Perhaps he was our school-fellow, and our boyhood may have been pa.s.sed in his company. We witnessed the first buddings of his mental powers, and know that he possessed an active, enterprising mind. He grew up into life with every prospect of usefulness. He entered into business, and, for a while, did well. His parents looked to him for support in old age, and he was capable of affording it. He acc.u.mulated property, and, in a few years, with ordinary prudence and industry, would have been independent. He married, and became the head of a family, and the father of children, and all was prosperous and happy around him. Had he continued as he began, he would now have been a comfort to his friends, and an honor to the community. But the scene quickly changed. He grew fond of ardent spirits. He was seen at the store and the tavern. By degrees he became intemperate. He neglected his business, and his affairs went to gradual decay. He is now a drunkard, his property is wasted, his parents have died of broken hearts, his wife is pale and emaciated, his children ragged, and squalid, and ignorant. He is the tenant of some little cabin that poverty has erected to house him from the storm and the tempest. He is useless, and worse than useless: he is a pest to all around him. All the feelings of his nature are blunted; he has lost all shame; he procures his accustomed supply of the poison that consumes him; he staggers through mud and through filth to his hut; he meets a weeping wife and starving children; he abuses them, he tumbles into his straw, and he rolls and foams like a mad brute, till he is able to go again. He calls for more rum--he repeats the scene from time to time, and from day to day, till soon his nature faints, and he becomes sober in death.
Let us reflect, that this guilty, wretched creature had an immortal mind--he was like us, of the same flesh and blood--he was our brother, destined to the same eternity, created by, and accountable to, the same G.o.d; and will, at last, stand at the same judgment-bar; and who, amid such reflections, will not weep at his fate--whose eye can remain dry, and whose heart unmoved?
This is no picture of the imagination. It is a common and sober reality.
It is what we see almost every day of our lives; and we live in the midst of such scenes and such events. With the addition or subtraction of a few circ.u.mstances, it is the case of every one of the common drunkards around us. They have not completed the drama--they are alive--but they are going to death with rapid strides, as their predecessors have already gone. Another company of immortal minds are coming on to fill their places, as they have filled others. The number is kept good, and increasing. Shops, as nurseries, are established in every town and neighborhood, and drunkards are raised up by the score.
They are made--they are formed--for no man was ever born a drunkard--and, I may say, no man was ever born with a taste for ardent spirits. They are not the food which nature has provided. The infant may cry for its mother"s milk, and for nourishing food, but none was ever heard to cry for ardent spirits. The taste is created, and in some instances may be created so young, that, perhaps, many cannot remember the time when they were not fond of them.
And here permit me to make a few remarks upon the _formation, or creation of this taste_. I will begin with the infant, and I may say that he is born into rum. At his birth, according to custom, a quant.i.ty of ardent spirits is provided; they are thought to be as necessary as any thing else. They are considered as indispensable as if the child could not be born without them. The father treats his friends and his household, and the mother partakes with the rest. The infant is fed with them, as if he could not know the good things he is heir to without a taste of ardent spirits. They are kept on hand, and often given to him as medicine, especially where the parents are fond of them themselves.
By this practice, even in the cradle, his disrelish for ardent spirits is done away. He grows up, and during the first months or years of his existence, his taste and his appet.i.te are formed. As he runs about, and begins to take notice of pa.s.sing events, he sees his father and friends drink; he partakes, and grows fond of them. In most families, ardent spirits are introduced and used on every extraordinary occasion. Without mentioning many, that the knowledge and experience of every man can supply, I will instance only the case of visitors.
A gentleman"s friends and acquaintance call on him. He is glad to see them, and fashion and custom make it necessary for him to invite them to the sideboard. This is all done in his best style, in his most easy and affable manner. The best set of drinking-vessels are brought forward, and make quite a display. The children of the family notice this; they are delighted with the sight and the exhibition; they are pleased with the manners, and gratified with the conversation of the visitors on the occasion. As soon as they go abroad, they a.s.sociate the idea of drinking with all that is manly and genteel. They fall into the custom, and imitate the example that is set them. Circ.u.mstances and situations expose one to more temptations than the rest. Perhaps his resolution, or his moral principle, is not so strong; and in this way, one out of twenty-five of those who live to thirty years of age becomes intemperate. He becomes so, perhaps not from any uncommon predisposition to the vice, but is at first led on by fashion, and custom, and favorable circ.u.mstances, till at last he plunges headlong into the vortex of dissipation and ruin. Our natural disrelish for ardent spirits is first done away--a relish for them is then created. They next become occasional, next habitual drinks. The habit gains strength, till, at last, the daily drinker is swept away by the first adverse gale.
