UC-NRLF cJ^SM $B 2Sfl TEM University of California. FROM I'HK I.ir.RARV Ol- DR. FRANCIS LiEKKR, Professor of History nnd Law in Columbia Collof^e, New York. Tl{i; (UlT 01' MICHAEL REESE. Of San Fra?ic/sc('.^ t "^ 1 -^ 7 :^ . Cs^A- . oC.^SjA.-'U-a-sz::^ c£ .U=>, i^^-r /^^ Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.arcliive.org/details/discoursesoninteOOpalfrich DISCOURSES ON INTEMPERANCE, PREACHED IN THE CHURCH IN BRATTL.E SQUARE, BOSTON, APRIL 5, 1827, THE DAY OF ANNUAL FAST, AND APRIL 8, THE lord's day FOLLOWING. BY JOHN G. PALFREY, A. M. Pastor of the Church in Brattle Square. SECOND EDITION. BOSTON, BOWLES AND DEARBORN, 72 WASHINGTON STREET. Isaac R. Butts & Co. Printers. 1827. *M5|t Some of the statements in the following pages are derived from the documents of the Massachusetts So- ciety for the Suppression of Intemperance, and others from various sources. The sermons were prepared in the course of an interrupted week, and are faulty in many respects. But the author has no time to correct them, and if they are capable of doing any thing to open the eyes of the publick to the tremendous scourge under which it is suffering, he would not withhold them, from any sensibility to criticism. If there are any over-statements, he will be most heartily glad to see them disproved. DISCOIRSES. JEREMIAH VI. 8. Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my sojil depart from thee ; lest I mhke thee desolate, a land not in- habited. The piety of our ancestors has trans- mitted to us the usage of assembling year by year, at the opening of the season, to seek, with prayer and fasting, a blessing from the God of harvest. Elsewhere, such a solem- nity is considered as appropriate to occa- sions of great publick distress, and a stranger coming among us, might ask what reason of this kind we could have for observing it. He had found, he would say, a numerous peo- ple, living on a bountiful soil, in a temperate climate, with every thing called for by the reasonable wishes of man, within the reach of their industry; with a free and at the ^ same time well established government, re- lations of extended and profitable intercourse abroad, and the rights of person and reputa- tion, property and conscience, protected by equal laws and just magistrates at home. He had heard of no interruption of any of the channels of publick prosperity ; no in- testine broil, nor wide devastation of flood or fire, storm or earthquake ; no famine, pestilence, nor war. The observation, however, would be su- perficial, and the inference groundless. If seasons of publick distress and peril call for publick fasting, humiliation and prayer, we have cause to keep a fast this day. It is truly a day for a reflecting man to ' afflict his soul,' to ' bow down his head as a bulrush, and spread sackcloth and ashes under him.' Not less than ten thousand citizens of this nation, as there is good reason to believe, have fallen during the year now past, vic- tims to one mortal scourge, prematurely cut off, cut off in the midst of their days. They did not die by pestilence. How happy if they had ! Their sufferings then would have been short and innocent. They did not fall by the sword. Their bones might have been worthy then to repose in the fair soil they had defended, by their fa- thers' graves which they had kept sacred from an invader's footstep. They did not waste away in the lingering torments of starvation. O how much less heart-wring- ing would then have been the sorrow that burst in long stifled sobs by their last home. They died by self administered poison ; by that cup of guilty excess, compared with which war, famine and pestilence, are mer- ciful plagues. Famine ? Should we hear of one tenth part, one hundredth part, of ten thousand persons likely to perish of hunger, we should be possessed with horror by an event so unprecedented, and the whole coun- try would be subsidized for their relief. Pestilence? The most awful visitation of 1^ 6 that kind ever known in our nation,^ one which made the ears of all that heard of it to tingle, one of those fearful providences that come at long intervals from one another, did not extend its ravages beyond one city, and was content with less than four thousand victims. War ? Our last war was not reck- oned a comparatively bloodless one ; but, in the three years it lasted, the sword de- voured in our armies considerably less than five hundred in a year,f while, in a time of profound tranquillity, another destroyer takes from us two hundred in a week, and this great mortality is almost unobserved. To other great ajSlictions of communities, there is commonly a speedy end. When the hardships of war become intolerable, peace on some terms is made, and the hearts of * The yellow fever at Philadelphia in 1793. t According to Niles' Register, there fell in our armies 495 in the campaign of 1812, 422 " " - 1813, 505 « " 1814. the distressed people revive. If our borders had been wasted in the past year by epi- demick sickness or scarcity, we should now be looking and praying with good hope for a healthy and abundant season. But who sees any reason to expect, that fewer will perish this year by the slow suicide of guilty excess, than perished the last ? What has been done to avert the same fate, from at least an equal number? Rather, what is not already done to ensure it? The ha- bits are formed,— /ormec?, with many thou- sands of our countrymen, which with mo- ral certainty will bring them to this end. Some thousands will not reach it till the next, or a following year, but other thousands are riper for destruction, and they will find it in this. They are already close to the precipice, and every hour they rush to- wards it with a madder speed. Can they not be arrested? Try it; try it with all the force and tenderness of pity ; but who is so inexperienced as to flatter himself that If 8 one will be saved, for hundreds whose res- cue will be attenmpted in vain ? Shall not the food of their destructive appetite be denied ? On the contrary, lavish provision has been made and is making for it, by the industry of the nation exerted abroad and at home. In town and country, from sea to wilderness, and from the northern border to the south, the processes are uninterruptedly going on, which extract this bane of human life from the generous fruits that nature yields for its support; and every wind from the ocean adds to the supply a contribution from fo- reign shores. The result of one calculation which has been made publick is, that one eighth part of the commerce of this port is engaged in the conveyance of spirituous liquors, or of the means of making them. And though I account this excessive, still, from such examination as I have been able to make, I am obliged to infer, that not far from one twelfth part of our imports, not re- exported, consists of that commodity and the materials for its manufacture.^ We speak of ten thousand premature deaths directly produced by intemperance. But how partially does this represent the magnitude of the evil. Look at it more nearly, and see what kind of death it was. * On examining this point more carefully, I am led to think that the calculation, to which I have first re- ferred, is not so wide of the truth as I had supposed. The amount of imports into the port of Boston in the year ending October 1826, was $14,246,582. The amount re-exported I do not know, but supposing it to have been the same in proportion as in the country at large, property to the amount of about $7,000,000 only remained for consumption. In the same year, the amount imported of spirits produced from grain was $292,623; of molasses, $519,624; and of brandy, supposing it to have been in proportion to the importa- tion of this commodity in the country at large, about $75,000; making a total of $887,247. Of this, on the same supposition, there were exported domestick spirits amounting to about $50,000, or $25,000 worth of molasses, and foreign spirits amounting to about $50,000 ; which would leave $812,247 worth for consumption, considerably over one ninth part of the amount of imports not re-exported. 10 Each of those persons once was as capable of happiness, and perhaps looked for happi- ness as confidently, as any one of us. How bitter was the remorse, how painful were the struggles of niany, when they first perceived themselves to be entangled in the ruinous habit. What stern self-upbraidings did they not utter, what overwhelming self-contempt did they not feel, when they first began to think of their bright prospects overcast, their fair name blighted, by the pernicious indul- gence. Who can picture the fearful pro- cess of feeling they passed through, from the time when they began to experience their in- constant resistance to be vain, to that, when,: in transient intervals of sobriety, they saw themselves surrendered, soul and body, to the bondage of the omnipotent sin ? Many, in the course of their fall, having wasted their substance with riotous living, sustained their last days on the coarse bread of pub- lick charity. A large proportion exchanged the dignity and comfort of a decent dwell- 11 ing for a jail. Not a few endured those wrenches of the mind which precede and end in fatuity and frenzy. AH suffered in some one of the most loathsome forms, the feebleness and torments of bodily disease.* And, for all w^ho had sanity to reflect, how must they have shuddered, as they drew near their unlamented end, in recalling that emphatick scripture, which declares that drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God. The expression is awfully peremp- tory. But who that considers the spiritual nature of the heavenly happiness, in connex- ion with the capacities of enjoyment of that * ' A train of complaints of the most dangerous na- ture, at once destroying the body and depraving the mind, are the certain followers of habitual ebriety. Amidst all the evils of human life, no cause of disease has so wide range, or so large a share, as the use of spi- rituous liquors. * * * * More than one half of all the sudden deaths which happen, are in a fit of in- toxication.' — Trotter's Essay, Medical, Philosophical, and Chemical, on Drunkenness, and its effects on the Human Body, p. 137. 12 being whose work on earth has been to sink the human nature in the brute, who, thus reflecting, can be at a loss to justify it, in all its comprehensiveness and force ? What a tragical tale would be told, if one such history could be written out at length. And yet, to apprehend the mass of such misery which really exists, we must repre- sent it to ourselves as repeated among us many thousands of times within a year. As to the extremity of the evil in each case where it occurs, no one, who has any experience or imagination, needs or can be assisted by the descriptions of others to estimate it. Its extent, I apprehend, is less understood, and to establish this, I am to offer some state- ments which must needs be of a minute and homely kind. They will not on that account be the less in place, if they serve at all to illustrate the subject. I have stated the number of persons who yearly perish in these states by the direct effects of intemperance, at ten thousand. 13 This was the number according to one cal- culation, six years ago, when our popula- tion was much smaller, and the vice less common ; and though the estimate was prob- bly at that time exorbitant, I greatly fear that it might now be found to fall considera- bly within the truth. The year before, the bill of mortality of one of the most ex- emplarily moral of our large towns, (I speak of the town of Salem,) recorded twenty deaths out of a hundred and eighty-one, one ninth part, to have been produced di- rectly by intemperance ; and the remark is added, ' many who are included in the con- sumption list, might be added to the deaths by intemperance, because it is ascertained, that habits of intemperance have produced various diseases, which have terminated in apparent consumption.' If the proportion of twenty in a hundred and eighty-one, the pro- portion of that orderly town, had been main- tained throughout the country, intemperance would have been the direct cause, that year. 14 of the death of nearly thirty thousand citi- zens. In the same year, it was stated, on the authority of the bills of mortality, that the an- nual average of deaths from intoxication, in this state, was six hundred and sixty-six. If the proportion of drunkards to the whole population be taken to be throughout the union, the same as in this state, whereas in fact it is probably considerably greater, it would follow that more than thirteen thou- sand citizens of this nation, yearly fell victims to drunkenness as long ago as 1821. Three years before, from data which seem to have been accurate, as far as they went, it had been computed, that intemperance was the remote or proximate cause of the death of about three persons yearly, in a population of a thousand ;^ according to which estimate, * In Portsmoutli, 21 persons died by excess in drink- ing, last year. This place had at the last census a population of 7,327. New Haven had by the same census, 8,327 inhabitants. The Medical Association of that city, in a late publication, say ; * on referring to 15 the number of persons whose lives are tlius more or less directly sacrificed, would be every year, in this state, eighteen hundred, and in the United States thirty-six thousand. When we attend to the supply provided for this use, we shall see cause to admit that the calculation is not much, if at all, exagge- rated. The consumption of foreign spirituous liquors was, in the year 1828, more than four and a half millions of gallons, and in the year 1824, more than five millions. The average yearly amount of foreign spirits consumed for ten years preceding 1812, was nearly seven millions of gallons.