they have no suspicion
of the cause—speak of it without embarrassment
—and wonder what the matter can be—apply to
the physician for eye water, and drink on.  But
every man who is  accustomed to drink  ardent
spirits freely, whose eye begins to redden and to
weep, ought to know what the matter is, and to
take warning;  it is one of the signals which dis-
tressed nature holds out and waves in token of
distress.
  Another indication of intemperance is found
in the fulness and  redness of the countenance.
It is not the fulness and freshness of health—but
rather the plethora of a relaxed fibre and peccant
humours, which come to occupy the vacancy of
healthful nutrition,  and to mar the countenance
with pimples and inflammation.   All are not in-
temperate of course who  are affected with dis-
eases of the  skin.  But no  hard drinker  carries
such a face without a guilty and specific cause,
and it is another signal of distress which abused
nature holds out, while she  cries for help.
  Another indication of  intemperance may  be
found in impaired muscular strength and tremour
of the hand.   Now the destroyer, in his mining
process, approaches the citadel of life, and is ad-
vancing fast to make the  keepers of  the house
tremble, and the strong men bow themselves.
This relaxation of the joints, and trembling of the 
34
THE  SIGNS
nerves,  will  be experienced especially in the
morning—when the  system, unsustained  by
sleep, has run down.  Now all is relaxed, trem-
ulous, and faint-hearted.   The fire which spar-
kled in the eye, the evening before, is quenched
—the courage which dilated the heart is passed
away—and the tones of eloquence, which dwelt
on the inspired tongue, are turned into pusillani-
mous complainings, until opium, or bitters, or
both, are thrown into the stomach to wind up
again the  run-down machine.
  And now the liver, steeped in  fire, begins to
contract, and refuses to perform its functions, in
preparing the secretions which are necessary to
aid digestion ; and loss of appetite ensues;  and
indigestion, and fermentation, and acidity, begin
to rob the system of nutrition, and  to vex  and
irritate the vital organ, filling the stomach with
air, and the  head with fumes, and the soul with
darkness and terror.
  This reiterated irritation extends by sympathy
to the lungs, which become inflamed and  lace-
rated, until hemorrhage ensues.   And now the
terrified victim  hastens to the physician  to stay
the progress of a consumption, which intempe-
rance has begun, and which  medical treatment,
while the cause continues, cannot arrest.
  About this time the fumes of the scalding
furnace  below begin to lacerate the throat, and
blister the tongue and the lip.   Here again the
physician  is called in to ease these torments ; but
until the fires beneath are extinct, what can the 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
35
physician do ?  He can no more alleviate these
woes than he  can carry  alleviation to the tor-
mented, in the flames for which these are the
sad preparations.
  Another indication of  intemperance is irrita-
bility, petulance, and violent anger.  The great
organ of  nervous  sensibility has been brought
into a state of tremulous excitement. The slight-
est  touch causes  painful vibrations, and  irri-
tations, which  defy self-government.—The tem-
per becomes like  the  flash  of powder, or un-
governable and violent as  the helm driven hither
and  thither by  raging winds,  and mountain
waves.
  Another indication of intemperance  is to be
found in the extinction of all the finer feelings
and  amiable dispositions of the soul;  and,  if
there have ever seemed to be religious affection?,
of thef^e also.  The fiery  stimulus has raised the
organ of  sensibility above the power of excite-
ment by  motives addressed to the finer feelings
of the soul, and of the moral nature, and left the
man a prey to animal sensation.   You  might  as
well fling out music upon  the whirlwind to stay
its course, as to govern the storm within by the
gentler feelings of humanity.  The only stimu-
lant which now has power  to move, is ardent
spirits—and he who has arrived at this condition
is lost.   He has left  far behind  the v. reek  of
what he once was.   He is not the same husband,
or father, or brother, or  friend.  The sea has
made a clear breach  over him, and swept  away 
36
THE SIGNS
forever whatsoever things are pure, and lovely,
and of good report.
  And as to religion, if he ever seemed to have
any, all such affections declined as the emotions
of artificial stimulants arose, until conscience has
lost  its  power,  or  survives only  with vulture
scream to flap the wing, and terrify the soul. His
religious  affections are dead Avhen he is sober, and
rise only  to emotion and loquacity and tears when
he is drunk.  Dead, twice dead, is he—whatever
may have been the hopes he once indulged, or
the evidence he once gave, or the hopes he once
inspired.   For drunkards, no more  than  mur-
derers, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
  As  the disease  makes progress,  rheumatic
pains diffuse themselves throughout the system.
The man wonders what can  be  the reason that
he should be visited by such a  complication of
disease, and again betakes himself to the physi-
cian, and tries every remedy but the simple one
of temperance.   For  these  pains  are only the
murmurings and complainings of nature, through
all the system giving signs of wo, that all is lost.
For to rheumatic pains ensues a debility of the
system, which becoming  unable to sustain the
circulation, the fluids fall first  upon the feet,
and, as the deluge rises, the chest is invaded, and
the breath is shortened, until by a sudden inunda-
tion it is  stopped.  Or, if in  this form death  is
avoided,  it is only to be met in  another—more
dilatory but no less terrific ;  for now comes  en
the last catastrophe—the sudden prostration of 
             OF INTEMPERANCE.            37

strength and appetite—an increased difficulty of
raising the ebbing tide of life  by stimulants—a
few panic struck reformations, just on the sides
of the pit, until the last sinking comes, from
which there is no resurrection but by the trump
of God, and at the judgment day.
  And now the woes, and the sorrows, and the
contentions, and the wounds, and babblings, are
over—the red  eye  sleeps—the tortured  body
rests—the deformed visage  is hid from human
observation—and the soul, while the dust crum-
bles back to dust, returns to God who gave it, to
receive according to the deeds done in the body.
  Such is the  evil which  demands  a remedy.
And what can  be done  to stop its ravages and
rescue its victims ?
  This is not the place to say all that belongs
to this part of the subject, but we cannot close
without saying by anticipation a few things here;
and,
  1.  There should be  extended through the
community an all-pervading sense of the danger
there is of falling into  this sin.  Intemperance is
a disease as well as a crime, and were any other
disease, as contagious, of as  marked symptoms,
and as mortal,  to pervade  the land, it  would
create universal consternation :  for the plague is
scarcely more contagious or deadly;  and yet we
mingle fearlessly with the diseased, and in spite
of admonition we bring  into our  dwellings the
contagion, apply it to the lip, and receive it into
the  svstem.
             4 
38
THE  SIGNS
    I know that much is said  about the prudent
  use of ardent spirits;  but we  might as well
  speak of the prudent use of the plague—of fire
  handed prudently  around  among powder—of
  poison taken prudently every day—or of vipers
  and serpents introduced prudently into our dwel-
, lings, to glide about as a matter of courtesy to
  visitors, and of amusement to our children.
    First or last, in spite of your prudence, the
  contagion will take—the fatal  spark  will fall
  upon the  train—the deleterious poison will tell
  upon the system—and the fangs of the serpent
  will inflict death.  There is no  prudent  use  of
  ardent spirits, but when  it is used as a medicine.
  All who receive it into  the system are not de-
  stroyed by it.   But  if any vegetable  were poi-
  sonous to  as many,  as the  use of ardent spirits
  proves destructive,  it would  be banished from
  the table;  it wpuld not be prudent to use it at all.
  If in attempting to cross a river  upon an  elastic
  beam—as many should  fall in and be drowned,
  as attempt to  use ardent spirits prudently and
 fail, the attempt to  cross in that way would be
 abandoned—there would be  no prudent use of
 that mode of crossing. The effect of attempting
 to use ardent spirits prudently, is destructive to
 such multitudes, as  precludes the possibility of
 prudence in the use of it.   When we  consider
 the deceitful nature of this sin, and its irresistible
 power when it has obtained an ascendency—no
 man can use it prudentlv—or  without mocking '
 God can pray while  he uses it, " lead us not into 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
39
temptation."   There is no necessity for using it
at all, and it is presumptuous to do so.
  2. A wakeful recollection should be maintain-
ed of the distinction between  intemperance and
drunkenness.  So long as men suppose that there
is neither crime nor danger in drinking, short of
what they denominate drunkenness, they will
cast off fear and move onward to ruin by a silent,
certain course, until  destruction comes  upon
them, and they cannot escape.  It  should be
known therefore and admitted, that to drink dai-
ly, at stated times, any quantity of ardent spirits,
is intemperance, or to drink periodically as often
as days,  and  times, and seasons, may furnish
temptation and opportunity, is intemperance.  It
may not be for any one time  the  intemperance
of animal or mental excitement, but it is an in-
novation  upon the system, and the beginning of
a habit, which cannot fail to generate disease,
and  will  not be pursued by  one hundred men
without producing many drunkards.
  It is not enough  therefore to erect the flag
ahead, to  mark the spot where the drunkard dies.
It must be planted at the entrance of his course,
proclaiming in waving capitals—this is the
wav to death!!  Over the  whole territory of
" prudent use," it must wave and warn.  For if
we cannot stop men in the beginning, we cannot
separate  between that and the end.  He who
lots  ardent spirits  alone  before it is meddled
with, is safe, and he only.  It should be in every
family a contraband article, or if it is admitted, 
40
THE  SIGNS
 it should be allowed for medical  purposes only.
 It should be labelled as we label laudanum—and
 TOUCH  NOT,  TASTE  NOT, HANDLE NOT,  should
 meet the eye on every vessel which  contains it.
   Children should be  taught  early  the nature,
 symptoms, and danger of this sin, that they may
 not  unwittingly fall  under its power.  To  save
 my own children from this sin has been no small
 part of my solicitude  as  a parent,  and  I  can
 truly say, that should any of my children perish
 in this way, they will  not do it ignorantly, nor
 unwarned.   I do not remember that I ever gave
 permission to a child to go out  on a  holiday,  or
 gave a pittance of money to be expended for his
 gratification, unattended by the earnest injunc-
 tion, not to drink ardent spirits, or any inebriat-
 ing liquor;  and  I cannot but believe, that  if
 proper exertions are  made in  the family to ap-
 prise children of the nature and danger of  this
 sin, and to put them on  their guard against  it—
 opinions and feelings and habits might  be so
 formed, that the whole youthful generation might
 rise  up as  a rampart,  against  which the fiery
 waves  of intemperance would dash in vain,
 saying, hitherto shalt thou come, but  no farther,
 and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.  To
 all our schools instruction on this subject should
be communicated, and the Sabbath schools now
spreading through the land, may in this manner
lend a mighty influence to prevent the intempe-
rance of the rising generation.
  In respect  to the  reformation  of  those over 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
41
whom the habit of intemperance has obtained an
ascendency, there is but one  alternative—they
must resolve upon immediate  and entire absti-
nence.
   Some have recommended, and many have at-
tempted, a gradual discontinuance. But no man's
prudence and fortitude are equal to the task c-f
reformation  in this way.   If the patient  were in
close confinement, where he could not help him-
self, he might bo dealt with in this manner, hut
it would be cruelly protracting a course of suffer-
ing through  months, which might be ended in a
few days.   But no man, at liberty, will refonn
by gradual retrenchment.—Substitutes have also
been recommended as the means of reformation,
such as opium, which  is only another mode of
producing inebriation,  is often a temptation to
intemperance, and not unfrequently  unites its
own forces with those of ardent spirits to impair
health, and  destroy life.   It is a preternatural
stimulant,  raising excitement above the  tone of
health,  and  predisposing the rystem for h\tem-
perate drinking
  Strong bee' Has been recommended as v sub-
stitute for a'  *ent spirits, and a means of leading
back  the captive to health and  liberty.   But
though it may not create intemperate habits as
soon, it has  no  power to  allay them.  It  will
finish even what ardent spirits have begun—and
with  this difference  only, that it does net rasp
the vital organs  with quite so keen a file—and
enable* the victim to come down to his gra\ e, by 
42
THE  SIGNS
a course somewhat more dilatory, and with more
of the good  natured stupidity of the  idiot, and
less of the demoniac frenzy of the madman.
   Wine has  been prescribed as  a means of  de-
coying the intemperate from the ways of death.
But' habit cannot be thus cheated out  of its  do-
minion, nor  ravening  appetite be amused down
to a sober and temperate demand.   If it be true
that men do not become intemperate on  wine, it
is not true  that wine will restore the intempe-
rate, or stay the progress of the disease.  Enough
must be taken to  screw up nature to the tone of
cheerfulness,  or she will  cry "give," with an
importunity not to be resisted, and  long before
the work of death is done, wine  will fail to min-
ister a  stimulus of sufficient  activity to rouse
the flagging spirits, or will become  acid on the -
enfeebled stomach, and brandy and opium will
be called in  to hasten to  its consummation the
dilatory work of self-destruction.  So that if no
man  becomes a sot upon wine, it is only because
it  hands him over  to  more fierce and  terrible
executioners  of Heaven's delayt d vengeance.
  If in any instance wine suffic. s to complete
the work of ruin, then the  differenc • is only that
the victim is  stretched longer upon the rack,
to  die in torture  with the gout, while  ardent
t.iirits  finish  life by a shorter and perhaps  less
painful course^
  Retrenchments and substitutes then are idle,
and if in any case they succeed, it is not in one
of a thousand.  It is the tampering of an infant 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
43
 with a giant, the effort of a kitten to escape
 from the paw of a lion.
   There  is  no remedy for intemperance  but
 (be  cessation of  it.   Nature must be released
 from the unnatural war which is made upon her,
 and  be allowed to rest, and then nutrition, and
 sleep,  and exercise, will perform the work of
 restoration.   Gradually the  spring of life will re-
 cover tone, appetite will return, digestion become
 efficient, sleep sweet, and the muscular system
 vigorous, until the elastic heart with every beat
 shall send health through  the system, and joy
 through the soul.
   But what shall  be  done for those to whom it
 mi^ht be fatal to stop short ?  Many are reputed
 to be in this condition, probably, who are not—
 and  these who  are may, while  under  the care
 of a physician, be dealt with, as he may think
 best  for the time,  provided they obey strictly as
 patients his prescriptions.  Bit if, when they are
 committed to their own care r.cjnin, they cannot
 live  without ardent spirits—then they must die,
 and have only the alternative to die as reformed
 penitents, or  as incorrigibly intemperate—to die
 in a manner which  shall  secure pardon  and
 admission to  heaven, or in a manner which shall
 exclude them forever from that holy world.
  As the application  of this discoure, I would
 recommend  to  every one of you who hear it,
immediate and  faithful self-examination, to  as-
 certain whether any  of the  symptoms of intem-
perance are beginning to show themselves upon 
44
THE  SIGNS
you.  And let not the consideration that you
have  never been  suspected, and  have  never
suspected yourselves of intemperance, deprive
you of the benefit of this scrutiny.   For it is
inattention and self-confidence which supersede
discretion, and banish  fear, and let in the de-
stroyer, to fasten  upon his victim,  before he
thinks of danger or attempts resistance.
  Are there  then  set  times,  days, and  placesj
when you calculate always to indulge yourselves
in drinking ardent spirits ?  Do you  stop often
to take something at the tavern when you travel,
and always when you come to the village, town,
or city.   This frequency of drinking will plant
in your system, before you are aware  of it, the
seeds  of the most terrific  disease which  afflicts
humanity.  Have  you any friends or compan-
ions  whose j^resence,  when  you  meet  them,
awakens the'  thought  and the desire of drink-
ing?  Both of you have entered on a course in
which there is neither safety nor hope, but from
instant retreat.
  Do  any of you love to avail yourselves of
every little catch and circumstance among your
companions, to bring  out "a treat?"  "Alas,
my lord, there is death in the pot."
  Do  you find the desire of strong drink return-
ing daily, and at stated hours ?  Unless you in-
tend to travel all the length of the highway of
intemperance, it is time to stop.  Unless you
intend soon to resign your liberty forever, and
come  under a despotism of the  most cruel and 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
45
inexorable  character,  you  must  abandon  the
morning  bitters, the  noontide  stimulant, and
the evening bowl.
  Do any of you drink in secret, because you
are unwilling your friends or the world should
know how  much you drink ?  You might  as
well  cut loose in a frail boat before a hurricane,
and expect safety :  you are gone, gone irretriev-
ably, if you do not stop.
  Are you accustomed to drink, wh^n opportu-
nities present, as much as you can bear without
any public tokens of inebriation ?  You are an
intemperate man now, and unless you check the
habit, you will become rapidly more and  more
intemperate, until concealment becomes impos-
sible.
  Do your eyes, in any instance, begin to trou-
ble you by their weakness or inflammation ?  If
you are in the habit of drinking ardent  spirits
daily, you need not ask the physician what is
the  matter—nor inquire for eye water.   Your
redness  of eyes is  produced by intemperance;
and abstinence, and that only, will cure them.
It may be well for every man who drinks  daily,
to look in the glass often, that he may see  in his
own  face the signals of distress, which abused
nature holds out one after another, and too often
holds out in vain.
  Do any of you find a tremour of the  hand
coming  upon you, and sinking of spirits, and
loss of appetite in the  morning ?  Nature is fail- 
46      THE  SIGNS OF INTEMPERANCE.

