danger?" Suppose _you are safe_; have you then no _benevolence_? Are you
utterly _selfish_? Think of the bosom now wrung with agony and shame,
over a drunken husband, or father, or brother. And have you no _pity_?
Think of the millions of hopes, for both worlds, suspended on the
success of the temperance cause. And will you do nothing to speed its
triumph?
Do you say, your influence is of no account? It was one "poor man" that
saved a "little city," when a "great king besieged it." Another saved a
"great city," when the anger of Jehovah was provoked against it. Small
as your influence may be, you are accountable to God and your country;
and your finger may touch some string that shall vibrate through the
nation.
But are you conscious of possessing talent? Then rally the circle of
your acquaintance, and enlist them in the sacred cause. And do you save
a little by abstinence? Then _give_ a little to extend the benign
influence. What youth cannot, at least, circulate a few Tracts, and
perhaps enlist as many individuals? And who can estimate the endless
influence of those individuals, or their capacity for rising with you in
celestial splendor?
But have you wealth, or power with the pen? Then speak by ten thousand
tongues: send winged messengers through the city, the country, the town,
the village, the harbor; and thus may you enjoy _now_ the highest of all
luxuries--the luxury of _doing good_. And, at the same time, trusting in
HIM who came from the abodes of light, "to seek and save the lost," you
may secure _durable riches_ in that world, where, saith the Scripture,
neither _covetous_, nor _drunkards_, nor extortioners, nor revilers, nor
the _slothful_, nor mere _lovers of pleasure_, nor _any thing that
defileth_, shall ever enter; but where THEY THAT BE WISE shall shine
forth as the brightness of the firmament for ever and ever.
When these opposite characters and their changeless destinies are
_seriously_ weighed, none, surely, can hesitate which to prefer. But,
"what thou doest, do quickly."
* * * * *
NOTE.--A premium of fifty dollars, offered by a friend, was awarded to
the author of this Tract.
* * * * *
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.
ALARM TO DISTILLERS.
BY REV. BAXTER DICKINSON, D. D.
The art of turning the products of the earth into a fiery spirit was
discovered by an _Arab_, about nine hundred years ago. The effects of
this abuse of nature's gifts were soon viewed with alarm. Efforts were
made, even by a heathen people, to arrest the evil; and it shows the
mighty agency and cunning of Satan, that Christian nations should ever
have been induced to adopt and encourage this deadliest of man's
inventions. In the guilt of encouraging the destructive art, our own
free country has largely participated. In the year 1815, as appears from
well-authenticated statistics, our number of distilleries had risen to
nearly _forty thousand_; and, until within a few years past, the
progress of intemperance threatened all that was fair and glorious in
our prospects. The reformation recently commenced is one of the grandest
movements of our world; and to secure its speedy triumph, the
concurrence of distillers is obviously indispensable. They must cease to
provide the destroying element. This they are urged to do by the
following considerations:
1. The business of distilling _confers no benefits on your fellow-men_.
Ardent spirit is not needed as an article of living. In the first ages
of the world, when human life was protracted to hundreds of years, it
was unknown. By the first settlers of this country it was not used. It
was scarcely used for a whole century. And those temperate generations
were remarkably robust, cheerful, and enterprising. To this we may add,
that several hundred thousand persons, accustomed to use it, have given
it up entirely within a few years past; and their united testimony is,
that they have made no sacrifice either of health, or strength, or any
real comfort. Indeed few, if any, except such as have the intemperate
appetite, will now seriously contend that distilled liquor is necessary
or useful. The little that may perhaps be desirable as medicine, might
be made by the apothecary, or the physician.
The talents God has given you _might_ be applied to advance the welfare
of your fellow-men. It is your duty--your highest _honor_--thus to apply
them. And on the bed of death, in near prospect of the judgment, it will
surely be a melancholy reflection that, as regards the happiness of
mankind, your life has been an utter _blank_.
2. The business of distilling is not only useless, but _is the occasion
of many and great evils_. Recent examination has developed a number of
appalling facts, which few, if any, pretend to question. It is admitted
that the use of ardent spirit has been a tax on the population of our
country, of from _fifty to a hundred millions of dollars_ annually. It
is admitted that three-fourths of all the _crimes_ of the land result
from the use of intoxicating liquor. It is admitted that at least
three-fourths of all the sufferings of _poverty_ arise from the same
source. It is admitted that upwards of _thirty thousand_ of our citizens
have annually descended to the _drunkard's grave_. It is admitted, by
those who believe the Bible, that _drunkards shall not inherit eternal
life_, but must _have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and
brimstone_. In a word, it is admitted that health, fortune, social
happiness, intellect, conscience, heaven, are all swept away by the tide
of intemperance.