* The use of them, how- ever, had been already in great part super- seded by those of domestick manufacture. the list of deaths in this town during the year 1826, we find that of the 94 persons over 20 years of age, more than one third were, in our opinion, caused or hastened, directly, or indirectly, by intemperance ; and on refer- ring further back, we find a similar proportion imputable to the same cause for the two years preceding.' * Seybert's Statistical Annals, p. 463. 16 In 1810, according to the census then made by the marshals, the quantity thus produced from domestick and foreign materials, was nearly twenty-six millions of gallons,^ of which six hundred thousand were exported, leaving more than twenty-five millions for the consumption of the country ;f to which if the above named average amount of the for- eign commmodity be added, it appears that an average quantity of more than four gal- lons was consumed in a year, by every man, woman and child in the nation, the slave po- pulation included. I am not aware that any similar report to that, on which these calcula- tions are founded, has been since made. It is thought that the annual consumption of ar- dent spirits cannot now amount to less than forty-five millions of gallons,f which, reckon- ing the drinking population at a million of per- sons, would give them individually an average * Seybert's Statistical Annals, p. 463. f lb. X This would feed the Middlesex canal to a distance of 15 1-6 miles, or the Erie canal, 8 1-3 miles. 17 allowance of a pint of liquid poison in a day. With such a consumption, we could not, in any reason, look for consequences less dis- tressing than we witness. If, of this number, we suppose that more than two thirds permit themselves only that indulgence which is reckoned moderate, and considerably less than one third drink to that excess which brands them as decidedly intemperate per- sons, we have then, in the nation, three hun- dred thousand of the latter class, in some stage of their progress ; an estimate which I am disposed to think not far from the truth, and almost certainly not beyond it. We come to a similar result by a different method of calculation. If, for the ten thousand who die yearly by the direct effect of intempe- rance, there be twice as many more of such as either, in consequence, fall victims to some one of the various diseases to which it pre- disposes, or, being intemperate, are from causes independent of their vice, arrested by some one in the variety of mortal diseases, we It 18 have then a yearly mortality of thirty thou- sand intemperate persons, a result below, but not far from that of the computation which I mentioned before, as founded on the assump- tion of intemperance being the remote or proximate cause of three deaths yearly, in a population of a thousand. And supposing ten years to be the average term of life, after habits of excess are fixed, (a favourable sup- position, it is true, for this is an evil work, against which, vengeance is commonly exe- cuted speedily,) it would then follow, that there are three hundred thousand inebriates living in this country at a time, the same re- sult as appeared from the other method of calculation. II. But, secondly, the deplorable misery which the drunkard feels is by no means all that he inflicts. Most men belong to families. Almost all men at first have friends. How does the heart of frendship bleed, when it sees the object of its regard wedding him- self to utter ruin, for this world, and the 19 world to come. What moving remonstran- ces are uttered, how hard to bear the alternations of timid hope and cruel disap- pointment, as promises of reformation are successively made and broken. But friend- ship, if it will, can be inconstant when its object is unworthy, and go elsewhere for consolation. Not so with domestick love. What pangs rend brothers' and sisters' hearts, when one of a once united family is seen going thus astray. With what agonizing soli- citude does parental affection watch the child, whom idleness or bad company has enticed into the destroyer's paths. With what soul- absorbing earnestness are all methods of amendment tried, and when they fail, what mingled shame and anguish bow down the hoary head. Worst of all, when the deadly fascination has fastened on them whom prov- idence has set to rule in the domestick sphere. The husband and father, fatigued with his labour, or perplexed wdth his cares, or perhaps from the mere excitement of good 2 20 fortune, or in the hearty greeting of hospi- tality, is observed to give in to indulgences which excite at first only occasional alarm. By and by his spirits appear disturbed, and his temper unequal. The meek assiduities of conjugal affection are sometimes rudely repulsed, and his children hesitate to greet his return with their once always welcome caresses, doubtful whether it is with a maud- lin fondness, or a terrifying severity, that they are to be met. His habits of regular industry are not maintained ; employment does not seek him as it has done ; and be- fore long, it appears that his affairs are em- barrassed, and provision for the wants of his household is not punctually made. Morti- fied at the change which he sees at his home, he absents himself from it more and more. The alternative is the society of the tippling house, from which the wakeful wife awaits him night after night, to receive his insults, if he shall stagger home an angry brute, or busy herself to restore him to con- 21 sciousness, if he shall be conveyed home a senseless load. There is, probably, not a day in which this scene is not acted, in thousands of the dwellings of this happy country. He wakes in the morning from his deep sleep, to feel a sick craving which must be relieved at the accustomed haunt ; and if he be of that largest class, whose daily industry should pro- vide their daily bread, she who has watched and wept by him till the dawn, awaits his de- parture, to apply herself to the feeble and sor- rowful labour which must buy her little ones food, if indeed she shall be able to conceal its earnings from their tyrant to be devoted to that use. A common end of all this is, that the decent dwelling of industry and content having sustained the successive changes that convert it into the rueful abode of want, its scanty furniture is sold to pay the tavern score, and its once happy tenants join the number of similarly ill-fated persons in the alms-house. To those families, which the bounty of providence has placed above such 22 consequences of vice in their head, still some portion of the curse of the drunkard, that he shall come to poverty, is apt to clmg ; and in such, the sufferings of the mind too, are for the most part, felt with added keenness. All alike are exposed to the distress and dis- grace of follies and crimes committed by the drunkard in paroxysms of his madness, and all alike suffer the mischiefs of a depraving ex- ample, and the loss of that respectability, that instruction, tliat aid in all interests, spiritual, intellectual, and temporal, which a family has a right to expect from its head.^ There is one case, if possible, yet more revolting ; and it is not unknown to experience. It is when female purity is touched with this deadly stain. That is a wreck of all that God has made most honourable and lovely among his * Dr. Rush (Inquiry p. 8.) appears to think that a tendency to intemperance is transmitted in families, not only by example, but by physical laws. Dr. Trotter in his learned Essay, refers various physical and mental maladies to the intemperance of parents. 23 earthly works, which is truly meet for angels to weep over. What are it3 conseqences too, at least in instances in which the most important relations of woman are sustained, and her influence, rightly used, is one of the most excellent instruments of the dispensa- tions of the divine mercy. A man's associ- ations with religion and goodness settle round his home. Drive them thence, and you se- ver his hold upon them. In the bustle of life, his mind Ts crowded, perplexed, shaken. He goes home to refresh his virtues. Let him find there sensual degradation in one of its most hateful forms, and what wonder if he learn to forsake it? What wonder, if, disap- pointed and desperate, he forsake it for the re- sorts of vice, and himself have recourse for re- lief to the same insane indulgence ? And then, the children whom it has pleased God in his mysterious providence to commit to such a mother. Neglected, harshly treated at one lime, and at another the subjects of indul- gence as injurious, uninstructed, (at least by 2^ 24 n consistent example, the best of teachers,) and when the offence becomes gross, having those feelings of reverential tenderness, which most powerfully of all things, a mother's love is fitted to call forth, and which in almost all worthy men, have much connexion with whatever is best in their character, having these delicate and influential feelings, I say, displaced by associations of mere brutality, what is to be augured of the temporal or eter- nal prospects of such children ? To the ma- ternal feelings, the good being who implanted them, gave an unequalled strength. They reign alike supreme in the proudest and the lowliest bosom. Among all impulses of all various kinds, only one has been found of force to subdue them, and that is the love of intemperate drinking. Horrible as the rela- tion is, there are authenticated instances of mothers taking from their children's mouths the bread which charity had given to satisfy their hunger ; yea, literally stripping from their children the clothes which charity had 25 given to keep them from the cold, and sell- ing them for intoxicating liquor. If the pas- sion is strong enough to do this, is there any thing else of such appalling might ? Considering the connexion of most men with either families or friends, would it be unreasonable to suppose, that for every three habitually intemperate persons, there are as many as seven others, whose happiness is in some way seriously affected by the vice of those three ? If it be so, and there be now living in this country three hundred thousand persons devoted to the habit, then the unhap- piness arising from it extends itself directly to a million of persons, a twelfth part of the population of the country. This is a very startling conclusion, but I see not how the inferences that lead to it are to be escaped, and also it is to be considered, that in that class of society upon which most of my hear- ers (being acquainted with it) would form their judgment, the evil is incomparably less than in others, and that this portion of our 2t 26 country, on the whole, presents an unduly fa- vourable specimen. If one man in twelve throughout this nation suffers in sbme way an important abatement from his happiness in consequence of the existence of fixed habits of drunkenness in himself or some one for whom he strongly feels, — nay, qualify the supposition as you will, suppose there were but one such man in twenty, in thirty, — no more need be said to establish the conclu- sion, that intemperance is a prodigious pub- lick evil, and requires very serious publick notice ; that a great national calamity at this moment is endured, and demands a great common effort. What a voice of wailing would be heard, if one man in thirty through- out this republick were sentenced by some savage power to lose a hand. Yet what were this, compared with the tenfold worse than widowhood of a drunkard's wife, and his more than orphaned children's shame ? III. The evil which we are deploring, has, in the third place, political aspects of the most alarming character. THey open a to- pick which may be consideresd to have some appropriateness on a day solemnized by publick authority like this. A sad pre-emi- nence it is, but the politician and the political economist of America have need to devote a special share of their inquiries and counsels for the publick, to the effects of the use of ardent spirits. 