It is on this principle, and let the fact operate as a caution to those who need it, that many men of fair unblemished characters, who have made a temperate, but habitual use of ardent spirits in days of prosperity, have, on a change of fortune, become notorious drunkards; while those who have refrained in prosperity, have encountered all the storms of adversity unhurt. We frequently hear a man"s intemperance attributed to a particular cause, as loss of friends, loss of property, disappointed love, or ambition; when, if the truth were known, it would be seen that such men had previously been addicted to the use of ardent spirits, perhaps not immoderately, and fly to them on such events as their solace and support. Intemperance requires an apprenticeship, as much as law or physic; and a man can no more become intemperate in a month, than he can become a lawyer or a physician in a month. Many wonder that certain intemperate men, of fine talents, n.o.ble hearts, and manly feelings, do not reform; but it is a greater wonder that any ever do. The evil genius of intemperance gradually preys upon the strength of both body and mind, till the victim, when he is caught, finds, that although he was a giant once, he is now a child. Its influence is seductive and insinuating, and men are often irretrievably lost before they are aware of it. Let them beware how they take the first step. It is by degrees that men become intemperate. No man ever became so all at once--it is an impossibility in the nature of things. It requires time to harden the heart, to do away shame, to blunt the moral principle, to deaden the intellectual faculties, and temper the body. The intemperance of the day is the natural and legitimate consequence of the customs of society--of genteel and respectable society. It is the common and ordinary use of ardent spirits, as practised in our towns and villages, that has already peopled them with drunkards, and which, unless checked, will fill them with drunkards. The degree of intemperance that prevails, and the quant.i.ty of ardent spirits used, in our most respectable towns, is almost incredible. Perhaps some facts on this subject will be interesting.
As it regards _the degree of intemperance that prevails_, it may be safely said, that one out of a hundred of the inhabitants of this part of the country is a common drunkard. By a common drunkard is meant one who is habitually intemperate, who is often intoxicated, and who is restrained from intoxication neither by principle nor shame. Of such there are from ten to twenty, and upward, in every inhabited township.
There is another cla.s.s who are intemperate, and many of them are occasional drunkards. This cla.s.s is more numerous than the former, and one out of about forty of the inhabitants belongs to one or the other cla.s.s. Is not this a horrid state of society? But any one can satisfy himself of the truth of the statement, by making the examination himself.
The quant.i.ty of ardent spirits yearly consumed in our towns, varies from six to ten thousand gallons. It will answer the argument I intend to draw from it, to state the annual quant.i.ty in this town to be six thousand gallons, although short of the truth. This would be three gallons to every inhabitant, or twenty-one gallons to every legal voter.
The cost of this liquid, at the low price of fifty cents per gallon, will be three thousand dollars, which will pay all your town, county, and state taxes three years, and is as much as it costs you to support and maintain all your privileges, civil, religious, and literary. In one hundred years you would drink up all the town in ardent spirits; or it would cost just such a town as this, with all your farms, stock, and personal property, to furnish the inhabitants with ardent spirits, at the present rate of drinking, only one hundred years. But should the town continue to drink as they now do for fifty years, and in the mean time suffer the cost of the spirits to acc.u.mulate by simple interest only, the whole town, at the end of the term, could not pay their rum bills. It can be no consolation that all other towns would be alike insolvent.
But this is not all. Add to this sum the loss of time and the waste of property occasioned by it, independent of its cost, and it swells the amount to a monstrous size. Here you have an account of the cost of ardent spirits, calculated within bounds. At present there is a great complaint about the pressure of the times, and the complaint is doubtless well-founded. "Hard times" is in every body"s mouth; but if you had for the last year only abstained from the use of ardent spirits, you would now have been independent and easy in your circ.u.mstances.