ing, and giving to you timely admonition of her
distress.
  Do the pains of a disordered stomach, and
blistered tongue and lip, begin to torment you ?
You are far advanced in {he work of self-destruc-
tion—a few more years will probably finish it. 
SERMON  III.
THE  EVILS  OF INTEMPERANCE.
              Habakkuk, ii. 9—11,15,1G.

  Wr<> to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that
he may set his nest on high, that he may be  delivered from the
power of evil 1  Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting
ofTinaiiy people, and hast sinned against thy soul. For the stone
eliall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall an-
swer it.
  Wo unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that, puttest thy hot-
lle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on
their nakedness! Thou art filled with shame for glory: drink thou
also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered: the cup of the Lokd'.s right
hand shall be turned unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on
thy glory.


   In the preceding discourses  we  have illus-

trated THE   NATURE, THE OCCASIONS,  AND  THE

SYMPTOMS  OF  INTEMPERANCE.

   In this discourse we  propose to illustrate the

EVILS OF INTEMPERANCE.

   The physical and  moral  influence of this sin

upon its victims, has of necessity been disclosed

in giving an account of  the causes and symptoms

of this criminal disease.   We shall therefore take

a mote  comprehensive  view of the  subject, and 
48               THE EVILS
 consider the effect of intemperance upon nation-
 al prosperity.  To this view of the subject  the
 text leads us.  It announces the general princi-
 ple, that communities which rise by a violation
 of  the  lawrs of humanity and  equity, shall  not
 prosper, and especially that wealth amassed by
 promoting intemperance, will  bring  upon  the
 community  intemperance,  and  poverty,  and
 shame, as a providential  retribution.
   1.  The  effects of intemperance  upon   the
 health  and  physical energies of a nation,  are
 not to be overlooked, or lightly esteemed.
  No fact is more certain than the transmission
 of temperament and of physical constitution,  ac-
 cording to the predominant moral  condition  of
 society, from age to age.   Luxury produces  ef-
 feminacy, and transmits to other generations im-
 becility and  disease.  Bring up the generation of
 the Romans who  carried victory over the world,
 and place them beside the effeminate Italians of
 the present  day, and the  effect of crime upon
 constitution  will  be sufficiently apparent.  Ex-
 cesses unmake the man.   The stature dwindles,
 the joints are loosely compacted, and the mus-
 cular  fibre has lost its elastic tone.  No giant's
bones will be found in the cemeteries of a nation,
 over whom,  for centuries, the waves of intempe-
rance have rolled; and no unwieldy iron armour,
the annoyance and defence  of other days, will
be dug up as memorials of departed glory.
  The duration of human life,  and the relative
amount of health or disease, will manifestly vary, 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
49
according to the amount of ardent spirits con-
sumed in the land.   Even now, no small propor-
tion of the deaths which annually make up our
national  bills of mortality,  are cases  of those
who have been brought to an untimely end, and
who have,  directly or indirectly,  fallen victims
to the deleterious influence of ardent  spirits;
fulfilling, with fearful accuracy, the prediction,
"the wicked shall not live out half their days."
As  the jackal follows the lion to prey upon the
slain, so do disease and  death wait on  the foot-
steps of inebriation.  The free and universal use
of intoxicating liquors for a few centuries cannot
fail to bring down  our  race  from  the majestic,
athletic forms of our Fathers, to the similitude
of a despicable and puny race of men.   Already
the commencement of  the decline is manifest,
and the consummation of it, should the causes
continue, will not linger.
  2. The injurious influence of general intem-
perance upon national intellect, is equally cer-
tain, and not less to be deprecated.
  To  the action of a powerful mind, a vigorous
muscular frame is, as a general  rule, indispensa-
ble.   Like heavy ordnance, the  mind, in  its
efforts, recoils on the body, and will soon shake
down a puny frame.  The mental action and
phvsical reaction must be equal—or, finding her
energies  unsustained, the mind itself becomes
discouraged,  and falls into despondency and im-
becility.   The  flow  of animal spirits,  the fire
and vigor  of the  imagination,  the fulness and
              5 
50
THE  EVILS
 power of feeling, the comprehension and grasp
 of thought, the fire of the eye, the tones of the
 voice, and the electrical energy of utterance, all
 depend upon the healthful and vigorous tone of
 the animal system,  and  by whatever means the
 body is unstrung, the spirit languishes.  Caesar,
 when he had a  fever  once,  and cried " give
 me some drink, Titinius," was not that god who
 afterwards .overturned the republic, and reigned
 without  a rival—and  Bonaparte, it  has been
 said,  lost the  Russian campaign by  a fever.
 The greatest poets and orators who stand on the
 records of immortality, flourished in the iron age,
 before the habits of effeminacy had unharnessed
 the body and unstrung the mind.  This is  true
 of Homer, and Demosthenes, and Milton ; and if
 Virgil and Cicero' are to be classed with them, it
 is not without a manifest abatement of vigor for
 beauty, produced by the progress of voluptuous-
 ness in the age in which they lived.
   The giant writers of Scotland are, some of
 them, men of threescore and ten, who  still go
 forth to the athletic sports of their youthful days
 with undiminished elasticity.   The taper fingers
 of modern effeminacy never wielded such a pen
 as these men wield, and never will.
  The taste  may be cultivated in alliance with
 effeminacy, and  music may  flourish,  while all
that is manly is  upon the decline, and there may
be some  fitful flashes of imagination in poetry,
which are the offspring of a capricious, nervous
 excitability—and perhaps there may be some- 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
51
 times an  unimpassioned stillness  of soul  in a
 feeble body, which shall capacitate for  simple
 intellectual discrimination.   But that fulness of
 soul,  and  diversified energy of mind, which  is
 indispensable to national talent in all its diver-
 sified application, can be found only in alliance
 with  an undebased and vigorous  muscular sys-
 tem.
   The history of the world confirms this  con-
 clusion.   Egypt, once at the head  of nations,
 has, under the  weight of her own  effeminacy,
 gone  down to the dust.  The victories of Greece
 let in upon her ihe luxuries of the east, and
 covered her glory with a night of  ages.   And
 Rome, whose iron foot trode down  the nations,
 and shook the  earth, witnessed  in her  latter
 days—faintness of heart—and  the shield of the
 mighty vilely cast away.
   3. The effect of intemperance upon the mili-
 tary prowess of a nation, cannot but be great
 and evil.   The mortality in  the  seasoning of
 recruits, already half destroyed by intemperance,
 w ill be double to that experienced among hardy
 and temperate men.
   If in the early wars of  our country the mor-
tality  of the camp had been as great as it has
been since intemperance has facilitated the rais-
ing of recruits, New England would have been
depopulated,  Philip had remained  lord  of his
wilderness, or the French had driven our Fathers
into the  sea, extending from  Canada to  Cape
Horn  the empire of despotism and superstition. 
52               THE EVILS
An army, whose  energy in conflict depends on
the excitement of ardent spirits, cannot possess
the coolness nor sustain the shock of a powerful
onset,  like an  army of determined,  temperate
men.   It was the religious principle and tempe-
rance of Cromwell's army, that made it terrible
to the licentious troops of Charles the First.
   4. The effect of intemperance upon the pat-
riotism of a nation is neither obscure nor doubtful.
When  excess has despoiled the man of the natu-
ral affections of husband, father,  brother, and
friend, and thrust him down to the condition of
an animal; we are not to expect of him compre-
hensive views, and  a disinterested regard for his
country.   His patriotism  may serve as a theme
of sinister profession, or inebriate boasting.  But,
what is the patriotism which loves only in words,
and in  general, and violates  in  detail all the
relative duties on which the welfare of country
depends!
   The man might  as well talk of justice and
mercy, who robs and murders upon the highway,
as he whose example is pestiferous, and whose
presence withers the tender charities of life, and
perpetuates weeping,  lamentation, and wo.  A
nation Of drunkards would constitute a hell.
  5. Upon the  national  conscience  or moral
principle the effects of intemperance are deadly
   It obliterates the  fear of the  Lord, and a sense
of accountability, paralyses the power of con-
science,  and  hardens the  heart, and  turns out
upon society  a sordid, selfish,  ferocious animal. 
              OF INTEMPERANCE.            53