And now, what you are specially bound to ponder is, that this burning
tide, with all its desolations, flows from those very fountains _you_
have opened--the boiling flood can be perpetuated only by those fires
which _your_ hands kindle, and which it is your daily task to tend.
The position you occupy, then, is one of most fearful responsibility.
You are directly and peculiarly accessary to a degree of guilt and
misery which none but the infinite mind can comprehend. I hear for you a
loud remonstrance from every court of justice, from every prison of
collected crime, from every chamber of debasement, and from every
graveyard, as well as from the dark world of despair. I hear the cries
of unnumbered mothers, and widows, and orphans, all with one voice
imploring you to extinguish those fires, to dry up those fountains, and
to abandon an occupation pregnant with infamy, and death, and perdition.
3. The business of distilling _destroys, to a great extent, the bounties
of Providence_. Many of the substances converted into ardent spirit are
indispensable to the comfort of man--some of them the very staff of
life. But the work of distillation not only destroys them as articles of
food, but actually converts them to poison. An incalculable amount of
grain, and tens of thousands of hogsheads of sugar and molasses, besides
enormous quantities of other useful articles, are every year thus
wickedly perverted in this Christian land. Who does not know the odious
fact that, in many places, the _distillery_ has regulated the price of
bread? Who does not know that this engine of iniquity has at times so
consumed the products of industry as to make it difficult for the poorer
classes to get a supply? "The poor we have always with us;" and cries of
the suffering are often heard from other lands. Such facts, it would
seem, might reach the conscience of all who are wantonly destroying
Heaven's gifts. Can you, for a little selfish gain, persist in
converting the bread of multitudes into pestilential fire? How utterly
unlike the example of Him who, while feeding thousands by miracle, could
still say, "Gather up the fragments which remain, that nothing be lost."
4. By continuing this destructive business, _you greatly offend the
virtuous and respectable part of the community_. The temperance
reformation has been commenced and prosecuted by enlightened men. It is
not the enterprise of any political party or religious sect. It has the
general support of ministers and Christians of different denominations,
of statesmen, judges, lawyers, physicians, and hundreds of thousands in
the walks of private life. They regard the enterprise as one, on the
success of which hang the liberties of our republic and the happiness of
future millions.
You cannot be surprised, then, that they look with pain on operations
directly adapted to defeat their plans, and perpetuate the dread evil
they deplore. You cannot suppose that their eye will light on the
_fountains_ of this mighty evil but with inexpressible grief, disgust,
and indignation. And if you have the common magnanimity of our nature,
you will surely cease to outrage the feelings of the virtuous throughout
the nation.
5. You pursue a pernicious calling, _in opposition to great light_. The
time was when good men extensively engaged in the distilling business,
and when few seemed to be aware of its fearfully mischievous tendency.
The matter had not been a subject of solemn and extensive discussion.
The sin was one of comparative ignorance. But circumstances have
changed. Inquiry has thrown upon the community a flood of light. The
evil of intemperance has been exhibited in its complicated horrors.
Ardent spirit has been found to be not only useless, but fearfully
destructive; so that the guilt of manufacturing it is now enormously
aggravated.
Good men were once engaged in importing slaves. They suspected not the
iniquity of the business; and an apology can be offered for them, on the
ground of ignorance. But their trade has now come to be regarded by the
civilized world in the same odious light as piracy and murder. The man
who engages in it is stamped with everlasting infamy. And the reason is,
that, like the distiller, he now sins amid that fulness of light which
an age of philanthropy has poured around him.
6. Perseverance in the business of distilling _must necessarily be at
the expense of your own reputation and that of your posterity_. You are
creating and sending out the materials of discord, crime, poverty,
disease, and intellectual and moral degradation. You are contributing to
perpetuate one of the sorest scourges of our world. And the scourge can
never be removed till those deadly fires you have kindled are all put
out. That public sentiment which is worthy of respect calls upon you to
extinguish them. And the note of remonstrance will wax louder and
louder till every smoking distillery in the land is demolished. A free
and enlightened people cannot quietly look on while an enemy is working
his engines and forging the instruments of national bondage and death.
Without a prophet's vision, I foresee the day when the manufacture of
intoxicating liquor, for common distribution, will be classed with the
arts of counterfeiting and forgery, and the maintenance of houses for
midnight revelry and corruption. Like these, the business will become a
work only of darkness, and be prosecuted only by the outlaw.