Three thousand dollars, which you have paid for them, divided among you, would pay all the debts you are called upon to pay. I do not mean that no one wants more than his proportion of this sum, but there are some who want none of it, and who would circulate it, by loan or otherwise, among those who do want it, and it would relieve the whole town from the distress they are now in.
If this town had an income that would pay all its taxes, you would consider it a matter of great joy and congratulation. But if it had an income that would discharge all its taxes, and each man, instead of paying, should receive the amount he now pays, you would consider your situation highly prosperous and enviable. Discontinue the use of ardent spirits, and you have it. Use none, and your situation, as a town, will be as good, yea, far better than if you had an income of three thousand dollars yearly, to be divided among its inhabitants.
If we carry this calculation farther, we shall find, on the principle adopted, that there are in the state of New Hampshire 2,441 common drunkards, and 3,663 intemperate, or occasional drunkards--in the whole, 6,104; and that the state consumes 732,483 gallons of ardent spirits annually, which cost, at 50 cents a gallon, $366,241. In the United States, there would be 96,379 common, and 240,949 common and occasional drunkards; and the country would consume annually 28,913,887 gallons of ardent spirits, which cost, at 50 cents per gallon, $14,456,943--as much as it costs to support the whole system of our national government, with all that is laid out in improvements, roads, ca.n.a.ls, pensions, etc., etc., and is more than one-half of the whole revenue of the Union for the last year. It must be remembered that this calculation embraces only the quant.i.ty and cost of the spirits, and is on the supposition that this town consumes only 6,000 gallons, at 50 cents per gallon, and is a fair criterion for the state and nation. As it regards this state, it would be safe nearly to double the quant.i.ty, and to treble the cost of the spirits; and as it regards the nation, it would be safe to double all my calculations. In the United States, the quant.i.ty of ardent spirits yearly consumed, may be fairly estimated at 60,000,000 gallons, the cost at $30,000,000, and the number of drunkards, of both kinds, at 480,000.
But we all know, and it is common to remark, that the cost of the article is comparatively nothing; that it hardly makes an item in the calculation of pernicious consequences resulting from the consumption of ardent spirits. Were we to embrace the usual concomitants, and estimate the value of time lost, the amount of property wasted, of disease produced, and of crime committed, where ardent spirits are the only cause, it would transcend our conceptions, and the imagination would be lost in the contemplation. The number of drunkards in the United States would make an army as large as that with which Bonaparte marched into Russia; and would be sufficient to defend the United States from the combined force of all Europe. Convert our drunkards into good soldiers, and one-tenth of them would redeem Greece from the Turks. Convert them into apostles, and they would Christianize the world. And what are they now? Strike them from existence, and who would feel the loss? Yes, strike them from existence, and the United States would be benefited by the blow.
But this is not half. I cannot tell you half the effects of ardent spirits. And yet ardent spirits are said to be useful and necessary. It is false! It is nothing but the apology that love of them renders for their use. There are only two cases in which, Dr. Rush says, they can be administered without injury, and those are cases of persons like to perish, and where subst.i.tutes may be applied of equal effect. What rational man would use them, for the sake of these two possible cases?
As well might he introduce rattlesnakes among his children, because their oil is good in diseases with which they may possibly be afflicted.
The number of persons in the United States who are mentally deranged, I do not know; probably there are several thousands; and it is ascertained, that one-third of those confined in the insane hospitals of Philadelphia and New York, are rendered insane by the use of ardent spirits. Yes, one-third of the poor, miserable maniacs of our land, are made such by the use of that which, in the opinion of some, is a very useful and necessary article, and which they cannot do without. This article has deprived one-third of the crazy wretches of our land of their reason--of that which makes them men--of the very image of their G.o.d.
Out of the number of the intemperate in the United States, ten thousand die annually from the effects of ardent spirits. And what a death! To live a drunkard is enough; but to die so, and to be ushered into the presence of your angry Judge, only to hear the sentence, "Depart, thou drunkard!" Ah! language fails, and I leave it to your imagination to fill up the horrid picture.