   6.  Upon national industry the effects of intem-
 perance are manifest and mischievous.
   The results of  national industry depend on
 the amount of well-directed intellectual and phy-
 sical  power.   But intemperance paralyses  and
 prevents both these  springs of human action.
   In  the inventory of national  loss by intempe-
 rance, may be set down—the  labor prevented
 by indolence, by debility, by sickness, by quar-
 rels and litigation, by gambling and idleness, by
 mistakes  and misdirected effort, by improvi-
 dence and wastefulness, and by  the shortened
 date of human life and  activity.   Little  wastes
 in  great  establishments  constantly  occurring
 may defeat the energies  of  a  mighty capital.
 But where the intellectual and muscular energies
 are raised to the working point daily  by  ardent
 spirit:',  until   the  agriculture,  and  commerce,
 and arts of a nation  move on by  the  power of
 artificial stimulus, that  moral power cannot be
 maintained, which will guaranty fidelity, and that
 physical  power  cannot  be preserved and  well
 directed, which wiii  ensure national prosperitv.
 The nation whose immense enterprise is thrust
 forward by the stimulus of ardent spirits,  cannot
 ultimately escape debility and bankruptcy.
   When  we  behold an individual  cut  off in
youth, or in middle age, or witness the waning
energies, improvidence, and unfaithfulness  of a
neighbor,  it is but  a single  instance, and we
become accustomed  to  it; but such instances
are multiplying in'our  land in  every direction,
              5* 
54
THE EVILS
  and are to be found  in  every department  of
  labor, and the amount of earnings prevented  or
  squandered is incalculable: to all which must
  be  added the accumulating and frightful expense
  incurred for the support of those and their fami-
  lies, whom intemperance has made paupers.  In
  every city and town the poor-tax, created chiefly
 by  intemperance, is augmenting.   The  recep-
 tacles for the poor are becoming too strait for
 their accommodation.  We must pull them down
 and build greater to provide accommodations for
 the  votaries of inebriation ;  for the frequency of
 going upon the town has taken away the  reluc-
 tauce of pride, and destroyed the motives to pro-'
 vidence  which the fear of poverty and suffering
 once supplied.  The prospect of a d -stitute old
 age, or of a suffering family, no longer troubles
 the  vicious portion  of  our community.   They
 drink up their daily earnings, and bless God for
 the poor-house, and begin to look upon it as, of
 right, the drunkard's home, and contrive to arrive
 thither as early as  idleness and excess will give
 them a passport to this sinecure of vice.   Thus
 is the insatiable destroyer of industry marching
 through the land, rearing poor-houses, and aug-
 menting  taxation :  night and day,-with sleepless
 activity, squandering property, cutting the sinews
 of industry,  undermining  vigor,  engendering
 disease,  paralysing intellect,  impairing  moral
 principle, cutting short the date of life, and roll-
 ing up a national  debt, invisible, but real and
terrific as the debt of England : continually trans- 
             OF  INTEMPERANCE.            55

ferring laiger and larger bodies of men, from the
class of contributors to the national income, to the
class of worthless consumers.
  Add the loss sustained  by the subtraction  of
labor,  and the  shortened date of life, to the
expense of sustaining the poor, created by intem-
perance; and the nation is now taxed annually
more than the expense which would be requisite
for the maintenance of government, and for the
support of all our  schools and colleges, and  all
the religious instruction of the nation.   Already
a portion of  the entire  capital of  the nation is
mortgaged for the support of drunkards.   There
seems to  be  no other fast  property in the land,
but this inheritance of the intemperate : all other
riches may make  to themselves wings and  fly
away.  But until  the nation is bankrupt, accord-
ing to the laws of the State, the drunkard and
his  family must  have a  home.   Should  the
pauperism of crime  augment in this country as
it has done for a few years past, there is nothing
to stop the frightful results which have  come upon
England, where property is abandoned in some
parishes, because the poor-tax exceeds the annua!
income.  You who  are husbandmen, arc accus-
tomed to  feel as if your houses  and lands  were
wholly your own; but if  you will ascertain the
per centage of annual taxation levied  on  your
property for  the support of the intemperate, you
will perceive how much of your capital is held
by drunkards, by a tenure  as  sure  as if held
under mortgages, or deeds of warranty.  Your 
       t
56               THE EVILS
   widows  and children do  not  take  by descen
   more  certainly, than the  most profligate  anu
   worthless part of the community.   Every intem-
   perate and idle man, whom you behold tottering
   about  the  streets  and steeping himself at the
   stores, regards your houses and lands as pledged
   to take care of him,—puts his hands deep, an-
   nually, into your pockets, and  eats his bread in
   the  swea-t of your brows, instead of his own  :
   and with marvellous good nature you bear it.  If
   a robber should break loose on the highway, to
   levy taxation, an armed force would  be raised tc
   hunt him from  society.  But the tippler may do
-  it fearlessly, in open day, and ffot a voice is
   raised, not a finger is lifted.                ,
     The effects of intemperance, upon  civil liberty
   may not be lightly passed over.
     It is admitted that intelligence and virtue are
   the pillars of republican institutions, and that the
   illumination of schools, and the moral power of
   religious  institutions, are indispensable to pro-
   duce this intelligence and virtue.
     But who are found so uniformly in the ranks
   of  irreligion as  the  intemperate ?  Who  like
   these violate the  Sabbath, and set their  mouth
   against the heavens—neglecting the education
   of their families—and corrupting  their  morals  ?
   Almost the entire amount of national ignorance
   and crime is  the  offspring  of  intemperance.
   Throughout the land, the intemperate are hew-
   ing down the pillars, and undermining th" foun-
   dations  of our  national edifice.   Legions have 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
57
besieged it, and upon every gate the battle-axe
rings ; and still the sentinels «leep.
   Should the evil  advance  as it has done, the
day is not far distant when the great body of" the
laboring classes of the community, the bones
and sinews of the nation, will be contaminated;
and  when this  is  accomplished,  the  right  of
suffrage becomes the engine of self-destruction.
For the laboring classes constitute  an immense
majority, and when these are perverted by intem-
perance, ambition  needs no  better implements
with which to dig the grave of our liberties, and
entomb our gfcory.
   Such is the influence of  interest,  ambition,
fear, and  indolence, that  one violent partisan,
with a handful of disciplined troops, may over-
rule  the influence  of five  hundred temperate
men, who act without concert.  Already is the
disposition to temporize, to tolerate, and  even to
court the intemperate, too apparent, on  account
of the apprehended retribution of their perverted
suffrage.  The whole power of law, through the
nation,  sleeps in  the statute book, and until
public sentiment is roused and concentrated, it
may be  doubted whether its execution  is pos-
sible.
  Where is the  city, town, or village, in which
the laws are not openly violated, and where is
the magistracy that dares to carry into effect the
laws against the vending or drinking of ardent
spirits ?  Here then an aristocracy of bad influ-
ence has already risen up, which bids defiance 
58
THE  EVILS
to law, and  threatens the extirpation of civil
liberty.  As intemperance increases, the power
of taxation will come more and more  into the
hands of men of intemperate habits and despe-
rate  fortunes; of course the laws gradually will
become subservient to the  debtor,  and less effi-
cacious in protecting the  rights  of property.
This will be a vital stab to liberty—to the secu-
rity of which property'  is indispensable.  For
money is  the sinew of war—and  when those
who hold the property of  a  nation cannot  be
protected  in  their  rights, they will change the
form of government, peaceably if- they may,  by
violence if they must.
  In proportion to the numbers who have  no
right in the soil, and no  capital at stake, and  no
moral principle, will the nation be exposed to
violence and  revolution.   In  Europe, the  phy-
sical power is bereft of the right of suffrage, and
by the bayonet is kept down.  But in this nation,
the power which may be wielded by the intem-
perate and ignorant is tremendous.   These are
the troops of the  future Caesars, by whose per-
verted  suffrages  our future  elections  may  be
swayed, and  ultimately our liberties destroyed.
They are the corps of irreligious and desperate
men, who have something to  hope, and nothing
to fear, from revolution  and  blood.  Of  such
materials was the  army  of Catiline composed,
who conspired against  the liberties of Rome.
And in the French revolution, such men as La-
fayette were soon swept  from  the helm, by mobs 
              OF INTEMPERANCE.           59

composed of the dregs of creation, to give place
to the revolutionary furies which followed.
  We boast of our liberties, and rejoice in our
prospective instrumentality in disenthralling the
world.   But our own foundations  rest on  the
heaving sides  of a  burning mountain, through
which, In thousands of places, the fire hatfe burst
out, and  is blazing around  us.  If they cannot
be extinguished, we  are undone.   Our sun is
fast setting, and the darkness of an endless night
is closing in upon us. 
 
SERMON IV.
THE  REMEDY OF  INTEMPERANCE.
              Habakkuk, ii. 9—11,15,16.

  Wo to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that
he may set his nest on high, that  he may be delivered  from the
power of evil!  Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting
off many people, and hast sinned against thy soul.  For the stone
shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall  an-
swer it.
  Wo unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest thy bot-
tle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on
their nakedness! Thou art filled with shame for glory: drink tiiou
also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered : the cup of the Lord's right
hand shall be turned unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on
thy glory.