1. And, first, as to the waste of property which it occasions. According to the estimate before referred to, forty-five millions of gallons of ardent spi- rits of the different kinds are annually con- sumed in this country. Reckoning the cost of these to the consumer at an average of two thirds of a dollar, the amount annually expended in this way in the United States, would be thirty millions of dollars ; a sum which, though falling much short of the esti- mate that has commonly been made, is great- er than that levied for the maintenance of the general government in all its departments, in 28 the proportion of five to two. Of this sum, this city, taking its appropriations of this na- ture to be in the ratio of its population, pays yearly a hundred and fifty thousand dollars, about half the amount of its annual corporate expenditure. Undoubtedly, however, this estimate for the city must give a result much below the truth, as at this rate each licensed retailer would sell on an average to the amount of less than five dollars in a week, even if they sold all that is consumed, which again is by no means the case. The pro- portion of the commonwealth, reckoned upon its population, would be a million, five hun- dred thousand dollars ; six times as much as the revenue that yearly goes into its treasury. Two hundred thousand dollars, perhaps, are annually paid by the commonwealth for the sup- port of the christian ministr^^, and two hundred and fifty for publick, and two hundred thousand for private instruction ; six hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the maintenance of the joint interests of learning and religion, and 29 fifteen hundred thousand, at liie lowest com- putation, for ardent spirits. A million and a half of dollars annually paid for intoxicating liquors, while to the venerable seat of learn- ing, the pride of the noble founders of our State, from which as from the heart into the system, has gone forth through successive generations the life blood of its strength, it refuses to continue the grant of ten thousand dollars a year, because it is too poor. A like instance on another scale is known, of a tow^n of more than three thousand inhabitants, which ceased to support the institutions of re- ligion, merely on the ground of pecuniary in- competency, when it was found on inquiry to spend ten thousand dollars annually on spirit- uous liquors. In the year 1820, it was as- certained that the sum of one million eight hundred and ninety three thousand dollars was thus mischievously bestowed in the city of New York. But as regards waste, such statements as this, it will be said, only shew that money is 30 shifting hands, and employing industry. It employs little industry, but as far as it does this, it is rather to be regarded as a bounty to unproductive labour ; and certainly it might shift hands to better purpose. But to bring die waste to a stricter test, he who consumes daily a pint of spirits made of rye, consumes yearly twenty five or thirty bushels of that valuable grain ; and there being, as I have stated, a million times that consumption among the population of our country, it fol- lows that a quantity of nourishing food equiva- lent to twenty five or thirty millions of bushels of grain is annually thus consumed. Again, with respect to publick waste ; in- temperance is the great cause of pauperism. The proportion of persons thus reduced to want, to the whole number maintained at the publick charge, varies, as might be expected, in different places. In the town of Ports- mouth, ten years ago, a careful examination of the circumstances of the tenants of the alms-house, showed the number of those 31 whom love of this kind of pleasure had made poor men, to be sixty four out of eighty five, nearly four fifths. In Pordand, about the same time, there were seventy one such out of eighty five, nearly six sevenths. In the state of New York, in 1S24, the proportion was four thousand seven hundred and forty- one out of six thousand eight hundred and ninety-six, more than two thirds. In the city of Baltimore, in the year ending April 1826, of seven hundred and thirty-nine per- sons received into the alms-house, five hun- dred and fifty-four, that is three quarters, were abandoned to intemperate habits.* The report on the pauper laws of this common- wealth, made to the legislature by a Commit- tee in 1821, contains the report of one town, that of twenty-eight persons in its alms-house, there were but two who were not brought thither, either directly or indirectly, by intem- * Fifty four were maniacs, and seven cripples, from this cause ; and twenty-eight suffering under fractures and wounds, received in a state of intoxication. 32 perance. The general inference is, that there cannot be a less proportion than two thirds who become a publick burden from this cause. The annual expenditure of the commonwealth in this way was reckoned, in the report^ which I have quoted, at three hundred and sixty- thousand dollars, two hundred and forty thousand of which, at this rate, was levied in favour of persons ruined by one vice. It was also found that in the twenty years immedi- ately preceding, pauperism had increased three fifths. If its'* increase has not been checked, and intemperance has maintained its ground among the causes, it levies at this moment a tax of this kind, of three hundred and sixty thousand dollars. But other chari- * A similar report was made in 1820, to the Legisla- ture of New Hampshire, from which it appeared that the expense for paupers was in a ratio of increase, which would douhle it once in five years. The Committee thereupon brought in a bill, providing among other things, that ' no person, who shail be reduced to pover- ty by habitual drunkenness, shall be supported by any town.' 33 ties also provide for it ; that is, there is in other ways a waste of property for its sup- port. In 1820, it was officially stated, that of eighty-seven patients admitted into the New York Hospital for the Insane, the insanity of twenty-seven, nearly a third, was caused by the immoderate use of ardent spirits. A physician attached to the Philadelphia Hospi- tal, reported one third of the insane during his connexion with that institution, to have incurred their dreadful malady through the same vice ; and in our General Hospital, since its institution, almost every individual case which has proved fatal, of casualty, of acci- dental wounds, has proved so in consequence of the subject being addicted to excess in drinking. Concerning the proportion of such persons cured or still under treatment, I am not informed. The expense bestowed in the support of paupers, who have become such by intem- perance, does not represent the publick loss occasioned by them. Considering the eco- 34 nomical scale on which the publick maintains them, it would be rating the worth of their industry low, to say that the portion who might labour, if their vice had not disabled them, might earn twice as much as the living of the whole now costs. In a country like this, it is safe to assume, that every healthy man is able to maintain himself and a family in decency, and some degree of comfort ; which at the lowest calculation, requires him to earn twice as much as the sum with which the publick supports a family of paupers. The intemperate paupers of this commonwealth, then, with the strength which their vice has stolen from them, instead of costiag it three hundred and sixty thousand dollars, would be able to contribute to the common stock, an amount of labour worth seven hundred and twenty thousand, making a difference to its wealth of more than a million of dollars annually ; and if we add to this, the million and a half expended in the purchase of ardent spirits, the result is over two millions and a 35 half, paid annually by the commonwealth, in these two ways, for them and their effects. The annual pauper expenses of the union, for the intemperate, have been stated to be twelve millions of dollars. If the argument were applied to that sum, that is, if that sum were held to represent one third of the cost which intemperance brings in one way on the community, what a vast effect would this cause appear to have on the national resources. But I do not ' pursue it in regard to them, because I know not on what grounds the esti- mate is made, and incline to think it cannot be relied on.^ * It will be observed, that I have taken no notice of the large expenditures of voluntary charitable associa- tions, and of private benevolence, on both of which in- temperance makes its drains quite as much as on the legal provision, if not more. Intemperance is account- able, as will appear under the next head, for a large part of the cost of the infraction, administration and execu- tion of the criminal and other laws. Also, the commu- nity is heavily taxed for the drinking of the publick, servants. Among tlie provisions for the army, adver- n 36 2. A second way in which intemperance affects the publick weal, is through its tendency to multiply crimes. We scarcely take up a newspaper that we do not meet an account of some outrage committed under the influ- ence of this insanity. Of one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five complaints presented to the police court of this city, during the last year, four hundred and ten, two ninths, were under the statute against common drunkards. We could not adduce this naked fact, as proof that intemperance prompts to crime, but it is reasonable to suppose that what actu- ally led to complaint against these individuals, was commonly some act or practice, which marked them as disorderly citizens, or trou- blesome neighbours. In the same period, were presented, at the same tribunal, four hundred and seventy cases of assault and battery, three quarters of which, it is thought, tised for by the commissary department, to be delivered in the years 1822 and 1823, were 73,240 gallons of whiskey. 37 occurred in drunken broils, and a large pro- portion of the other crimes, there adjudged on, is referred to the same cause. The re- cords of ^ our courts certainly are not to be taken as an unfavourable standard, whereby to estimate what is doing in other cities equal- ly populous ; and statements from other cities confirm the general rule, in at least an equal application to them. In a report of the New York Society for the Prevention of Pauper- ism, presented in 1819, it was stated, that 'three fourths of the assaults and batteries charged in the city and county of New York, and brought before the court of Sessions, pro- ceed from the degrading use of ardent spirits.'^ A judge of North Carolina lately declared from the bench, that of the cases of * Another report made in 1821, states, that ' the whole number of complaints for assaults and batteries, during the last year, was 1061. During the first six months of that year, the number was 409 ; in the last six months, 652. About 180 new licences were granted in the early part of those last six months, in the absence of the mayor.' 3 38 manslaughter which had come before him, there was not one which had not been occa- sioned by intemperance, and few of murder, which were not attributable to the same cause. Of one thousand and sixty-one cases of crim- inal prosecutions in a court of that state, more than eight hundred are likewise stated to have had their origin in this vice. The experience of England is not ours, but the tendencies of the same sin are every where essentially the same, and therefore I will quote from an in- teresting paper, which I have lately seen, on this subject, a remark of Sir Matthew Hale.* ' The places of judicature,' said that great lawyer, ' which I have so long held in this kingdom, have given me opportunity to ob- serve the original cause of most of the enor- inities that have been committed for the space * Report of the Portsmouth Society for the Suppres- sion of Vice, published in the Massachusetts Journal, Vol. I. No. 37. The report has been ascribed to the late lamented N. A. Haven, a name among the truly- dear to letters, philanthropy, and religion. 39 of near twenty years ; and by a due observa- tion, I have found, that if the murders and manslaughters, the burglaries and robberies, the riots and tumults, the adulteries, — and other great enormities, that have happened in that time, were divided into five parts, four of them have been the issue and product of excessive drinking, of taverns and ale-house meetings.' 3. But there are dangers threatening this nation from this cause, more serious than the waste which its rich resources are well able to redress, or even than the crimes, which its laws, standing and administered as now, are adequate to keep in check. It has pleased God, in his great goodness, to permit this people to govern themselves, and so to be dis- pensed from the severe oppressions in mind, body and estate, which the many are wont to feel wherever power is lodged in the hands of the few. Though a perfect independence has existed but of late in form, most of its privileges have been enjoyed since the earli- 40 est period of our institutions. The founders of those institutions and the successors to their lot were men fit to be trusted with the great task of self-government, and we have still prospered in that task, because a portion of their spirit has descended to their children. They were men, to whom industrious, hardy, frugal habits gave strength of body, and clear- ness and steadfastness of mind. They were no slaves to luxury, that they could be bought, nor victims to it that they could be tamed and trampled on ; and therefore an almost unpar- alleled freedom is our birthright this day. But should a base sensuality pursue and ma- ture the conquests it has hitherto attempted with such deplorable success, where then will be the nervous arms that should defend this soil as it has been defended ; — where the political wisdom widely diffused, to keep watch for the nation's safety, for widely diffused it must be, or the destinies of the nation will cease to be committed to the most trusty men 3 — where the spirit of pub- 41 lick virtue^ which will be ready for every sac- rifice but the sacrifice of honour and duty ? I do not say that we are to see our warn- ing in our predecessors on this soil, who have been swept away like the blighted leaves of their forests before the breath of the pestilence we have been this day de- ploring. 