Weigh well, then, the bearing of your destructive employment on personal
and family _character_. The employment may secure for you a little gain,
and perhaps wealth. But, in a day of increasing light and purity, you
can never rid treasures, thus acquired, of a _stigma_, which will render
him miserably poor who holds them. Upon the dwelling you occupy, upon
the fields you enclose, upon the spot that entombs your ashes, there
will be fixed an indescribable gloom and odiousness, to offend the eye
and sicken the heart of a virtuous community, till your memory shall
perish. Quit, then, this vile business, and spare your name, spare your
family, spare your children's children such insupportable shame and
reproach.
7. By prosecuting this business _in a day of light and reform, you
peculiarly offend God, and jeopard your immortal interests_. In "times
of ignorance," God, in a sense, "winked at" error. But let the error be
persisted in under a full blaze of light, and it must be the occasion of
a dread retribution from his throne.
The circumstances of the distiller are now entirely changed. His sin was
once a sin of ignorance, but is such no longer. He _knows_ he is taking
bread from the hungry, and perverting the bounties of Providence. He
_knows_ he is undermining the very pillars of our republic. He _knows_
that, by distilling, he confers no benefits upon mankind. He _knows_ he
is directly accessory to the temporal wretchedness and the endless
wailing of multitudes. And knowing these things, and keeping on his
way, he accumulates guilt which the Holy One cannot overlook. If endless
exclusion from heaven be the drunkard's doom, can _he_ be held guiltless
who deliberately prepared for him, and perhaps placed in his hand, the
cup of death and damnation? This is not the decision either of Scripture
or of common sense. Wilfully persevering to furnish the sure means of
death, you carry to the judgment the murderer's character as clearly as
the midnight assassin.
And now, what is the APOLOGY for prosecuting a business so manifestly
offensive to God, and ruinous to yourself, as well as others? Do you
say, _It is necessary as a means of support_? But whence have you
derived authority to procure a living at the sacrifice of conscience,
character, and the dearest interests of others? And is the maintenance
of a _public nuisance_ really necessary to your support? In a country
like this, the plea of necessity for crime is glaringly impious. Many
and varied departments of honest and honorable industry are before you,
all promising a generous reward; and, neglecting them for a wicked and
mischievous occupation, you must bear the odium of a most sordid
avarice, or implacable malignity.
You virtually, too, impeach the character of God. You proclaim that he
has made your comfort, and even subsistence, to depend upon the practice
of iniquity. It is an imputation he must repel with abhorrence and
wrath. Nor is it sustained by the conscience, reason, or experience of
any man.
But possibly you urge, in self-justification, _Others will manufacture
spirit, if I do not_. But remember, the guilt of one is no excuse for
another. "Every one of us shall give account of _himself_ to God." If
others pursue a business at the sacrifice of character and of heaven, it
becomes you to avoid their crime, that you may escape their doom.
It is not certain, however, that others will prosecute the destructive
business, if you abandon it. Men of fore-thought will not now embark
their silver and gold on a pestilential stream, soon to be dried up
under that blaze of light and heat which a merciful God has enkindled.
They will not deem it either wise or safe to kindle unholy and deadly
fires where the pure river of the water of life is so soon to overflow.
In the eye of thousands, the distillery on your premises adds nothing to
their value. Indeed, should they purchase those premises, the filthy
establishment would be demolished as the first effort of improvement.
And every month and hour is detracting from its value, and blackening
the curse that rests upon it.
Let the thousands now concerned in distilling at once put out their
fires, and the act would cause one general burst of joy through the
nation; and any effort to rekindle them would excite an equally general
burst of indignation and abhorrence. None but a monster of depravity
would ever make the attempt.
But again, perhaps you say, _No one is obliged to use the spirit that is
made_. But remember, that you make it only to be used. You make it with
the desire, with the hope, with the expectation that it will be used.
You know it has been used by thousands--by millions--and has strewed the
land with desolation, and peopled hell with its victims; and you cannot
but acknowledge that you would at once cease to make the liquor, did you
not _hope it would continue to be used_. Indeed, you must see that _just
in proportion to your success_ will be the amount of mischief done to
your fellow-men.
It seems hardly needful to say that the foregoing considerations are all
strictly applicable to SUCH AS FURNISH THE MATERIALS for the distiller.
Were these withheld, his degrading occupation would of course cease. By
suffering, then, the fruits of your industry to pass into his hands, you
perpetuate his work of death. You share all his guilt, and shame, and
curse. And remember, too, that the bushel of grain, the barrel of cider,
the hogshead of molasses, for which you thus gain a pittance, may be
returned from the fiery process only to hasten the infamy and endless
ruin of a beloved son, or brother, or friend.