  We  now come to  the inquiry, by  what

MEANS   CAN THE  EVIL  OF INTEMPERANCE   BE

stayed ?  and  the answer is,  not  by  any one

thing, but by every thing  which  can be  put in

requisition to hem in the  army of the destroyer,

and  impede his  march, and turn him back, and

redeem  the land.

  Intemperance is a national  sin, carrying de-

struction from the centre to  every extremity of

the empire, and  calling upon the  nation to array

itself, rn masse, against it.

               6 
 62              the remedy

   It  is in vain to rely alone upon self-govern-
 ment, and voluntary  abstinence.   This, by all
 means, should be encouraged and enforced, and
 may limit the evil, but can never expel it. Alike    f
 hopeless are all the efforts of the pulpit, and the
 press, without something more radical, efficient     ,
 and permanent.   If knowledge only,  or  argu-    j
 ment, or motive, were needed, the task of re-    «J
 formation would be easy.  But argument may as    1
 well  be  exerted  upon the "wind, and motive be
 applied to chain down the waves.   Thirst, and
 the love of filthy lucre, are incorrigible.  Many    I
 may be saved by these means ; but with nothing
 more, many will  be lost, and the  evil  will go
 down to other ages. Alike hopeless is the attempt
 to stop intemperance by mere civil  coercion.
   There is too much capital vested in the impor-
 tation, distillation, and vending of ardent spirits,
 and too brisk a  demand for their  consumption
 in the market, to  render  mere legal enactments    I
 and prohibitions, of sufficient influence to keep     1
 the practice of trafficking in ardent spirits within     I
 safe limits.  As well might the ocean be poured     I
 out upon the Andes, and its  waters be stopped
 from  rushing violently down their sides.   It
 would require an  omniscient eyex and  an al-
mighty arm, punishing with  speedy ar.l  certain
retribution all delinquents, to stay the progress     ,i
of intemperance in the presence of the  all-per-     k
vading temptation of ardent spirits.
   Magistrates  wilt, not, and cannot, if they ^    1
would, execute the laws against the  unlawful 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
63
vending and drinking of ardent spirits, amid a
jjopulation who hold the right of  suffrage, and
are in favor of free  indulgence.   The  effort,
before the public sentiment was prepared for it,
would hurl them quick from their elevation, and
exalt others who would be no terror to evil
doers.  Our Fathers  could enforce morality by
law;  but the times are changed, and unless we
can regulate public  sentiment, and  secure mo-
rality in some other way, we are undone.
   Voluntary associations to support the magis-
trate in the  execution of the law are useful, but
after  all are ineffectual—for though, in a single
town,  or state, they  may  effect  a temporary
reformation, it requires an effort to make them
universal, and  to keep up  their energy, which
never has been, and never will be made.
   Besides, the reformation of a town, or even of
a state, is but emptying of its waters the bed of
a river, to be instantly replaced by the waters
from above;  or like the creation of a vacuum in
the atmosphere, which is instantly filled by the
pressure of the circumjacent air.
   The  remedy, whatever  it may be, must be
universal, operating  permanently, at  all  times,
and in all places.   Short  of this, every thing
which can be done, will be but the application
of temporary expedients.
   There is somewhere  a mighty energy of evil
at work in the production of  intemperance, and
until  we  can  discover and  destroy  this vital
power of mischief, we shall labor in vain. 
64
THE  REMEDY
  Intemperance in our land is not accidental;
it is rolling in upon us by the violation  of some;
great laws of human nature.   In our views, and
in our practice as a nation, there is  something
fundamentally wrong; and the remedy, like the
evil, must be found in the correct application of
general  principles.  It must be a universal and
national remedy.
  What then is this universal, natural, and na-
tional remedy for intemperance ?
  It IS THE BANISHMENT OF  ARDENT SPIRITS
FROM  THE  LIST  OF LAWFUL AUTICLES  OF COM-
MERCE,  BY A CORRECT AND EFFICIENT  PUBLIC
SENTIMENT J  SUCH AS  HAS  TURNED SLAVERY
OUT OF  HALF OUR LAND, AND WILL  YET  EXPEL
IT FROM  THE WORLD.
  Nothing should now be said, by way of crimi-
nation for the past, for verily we have all been
guilty in this thing; so that, there  are few in the
land, whose brother's blood may not cry out
against them from the  ground,  on account of
the bad  influence  which has been lent in some
way to the work of destruction.
  We are not therefore to come down in wrath
upon the distillers, and importers, and venders
of ardent spirits.  None of us  are enough with-
out sin to cast the  first stone.  For who would
have imported, or  distilled, or vended, if all the
nominally temperate in  the land had refused to
drink ?  It  is the  buyers who have created the
demand for ardent spirits, and made distillation
and importation a gainful traffick.   And it  is 
             OF INTEMPERANCE.            65

,he custom of the temperate too, which inun-
dates  the land  with the  occasion  of so much
and such unmanageable temptation.  Let the
temperate cease to buy—and the demand  for
ardent spirits  will fall  in  the  market three
fourths, and ultimately will fail  Avholly,  as the
generation  of drunkards  shall  hasten  out  of
time.
  To  insist that men, whose capital is embarked
in the  production, or vending of ardent spirits,
shall manifest the entire  magnanimity and .self-
denial, which is needful  to save the land, though
the example would be glorious to  them, is more
than we have a right to. expect or demand.   Lei
the consumer do his duty, and  the capitalist,
finding his employment unproductive, will quick-
ly discover other channels  of useful enterprise.
All language of impatient censure, against those
who embarked in the  traffick of ardent spirits
while  it \ was deemed a  lawful calling, should
therefore be forborne.   It would  only serve to
irritate and arouse  prejudice, and  prevent  in-
vestigation, and concentrate a deaf and deadly
opposition against the work of reformation.   jNo
ex post facto laws.—Let  us all rather confess  the
sins which are past, and leave the things which
are behind, and press forward in one harmonious
attempt to  reform  the land, and perpetuate  our
invaluable blessings.
  This however cannot be done effectually so
long as the traffick in  ardent spirits is regarded
as lawful, and is patronised by men of reputation
             6* 
66
THE  REMEDY
and moral worth in every part of the land.  Like
slavery, it must be regarded as sinful, impolitic,
and dishonorable.  That no measures will avail
short of rendering ardent spirits a contraband of
trade, is nearly self-evident.
  Could intemperance be  stopped, did all the
rivers in the land flow with inebriating and fas-
cinating liquids ? But the abundance and cheap-
ness of ardent spirits is  such, that, surrounded
as it is by the seductions  of company, and every
artifice  of entertainment,  it is  more tempting
and fatal  than  if it flowed freely as water.
Then, like the  inferior creation, men  might be
expected  to drink when afhirst, and to drink.
alone.   But intemperance  now is a social sin,
and on that account exerts a power terrific and
destructive as the plague.
  That the traffick in  ardent spirits is  wrong,
and should be abandoned as a  great national
evil, is  evident from the  following considera-
tions.
  1. It employs a multitude of men, and a vast
amount of capital, to no useful purpose.   The
medicinal use  of ardent spirits is allowed; for
this  however  the apothecary  can furnish an
adequate  supply: but  considered as  an article
of commerce,  for ordinary use, it adds nothing
to  animal or   social enjoyment, to  muscular
power,  to intellectual  vigor, or moral  feeling.
It does, indeed, produce  paroxysms of muscular
effort, of  intellectual vigor, and  of exhilarated
feeling, but it is done  only by an improvident 
              OF INTEMPERANCE.            67

 draught upon nature by anticipation, to be pu-
 nished  by a languor and debility proportioned to
 the excess.   No man leaves behind him a more
 valuable product of  labor, as the result  of artifi-
 cial stimulus, than the even  industry of unstimu-
 lated nature would have produced; or blesses
 the world with better specimens of intellectual
 power ;  or instructs it by a better example ; or
 drinks  enjoyment  from a fuller, sweeter  cup,
 than  that which nature provides.   But if the
 premised  are  just,  who can resist the conclu-
 sion ?  To what purpose is all this waste ?  Is it
 not the duty of every man to serve his genera-
 tion in some useful employment ? Is not idleness
 a  sin ?  But in  what respect does that occupa-
 tion differ from  idleness which adds nothing to
 national prosperity, or  to  individual or  social
 enjoyment ?  Agriculture, commerce,  and  the
 arts are indispensable to the  perfection of human
 character, and the  formation of  the  happiest
 state of society; and if some evils are inseparable
 from  their prosecution, there is a vast  overba-
 lancing amount of good.  But where is the good
 produced by  the traffick in  ardent spirits, to
 balance the  enormous evils inseparable from the
 trade?  What  drop of good does it pour into the
 ocean of misery which it creates ?  And is all
 this expense of  capital, and  time, and effort, to
 be sustained for nothing ?  Look at the mighty
 system of useless operations—the fleet of vessels
 running to and fro—the sooty buildings through-
out the land,  darkening the lieavens with their 
G3
THE  REMEDY
steam and smoke—the innumerable company of
boats,  and wagons,  and horses,  and  men—a
more numerous  cavalry than  ever  shook  the
blood-stained plains of Europe— a larger convoy
than ever bore on the waves the baggage  of an
army—and more men than weie  ever  devoted
at once  to the work of desolation  and blood.
All these begin, continue, and end their  days
in the  production and distribution of a liquid,
the  entire consumption  of  which  is  useless.
Should all the  capital thus  employed, and all
the gains acquired, be melted into one mass, and
thrown into the sea, nothing would be subtracted
from national wealth or enjoyment.  1 lad all
the men and animals slept the whole time, no
vacancy of good had  been occasioned.
   Is this then  the manner  in which  rational
beings  should be willing to spend their days—in
which  immortal  beings  should fill up the short
period  of their  probation, and make up the ac-
count to be-rendered to God  of the deeds done
in the  body—in which  benevolent  beings, de-
siring to emulate the goodness  of the great God,
should  be,satisfied to employ their powers?
   It is admitted that the trade  employs and sus-
tains many families, and that in many instances
the profits are appro;:riated to  useful purposes.
But this is no more than might have, been said
of the slave trade.  The same families might be
as well  sustained in some  other  way,- and the
same profits might be earned and applied to use-
ful purposes in some other calling. The earth is 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
69
 not so narrow, nor population so dense, nor the
 useful avocations so overstocked,  as that large
 portions of time, and capital, and labor, may be
 devoted to the purpose of sustaining life merely,
 without reference to public utility.
   The merchant who deals  in  ardent  spirits is
 himself a loser;  for a temperate population con-
 sume more, and pay better, and live longer, than
 the intemperate ;  and among such  a population
 merchants would do more business, and secure
 better profits than  when they depend for any
 part of their gains upon the sale of ardent spirits.
 What merchant, looking out for a place where
 to establish himself in  trade, would neglect the
 invitation  of temperate, thrifty farmers  and me-
 chanics, and settle down in  a village of riot and
 drunkenness—made up of tipplers, widows, and
 beggared children—of  old houses, broken win-
 dows, and dilapidated fences ?
   I push  not  this argument reproachfully, but
 for the purpose of awakening  conscientious in-
 vestigation.  We are a free people.  No imperial
 ukase, or forest of bayonets, can make us moral
 and industrious, or turn us back if we go astray.
 Our  own  intelligence  and moral  energy must
 reclaim us, or we shall perish in our  sins.
  2. The  amount of suffering and mortality in-
 separable from the commerce in ardent  spirits,
renders it an unlawful article of trade.
  The wickedness  is proverbial  of  those who
in  ancient days  caused  their children  to  pass
through the fire unto Moloch.   But how many 
70              THH  REMEDY
thousands of children are there in our land who
endure  daily  privations  and sufferings,  which
render life a burden, and would have made the
momentary pang  of  infant sacrifice a blessing ?
Theirs is a lingering, living death.  There never
was a Moloch to'whom were immolated  yearly
as many children as are immolated, or kept in a
state of constant suffering in this land of nominal
Christianity.   We have no drums and gongs to
drown their cries, neither do we make convo-
cations, and bring them all out for one  mighty
burning.  The fires  which consume them are
slow fires, and they blaze balefully in every part
of our  land;  throughout  which the cries  of
injured  children  and orphans go up  to heaven.
Could all these woes, the product  of intempe-
rance, be brought out into one  place, and the
monster who inflicts the sufferings be seen per-
sonified, the nation would be furious with in-
dignation.  Humanity, conscience, religion, all
would conspire to stop a work of such malignity.
  We  are  appalled,  and  shocked,  at the ac-
counts from the east, of widows burnt upon the
funeral piles of their  departed husbands.  But
what if those devotees of superstition, the Brah-
mins,  had discovered a mode of prolonging the
lives of the victims  for years amid the flames,
and by  these  protracted burnings  were  accus
tomed to torture life  away ? We might almosl
rouse up a crusade to cross the deep, to stop by
force such  inhumanity.   But, alas !  we should
leave behind us, on our own shores, more wives 
              OF INTEMPERANCE.            71