1 do not say that in an application to us as to them, the judgment predicted in our text is to be literally fulfilled, and this place of our possession to be made ' desolate, a land not inhabited.' I affirm no more than is past contradiction ; that slaves to their own desires are all ready to be slaves to other men; that luxury has been the bane and ruin of repub- licks ; and that the vile indulgence which is now a destruction wasting at noonday among us, is luxury in one of its most menacing forms, and prepares a worthless population the most effectually for a master's yoke. We are jealous of our liberties, we say. And are we the first of modern free states that have been so, and yet have fallen? Was not 42 Venice watchful of its liberty, and resolute to maintain it, till enterprise brought wealth, and wealth, indulgence, and indulgence, effem- inacy, and effeminacy bondage? We are wise and refined, we thitik. Was Florence less so, when it unsaid all its weighty republi- can maxims, and bowed its neck to the foot of a rich and popular citizen ? No, the guar- dian of our institutions is publick virtue ; an erect, manly virtue, in full command of all its powers ; an independent virtue, not capable of being seduced for the offered supply of a gross appetite. Let but the habit we have been today contemplating pursue its ravages, and that virtue will fast be sapped. A mise- rable population will grow numerous, the subjects alike of intimidation and bribes. Without sense of character, without means of living, they will stand ready to be the instru- ments of the ambitious purposes of any wicked man. Is it thought such persons will value their own political prerogatives too much to forego them, though they may not 43 respect those of others, too much to invade them ? What care such persons for the difference between one political relation and another ? Their tastes have another object ; and is it to be supposed that the despotick appetite against which natural affection is powerless, is to pause in opposition to a thing so unsubstantial as a theory of the rights of man ? I cannot avoid thinking, that as there is no darker stain on our national morals, so there is no darker cloud over our political pros- pects, — the prospect of the permanency of our free institutions, — than this. I see not how this view can be gainsaid, if it be true, as it is unquestionable, that intemperance is an evil of vast extent among us; that it is a tho- rough corrupter of the mind; that the disorders of a depraved population almost demand a despotism, and make it acceptable, and that its services may always be bought to establish one. I never see the drunken crowd on our publick days celebrating their freedom, that I 3t 44 do not think they are then preparing them- selves to part with it. I cannot but consider it as incumbent on us as good citizens,— as friends to civil liberty, and desirous to trans- mit its blessings, — as careful for posterity, and anxious to secure to them the privileges we so value for ourselves, — I cannot but consider it as imperiously incumbent on us, earnestly to inquire what we may do, and do with our might what we may, to stay for them the march of this appalling plague. I cannot but consider it to be so on the most general and admitted grounds. Scripture does not teach more emphatically than historical experience the doctrines, that righteousness exalteth a nation, and sin is the ruin as well as reproach of any people. The masters of political wis- dom have no weightier lesson to instruct in, than that under the just government of a holy God, great national sins always, sooner or later, draw down great national judgments. Individuals go for their retribution to the other world, and in this the wicked may prosper; 45 but nations are not known in the other world, and they meet their retribution here. But whatever be thought of our dangers and obli- gations as citizens, — as philanthropists and christians, our duty, in its principles, is plain. Never did a general calamity afflict this land calling near so loudly on compassionate and christian men for sorrow, inquiry, concern and effort. I cannot now enter on an inves- tigation so extensive as that into the means of exertion which offer some assurance of suc- cess. But a useful beginning will have been made, if we have come to see this day in any clearer light, how critical, how extreme the exigency is. If we are not altogether blind to it, human as we are, and therefore indifferent to nothing which affects the interests of men, our hearts cannot but bleed at the view of many thousands of our brethren and compan- ions yearly taking that path to utter ruin, which once entered on, there is scarcely strength in human nature to retrace ; involv- ' ing themselves by their own mad act in all 46 the worst evils to which flesh is heir, wretched poverty, cruel disease, irreparable infamy, ' all the fiercer tortures of the mind, * Unbounded passion, madness, guilt, remorse,' and spreading through the domestick and the social sphere, as far as their influence reaches, the fellowship of their own woes. If we are christians, we can scarcely think without shuddering sensibility, of thousands of immor- tals killing the religious being within them ; divesting themselves of their congeniality with spiritual and heavenly natures ; becoming like to the beasts that perish in all except those diversldes of presumptuous guilt which the beasts cannot imitate, and that responsibleness whose penalties await them at the judgment seat of a deeply ofiended God. My friends, as lovers of men, and as lovers of God, let us ask ourselves, have we any thing to do, to arrest this sweeping current of evil. Some of us have wealth, some station, some author- ity of some kind. Those of us who can do no more, can set an example, and no good 47 example was ever lost. What can we do, what is the most we can do, with all strenuous endeavours in our power, in this emergency ? Let the question be weighed by each one of us with solicitude, solemnity, and prayer ; and may God, the source of wisdom, enlighten us with a reply, that where there is such a call for prudent, combined, and vigorous effort, no one's aid may be wanting who has any aid to lend. PROVERBS XX. 1. Strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise. When I entered on the subject of the pre- vailing excess in drinking, I had no expecta- tion of being led to pursue it to such a length. But if it has been the effect of our reflections to satisfy us, that a most serious evil now weighs on this community, afflicting it and threatening it with a host of evils more, we cannot wish to dismiss the subject till we have asked where the sources of the mischief lie, and whether and where any remedy is to be found. To the first of these inquiries I at this time solicit your attention. That strong drink is raging, and that whosoever is de- ceived thereby is not wise, we need no further to be shewn. But^we desire to see how it is that so many are in fact deceived thereby. 1. Various causes of this excess may be assigned, as each operating in numerous cases. 49 1. For instance, uneasiness of mind is fre- quently seen to lead to it. Bereavement, embarrassed circumstances, remorse, disap- pointed love or ambition, domestick trials, make a man's life a burden to him, and prompt him to seek a temporary cheerfulness by artificial means. His mind is relieved and exalted by the physical excitement, but with returning sobriety comes an hour made sad- der by the addition of nervous debility and a sense of degradation, and he is driven again by a stronger impulse to the same expedient. The consequences of each successive indul- gence urge with added force to a repetition of the like, and the indissoluble chains of the habit are locked. This is the case on which the pity the world bestows is mingled most with tenderness, and least with contempt. But what an humbling thought it is, that the sufferings of sentiment, often of the most pure and generous kind, shall impel men to the grossest gratifications of sense, and subdue them to its meanest thraldom. How tenfold 50 cruel are they when they tempt the distress they create, to rush for relief into the arms of the worst dishonour. 2. A land and friendly disposition^ again, it is grievous to say, is often seen leading to the same consequence. How well established a connexion of this sort, has been experienced by those who speak our language, to exist, may be seen, for example, in a word in use among them. Conviviality, according to its construction, means companionship, friendly intercourse in society. In its well known ac- ceptation, it denotes, free drinking together. Within certain limits of the excitement thus produced, its effect on a mind disposed by the presence of friends to a friendly tone, is to give warmth to the social feelings, and open the heart to sincerity by removing the re- straints, which a wise or a selfish prudence had imposed. Wo to him who to any pe- culiar strength of the amiable dispositions which prompt men to seek society, adds any peculiar power to make his own desirable, 51 unless he have cares, or fixed habits, or root- ed principles, to meet the trials to which he will be probably exposed. A talent to enter- tain is a most portentous gift to a man without firm virtue, and with time to spare. Com- pany seeks and caresses him. His hour of triumph is his hour of revelry. Amidst its freedom, his wit is brightest and most ap- plauded, and his heart is fullest in its song. He thinks that good fellowship attracts him by its intellectual and honest joys, and perhaps does not suspect himself to be solicited by appetite, till he has too good reason to know that he is a bond slave to it. ' O that we should,' says one of the characters of the great dramatist, ' with joy, revel, pleasure, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts.' He follows that broad way that leadeth to destruction, whereat there be so many which go in, and when his doom is sealed, when the accomplishments that brought his fall, have shared in it, and the more prudent associates of his days of flattered folly do not recognise 52 his altered form, he derives what satisfaction he may from knowing what all will say, — that be was nobody's enemy but his own ; — that it was his good heart that ruined him. 3. Want of occupation, itself, apart from the dangers of society incident to it, is fruitful of temptation in this respect. The human mind is so made, as to demand excitement. Repose, if one may use such an expression, is an uneasy state to it. Without something to engage and stimulate it, it preys upon itself. Wisely was it so constituted, for by this im- pulse, its author designed that it should be driven to seek excitement in useful occupa- tion. From that state of depression, which, to those who do not so occupy it, is its natural state, it is but too likely to have recourse for relief, to the pernicious indulgence on which we are discoursing. No one, who has not some employment, is, in the existing state of things, safe against it. Dispensation from labour is continually experienced to be ruin- ous, to that class in the community, who are 53 little acquainted with intellectual pleasures; and he, whose worldly concerns do not de- mand his care, is a subject of concern, unless he has resources in plans or offices of service to others, or in a taste for the cultivation of his own mind. II. We might add to such subordinate causes of intemperance, but it would be to no purpose. For what is it for which these, and other such, account? Plainly for nothing more than this. For the difference between the moderate and the immoderate use of the means of intoxication. And this needs no accounting for. It sufficiently explains itself. Particular causes, such as have been touched upon, may lead to excess in particular instan- ces ; but without the appearance of any such causes, the phenomenon is fully solved. The fact is, that spirituous liquors possess the re- markable, the mysterious property to practise on minds, otherwise most clear and wary, that deception of which our text calls the sub- ject unwise. Administered to the human 54 constitution, they so affect it as to dispose it powerfully to an excessive indulgence in them. When a relish for them has once been formed, they urgently invite the appetite to overstep the limits of a strict temperance, and when that step has been taken, they have depraved the appetite. They have created an unnatural craving, which growing continu- ally as it is fed, hurries the victim on with a strength which is all but irresistible. I do not undertake to describe the physical process. That would be the subject of another kind of treatise. But I speak nothing but most pain- fully famihar truth, when I say, that with more certainty than vaccination changes the constitution, so that the subject cannot suffer from that disorder against which it is a safe- guard, a certain degree of indulgence in drinking, towards which every degree of in- dulgence tends, so alters the constitution, that the subject cannot again be a temperate man. We know of nothing which so takes away the freedom of the will. A certain point passed, 55 which no one is conscious >of having approach- ed, till it is passed, and to all human expecta- tion, though not indeed to human effort, he must be given up as lost. It is all but certain, that he is soon to go down to his grave a dis- honoured, undone man. Motives are no longer any thing to him. Dread of disease and want in their most revolting forms ; shame; pity for his best friends; fear and hope of a hereafter, — to all that can touch a manly heart, and that once touched his, to all he is as insensible as a rock. The relentless demon has clutched his prey, and will drag it down to his place. I do not say that there have not been instances of reform, when hope was gone. But they are so contrary to com- mon experience, that we hear of them almost with the same incredulity that we hear of apparitions from the invisible world, and sto- ries of one and of the other, which we under- take to trace, generally turn out to be equally unfounded. The frequent excess then, in the use of ar- 4 66 dent spirits, is sufficiently accounted for, by their own nature, wherever they are in gene- ral use at all, as much as it would be account- ed for, where a fever should spread, that many, from individual circumstances of constitution or exposure, should have it severely and die. And this then, is what I maintain ; that it is THE PREVAILING USE OF ARDENT SPIRITS, WHICH IS CHARGEABLE WITH THE FRE- QUENT IMMODERATE USE OF THEM. Their use is reputable and general, and therefore it is, that their fatal use is common. Is it not so ? Those who are from time to time break- ing from the ranks and going over into the class of intemperate persons, are we not sure that it was in each of them the less indul- gence, which challenged no blame, that led to the greater, which is infamous and destruc- tive ? Going further back, can