This death happens in various ways. Some are killed instantly; some die a lingering, gradual death; some commit suicide in fits of intoxication; and some are actually burnt up.
I read of an intemperate man, a few years since, whose breath caught fire by coming in contact with a lighted candle, and he was consumed. At the time, I disbelieved the story, but my reading has since furnished me with well authenticated cases of a combustion of the human body from the use of ardent spirits. Trotter mentions ten such cases, and relates them at length. They are attended with all the proof we require to believe any event. They are attested by living witnesses, examined by learned men, and published in the journals of the day without contradiction. It would be unnecessary to relate the whole, but I will state one of them, and from this an idea can be formed of the rest. It is the case "of a woman eighty years of age, exceedingly meagre, who had drunk nothing but ardent spirits for several years. She was sitting in her elbow-chair, while her waiting-maid went out of the room for a few moments. On her return, seeing her mistress on fire, she immediately gave an alarm; and some people coming to her a.s.sistance, one of them endeavored to extinguish the flames with his hands, _but they adhered to them as if they had been dipped in brandy or oil on fire_. Water was brought and thrown on the body in abundance, _yet the fire appeared more violent, and was not extinguished till the whole body had been consumed_. The lady was in the same place in which she sat every day, there was no extraordinary fire, and she had not fallen."[B]
[Footnote B: Trotter on Drunkenness, pp. 78, 79.]
This, with nine other cases, related by the same author, was a consumption of the body produced by the use of ardent spirits. The horror of a drunkard"s death beggars description. Need I point to yonder grave, just closed over the remains of one who went from the cup of excess to almost instant death? You all know it.
But this is not all. One half the poor you support by taxes and individual charity, are made poor by the use of ardent spirits. This has been demonstrated by actual inquiry and examination. In the city of New York, where there are more poor, and where more is done for them than in any other city of the United States, a committee appointed for the purpose, ascertained by facts, that more than one half of the city poor were reduced to poverty by intemperance. This is also the case throughout the Union. And here permit me to state a case, with which I am acquainted. I do it with a double object. I do it to show that the use of ardent spirits produces poverty and distress, and the disuse of them restores to wealth and comfort.
A gentleman in the city of New York, who carried on ship-building on an extensive scale, and employed a great number of hands daily, and paid them all in the same manner, and nearly to the same amount, was struck with the difference in their situations. A few, and only a few, were able, from their wages, to support their families; but these were out of debt, and independent in their circ.u.mstances. They always had money on hand, and frequently suffered their wages to lie in the hands of their employer. The rest were poor and hara.s.sed, the former easy and comfortable in their circ.u.mstances, and he resolved, if possible, to ascertain the cause of the difference. On inquiry and examination, he found that those of them who were above-board used no ardent spirits, while the others were in the constant and daily use of them. He satisfied himself that this use of ardent spirits was the only cause of the difference in their condition. He determined, if he could, to prevail upon them all to abstain altogether from their use. On a thorough and parental representation of the case to them, he succeeded, and they all agreed to make use of none for a year. At the end of the year they were all, to a man, out of debt, had supported their families in better condition, had done more work, destroyed fewer tools, and were hearty and robust, and enjoyed better health.
This fact speaks volumes, and needs no comment. Adopt the same practice in this town, and the result will be the same. "What, drink none?" Yes, I say, drink none--one gallon for this town is just four quarts too much. In addition to the miseries of debt and poverty which they entail upon a community, they are the parent of one half the diseases that prevail, and one half the crimes that are committed. It is ardent spirits that fill our poor-houses and our jails; it is ardent spirits that fill our penitentiaries, our mad-houses, and our state prisons; and it is ardent spirits that furnish victims for the gallows. They are the greatest curse that G.o.d ever inflicted on the world, and may well be called the seven vials of his wrath. They are more destructive in their consequences than war, plague, pestilence, or famine; yea, than all combined. They are slow in their march, but sure in their grasp. They seize not only the natural, but the moral man. They consign the body to the tomb, and the soul to h.e.l.l.