 in the fire, than we should find of widows thus
 sacrificed in all the east; a fire too, which, be-
i sides its action upon the body, tortures the soul
 by lost affeetions, and  ruined  hopes, and pros-
 pective wretchedness.
   It is high time  to enter upon the business of
 collecting facts on this  subject.  The statistics
 of intemperance should be  published; for  no
 man has comprehended  as yet the height, and
 depth, and length, and  breadth of this  mighty
 evil.
  -We execrate the cruelties of the slave trade—
 the husband torn  from  the bosom of his wife—
 the son from his  father—brothers  and sisters
 separated forever—whole families in a  moment
 ruined !  But are there no similar enormities to
 be witnessed  in the United States?  IS one  in-
 deed perpetrated  by the bayonet—but many,
i" very many, perpetrated by intemperance.
   Every year thousands of families are robbed
 of fathers, brothers, husbands, friends.  Every
 year  widows  and orphans  are multiplied, and
 grey hairs are brought with sorrow to the grave
 —no disease makes such inroads upon families,
 blasts  so  many hopes, destroys so  many lives,
 and causes  so many mourners to go about the
 streets, because man goeth to his long home.
   We have heard of the horrors of the middle
 passage—the transportation of slaves—tin1 chains
 —the  darkness—the stench—the  mortality and
 living madness of wo—-.md it is dreadful.  But
 bring together the victims of intemperance, and 
72
TnH  REMEDY
crowd them into one vast lazar-house,  and
sights of wo quite as  appalling would meet your
eyes.
  Yes, in this nation there is a middle passage
of slavery, and darkness,  and chains, and  dis-
ease, and death.   But it is a middle passage, not
from Africa to America, but  from  time to eter-
nity, and not of slaves whom  death will release
from suffering, but of those whose  sufferings at
death do but just begin.  Could all the sighs of
these captives be wafted on one breeze, it would
be loud as  thunder.   Could  all their'tears be
assembled, they would be like the  sea.
  The health of a nation is a  matter  of  vast
importance, and none may directly and avowedly
sport with it.  The importation and dissemina-
tion of  fevers for filthy lucre's sake, would not
be endured, and he who  should  import  and
plant  the  seed  of trees, which, like the fabled
Upas, poisoned the atmosphere, and paved the
earth around with bones, would meet with  uni-
versal execration.  The construction of morasses
and stagnant lakes, sending out poisonous exha-
lations,  and depopulating  the country around,
would soon be stopped by the interposition of
law.   And should a foreign army land upon our
shores, to  levy such  a tax upon us as intempe-
rance levies, and to threaten  our liberties as in-
temperance  threatens them, and to inflict such
enormous  sufferings as intemperance inflicts, no
mortal power  could  resist  the swelling tide of
indignation that would  overwhelm  it. 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
73
   It is only in the form of ardent spirits in the
way of a lawful trade extended over the entire
land, that fevers may be imported and dissemi-
nated—that trees  of death may be planted—
that extensive morasses may be opened, and a
moral miasma  spread over the  nation—and that
an armed host may laud, to levy upon us enor-
mous taxations, to undermine our liberties, bind
jttir  hands, aad put our feet in fetters.   This
dreadful work is going on, and yet the nation
sleeps.   Say not that all these evils  result from
the abuse of ardent spirits; for as human nature
is constituted, the abuse is as  certain as any of
the laws of nature.  The commerce therefore,
in ardent spirits, which produces no good, and
produces a certain and an immense amount of
evil, must be regarded as an unlawful commerce,
and  ought, upon every principle of humanity,
and  patriotism, and conscience,  and  religion,  to
be abandoned  and proscribed. 
 
SERMON Y.
THE  REMEDY OP  INTEMPERANCE.
              Habakkuk, ii. 9—11,15,16.


  Wo to him that coveteth «n evil covetousness to his house, that
be may set his nest on high,'that he may be delivered from tha
power of evil! Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting
off many people, and hast sinned against thy soul.  For the stone
shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall an-
swer it.
  Wo unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest thy bot-
tle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou rnayest look on
their nakedness!  Thou art rilled with shame for glory: drink thou
also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered: the cup of the Lord's right
hand .-11;111 be turned unto thee, and shameful spewing shall  be ou
thy glory.


  We have endeavored to show that commerce

in ardent  spirits  is unlawful,

   1.  Inasmuch as it is useless ; and

  2. As  it is eminently pernicious.

  We now  proceed to adduce further evidence

of its unlawfulness—;and observe,

  3. That it seems to be a manifest violation of

the command, " Thou  shalt  love thy neighbor

as thyself;"  and of  various  other evangelical

precepts.                                '