we entertain the smallest doubt, that it was the unquestion- ed customs of society, that brought them first wnthin the sphere of that influence, which is about to be thus consummated ? The infant 57 loathes distilled spirits. So does the man, if his taste has not been won to them by palata- ble mixtures ; by use, in the first place, from some imagined necessity, — to his health, for instance ; by example ; or by some associa- tions of the mind. And even in those instances where a specifick temptation to excessive in- dulgence can be named, it accounts, as has been said, for nothing but the excess, and not for that more guarded indulgence, to which the excess relates, and without which, as a preparation, it would not, in any case, have existed. Why did the boon companion make merry with his friends with liquor ; why not with exhilarating gas, which would have made them happier while under its effects, and left them happier when its effects sub- sided ? Why did he who felt the smart of a wounded spirit, and he who was harassed by vacuity of mind, not have recourse to the poppy's juices? They are a better sedative, are more conveniently administered, and lap the sick soul in a more glorious elysium of 58 the fancy. This is a Turk's medicine for ^ a mind diseased.' Why is it not a Christian's ? There is but one answer. It is because the gas was out of the way, a thing almost unknown, hidden in the chemist's laboratory ; and the opium was out of the way, among the apothecary's secret stores; neither of them substances familiar to the habits of so- ciety, and included in the economy of daily life. The ardent spirit was in the way, and not to be sought beyond where friends meet, and families dwell, and individuals for their various purposes resort, and the crowds of business and pleasure ' most do congregate.' All comes to the same point ; namely, that ar- dent spirits are so often used to excess, be- cause they are in general use among us, meeting us at every turn, and because with or without what in the individual case we call cause, it is to excess in frequent instances, that, when generally used at all, they tend with a powerful urgency. Every where men meet with them, and, meeting with them, men are 59 constitutionally liable to become their prey* This is not necessary, and many in fact es- cape. Numbers who use them, it is needless to say, are men without a blot. But what do we thence infer ? We might master a lion who should waylay us ; but a country infest- ed with lions, would not therefore cease to be dangerous to live in. — What, let us ask, has established that habit of society, which in- volves so much danger, and actually pro- duces, year by year, so much wo ? 1. Partly, it may be supposed, the opinion^ which we often hear expressed, that ardent spirits are efficacious infrequent exigencies of the health. Is a person chilled ; they are the common prescription to warm him. Is he heated ; they will refresh him. Is he fa- tigued in body, they will bring back strength ; or in mind, they will restore tone and cheer- fulness. Has he taken cold, they will expel it. Is he to be exposed to take cold, they are that preventive, a litde of which is bet- ter than much cure. Are his nerves shaken, 4^ 60 they wUl compose them. Is his blood sluggish, they will stir it.* It would seem, to hear their virtues successively set forth, that the alchy- mists might break their crucibles, for the pana- cea was found. I shall not undertake to say, that there are not constitutions which they may benefit, when those constitutions have become inured to the sparing use of them. I shall not deny that there may be other pe- culiar constitutions to which, without the self- created demand of previous use, they may be sei-viceable ; though I should think it not amiss in persons possessing such, to resolve that they will resort to them, as they would to mercury or hemlock, or any of the most * In respect to morning drinking, there has been, in this quarter, a manifest improvement in the present generation. Thirty years ago, grave, honourable, yea, reverend gentlemen, were habitually thirsty at eleven o'clock. I have heard it said, however, that the use of herb julaps, as they are called, is travelling towards the north. It is most devoutly to be hoped, that the fashion of this morning prophylactick is not destined to pass the New England border. 61 unsafe materials of the healing art, — that is, under the strict guidance of professional wis- dom. But full often has the conscientious physician seen cause to rue the day, when he gave for the medicine of the body, what prov- ed in the result, the bane of the soul ; and if not one of the most brilliant recent discoveries of medical science, because not made of a sudden, still one of the most valuable is, that distilled liquors are rarely applicable to medi- cinal uses ; — a conviction which is becoming firmer and extending itself every day, with the progress of the art, and the collations of different experience.^ It is a maxim now among the professional men in the severely warm climates of the East and West Indies, that ' spirituous liquors, whether used habitu- ally, moderately, or in excessive quantities, always diminish in the same degree the vital strength, and render men more susceptible of * The piaictice of administering medicine in spirituous vehicles, by which great harm has been done, is, now, I am told, in great part discontinued. 4t 62 disease ;' and the same is the result of the experience of our southern cities.* — It is not artificial stimulus that gives strength, but na- tural food. All observation and experiment go to show it. Would it not have been strange, if God, who meant man to have strength to labour and endure, should have designed him to derive it, not from the sub- stantial fruits of the earth, but from a curious extract of art ? Would it not have been out of all analogy ? What other animal is so nourished ? Do you strengthen the hard- working horse or ox with the simple grain, or with the intoxicating essence you obtain from it ; and if it were prepared for their diet as it is for that of their driver, would they serve him so well or so long as they do ? The * * They dispose to every form of acute disease. They moreover excite fevers in persons predisposed to them from other causes. This has been remarked in all the yellow fevers which have visited the cities of the United States. Hard drinkers seldom escape, and scarcely ever recover from them.' — Rush's Inquiry, p. 8. 63 Roman soldiers, who overran the world, drank vinegar and water. In the parent country, training for athletick exercises, demanding the greatest attainable power of action and endurance, is reduced to a regular science. The subjects of it are a class of men, little influenced by moral considerations. Their discipline is merely a discipline to bring the human machine to its maximum of exertion of activity and force ; and one of its rules, it is said, founded on the nicest observation and full experience, is an utter prohibition of the use of spirituous liquors."^ There can be lit- tle doubt, that, taking the twenty-four hours together, the temporary excitement produced by ardent spirits does not compensate the succeeding languor ; and there can be no doubt that, other things being equal, the per- sons who abstain from them through their lives, have essentially greater strength of body * See on this subject, Dr. Bradford's Address before the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of In- temperance. 64 and mind, and are happier, and longer lived. In cases of extreme hardship, such as cold, watching, and fatigue in war, it has appeared that the most temperate have been the most able to endure ; and in shipwrecks, in ninety- nine cases in a hundred, it has not been the seemingly hardy sailors, used to all kinds of exposure, who have suffered least, but their officers, more delicately reared, more used to comforts and indulgencies, but who, from the sense of their responsibleness for the safety of the rest, have abstained from their excesses. It has even been ascertained to be an errour, that there is danger to life, in wholly and of a sudden discontinuing the use of ardent spirits, in cases where it has been the most immode- rate. The patient in such cases, undergoes a disease which, among its subjects, is denomi- nated the horrours, and which has been thought to be in its nature fatal, unless the cus- tomary stimulus were supplied. He is thrown into the most miserable condition of bodily and mental imbecility. He cannot sleep. ^5 He sees all sorts of frightful phantoms of the imagination in a crowd around him, with the distinctness and certainty of actual sense; and sustains, in short, all agonies of terrour. The fit comes on after a day of abstinence, lasts sometimes four days, though commonly less than two, and leaves the body and mind feeble, but without disease. I mention it as greatly to the honour of the physician of the House of Correction in this city,"^ that, pro- ceeding with a judgment and courage that justified each the other, he has established the common opinion concerning the needful palli- ative in this case, to be groundless. Of two hundred and fifty patients, with whom he has enforced total abstinence, he has lost not one. 2. Another cause of that general use of ar- dent spirits, which in its turn is the cause of their excessive use, is their instituted connex- ion^ in the minds and habits of a great portion * Dr. Joshua B. Flint. I understand that the same course has also been taken, and with an equally satis- factory result, in the state's prison at Charlestown. 66 of the people, ivith the intercourse of friend- ship, and the duties of hospitality. It is hard to account for the origin of the different usages of different nations. This happens to be ours. The Asiatick gives his guests and his friends presents to carry away. The Frenchman entertains with his ices and his coffee ; the Indian with his pipe ; the Italian with his gar- dens, his pictures, and his rausick, without any thing to satisfy hunger or thirst, taking it for granted that, as to these wants, his guests have provided for themselves at home. We of the English race shew our good will with what we call good cheer; another phrase which speaks our sense of a connexion be- fore referred to ; for cheer in its original sig- nification means gayety and spirit; in that which it has acquired through our habits, it means meat and drink. The connexion is by no means altogether arbitrary. Eating and drink- ing together is a natural and proper sign enough of concord, and under different modifications has perhaps been so considered at all times. 67 The temperate participation of them itself elevates the spirits, and the seasons for them are naturally enough chosen as the seasons for social interviews. Besides vv^hich, they give opportunity to the offerer to shew his friend- ship by a trifling act of generosity, which is likely to be kindly taken. Why, in this character of a courteous and hospitable offer- ing, provision for thirst has so taken pre- cedence of provision for hunger, is not so clear. Perhaps it is because the former is more readily at hand, and soonest prepared and disposed of. Perhaps, because the ex- citement of animal spirits produced by it is more quickly obtained and in a higher de- gree. But however this may be, the fact is, that the offer of stimulating liquid of some form is in this and the parent country the cus- tomary offer of courtesy, in most classes of society. Among the citizens of the parent country, it is not so generally made in the form of distilled spirits, because, happily for them, that product is exceedingly dear ; happily for them, at least, it would be, if the strong ap- petite for the exciting essence did not lead them to secure it by consuming greater quan- tities of products which contain it in a less concentrated form. Here, on the contrary, they are exceedingly cheap ; so much so, that I suppose it would be speaking within bounds, to say that with the fruits of the la- bour of one day in the week, a man might keep himself completely brutalized and help- less by them during the remaining six. The consequence is they are within the perfectly convenient reach of every individual, who de- sires to have them to use or to bestow ; and this fully explains, why, in the intercourse of the great majority of persons in this community, they should have established a preference to be the customary token of that good will, which some offering to the palate is looked for to testify. Such, at any rate, they now are among us ; and this being so, when they are always stored on the shelf of the house- holder, and held to the visitor's lips, — when 69 they are at hand in every place of amusement^ or of bargaining, or of service, to seal every contract, and renew every acquaintance, and requite every good turn, — when one must of- fer, and therefore must taste, and the other must accept, or be reckoned churlish, what wonder that that use of them should be pre- vailing and habitual, out of which a perni- cious use is so certain in numerous cases to grow ? 