While on earth, the victim of intemperance is as stupid as an a.s.s, as ferocious as a tiger, as savage as a bear, as poisonous as the asp, as filthy as the swine, as fetid as a goat, and as malignant as a fiend. No matter what may be the original materials of the man; his figure may possess every grace of the sculptor; his mind may be imbued with every art and science; he may be fit to command at the head of armies, to sway a Roman senate, to wield the destinies of nations; his heart may be the seat of every virtue; but ardent spirits will strip him of the whole, and convert him into a demon. Need I tell how? Need I point out the change that ebriety produces in the moral and social affections? Need I present the sword red with a brother"s blood? It was in a drunken revel that the infuriate Alexander slew his best friend and most beloved companion Clytus. And it was in a drunken revel that he proclaimed himself a G.o.d, and died.
"But have not ardent spirits one good quality, one redeeming virtue?"
None. I say, none. There is nothing, not even the shadow of a virtue, to rescue them from universal and everlasting execration.
"But they are good as a medicine." No, not as a medicine. There is no physician, that does not love them, that needs them in his practice.
There is no disease that they cure or relieve, that cannot be cured or relieved without them. They add to no man"s health; they save no man"s life.[C]
[Footnote C: The writer is aware that spirits or alcohol are necessary in some preparations of the chemist and apothecary.
But it is the use of them as drinks which he is combating, and which, he is a.s.sured by respectable physicians, are not only unnecessary, but hurtful, in sickness and in health. Were they to exist only in the apothecary"s shop in the state of alcohol, it would be all that the world needs of them. Some physicians, nevertheless, may think them useful in two or three cases or conditions of the body; but it is apprehended, that if they should discontinue the use of them altogether, except in certain tinctures, etc., they would be as successful as they now are. They are often used where they would not be, if they were not the most common thing that could be found.]
It is impossible to name a single good thing that they do. Give them to the divine; do they add to his piety, to his zeal, to his faithfulness, to his love of G.o.d or man? No; they destroy them all. Give them to the physician; do they increase his skill, his power to discriminate amid the symptoms of disease, his judgment to apply the appropriate remedies, his kind and affectionate solicitude? Nay, verily, they destroy them all. Give them to the legal advocate; do they increase his knowledge, his perception to discover the points of his case, his readiness to apply the evidence, his ability to persuade a court and jury? No; they destroy them all. Give them to the mechanic; do they a.s.sist his ingenuity, his judgment, or his taste? No; they destroy them all. Give them to the laborer; do they add to his strength? Do they enable him to bear fatigue, to endure heat and cold? Can he do more work, or do it better? No; they are the ruin of the whole. They reduce his strength, weaken his frame, make him more susceptible to heat and cold, disorganize his whole system, and unfit him for labor.
"But there are some men," say you, "who use ardent spirits, and who get along very well." Admitted. They endure it. So there are some men who get along very well with poor health and feeble const.i.tutions. Are poor health and feeble const.i.tutions, therefore, no evils? Is the prosperity of such to be attributed to them? As much as is that of the former to the use of ardent spirits. Was ever a man made rich by the use of ardent spirits? Never; but millions have been made beggars by it.
Yet some say, they _feel better_ by drinking ardent spirits. Let us examine this excuse. It is nothing but an excuse, and he who loves rum and is ashamed to own it, says he feels better to drink it. Let us inquire how. Are they conducive to health? On this subject let the physician decide. One, as great as this country has produced, Dr. Rush, says that the habitual use of ardent spirits usually produces the following diseases: A loss of appet.i.te, sickness at the stomach, obstruction of the liver, jaundice and dropsy, hoa.r.s.eness and a husky cough, which often ends in consumption, diabetes, redness and eruptions of the skin, a fetid breath, frequent and disgusting belchings, epilepsy, gout, and madness. This is the train of diseases produced by the use of ardent spirits, and the usual, natural, and legitimate consequences of their use. And now, I ask, can that which, of its own nature, produces these diseases, make a man feel better? Reason might answer; and were she on her throne, uninfluenced and unbia.s.sed by the love of ardent spirits, she would unequivocally answer, No. And we find that those who say they feel better to drink ardent spirits, are those who are in health, but love rum, and it gratifies their appet.i.te, and this is what they mean by feeling better.