  No  man can act in the spirit of impartial love 
76
THE  RKMLD*
to his neighbor, who for his own personal emolu-
ment, inflicts on him great and irreparable evil;
for  love worketh no ill to his neighbor.   Love
will not burn a neighbor's house, or poison his
food, or blast his reputation, or destroy his soul.
But the commerce in ardent spirits do«s all this
inevitably  and  often.   Property,  reputation,
health, life and salvation fall before it.
  The direct infliction of what is done indi-
rectly,  would  subject a man to the ignominy of
a public execution.   Is it not forbidden then by
the command which requires us to  love our
neighbor as ourselves ?  " Whatsoever ye would
that men  should do to you, do  ye even so to
them." Be willing to  do for others  whatever
you may demand  of them,  and  inflict nothing
upon them which  you would not be  willing to
receive.   But who is willing  to be made a
drunkard,  and to have his property squandered,
and his family ruined, for his neighbor's emolu-
ment ?  Good were it  for  the  members of a
family  if they had  never been born, rather than
to have all  the  evils visited upon them, which
are occasioned by the sale of ardent spirits.
  It is scarcely  a palliation of this evil that no
man is destroyed  maliciously—or with any di-
rect intent to kill—for the certainty of evil is as
great as if waters  were poisoned which some
persons would surely  drink, or as   if a man
should fire in  the dark  upon masses  of human
beings, where it  must be certain that  death
would  be  the  consequence to aome. 
or INTEMPERANCK.
77
  Those who engage in this traffick, are expos-
ed to temptations to intemperance which no man
will needlessly encounter who has that regard to
the preservation of his own life and virtue, which
the law  of God requires.  All who are employed
in vending ardent  spirits in small quantities, do
not  of course  become intemperate.   But the
company in whose presence they pass so much
of their time, and the constant habit of mixing
and tasting, has t>een the means of casting down
many strong men wounded.  It is also  a part of
the threatened retribution, that those who amass
property by promoting intemperance in others,
shall themselves be "punished by falling under
the dominion  of the same sin.   "Wo.unto him
that  giveth his neighbor drink,  that puttest thy
bottle to him, and makest him drunken also—
Thou art filled with shame for glory : drink thou
also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered : the cup
of the Lord's  right hand shall  be  turned unto
thee,  and shameful spewing shall be on  thy
glory."
  The injustice which is so inseparable from the
ty.ffick in ardent spirits, evinces its unlawfulness.
  Those who vend ardent spirits will continue
to supply their customers, in many  instances,
after they have ceased to be competent to take
care  of  their  property.  They are witnesses to
their dealing with a slack hand, their improvi-
dence, and the accumulation of their debts; and,
to save themselves, must  secure their own claims
by obtaining mortgages on the property of these
              7# 
78
TUB  REMEDY
wretched victims, which they finally foreclose,
and thus wind up the scene.  And are they not
in this way accessary to the melting away of
estates, and the ruin of families around them ?
And can all this be done without violating the
laws of humanity and equity ? Human laws may
not be able  to prevent the wrong, but the cries
of widow's and orphans will be heard in heaven,
and a retribution which human tribunals cannot
award, will be reserved for the day of judgment.
Is it not an " evil covetousness" that rolls up an
estate by such methods ? It is like " building a
town with blood, and establishing a city by ini-
quity."   And can those who do thus escape the
wo denounced against  him, " that giveth his
neighbor drink, that putteth his bottle to him,
and maketh him drunken ?"
   Can it be denied that the commerce in ardent
spirits makes a fearful havock of property, mor-
als, and life ? Does it not shed blood as really as
the sword,'and more blood than is shed by war?
In this point none  are better witnesses than
physicians,  and,  according to  their testimony,
intemperance  is one of the greatest destroyer*
of virtue, health and life.
   It is admitted that commerce generally lays a
heavy tax upon  life  and morals.   But it is an
evil inseparable from a course of things which is
actually indispensable to civilization.  The  en-
tire melioration of the human condition seems to
depend upon it, so that were commerce to cease,
agriculture would fall back to the  simple product 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
79
of a supply without surplus, destroying the arts,
and cutting the. sinews  of industry.  But the
commerce in ardent spirits stands on a different
ground :  its evils are compensated by no greater
good ; it promotes no good purpose which would
not prosper better without it; it does not afford
property  to those w ho engage in it, which they
might not accumulate in some  other way ;  nor
does it give the least adventitious aid to agricul-
ture, or the arts.   Lvery thing  needful to a per-
fect state of society can  exist without it;  and
with it, such  a state of society can never be
attained.    It retards the accomplishment of that
prophecy of scripture which  foretells the lime,
when the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the
earth, and violence and fraud shall cease.
  The consideration, that those, to whose injury
we are accessary by the sale of ardent spirits, are
destroyed also by the perversion  of their own
free  agency—and that the  evil is  silent,  and
slow-paced in its march—doubtless subtracts in
no small degree,  from the  keen sense of ac-
countability aud crime, which would attend the
administration of arsenic, or the taking of life by
the pistol, or the dagger—as does also the con-
sideration,  that although we may withhold the
cup, yet, from some other source, the deleterious
potion will be obtained.
  But all this alters not the case.   He who de-
liberately assists his neighbor to destroy his life,
is not guiltless because his neighbor is a free
agent and  is also guilty.—and he i» accessary to 
80
THE  REMEDY
the crime, though  twenty other persons might
have been  ready to commit the same sin, if he
had not done it.  Who would sell arsenic to his
neighbor to destroy  himself, because he could
obtain it elsewhere ?   Who would sell a dagger
for the known purpose of assassination, because,
if it were  refused, it could be  purchased in
another place ?  We  are* accountable for our
own wrong-doing, and liable to punishment at
the hand of God, as really as if it had been cer-
tain that no  one would have done the deed, if
we did not.
  The ungodliness in time, and the everlasting
ruin in eternity, inseparable from the commerce
in  ardent spirits,  proscribe  it  as  an unlawful
article of traffick.
  Who can estimate the hatred of God, of his
word and worship, .and of his  people, which it
occasions; or number the oaths and blasphemies
it causes to be uttered—or the violations of the
sabbath—the impurities and indecencies—vio-
lence  and* wrong-doing—wdiich it originates ?
How many  thousand does it detain every sab-
bath-day from the house of God—Cutting  them
off from the means of grace, and hardening them
against their efficacy! How broad is the road
which  intemperance alone opens  to  hell, and
how thronged with travellers !
  Why is all this increase  of ungodliness and
crime ?  Is not the desperate wickedness of the
heart sufficient without artificial excitement? If
the commerce were inseparable from all the great 
OP INTEMPERANCE.           81
and good ends of our social being, we might en-
dure the evil, for the sake of the good, and they
only be accountable who abuse themselves. But
here is an article of  commerce spread over the
land, whose effect is  evil only,  and that con-
tinually,  and which  increases  a hundred-fold
the energies of human depravity, and the hope-
less victims of future punishment.
   Drunkenness  is a  sin which  excludes from
heaven.  The commerce in ardent spirits, there-
fore, productive only of evil in time, tits for
destruction, and turns  into hell multitudes which
uo man can number.
   I am aware that  in the din of business, and
the eager thirst for gain, the consequences of
our conduct  upon  our views,  and  the  future
destiny of our fellow men,  are not apt to be
realized, or to modify our course.
   But has not  God  connected  with all  lawful
avocations the welfare of the life that now is, and
of that which is to come ? And can we lawfully
 amass property by a course of trade which fills
 the land with beggars, and widows, and orphans,
 and crimes;  which peoples the  grave-yard with
 premature mortality,  and the world of wo with
 the victims of despair ? Could  all the forms  of
 evil produced in the land by intemperance, come
 upon us in one  horrid array—it  would appal the
 nation, and put an  end to the traffick in ardent
 spirits.  If in every dwelling built by blood, the
 stone from the wall  should utter  all the cnes
 which the bloody traffick extorts—<md the beam 
82
THE  REMEDY
 out of the timber should echo them back—who
 would build such  a  house ?—and who would
 dwell in it ?  What if in every part of the dwel
 ling, from the cellar upward, through all the  halls
 and chambers—babblings, and contentions, and
 voices, and groans, and shrieks, and wailings,
 were heard,  day and  night!  What if the  cold
 blood oozed out, and stood  in  drops upon the
 walls ; and, by preternatural  art, all the ghastly
 skulls and bones of the victims destroyed by in-
 temperance, should stand upon the walls, in hor-
 rid sculpture within and without  the building !—
 who would rear such a building? What  if at
 eventide, and at midnight, the airy forms of men
 destroyed  by intemperance, were dimly  seen
"haunting the distilleries.and stores, where  they
 received their bane—following the track of the
 ship engaged in the  commerce—walking upon
 the waves—flitting athwart  the  deck—sitting
 upon the rigging—and sending up,  from the  hold
 within, and from the waves without, groans, and
 loud laments, and wailings !  Who would attend
 such  stores ? Who would labor in such distil-
 leries ? Who would navigate  such  ships ?
   Oh! were the sky over our heads one great
 whispering gallery, bringing down about us all
 the lamentation and  wo  which intemperance
 creates, and the firm earth one sonorous medium
 of  sound, bringing  up around us from beneath,
 the wailings of the damned, whom the commerce
 in  ardent spirits had  sent thither;—these  tre-
 mendous realities, assailing our sense, would in- 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
83
vigorate our conscience, and give decision to our
purpose of reformation.   But these evils are as
real, as if the stone did cry out of the wall, and
the beam answered  it—as real, as if, day and
night, wailings  were heard in every part of the
dwelling—and  blood and skeletons were seen
upon every wall—as  real, as if the ghostly forms
of departed victims flitted about the ship as she
passed o'er the  billows, and showed themselves
nightly about stores  and distilleries, and  with
unearthly voices screamed.in our ears their loud
lament.   They  are as real, as if the sky over our
heads collected  and  brought down  about us all
the notes of sorrow  in  the land—and the firm
earth should open a passage for  the waUings of
despair to come up from beneath.
   But it will be  said,—What can be done ?—and
ten thousand voices  will  reply, * Nothing—oh
nothing—men always have drunk to excess, and
they always will; there is so much capital  em-
barked in the business of importation and distil-
lation—and so  much supposed  gain in vending
ardent spirits—and such an  insatiable demand
for them—and  such  ability to pay for them by
high-minded, wilful, independent ffeemen—that
nothing can be  done.'
   Then  farewell,  a  long farewell, to  all our
greatness !   The present abuse of ardent spirits
has grown out of what was the prudent  use of
it, less than one hundred years ago; then  there
was very little intemperance in  the land—most
men, who drank at all, drank temperately.   But 
84
THE  REMBDY
if the prudent use of ardent spirits one hundred
years ago,  has produced  such results  as now
exist, what  will  the present  intemperate  use
accomplish in a century to come ?  Let no man
turn oil' his eye  from this subject, or refuse to
reason, and infer—'here  is a moral  certainty
of a wide  extended ruin, without reformation.
The seasons are not more sure to roll, the sun
to shine,  or the rivers to flow—than the present
enarmous consumption of ardent spirits is sure
to produce the most deadly consequences  to the
nation.   They will be consumed in a compound
ratio—and there is  a physical certainty of the
dreadful  consequences.    Have you  taken the
dimensions of the evil, its  manifold and magni-
fying miseries, its  sure-paced and tremendous
ruin ?  And shall it come unresisted by prayer,
and without a finger lifted to stay the desola-
tion ?
   What if all men had cried out, as some did, at
the commencement of the  revolutionary struggle
—' Alas! we must submit—we must be taxed—
nothing can be done—Oh the fleets and armies
of England—we cannot  stand before them !!'
Had such  counsels  prevailed, we  should have
abandoned a righteous caiise, and forfeited  that
aid of Heaven, for  which men are always  au-
thorized to trust in God, who are disposed to do
his will.
   Nothing can be done !   Why can nothing be
done ? Because the intemperate will  not  stop
drinking, shall  the  temperate keep on and be- 
or INTEMPERANCE.
85
come  drunkards ?   Because  the  intemperate
cannot be reasoned with, shall  the temperate
become madmen ?  And because force will  not
avail with men of independence and property,
does it follow that reason, and conscience, and
the fear of the Lord, will have no influence ?
   And because the public mind is now unen-
lightened, and unawakened, and unconcentrated,
does it follow that it cannot be enlightened, and
aroused, and concentrated in  one simultaneous
and successful effort?  Reformations as much
resisted by popular feeling, and impeded by ig-
norance, interest, and depraved obstinacy, have
been accomplished,  through  the medium of .a
rectified public opinion,—and no nation ever
possessed the opportunities and the means  that
we possess, of correctly forming the public opin-
 ion—nor was a nation ever, called upon to at-
 tempt it by motives of such imperious necessity.
 Our all is at stake—we shall  perish if we do not
 effect it.   There  is  nothing  that ought to be
 done, which a free people cannot do.
   The science of self-government is the science
 of perfect government, which we have yet  to
 learn and teach, or this nation,  and  the world,
 must be governed by force.   But we have all
 the means, and none of the impediments, which
 hinder the  experiment amid the dynasties and
 feudal  despotisms of Europe.   And what has
 been  done  justifies   the  expectation  that all
 which yet remains to be done  will be accom-
 plished.   The abolition of the slave trade,  an 
86              THE REMEDY
event now almost accomplished, was once re-
garded as a chimera of benevolent  dreaming.
But the band  of  Christian heroes, who conse-
crated their lives to the work, may some of them
survive to behold  it achieved.  This greatest of
evils upon earth, this stigma of human nature,
wide-spread,  deep-rooted,  and intrenched  by
interest and state  policy, is passing away before
the unbending requisitions of enlightened public
opinion.
  No great melioration of the human condition
was ever achieved without the  concurrent effort
of numbers, and no extended, well-directed ap-
plication of moral influence, was ever made in
vain.  Let the  temperate part of  the nation
awake, and reform, and concentrate their influ-
ence in a course of systematic action, and success
is  not merely probable,  but absolutely certain.
And   cannot  this be  accomplished ?—cannot
the public attention be aroused, and set in array
against the traffick in ardent spirits, and against
their use ?  With just as much certainty can the
public sentiment be formed and put in motion,
as the waves can be moved by the breath of
heaven—or the massy  rock, balanced  on the
precipice, can be  pushed from its centre of mo-
tion ;—and when the public sentiment once be-
gins to move, its march will be as resistless as
the same rock thundering down the precipice.
Let no man then look  upon  our condition as
hopeless, or feel,  or think, or say, that nothing
can be done.   The language of Heaven to our 
             OF INTEMPERANCE.            87

happy nation is, " be it unto thee  even as thou       j
wilt," and there is no despondency more  fatal,
or more wicked, than  that which  refuses to
hope, and to act,  from the apprehension  that
nothing can  be done. 
 
SERMON VI.
THE  REMEDY OF INTEMPERANCE.
              Habakkuk, ii. 9—11,15,16.

  Wo to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that
fie may set  his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the
power of evil! Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting
oil'man} people, and hast sinned against thy soul.  For the stone
shall cry out <>l the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall an-
swer it.
.  Wo unto him that giveth his neighbor drink,that puttost thy bot-
tle to him, and inakest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on
their nakedness!  Thou art tilled with shame for glory: drink thou
also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered:  the cup ol the Lord's right
hand shall be turned unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on
thy glory.


   Let us now take an  inventory  of the things

which can be done to resist the progress of in-

temperance.   I shall set down nothing which is

chimerical,  nothing which will  not commend

itself to every man's judgment, as entirely prac-

ticable.

   I.  It is entirely practicable to extend univer-

sal information on the subject of intemperance.