3. I might therefore name the cheapness of ardent spirits among us as a third cause of their general use, but it blends itself with the other two. Because they are thought desira- ble for nourishment and medicine, and com- fort and companionship, and because they are cheaply had, they are every where to be found, provided for these purposes ; and, — being so used (without the restraint of costli- ness) for these, whenever they are imagined to occur, — they actually run, in frequent in- stances, into that excess, to which, of their nature, they strongly tend. Again ; being so 70 freely provided for these uses, they are ready to serve any other not comprehended in these. Make any expedient frequent and agreeable, and you need give no other reason for a re- sort to it which shall be causeless, unexcused and constant. Reversing the la\v^ of econo- micks, the supply creates the demand. It is furnished to serve many uses, and, being fur- nished, it suggests itself and is found applicable for all. Thus ardent spirits have extensively established their place among the regular pro- visions of families, and on the table of daily repast. Along with the common means of sustenance, they are in the sight of children, and sometimes without doubt at their lips, diluted and sweetened at first so as not to of- fend their taste. They come with not a few to stand almost in the place of food, nay, one might say, of shelter, fire, and raiment. No where are they out of place. They menace with their serpent's bite, they brandish their adder's sting, in meetings for sacred duties, nay, in meetings for funeral sorrow. Are we 71 to expect to be thus continually confronting such a reptile, and never to feel its fang ?^ There is another way in which the supply creates the demand. It is in the multipli- cation of houses licensed for the sale of ardent spirits by retail. There are more * A little girl at one of the primary schools, after re- peating the letters of the word coffee, hesitated to pro- nounce it. * What does your mother get for your break- fast ? ' asked the mistress, by way of helping her. The child promptly answered ' Rum.' A female domestick, thirteen or fourteen years old, after visiting her parents, was observed to come home intoxicated, and on inquiry it was found that ardent spirits were given her at that repast, of which tea is commonly the provision. These are only two examples, which I happen lately to have heard, of what most persons know, that spirituous li- quors are instar omnium with many families among our population. In the course of some inquiries into the state of the poor in Charlestown within a few win- ters, three or four little children, from infancy upwards, were found huddled together in a miserable bed, in the dead sleep of drunkenness. Their mother said that being destitute of means to feed, clothe, or warm them properly, she quieted them, when they woke, with a new dose of liquor. 72 dangerous places of resort than these, no doubt. It appears from time to time on the records of our courts, that there are haunts of intemperance furnished for the greater al- lurement with means of gambling, and other seductions ; and lately there was brought to light a den of wickedness, where an intoxicatr ing mixture, till now unknown, of pernicious drugs, was prepared, chiefly, as it appeared for children, — the best nursery, hitherto disco- vered, of those offenders of tender age, who month by month, are convicted under the stat- ute against common drunkards.* But I speak * A child was brought up for stealing a watch, under complaint of the keeper of this establishment, who, it appeared, had crazed him by administering this prepara- tion, to which, in evidence, he gave the name of Tom and Jerry. The court held the landlord to be most culpable, and under its direction an uncommonly re- spectable jury acquitted the little wretch. In the case of most of the juvenile offenders charged in the police court with assaults and other disturbances of the peace, it appears on examination that the excite- ment of ardent spirits was the origin of their offence, and children apprehended for pilfering are not uncom- monly brought before the magistrates intoxicated. 73 not of these, but of resorts which break no law. It is enough for serious detriment to the publick morals, that numerous opportunities should be furnished to intemperance, to put out of view all other excitement. Under the present vigi- lant administration of our city government, there are no less than five hundred and eighty licensed tenements, nearly all of them having licenses as victualing houses, and accordingly being authorized to sell liquors in the smallest quantities, to be drunken upon the premises ; and most of them too being the same places where groceries and other requisites of a fa- mily are obtained, so that they present the temptation to the view when visited with a different purpose, and make it convenient to take the change of money paid for other com- modities, in ardent spirits. Five hundred and eighty licensed houses ; one licensed house to every sixteen not licensed ; one licensed house to every thirty-four male citi- zens over sixteen years of age. The weather 5 74 must be inclement which can part an idle per- son from his cups, when at the worst the chance is that he may enjoy them, and with them a cir- cle of congenial society, within sixteen doors of his own. A labouring man must choose his way well, who in going a mile from his work to his home, should not pass a hundred points where his virtue is thus tried. After every sixteenth house, on an average, as he goes, the means of vicious indulgence are pre- sented to him, not improbably with the added inducement of the sight of some acquaintance partaking of them. ^ Such are some of the causes, more and less prominent, of the great evil we have been la- menting. Let their reality be well examined and weighed. It is much more easy to de- tect their existence than to devise their reme- dies. Yet let not even that be despaired of. To find and apply them is a great and good work. It is but just begun, and it is too early 75 for discouragement to await it. Let men do their part, and, in his own^good time, through the providential teaching of experience, a wisdom from God will explain the means of success, and an energy from God will use them. 1 CORINTHIANS, VIII. 13. If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to of- fend. We have attended to some statements, re- lating to the appalling consequences, here and hereafter, of the vice of intemperate drink- ing ; the extent to which it prevails in our community ; the loss and disturbance which the publick suffers from it, and the dangers with which it threatens even so stable a thing as our political institutions. We have also made some inquiry into the causes which lead to the destructive indulgence. So far, our way was sufficiently plain. We had only to use our senses, and we could not fail to see it. We approach now a much more difficult question. What can be done to stay this torrent of wo and death ; to stop this 77 overflowing fountain of private and publick ruin ? I. The readiest way would seem to be to invoke the authority of law. It is by laws, with suitable penalties annexed, that in other cases the community provides for the perma- nence of its institutions, and protects the in- nocent against invasion from the guilty. 1 . For such protection we look, in the first instance, to the parental government of our own commonwealth. Our ancestors, in the first, and the early part of the second century of our history, thought this a proper field for the operation of legal restraints. Two great features of their legislation on the subject, have since disappeared. (1.) They made each separate act of drunkenness indictable and punishable, as an act of assault or larce- ny now is ; thus rendering it infamous, and obstructing that repetition of it, which is necessary to the forming of the habit. (2.) They enjoined on the municipal authorities to prosecute such offenders, and to employ per- 5^ 78 sons to inform against them, with a compen- sation for their services ; thus refusing to rely on the always invidious method of private in- formation. They also, by an act passed at a still earlier period, forbade persons employing workmen, to give them strong liquors, except in cases of necessity. These provisions are all done away. Our existing laws only pun- ish or restrain persons who are proved, (1.) to be common drunkards ; (2.) to be injuring or endangering their health by intemperance ; (3.) to be exposing themselves or their fami- lies to become a publick charge ; (4.) to have been guilty of excess in a licensed house. It is but too probable, that whenever either of these cases brings the citizen within the reach of the law, the law finds him too late for his own good. Was there not reason in the view which our fathers took of this subject ? Does it not accord with just principles of law, to compel the citizen under pain of its retributions to keep sober, as much as to compel him to re- 79 main peaceable or honest, provided his intem- perance injures other individuals and the community, as much as his passion or his dis- honesty would injure them ? And is not this condition met ? Are acts of violence or of fraud often committed, which affect the com- munity so injuriously as an example of vicious excess ; and how often do we hear of such an act, which inflicts on individuals so griev- ous a wrong, as is inflicted by intemperance on all whose fortunes or whose hearts are bound to its victim ? The lenity which lets it pass unpunished and so emboldens it, seems no less than just so much cruel injustice to the better part of society ; — oppression of the innocent in subjecting them to ill treatment fi-om the guilty, and of the industrious in compelling them to take the burden of main- taining the improvident and idle. To punish drunkenness as a crime in itself, has been a course often enough adopted. The Romans went so far, as to punish capitally a single transgression of the kind by a female. And 4t 80 as to encroachments upon the liberties of the citizen, the publick often protects itself, (and is held by all writers to be justified by the great law of self-preservation in doing so,) by processes which might far better be reckoned encroachments, applied to cases too, where the citizen is chargeable with no offence whatsoever. Take the case of the health laws. A person is attacked in one of our cities by a disease, supposed to be infectious. This is no fault of his. On the contrary, it makes him a subject of pity. But, against his will, he must be taken from the familiar comforts of home, and the alleviations of do- mestick care, to take his fate, whatever it may be, in some place unknown, and possibly odious to him. Repeated instances have oc- curred in this country, and in former times in this town, in which to the pain of separation, and the hazard of removal, — unavoidable in- conveniences, — has been added the grievance of exposure to a place, and to circumstances, of peculiar danger. With the last winter there 81 occurred here a rare instance, if not the first, of an individual reputed to be suffering un- der a contagious disease, being permitted by the authorities to struggle with it quietly at home, under sufficient securities. By the quarantine laws of most of our cities, persons arriving from tropical climates or suspected places, are required to remain a certain num- ber of days, without intercourse with their friends, whatever reasons they may have for impatience, and under circumstances always wearisome and disagreeable in the extreme. This alone is punishment enough for those who have committed no fault, but it has not seldom happened that they have also been compelled to remain more or less within the reach of infection, and incurred the conse- quences. If the good of the whole rightly enforces such restraints on the liberty of such as, without any fault, might spread physical pestilence, has it no privileges in respect to the voluntary difFuser of a moral pestilence, with all its diversity of destructive conse- 82 quences ; or is the danger thus threatened to be accounted less worthy of precautions ? But I would be as far as any one from de- fending any course likely to infringe the just freedom of the citizen. It may be, that the offence could not be satisfactorily defined, and that penal laws of the kind in question, might lead to an oppressive scrutiny of pri- vate life. Yet are there not, let me ask, some legislative provisions, liable to no objection in point of principle, and which might, if not at once, yet by degrees, be introduced ? Would it not be possible, by a general law, to pro- portion the number of licensed houses, in each municipality, to its population, accord- ing to the supposed general exigency ; and, since the difficulty of discriminating between different applications is so great, as almost to excuse the municipal authorities for unreason- ably multiplying recommendations, might not a heavy tax be imposed by law, on the renewal of licenses ; a tax which the few who would then monopolize the trafiick, would be well 83 able to pay, and which would have the gene- ral effect to place them in the hands of per- sons of some standing in society, as well as to diminish the number of places of allure- ment ? If ardent spirits were thus made to deposit in the treasury a sum adequate to the support of the pauperism they create, it would not seem that there was injustice done. The effect of a similar measure has been incident- ally tried, if proof of the effect were needed. In three years from the beginning of 1814, after which the internal duty, levied by the federal government, became payable, fewer licences by far were taken out in the counties of Suffolk and Essex, than in the years be- fore and after; and there is no reason to doubt, that the same was the consequence elsewhere. In populous towns, might not the privilege of retailing liquor be withholden from places where household stores are sold, and where, of consequence, it is placed in the way of so many who do not come to seek it ? Is there no just method of instituting some difference 84 in the treatment of paupers by reason of in- temperance, and others ? May not guardians be trusted with authority over the persons of their intemperate wards ? May not town of- ficers be required to prosecute illegal prac- tices of retailers ? Might they not be forbid- den, under