I will examine for a moment the effect, the immediate effect of ardent spirits upon the man. I will take a man in health, and give him a gla.s.s of ardent spirits. The effect is, to produce mental derangement and false notions and conceptions. But one gla.s.s will not have much effect.
I will give him another, and, if he loves rum, he feels better; another, and he feels better; another, better yet. By this time he has got to feel pretty well; quite happy. He has no fear or shame. He can curse, and swear, and break things. "He is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils." He fears no consequences, and can accomplish impossibilities.
If he is a cripple, he fancies he can dance like a satyr; if he is slow and unwieldy, he can run like a hart; if he is weak and feeble in strength, he can lift like Samson, and fight like Hercules; if he is poor and pennyless, he is rich as Croesus on his throne, and has money to lend. This is all a correct representation. It is what happens universally with the drunkard. I know one man who is intemperate, who is poor, and never known to have five dollars at a time, who, when he is intoxicated, has often, and does usually, offer to lend me a thousand dollars. Poor, miserable, and deluded man! But he feels well; he is one of those who feel better to drink. He is mentally deranged; his imagination is disordered. He fancies bliss, and felicity, and plenty, and abundance, which do not exist; and he awakes to misery, and poverty, and shame, and contempt. Yet this is the exact feeling of all those who feel better to drink spirits. He who drinks but a gla.s.s, has not the same degree, but precisely the same kind of feeling with the one I have described.
And this is all--this is all that rum does to make a man feel better. If his wife and children are starving, he feels it not. He feels better. If his affairs are going to ruin, or are already plunged into ruin, he is not sensible to his condition. If his house is on fire, he sings the maniac"s song, and regards it not. He feels better.
Let him who likes this better feeling enjoy it. Enjoy it, did I say? No.
Reclaim him, if possible. Convince him that he labors under a delusion.
Restore him to truth, and to reason; banish the cup from his mouth, and change the brute into the man.
And now, need any more be said to persuade mankind to abandon the use of ardent spirits? the appalling facts, in relation to them, are known to all. Experience and observation teach us that they are the source of ruin, and misery, and squalid wretchedness, in a thousand shapes. They are the three-headed monster; they are the Gorgons with their thousand snakes; their name is Legion. And shall I yet find advocates for their use? Will this enlightened community yet say, they are useful and necessary? All those who have used them, and discontinued the use of them, say they are totally unnecessary and useless. We see that those who live without them enjoy more happiness and better health than those who use them--that they live longer lives. But oh, the folly, the stupidity, and the delusion of rum-drinkers!
But perhaps it may be said, that the effects and consequences that I have mentioned, result from the abuse, and not from the proper and moderate use of ardent spirits; and that on many occasions, in small quant.i.ties, they are useful. Let us examine the circ.u.mstances and occasions when they are said to be necessary; and perhaps I cannot do it better than in the words of another.
"They are said to be necessary in very _cold weather_. This is far from being true; for the temporary heat they produce is always succeeded by a greater disposition in the body to be affected by cold. Warm dresses, a plentiful meal just before exposure to the cold, and eating occasionally a cracker or any other food, is a much more durable method of preserving the heat of the body in cold weather." In confirmation of this, the case of the vessel wrecked off the harbor of Newburyport, a few years since, may be adduced. On an intensely cold night, when all the men of that vessel were in danger of freezing to death, the master advised them to drink no ardent spirits. He told them, if they did, they must surely freeze. Some took his advice, while others, notwithstanding his most earnest entreaties, disregarded it. The result was, that of those who used the spirits, some lost their hands, some their feet, and some perished; while the rest survived unhurt.
"They are said to be necessary in very _warm weather_. Experience proves that they increase, instead of lessening the effects of heat upon the body, and thereby expose it to diseases of all kinds. Even in the warm climate of the West Indies, Dr. Bell a.s.serts this to be true. Rum, says this author, whether used habitually, moderately, or in excessive quant.i.ties, always diminishes the strength of the body, and renders man more susceptible to disease, and unfit for any service in which vigor or activity is required. As well might we throw oil into a house, the roof of which was on fire, in order to prevent the flames from extending to its inside, as pour ardent spirits into the stomach, to lessen the effects of a hot sun upon the skin." And here permit me to add, that they are said to be necessary in cold weather to warm, and in warm weather to cool. The bare statement of the argument on these two points confounds itself.