Its nature, causes,  evils, and remedy—may be

universally made known.   Every pulpit and eve-

r\ newspaper in the land may be put in requisi-

               8* 
90
THE  REMEDY
   tion to give line upon line, on this subject, until
   it is done.   The  National Tract Society  may,
   with great  propriety, volunteer  in this glorious
   work, and send.out its warning voice by winged
   messengers all over  the land.   And would all
   this accomplish nothing ?   It would  prevent the
   formation of intemperate habits  in  millions of
   instances,  and  it  would  reclaim  thousands in
   the early stages of this  sin.
     2. It is practicable to form an  association for
   the special purpose of superintending this  great
   subject, and  whose  untiring energies  shall be
   exerted in sending out  agents to pass through
   the land, and collect information, to confer with
   influential individuals,  and bodies  of men, to
   deliver addresses  at popular meetings,  and form
   societies  auxiliary  to  the  parent  institution.
   This not only may be done, but I am persuaded
   will be done befofe another year shall have pass-
   ed a'.vay.*  Too long have we slept.   From every
   part of the land  we  hear of the doings of the
   destroyer, and yet the one half is not told.   But
   when the facts are collected and published, will
   not the nation be moved ?   It will be moved.
   All the laws of the human mind must cease, if
'   such disclosures  as  may  be made, do not pro-
   duce a great effect.
     3. Something has been done, and more  may
   be done, by agricultural, commercial, and  man-
     * These Discourses  wtre composed and delivered at  Litch-
   field, iii the .year 1826: since that time the American Society
   for the Promotion of Temperance has been formed and is now 
07 INTEMPERANCE.
01
tlfaeturing establishments, in the exclusion of
ardent spirits as  an auxiliary to labor.   Every
experiment which has been  made by capitalists
to exclude ardent spirits and intemperance, has
succeeded, and greatly to the profit and satisfac-
tion, both of the laborer and his employer.  And
what is. more natural  and easy than the' exten-
sion of such  examples by  capitalists,  and  by
voluntary associations,  in   cities, towns,  and
parishes, of mechanics and farmers, whose'reso-
lutions and success  may  from  time to time be
published, to  raise  the  flagging tone of hope,
and assure the land of her  own self-preserving
powers ?   Most  assuredly it is not too late to
achie\ e a reformation ; our hands are not bound,
our feet are not put in fetters—and the nation is
not so fully set upon destruction, as that warn-
ing and exertion will be in vain.  It  is  not too
much to  be hoped,  that the entire business of
the nation, by land  and by sea, shall  yet move
on w ithout the aid of ardent spirits, and by the
impulse  alone of   temperate  freemen.   This
would cut off  one of the most fruitful occasions
of intemperance, and give to our morals  and  to
our liberties an earthly immortality.
  The young men of our land may set  glorioes
examples of  voluntary  a!»stinence from ardent
spirits, and, by  associations for that purpose,
may array a phalanx  of  opposition against the
encroachments of the destroyer; while men of
high official standing  and influence, may cheer
ns by sending down the good  example  of their 
92
THE  REMEDY
firmness and independence, in the abolition of
long-established, but corrupting habits.
  All the professions  to.o may volunteer in this
holy cause, and each  lift up its  warning voice,
and each concentrate the power of its own bless-
ed example.   Already  from  all  clerical meet-
ings the use of ardent spirits is  excluded; and
the medical profession have also commenced a
reform in this respect  which, w e doubt not, will
prevail.  Nor is it to be expected that the bar,
or the  agricultural interest  as  represented  in
agricultural societies,  will be  deficient in mag-
nanimity  and patriotic zeal,  in purifying the
morals, and  perpetuating  the liberties  of the
nation.  A host may be enlisted against  intem-
perance which no man can number, and a moral
power be arrayed against it, which nothing can
resist.
  All denominations of  Christians in the nation
may with great ease be  united in the effort  to
exclude the use  and  the commerce  in  ardent
spirits.  They alike, feel and  deplore the evil,
and, united, have it in their power to put a stop
to it.   This union may be accomplished through
the medium of a natioual society.   There is no
object for which a national society is more im-
periously  demanded,  or for  which it can  be
reared under happier auspices.  God  grant that
three  years may not pass away, before the entire
land shall  be marshalled, and the evils of intem-
perance be seen like a dark cloud  passing off,
and leaving behind a cloudless day. 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
93
  The churches  of our  Lord Jesus Christ, of
every name, can do much to aid in this reforma-
tion.  They are  organized to  shine as lights in
the world, and to avoid the very appearance of
evil.  A  vigilant disuipiine is doubtless  demand-
ed in the cases of members who are of a lax and
doubtful morality in respect to intemperance.  It
is not enough to cut off those  who are  past re-
formation, and to keep those who, by close watch-
ing, can  be preserved  in  the  use of their feet
and tongue.  Men who are  mighty to consume
strong drink, are unfit members of that kingdom
which consisteth not in " meat and drink," but
in  u righteousness and peace."   The time, we
trust, is  not distant,  when the use of ardent
spirits will be  proscribed  by a vote  of all the
churches in our laud, and when the commerce
in that article shall, equally with the slave trade,
be regarded as inconsistent with a credible pro-
fusion of Christianity.  All this, I have no doubt,
ea:i be accomplished with  far less trouble than is
now constantly occasioned by  the maintenance,
or the neglect of discipline, in respect to  cases
of intemperance.
  The Friends, in excluding ardent spirits from
the  list of lawful articles of  commerce,  have
done  themselves  immortal  honor, and in the
temperance of their families, and their thrift in
business, have set an  example which is worthy
the admiration and imitation of all the churches
in our land.
  When  the preceding measures have been car- 
94
THE  REMEDY
ried, something may be  done by legislation, to
discourage the distillation and  importation  of
ardent spirits, and to discountenance improper
modes of vending them.   Then, the suffrage of
the community may be expected to put  in re-
quisition men of talents and integrity, who, sus-
tained by their constituents, will not hesitate to
frame  the requisite  laws, and to give to thrm
their  salutary power.  Even now there may be
an amount of suffrage, could it be concentrated
and  expressed, to  sustain laws which migbt go
to limit the evil;  but it  is scattered, it is a dis-
persed, unorganized  influence, and any effort to
suppress intemperance by legislation, now, be-
fore  the public  is prepared for an efficient co-
operation, could terminate only in defeat.  Re-
publics must be prepared by moral sentiment for
efficient legislation.
  Much may. be  accomplished to discounte-
nance the commerce in  ardent spirits, by a
silent, judicious distribution  of patronage  in
trade.
  Let that portion  of the community, who would
exile from society  the traffick  in ardent spirits,
bestow their custom upon those who will agree
to abandon it; and a regard to interest will soon
produce a competition in  well doing.  The tem-
perate population  of a city or town are the best
customers, and have it in their pow er to render
the commerce in ardent spirits disadvantageous
to those who engage in it.   This would throw
an irresistible argument upon the side of  refor- 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
95
mation.  There are many now who would gladly
be  released from  the  necessity of dealing  in
spirituous  liquors,  but  they  think that their
customers  would not bear it.  Let their sober
customers, then, take off their fears on this hand,
and  array them on  the other, and  a glorious
reformation is achieved.  When the temperate
part of  the  community shall not only declaim
against  mercantile  establishments which thrive
by  the  dissemination of moral contagion, but
shall begin to act  with a silent but determined
discrimination, the  work is done;—and can any
conscientious man fail to make the  experiment?
"To him  who knoweth to do good and doeth
it not, to  him  it  is  sin."  If we  countenance
establishments in  extending and perpetuating a
national calamity, are we not  partakers in other
men's sins?   How  many  thousands may  be
saved from entering into  temptation, and how
many thousands rescued who have entered, if
temperate  families  will give their custom  to
those who have abandoned the traffick in ardent
spirits !  And to how  much crime, and  suffering,
and blood, shall we be accessary, if we fail to  do
our duty in this respect! Let every man, then,
bestow  his custom in the fear of the Lord, and
as he expects to  give an account with joy or
grief, of the improvement or  neglect of that
powerful means of  effecting moral good.
  When all these  preliminary steps have been
taken, petitions may be addressed to the Legis-
latures of the States and to Congress, by  all 
96
THE  REMEDY
denominations, each  under their own proper
name, praying for legislative interference to pro-
tect the health and morals of the nation.   This
will call to the subject the attention of the ablest
men in the nation, and  enable  them to touch
some  of the springs of general action with com-
pendious energy.  They can reach the causes
of disastrous action, when the public  sentiment
will bear them out in it, and can  introduce prin-
ciples which, like the great laws of nature, will,
with silent simplicity, reform and  purify the land.
  And now, could my voice be extended through
the land, to all orders and  descriptions of men,
I would " cry aloud  and spare  not." To the
watchmen upon Zion's walls—appointed to an-
nounce the approach of danger, and to say unto
the wicked  man,  " thou shalt  surely die"—I
would say—can we hold our peace, or withhold
the influence of our example in such an emer-
gency as this, and be guiltless  of blood ? Are
we not  called upon  to  set  examples of  entire
abstinence ?  How otherwise shall  we be able
to preach against intemperance, and reprove,
rebuke, and exhort? Talk not of "habit," and
of " prudent use," and a little for the " stomach's
sake."  This is the way in which men become
drunkards.   Our security and our influence de-
mand  immediate and  entire  abstinence.    If
nature would  receive a  shock by such a refor-
mation, it proves that it has already been too
long delayed,  and can  safely be deferred  no
longer. 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
97
   To the churches of our Lord Jesus Christ,—
 whom he hath purchased with his blood, that he
 might  redeem them IV: >m all iniquity, and purify
 them to himself, a peculiar people—I would say
 —Beloved in the Lord, the world hath need of
 your purified example;—for  who  will make a
 stand against the encroachments of intemperance,
 if professors of religion will not? Will  you not,
 then, abstain from the use of it entirely, and exile
 it from your families ?  Will you not watch over
 one another with keener vigilance—and lift an
 earlier note of admonition—and draw tighter the
 bands  of brotherly discipline—and with a more
 determined fidelity, cut off those whom admo-
 nition  cannot reclaim ?  Separate, brethren, be-
 tween  the precious and the vile, the living and
 the dead, and burn incense  between them, that
 the plague may be stayed.
   To the physicians of the land I would cry for
 help, in this attempt to stay the march of ruin.
 Beloved  men—possessing  our confidence  by
 your skill, and our hearts by your assiduities in
 seasons of alarm and distress—combine, I  be-
 seech  you, and exert,  systematically and  vigo-
 rously, the mighty power  you possess on this
 subject, over the national  understanding and
 will.   Beware of planting the  seeds of intempe-
 rance in the course of your professional labors,
 but become our guardian angels to conduct us
 in the  niths of health and of virtue.  Fear  not
 the consequence of fidelity in admonishing your
patients,  when diseased by intemperance, of the
             9 
98
THE  REMEDY
 cause, and  the remedy  of their malady:  and
 whenever one  of you shall be rejected for your
 faithfulness, and another be called in to prophesy
 smooth things, let all the intemperate, and ail
 the land know, that  in the whole nation there
 are no false prophets among physicians, w ho, for
 filthy lucre, will cry peace to their intemperate
 patients, when  there is no peace to them, but in
 reformation.  Will  you not speak out  on  this
 subject in all your medical societies, and  provide
 tracts  sanctioned by your  high professional au-
 thority, to be spread over  the land ?  4
 - Ye  magistrates, to  whom the  law has confi-
 ded the  discretionary power of  giving license
 for the vending of  ardent spirits, and the sword
 for the punishment of the violations of law—
 though you alone  could not resist the burning
 tide, yet, when the nation is moved with fear,
 and  is putting in requisition her energies to
 strengthen  your hands—will you not stand up
 to your duty, and  do it fearlessly and 'firmly ?
 No class of men in  the community  possess as
 much  direct  power as you possess,  and, when
sustained by public sentiment, your  official  in-
fluence and authority may be made irresistible.
Remember, then, your designation by Heaven to
office   for this  self-same thing;—and,  as  you
would maintain a  conscience void of offence,
and give up to God a  joyful account.—be faith-
ful.  Through  you, let the  violated  law speak
out—and righteousness  and peace become the
atability of our times. 
OP INTEMPERANCE.
99
  To the governments of the states and of the
nation, appointed to  see to it,  "that the  com-
monwealth receives no detriment," while they
facilitate and guide the energies of a free peo-
ple, and protect the boundless results of indus-
try—I would  say—Beloved  men and highly
honored, how ample and how enviable are youi
opportunities of doing good—and how trivial,
and contemptible, and momentary, are the re-
sults of civil policy merely, while moral  prin-
ciple, that main-spring of the soul, is impaired
and destroyed by crime.   Under  the  auspices
of the national and state governments, science,
commerce, agriculture and the arts flourish, and
oar wealth  flows  in like the waves  of the sea.
But where is the w isdom of filling up by a thou-
sand streams the reservoir of national wealth, to
be poured  out  again  by as many channels* of
profusion and  crime ?  Colleges' are reared and
multiplied by public  munificence, while acade-
mies and  common schools  enlfghten the  land.
But to what purpose—when a single crime sends
up exhalations enough to eclipse half  the stars
and suns destined  to enlighten our moral hemi-
sphere,  before  they  have reached their  meri-
dian.
  The  medical  profession  is patronised,  and
ought to be;  and the standard of medical at-
tainment is  ri>iug.  But a cingle crime, unre-
sisted, throws into the distance all the  achieve-
ments of art, and  multiplies  disease  and death
much faster than the improvements in medical 
100
THE  REMEDY
  science can multiply the means of preventing
  them.
     The  improvements by steam and  by canals
  augment the facilities and the motives to nation-
  al industry. But, while intemperance rages and
  increases, it is only to pour  the tide of wealth
  into one mighty vortex  which  swallows it up,
  and, with a voice of thunder, and the insatiable
  desire of the grave, cries, Give, give; and saith
  not, It is enough.
     Republican institutions are guarantied to the
  states, and the whole nation watches with sleep-
  less vigilance the altar of liberty.   But a mighty
  despot,  whose  army is legion,  has  invaded the
  land—carrying in his course taxation, and chains,
  and fire, and the rack—insomuch that the whole
  land bleeds and groans at every step of his iron
  foot—at every movement of his massy sceptre—
  at every pulsation of his relentless  heart.  And
  yet in daylight and at midnight he stalks unmo-
  lested—while his myrmidons with infernal joy
  are preparing an ocean  of  blood  in  which our
'  sun may set never to rise.
     The friends  of the Lord and his Christ, with
  laudable enterprise, are  rearing temples to Je-
  hovah, and extending his word and ordinances
  through the land, while the irreligious influence
  of a single crime balances,  or nearly balances,
  the entire account.
     And  now, ye venerable and  honorable  men,
  raised to seats of legislation in a nation which is
  the freest,  and  is destined to become  the  great- 
OP INTEMPERANCE.
101
est, and may become the happiest upon earth—
can you, will you  behold  unmoved the march
of this mighty evil ?  Shall it mine in darkness,
and lift fearlessly its giant form in daylight—and
deliberately dig the grave  of our liberties—and
entomb the last hope of enslaved nations—and
nothing be done  by the  national government
to stop the destroyer ?  With the concurrent aid
of an enlightened public sentiment, you possess
the power of a most efficacious legislation ;  and,
by your example and influence, you of all  men
possess the best opportunities of forming a cor-
rect and irresistible public  sentiment on the side
of temperance.  Much power to you is given to
check  and extirpate this evil, and to roll down
to distant ages, broader, and deeper, and purer,
the streams of national prosperity.   Save us by
your wisdom and firmness, save us by your own
example, and,  " as in duty bound, we will ever
pray."
  Could I call around me m one vast assembly
the temperate young men  of our land, I would
say—Hopes of the nation, blessed be ye of the
Lord  now in the dew of your youth.  But look
well to your footsteps :  for  vipers, and scorpions,
and adders,  surround  your  way—look at the
generation who have just preceded  you,—the
morning of their life was cloudless, and it dawn-
ed as brightly as your  own—but  behold them
bitten, swollen, enfeebled,  inflamed, debauched,
idle, poor, irreligious, and vicious,—with halting
step  dragging  onward  to  meet an early grave !
           ^ 9* 
102
THE  REMEDY
Their bright prospects  are clouded, and  their
sun is set never to rise.  No house of their own
receives them, while from poorer to poorer tene-
ments  they descend, and to harder and harder
fare, as improvidence dries up  their resources.
And now, who are those that wait on their foot-
steps with  muffled  faces and  sable  garments ?
That is a father—and that  is a mother—whose
grey hairs-are coming with sorrow to the grave.
That is a  sister, weeping over evils which she
cannot arrest—and  there is the  broken-hearted
wife—and  there are the children—hapless inno-
cents—for  whom their father has provided the
inheritance only of dishonor,  and nakeJness,
and wo.  And is this, beloved young men, the
history of your course—in this scene of desola-
tion, do you behold  the image of your future
selves—is this the poverty and disease, which  as
an armed man shall take hold  on you—and are
your fathers, and mothers, and sisters, and wives,
and children, to succeed to those who now move
on in this mournful procession—weeping as they
go ? Yes—bright as your morning now opens,
and high as your hopes beat, this is your  noon,
and your night, unless you  shun those habits  of
intemperance which have thus early made theirs
a day of clouds,  and of thick darkness.   If vou
frequent places of evening resort for social  drink-
ing—if you set out with drinking, daily, a little,
temperately, prudently, it is yourselves which,
as in a glass, you behold.
  Might I select specific objects of a-1 dress—-to 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
103
the young husbandman  or mechanic—I would
sav—Happy man—your  employment is useful,
and honorable, urn! with temperance and  in-
dustry  you  rise to  competence,  and rear up
around  you a happy  family, and  transmit to
them, as a precious legacy, your own fair fame.
But  look  around you ;—are  there  none who
were once in your condition, Whose health, and
reputation, and substance, are gone ?  What
would tempt you to exchange conditions ? And
vet, sure as seed-time and harvest, if you drink
daily, at stated times, and visit from evening to
evening the resorts of social drinking, or  stop
to take  ^refreshment as you  enter or retire from
the city, town, or village, yours will become the
condition  of those ruined farmers  and artisans
around you.
   To another I would  say—Yoa are a man of
wealth, and may drink to the extinction of life,
without the, risk of impoverishment—but look
at your  neighbor, his bloated face, and inflamed
eye, and blistered lip, atid  trembling hand—he
too is a man of wealth,  and may die of intem-
perance'without the fear of poverty.
   Do you demand,  "what have  I  to do  with
such examples ?"  Nothing—if you take warn-
ing by them.   But if  you too should cleave to
the morning bitter, ae.! the  noon-tide dram, and
the evening beverage, you have in these signals
of ruin the memorials  of your own miserable
end ; for the same causes, in  the  same circum-
stances, will produce the same effects. 
104             THE  REMEDY