pain of forfeiture of their privilege, to sell liquor to paupers ; and to other individ- uals, after receiving from town officers a pri- vate injunction to that effect, grounded on a representation made by the friends of those individuals, or by other citizens, that they were falling into intemperate habits, which representation should have been ascertained by proper inquiry to be just ? One happy effect of such a measure would be, to re- move from the view of the many, whose occa- sions call them to move from place to place, that crowd of loathsome loiterers, young and old, who, from town to town, are seen haunting the spot where the conveyance rests. In Italy, where natural deformities abound, and where, from the misplaced generosity of travellers, 85 a hideous deformity is a fortune, no sight so painful as . that is to be seen. A limb which nature has wrenched, is no object of disgust, like a form which vice has disfigured. Again ; one state has prohibited magistrates from hold- ing their courts in taverns, as leading their suitors within sight of temptation ; and a go- vernour of New York, some years ago, re- commended to its legislature, that demands for spirituous liquors sold by retail, should be made not recoverable by law. Is there noth- ing practicable and promising in such provi- sions ? It becomes me not to say, that there are not insuperable objections to all such. But it is not amiss for the questions to be moved. And those of us, who have not the laws to make, have only to inquire what it is desirable to do. We may leave it to legisla- tors to see the difficulties which occur in do- ing it. 2. Again ; is there nothing to be expected to this end, from the wisdom of the nation ? From that source, if such were the publick 86 sense, an efficient coercive measure would come in the least exceptionable form. The use of ardent spirits might be reasonably ex- pected to be less, in proportion as their price was greater ; and if ijot, an average duty and excise of twenty-seven cents on each gallon consumed in the union, would meet its cur- rent expenditure. I am not so extravagant as to suppose, that any step of this kind can be expected to be taken ; but, if it could, what discerning person would not say, that we saved the expense of a good government, from a charge whence it could well be spared ? And that government, so far-sight- ed to defend its institutions from foreign plots, might not its care be worthily bestow- ed, to shield them from this tremendous in- testine foe? It spoke the nation's sense, and won the nation's favour, when, not long ago, it declared to the world, that it would maintain the strand of this western continent sacred from the foot of every asserter of ar- bitrary rule ; but I verily believe, that, at that 87 moment and at this, our freedom was and is more endangered from the different quarter to which we have been looking. I do not say that the country would applaud more, but I am persuaded that it would have more reason to applaud, a determination which should be announced to it, to repel the dan- ger from this source. These are not considerations out of place here, because in a country where the citizens are the sovereign, whatever can be made to appear to them to be right, will, in the course of time, be law ; and I need not say that where such a foe to religion, being a proper subject for legal restraints, thrives upon legal sufferance, the search of methods, to drive it from that refuge, takes a place among reli- gious inquiries. II. But to turn to other remedies capable of being applied by more manageable agency than that of the sovereign power. 1. Great things, I doubt not, might be done, by the provision of some substitute for ardent spirits, which should possess their supposed quality to refresh, and should take their place as the customary offering of good will. This is by no means a hopeless project, and I greatly desire to see it tried. In France or Italy, I did not see an intoxicated person. It is not principle that restrains the people of those countries. They are by no means free from other sensuality, and transplanted to other parts of the world, the French, at least, are not seldom drunkards. It is not want or costliness of the means of intemperance. The strong drink that deceives so many oth- ers, comes from the former kingdom, and the vineyards of Italy rear abundant temptation for other climes. But in those countries, men have not the same faith as in this, in the universal infallibility of ardent spirits, and custom has not made them the appropriate offering of hospitality, and therefore a relish for them is not formed. Friends repair to- gether to houses of publick entertainment, which are every where open, as with us. But 89 the substance, with which they habitually re- gale themselves, excites without inebriating. The fact is a striking one ; and, as it seems to me, speaks du'ection and encouragement. We wonder at some of the vices of those nations. The most vicious of them would wonder no less at the intemperance of ours. Their preservative from it is equally at our command ; and when they have found a means of perfectly temperate festivity, which satisfies them, in a like use, better than the hurtful one in use among us, is it not worth the trial to have it adopted from them ?* * In Venice, there is a coffee-house which is said not to have been closed, day nor night, for a hu^dred and fifty years. This gives an idea of the demand there is for that refreshment. EstabUshments of the kind, — at many (I suppose, most) of which no Uquor except cof- fee is furnished, — are found exceedingly profitable, in Italy and France, being frequented for purposes of re- freshment and sociability, in the same manner as our bar-rooms ; every one may judge how much less injuri- ously. I see no reason why they should not succeed among us. Drams are often resorted to for want of something better, by travellers, for instance, in cold 90 2. Again ; there is a great want of inno- cent pnblick amusements among iis. We are weather, or by night, and since there would be found every thing to recommend the substitute, the fashion would be Ukely to spread. The light wines of those coun- tries seem to have Httle power, if any, to disease the ap- petite. They are dmnk to quench thirst for the most part, as milk would be. Nothing is more common than^ at the little inns where one stops between one city and another, to see people of the labouring class drink part of a bottle of wine, largely diluted with water, and leave the rest, which they have paid for. I have heard it said, that when the French armies returned from the wars in Holland, they brought back a taste for distilled hquor, as the English are reputed to have done before, from the campaigns of the duke of Marlborough. But if this were the case, it seems that the imported vice could not make a stand against the fixed habits of the nation. Certain it is, that one must have more than a visitor's opportunities of being acquainted with Paris, before one will see exhibitions of intemperance which are scarcely to be avoided in any English or American market town. Some successful specimens of light wine have been produced in this countiy, particularly at Ve- vay, in Indiana, by the colony of Swiss, and at Scup- pernong, in North Carolina. These are experiments which deserve attention. 91 told of a certain king, that he offered a prize for a new diversion. We should do well to follow his example, stipulating for one which should be harmless, and accessible to the whole people. In other countries, museums of antiquities and other curiosities, collections of objects of natural history, galleries of statua- ry and pictures, and extensive and magnificent publick gardens, are places of universal holiday resort to a crowded, but perfectly orderly, because temperate population. Some govern- ments, from motives of policy, are at much pains to recommend these recreations, and make their subjects happy by them ; and the consequence is, that, though greatly behind our population in almost all respects, they greatly excel it in some natural, gentle, and refining tastes. They think not of the appe- tite of thirst in connexion with their holiday pleasures. They love no riot. They will tolerate none. — It is hard to imagine any way in which such provision is ever to be made among us, but certain it is, that we are suffer- 6 92 ing for the want of it. Of a portion of our people, as of the hardy mountaineers, whom we resemble not a little in good and bad, it might be said by a like severe observer ; * Unknown to them, when sensual pleasures cloy, * To fill the languid pause with finer joy. * * * * * In wild excess the vulgar breast takes fire, * Till, buried in debauch, the bliss expire.'* 3. There is an institution of recent inven- tion, which has done much, 1 doubt not, and * I do not know whether I have here said any thing liable to misconception. Nobody, I suppose, will un- derstand me, as expressing approbation of many of the publick amusements of the continent of Europe, though, even as to these, he would be har^Jy tasked, who should undertake to maintain that they lead to more evil than the sottishness, in whose place they stand. I am not even insensible to the force of much that may be said against the moral tendency of exhibitions in the fine arts. Part of this ground, however, is not debateable. PubHck walks, and collections of natural curiosities, afford relaxation which is nothing but harmless and im- proving. Let any one compare the scene at the botan- ick garden in Paris, or the gardens of the Grand Duke at Florence on some festival day, with that displayed 93 may be made to do more, for the suppression of intemperance. I speak "of the Savings on similar occasions on our common, and he will find that he must have recourse to other considerations to sus-. tain his pride of country. This latter exhibition is a scandal, which I can scarcely doubt the city government would be borne out by the publick sense in removing ; the land thus violated, and the credit thus lost, being both the community's property. This may seem a strange connexion, in which to in- troduce the subject of publick executions, but it is brought to my mind by a paragraph in one of the pa- pers of the day, in which I am writing this note. It contains an account of a recent execution for murder at Raleigh, in North Carolina. * There were individuals,' says the writer, ' in such a beastly state of intoxication, that not even this horrid spectacle could sober them.' The sentence might, I fear, be inserted in every such account. A publick execution is an occasion of strong excitement to the spectators, and there are but too many, in whose minds excitement and recourse to liquor are indissolubly associated. This subject of pub- lick executions, or, I will even say, of collecting crowds on any publick occasion, when it may be avoided, is a subject entitled to much more serious attention than it has hitherto received. To return to the provision of agreeable employment for those seasons of leisure, which are otherwise likely 94 Banks. The individuals who have establish- ed tliem in our towns, and taken care to have to be employed in drinking. The condition of our peo- ple seems to me to offer, in one particular, a plain di- rection. With us every body can read, and a taste for reading, such as, to a certain extent, is generally pos- sessed among us, affords a never-failing resource for the agreeable occupation of time. Pains ought to be taken to cultivate and gratify this taste. I look upon the social libraries, established in many of our country towns, as an excellent preservative against intemper- ance, when proper care is taken to furnish them with entertaining as well as instructive books. With our long winters, our agricultural population find a great deal of time hanging heavy on their hands, and many resort to the tavern to while it away, who would not do it, if they could, in any better way, find agreeable ex- citement for their minds. I think it, therefore, to be greatly desirable, that large collections of improving and amusing books should be provided in every village, for the general use. All private and domestick virtues would find a new aid in such establishments. I ven- ture to propose something further. To meet, in a safe way, the demands of the social principle, and of the taste for news, both which have a place among im- pulses towards the tavern, why might not a reading room be established in each town, in some central place, (not a licensed house,) where the gazettes and other 95 them attached to the large manufacturing es- tablishments in the country, are publick bene- factors worthy of cordial praise. I mention them particularly here, in order to express my conviction, that every householder and other person who employs labourers, may do important good, in the connexion of our sub- ject, by making known to his dependants the existence of such institutions. A person who has little money at a time, is tempted to part with it for an idle indulgence, because he knows of no way to dispose of a small surn to advantage ; and to inform him of such a way, is to save much more than his money to vehicles of news might be found, and neighbours might hold their consultations ? I can see no serious difficulty in the way of such institutions, and it seems to me they would promise much good. May I ask magistrates, ministers, or other publick spirited citizens whose eye this suggestion may meet, to give it some considera- tion ? I suspect that, in cities. Insurance Offices, in this way, answer a purpose, which, if they did not ex- ist, taverns, with all their dangers, would have to sei-ve. 6* 9d him. Should there be such a person present, let me say to him, that if he is in the habit of spending eight cents a day in ardent spirits, and will discontinue that practice, to deposit the amount thus redeemed, in the savings bank, he may in twenty years be master from this source, of nearly a thousand, and in thirty years, of nearly two thousand dollars. How few labouring men are there, who do not dai- ly spend that sum in this use, and what a dif- ference it would make to the comfort of their age, to have its proceeds at their com- mand, to say nothing of the health, good tem- per, and good character they will have added to their purchase. 