"Nor do ardent spirits lessen the effects of _hard labor_ upon the body.
Look at the horse, with every muscle of his body swelled from morning till night, in a plough or a team. Does he make signs for a gla.s.s of spirits, to enable him to cleave the ground or climb a hill? No; he requires nothing but cold water and substantial food. There is no nourishment in ardent spirits. The strength they produce in labor is of a transient nature, and is always followed by a sense of weakness and fatigue."[D]
[Footnote D: Dr. Rush.]
Some people, nevertheless, pretend that ardent spirits add to their strength, and increase their muscular powers; but this is all a delusion. They think they are strong when they are weak. Rum makes them boast, and that is all. The truth is, it weakens them in body, but strengthens them in imagination. Was not one reason why Samson was forbidden by the angel of G.o.d to drink either wine or strong drink, that he might thus increase and preserve his strength? When you hear a man telling how strong rum makes him, you may be sure he is weak, both in body and mind.
There is one other occasion for using ardent spirits, which it will be proper to examine. They are said to be necessary to keep off the _contagion_ of disease, and are recommended to attendants upon the sick.
But the united testimony of all physicians proves, that the intemperate are first attacked by epidemic disorders. This is almost universally the case in the southern states, and in the West Indies. Experience also proves that those attendants upon the sick, who refrain from the use of ardent spirits, escape, while those who use them are swept away. If facts could convince, the use of ardent spirits would be abolished. But the love of rum is stronger on the human mind than the truth of Heaven.
If, then, ardent spirits are not necessary in sickness; if they do not prevent the effects of heat and cold; if they do not add to our strengths, and enable us to perform more labor; when are they necessary? Why, people in health say, they want to drink them now and then--they do them good. What good? If they are well, why do they need them? For nothing but to gratify the taste, and to produce a feeling of intoxication and derangement, slight in its degree when moderately used, as they are by such people, but the character of the feeling is no less certain. It is the same feeling that induces the drunkard to drink. One man takes a gla.s.s to do him good, to make him feel better; another wants two; another three; another six; and by this time he is intoxicated, and he never feels well till he is so. He has the same feeling with the man who drinks a single gla.s.s, but more of it; and that man who, in health, drinks one gla.s.s to make him feel better, is just so much of a drunkard; one-sixth, if it takes six gla.s.ses to intoxicate him. He has one-sixth of the materials of a drunkard in his const.i.tution.
But it is this _moderate use_ of ardent spirits that produces all the excess. It is this which paves the way to downright and brutal intoxication. Abolish the ordinary and temperate use of ardent spirits, and there would not be a drunkard in the country. He who advises men not to drink to excess, may lop off the branches; he who advises them to drink only on certain occasions, may fell the trunk; but he who tells them not to drink at all, strikes and digs deep for the root of the hideous vice of intemperance; and this is the only course to pursue. It is this temperate use of ardent spirits that must be discontinued. They must be no longer necessary when friends call, when we go to the store to trade, to the tavern to transact business, when we travel the road on public days--in fact, they must cease to be fashionable and customary drinks. Do away the fashion and custom that attend their use, and change the tone of public feeling, so that it will be thought disgraceful to use them as they are now used by the most temperate and respectable men, and an end is for ever put to the prevalence of the beastly disease of intoxication. Let those who cannot be reclaimed from intemperance go to ruin, and the quicker the better, if you regard only the public good; but save the rest of our population; save yourselves; save your children! Raise not up an army of drunkards to supply their places.
Purify your houses. They contain the plague of death; the poison that, in a few years, will render some of your little ones what the miserable wretches that you see staggering the streets are now. And who, I ask, would not do it? What father, who knew that one of his sons that he loves was, in a few years, to be what hundreds you can name are now, would hesitate, that he might save him, to banish intoxicating drinks from his premises for ever?