  To the affectionate husband  I  would say—
Behold the wife of thy bosom, young and beau-
tiful  as the morning—and  yet her day may be
overcast with clouds, and all thy early hopes be
blasted.  Upon  her the  fell  destroyer may lay
his hand, and plant in that healthful frame the
seeds of disease, and transmit to successive gen-
erations the inheritance of crime and wo.   Will
you not watch over her with ever-wakeful affec-
tion—and keep far from your abode  the occasions
of temptation  and ruin ?  Call around you the
circle of your healthful and  beautiful children.
Will  you bring contagion  into such a circle as
this ?  Shall those  sparkling  eyes become  in-
flamed—those rosy cheeks  purpled and bloated
—that sweet breath be tainted—those ruby lips
blistered- -and that vital tone of unceasing cheer-
fulness be turned into tremour and melancholy ?
Shall those joints so compact be unstrung—that
dawning intellect beclouded—those affectionate
sensibilities benumbed, and those  capacities for
holiness and  heaven  be  filled with  sin, and
" fitted for destruction ?"  Oh thou father, was
it for this  that  the Son of God shed his bloo!
for thy precious offspring—that, abandoned  and
even tempted by thee, they should  destroy them-
selves, and pierce thy heart with many sorrows ?
Wouldst thou let the wolf into thy sheep-fohl
among the tender lambs—wouldst  thou send thy
flock to graze about  a den  of lions ?—Close,
then, thy  doors agaiDst a more  ferocious  de-
stroyer—and withhold the footsteps of thy im- 
OP INTEMPERANCE.
105
mortal progeny from places of resort more dan-
gerous than the lion's den.  Should a serpent
of vast  dimensions surprise in  the field one of
your little group, and wreath about his body his
cold, elastic folds —tightening with every yielding
breath his deadly gripe, how would his eric?
pierce your soul—and his strained eye-balls, and
convulsive agonies, and  imploring hands,  add
wings to your feet, and supernatural strength, to
your  arms !—But  in, this case  you could ap-
proach with hope to his rescue.   The keen edge
of steel  might sunder the elastic fold, and rescue
the victim, who, the moment  he  is released,
breathes freely, and is well again.   But the ser-
pent  intemperance twines about the body of
your child a deadlier gripe, and extorts a keener
cry of distress,  and mocks your effort to relieve
him by a fibre  which no steel can sunder. Like
Laocoon, you can only look on while bone after
bone of your child  is crushed, till his agonies are
over,  and his cries are hushed in death.
   And now, to  every one whose eye has passed
over these pages—I would say—Resolve upon
reformation by  entire abstinence,  before  you
close  the book.
   While the argument is clear,  and the implo-
sion of  it is fresh, and your judgment  is con-
vinced,  and your conscience is  awake, be per-
suaded, not a'mist, but altogetlier.  The present
moment  may be  the one which decides your
destiny forever.  As you decide now upon ab-
■tinence, or continued indulgence, so  may your 
106
THE  REMEDY
character be, through time and through eternity.
Resolve also instantly to exclude ardent spirits
from your family, and put out  of sight the me-
morials of past folly  and danger.   And if for
medicinal purposes you  retain ardent spirits in
your house, let  it be  among  other drugs, and
labelled, " Touch not, taste not, handle  not."
  As you  would regulate  your conduct by the
Gospel, and give up your last account with joy,
weigh  well the  arguments for abandoning the
traffick in ardent spirits as unlawful in the sight
of God.   And "if thy right  hand offend thee,
cut it off.   If thy right eye  offend thee, pluck it
out."  Talk not of loss and gain—for who can
answer for the blood of souls ?  and "what shall
it profit a  man, if he gain the whole world and
lose his own soul ?"  " Wo to him that coveteth
an  evil covetousness to his house, that he may
set  his nest on high, that he may be delivered
from the power of evil!  Thou hast consulted
shame  to thy house by cutting off many  people,
and hast sinned against thy soul.   For the stone
shall cry out of the wyall, and the beam out of
the timber  shall  answer it.  Wo  to  him that
buildeth  a town  with blood, and  stablisheth a
city by iniquity! Behold, is  it not of the Lord
of hosts that the people shall labor in the very
fire, and the people shall weary themselves for
very vanity?"
  Let  the discourses upon the causes and symp-
toms of intemperance be read aloud  in  your
family, at least once a year—that the deceitful 
OF INTEMPERANCE.
107
dreadful  evil may not fasten  unperceived, his
iron gripe on yourself, or any of your household
—and that, if one shall not perceive his danger,
another  may, and  give the  timely  warning.
Thousands every year may be kept back from
destruction, by the simple survey of the causes
and symptoms of intemperance.  And,
  Finally, when  you have  secured your own
household—let your benevolence extend to those
around you.   Become  in your  neighborhood,
and throughout the whole extent of your inter-
course and influence, a humble, affectionate, de-
termined reformer.   It is to little purpose that
the  causes,  symptoms, evils,  and  remedy  of
intemperance have  been disclosed, if this little
volume be left to work its obscure and dilatory
way through  the  land :_ but if every one who
approves  of it will aid its circulation, it may find
a place  yet  in every family, and  save millions
from temporal and eternal ruin.
  I paut  not for fame or posthumous immortali-
ty, but my heart's desire  and prayer to God for
my  countrymen is, that they may be saved from
intemperance, and that our beloved  nation may
continue  free, and become great and good. 
 
 
NLM041390252