4. Much may be done, and has been done, by voluntary combinations of persons engag- ing together to discountenance and check in- temperance, as far as may be, by their au- thority, example and influence ; to remonstrate with, and when necessary, to prosecute of- fenders against the laws already provided in relation to the subject ; to collect and circulate 97 facts respecting it, and, by whatever means V occur, to exert a joint action on publick opin- ion, that agent which now manages the world. The Massachusetts Society for suppressing Intemperance, instituted fifteen years ago, has laboured well in that field. To its ofl;en dis- appointed, but persevering and efficient la- bours, the anxiety with which the community now regards the subject is in great part to be ascribed. It deserves the help of the able ; the generosity of the benevolent ; and the prayers of all. Several of its branches have also done good service. I will specify the case of one in the town of Yarmouth. Ten years ago some leading persons of that en- terprising place had taken alarm at the ex- tent, to which habits of excess were spreading among their neighbours. They found, as they complained, that ' they could not trust their seamen.' Four individuals met to take coun- sel together in the emergency, and began a reformation by pledging themselves to one another, totally to abstain from ardent spirits 6t 98 themselves, and not offer them to their la- bourers, nor to any other inhabitant of the town. Nine or ten individuals before long formed a society, which in its first report was able to give it as ' their confident opinion, that not one quarter part of the spirituous liquor had been used in their town in that year, which had been used in the years preceding.' All the retailers of ardent spirits gave up the business, and took an active part in the re- form. The society, under the original com- pact of abstinence, now consists of a hundred of the most respectable citizens, fifteen of whom have acknowledged themselves to have stood before on most dangerous ground. Their vessels make long fishing voyages with- out distilled liquor on board, and the effect, in short, is that intemperance is almost ban- ished from the place. Such an instance is a trumpet tongue of encouragement. Other combinations less formal and less permanent, for the same object, have done their measure of good. Several towns in the 99 neighbourhood of Yarmouth, have, in town meeting, instructed their selectmen to recom- mend no retailers for licenses, and but one or two innholders. In those assemblies presided the old virtue of the pilgrims. In Cohasset, twelve or thirteen licensed householders have of late, by agreement together, given up their privilege. The example of conspicuous bodies of men at their publick meetings, in exclud- ing spirituous liquors, has had its good influ- ence, which may most advantageously be further used. The denominations of Me- thodists and Friends have adopted ecclesias- tical regulations, which in those well organized bodies are effective checks. Individuals have a similar work to do; sometimes by means of particular advantages. The jurist, for instance, has a task in a strict administration, and, if the way may be found, an improvement of the laws relative to crim- inal indulgence. The divine, in publick and in private, needs to expose it in its character of an awful dereliction of the law of God, 100 and suicide of the soul } and the physician, from the press and in the family, is called on to make known its terrifick effects upon the system, and to explain what habits of consti- tution, employment and diet tend to, and what oppose it.^ This is a kind of explana- tion particularly wanted. Full experiment of landholders authorizes me to say, that, be- sides serving their own interest, they may prove essentially useful to the labourers they employ, by stipulating to give them higher wages, and, on that consideration, to withhold all supply of ardent spirits, on w^hatever occa- sion or pretence. They who would drink immoderately, thinking that what they should leave w^ould be gain to their employers and loss to themselves, will be comparatively tem- perate, unless already addicted to the vice, * An excellent service would be rendered to the cause by medical genUemen and town officers under- taking to ascertain and publish, from year to year, the number of persons who die and become paupers through intemperance. 101 when they know that tliey must be the poor- er for what they consume.^ To secure ar- * A friend informs me, that in expending forty thou- sand dollars upon the large manufacturing establishment at Uxbridge, he has used among his workmen only five or six hogsheads of spirits, and this chiefly among those employed in ditching. The quantity thus named seems not small ; but it is trifling in proportion to the amount of labour requisite to earn such a sum. He gives his la- bourers advanced v^^ages on a stipulation of total absti- nence from distilled spirits, which condition violated in a single instance, he parts with them. Their drink is molasses and water ; and his experience of their peace- ableness among themselves, and better service of his in- terests with a perfectly temperate diet, has led him to the resolution henceforward to employ no labourer, on any terms whatever, except with this restriction. Oth- er similar experiments with a similar result are within my knowledge, and I know of none to contradict them. Let us be warned by the wretched condition of the manufacturing population of England, and let measures be seasonably taken to avert it from ours. I scarcely need say that I have here only attempted to indicate a few of the most direct methods of precau- tion against the vice in question. Every thing which tends to promote industrious and orderly habits, to fur- nish useful occupation to the mind, above all to bring it under religious influences, has a high importance ia 102 dent spirits, in fine, from intemperate use, the method seems to me no other than to drive them absolutely from common use ; and therefore, without undertaking to say what is every one's duty, I am sure that every one will be in the way of doing great good, who will resolve not to keep, never to offer, and never to accept them, except when profes- sionally prescribed, thus causing his ' moder- ation to be known unto all men,' and by his conduct calling their attention to the subject. This is the spirit of the aposde's resolution in our text, in adducing which I did not think this view. The libraries for apprentices, and scientifick lectures for young mechanicks, which have lately been set on foot in this city, are excellent moral instruments. The commonwealth is likely to make no better single provisions against intemperance than those which en- force the support of common schools and publick wor- ship. Our primary schools in this city do good service, in withdrawing many young children from the constant bad example of vicious parents ; but the system needs to be completed by the establishment of infant schools, on a plan of recent invention which is producing excel- lent fniits in the parent country. 103 it necessary to detain you with any illustration of its coincidence with that spirit of consider- ate, self-denying charity which is tlie favour- ite grace of the gospel. I will undertake to say further, that the young, who have no plea to make of habits formed, and so backward to relinquish their indulgence, however tem- perate, — I will say that the young should re- solve absolutely to abstain from ardent spirits. They will not then, it is true, be sure of be- ing temperate. They may use the vinous and other liquors to a criminal excess ; but it is distilled spirits, that experience has proved to have the peculiar power to steal away the resolution while they win the taste, and in the purpose to renounce them the greatest danger will have been escaped. 5. Once more ; effectually to check this, like every other moral evil, we must faithfully do what in us lies, by inculcation and exam- ple, to spread the sanctifying influences of the gospel of Christ ; of that pure and heavenly spirit which can hold no fellowship with any 104 sensuality, — which separates itself from the pollutions of the world, as the crystal's solid light takes no stain from the mire of the cav- ern where it is buried. Address then, breth- ren, to the objects of your solicitude, the warnings and entreaties of your Saviour's re- ligion. There is the sovereign antidote for every moral bane. With the affectionate apostle, let the language of your lips and of your conduct to them be, ' dearly beloved, we beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.' Make them feel the earnestness of that entreaty ; the reality of that charac- ter ; the solemnity of that truth. Help them, as you may, to attain that spirituality of mind, which alone can be relied on as a complete safeguard against disorders of the life. Quick- en them to a devout love of God, so that whether they eat or drink, or whatsoever they do, they may never be regardless of glorifying him. Excite them to a holy love of Jesus, that they may aim, like him, to be 105 ' harmless, undefiled, and separate from sin- ners.' 'Walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.' There is our path of safety. There we shall walk un- harmed, however example or viler influences should entice, or treacherous opportunity be- guile. A heart purified by religion is the citadel of unconquerable strength against all assauks of evil. My friends, labour to cre- ate in others that purity of heart, and to that end cherish it in yourselves, with watchful- ness and prayer. Let others see how holy in all manner of conversation the faith of Christ has made you, and by that appeal win them to embrace it and live by it. When you and all others are engaged in communi- cating its blessed spirit, there will exist no evils to deplore, like that which now sum- mons us, each and all, to strenuous effort. I have said nothing of methods of recovery of persons already involved in intemperate habits. They are not to be abandoned. But 106 my only hope that their reformation will in any considerable number of cases be effected, rests on the report which most of us have heard, that a physician has discovered some preparation which, administered, will make the patient forever after nauseate ardent spir- its."^ Jf this be true, let us forthwith decree festivals and erect statues to him. Our tes- timonials of publick gratitude to such a bene- factor can scarcely be too cordial or too costly. He is far more worthy of the high- est honours from us, than were those champi- ons who, in ancient times, were deified for their services in ridding a country of mon- sters. * The discovery here alluded to, was that announced in the papers to have been made in New Orleans. The prescription of Dr. Chambers of New York has come into notice since the publication of the first edi- tion. Dr. Flint, and Dr. Tuckerman, missionary of the American Unitarian Association, have, in several in- stances administered it in this town with success, as far as the length of time since elapsed authorizes to pronounce upon the result. 107 In presuming to suggest remedies, my friends, I have by no means overlooked or underrated the difficuhies of the case. But I also remember, that difficulties are the in- stituted occasion in the order of providence for calling out great wisdom and vigour. I call to mind words of the first president of that society, to which I have referred as suc- cessfully labouring in this cause ;* a great and good man, whose devotions were used to ascend here with yours for a divine bless- ing on all good counsels and all just works, and whose heart, I doubt not, was often warm- ed wit'i yours by the breathings of love to God and man which then fell here from most persuasive lips. He had this cause much at heart. His large and earnest mind counted the obstacles, but it was the better to meet them. ' As the object is good,' said he, ' so it is practicable.' I love to repeat that say- ing. The object is good ; therefore it is prac- * I'he late honourable Samuel Dexter. 108 cable. It is an enterprize against that which is, by eminence, the misfortune, the danger of our beloved country ; the blot on the fair works of God among us ; the weapon of the prince of darkness. It has a right then to the services of every prudent man, every pa- triotick citizen, every disciple of Christ ; and it asks the benefit of no other services than those, effectually to maintain itself. I desire more and more to realize, — for it is a truth which all religion establishes, and all future experience is to seal, — that under the govern- ment of a God who hath pleasure in righteous- ness and favour for its toils, single-minded men need no other omen for the conquest, in due time, over any difficulties, than the omen of A GOOD CAUSE. 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROW LOAN DEPT. RENEWALS ONLY — TEL. NO. 642-3405 This book is due on the last date stamped below, c on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. muj I963L ^Ir^ OCT3o196(qfl ^gCg/v^ i'^e©- Smm^ m LO'^'., ■«f^ 4%-' ~7 %P ^ '^ J UM. 25 2r^ / ID ^ UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA UBli\RY