Nor is the crime of the RETAILER of ardent spirit essentially
different. He takes the poison from the distiller, and insidiously deals
it out to his fellow-men. It is truly stirring to one's indignation to
notice his variety of artifice for rendering it enticing. His occupation
is one which the civil authorities have, in some places, with a noble
consistency, ceased to tolerate; and one which must soon be put down by
the loud voice of public sentiment.
Indeed, the _retailer_, the _distiller_, and he who _furnishes the
materials_, must be looked upon as forming a TRIPLE LEAGUE, dangerous
alike to private and social happiness, and to the very liberties of the
nation. And an awakened people cannot rest till the deadly compact is
sundered. Why not, then, anticipate a little the verdict and the
vengeance of a rising tone of public sentiment, and at once proclaim the
_unholy alliance_ dissolved? Why not anticipate the verdict of an
infinitely higher tribunal--why not believe God's threatening, and
escape the eternal tempest that lowers for _him who putteth the cup to
his neighbor's lips_? Why not cooperate promptly in a public reform that
is regarded with intense interest in heaven, on earth, and in hell?
O review, as men of reason, and conscience, and immortality, this whole
business. And if you have no ambition to _benefit your fellow-men_--if
you can consent _to ruin many for both worlds_--if you can persist in
_wasting and perverting the bounties of a kind Providence_--if you can
outrage the feelings of the most _enlightened and virtuous_--if you can
pursue a work of darkness _amid noonday light_--if you can sacrifice a
_good name_, and entail _odium on all you leave_--and if you can
deliberately _offend God_, and jeopard _your immortal interests_ for
paltry gain, then go on--go on a little longer; but, "O MY SOUL, COME
NOT THOU INTO THEIR SECRET; UNTO THEIR ASSEMBLY, MINE HONOR, BE NOT THOU
UNITED."
* * * * *
NOTE.--A premium, offered by a friend of temperance, was awarded to the
author of this Tract.
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.
PUTNAM AND THE WOLF;
OR,
THE MONSTER DESTROYED.
AN ADDRESS ORIGINALLY DELIVERED AT POMFRET, CONN.,
BY REV. JOHN MARSH.
[Illustration: Weeping drunk with wife and child]
I remember, when a boy, reading a story which chilled my blood in my
veins; but which taught me never to sit down and try to bear an evil
which might, by bold and persevering effort, be remedied. The story was
this. A certain district of country was infested by a wild beast. The
nuisance was intolerable. The inhabitants rallied, and hunted it day and
night, until they drove it into a deep den. There, with dogs, guns,
straw, fire, and sulpher, they attacked the common enemy; but all in
vain. The hounds came back badly wounded, and refused to return. The
smoke of blazing straw had no effect; nor had the fumes of burnt
brimstone. The ferocious animal would not quit its retirement. And now
the shadows of evening gathered around them. The clock struck nine, and
ten. And should they lose their prey? They must, unless some one should
be so daring as to descend into this den of monsters and destroy the
enemy. One man offered to go; but his neighbors remonstrated against the
perilous enterprise. Perilous indeed it was; but live so they could not,
and stripping off his coat and waistcoat and having a long rope fastened
round his legs, by which he might be pulled back, he entered with a
flaming torch in his hand, head foremost. The most terrifying darkness
appeared in front of the dim circle afforded by his light. It was still
as the house of death. But proceeding onwards with unparalleled courage,
he discovered the glaring eyeballs of the ferocious beast, who was
sitting at the extremity of the cavern. For a moment he retreated; but
again descended with his musket. The beast howled, rolled its eyes,
snapped its teeth, and threatened him with instant death, when he
levelled, fired, and brought it forth dead, to the view of his trembling
and exulting neighbors.
Little did I then think that I should one day see the country rallied on
the same spot, to hunt a more terrible monster, whose destruction will
require Putnam courage.
The old enemy, gentlemen, which your fathers hunted about these hills
and dales, was visible to the eye, and could be reached with powder and
ball; but the enemy whom you assault is, like the foe of human bliss
which entered the garden of Eden, invisible, and therefore not to be
described, and not to be destroyed by force of arms. That enemy did,
indeed, to effect his purpose, assume the form of a serpent; and ours
has been said, as belonging to the same family, to have occasionally the
same aspect. A gentleman in Missouri has recently described a dreadful
worm which, he says, infests that country. "It is of a dead lead color,
and generally lives near a spring, and bites the unfortunate people who
are in the habit of going there to drink. The symptoms of its bite are
terrible. The eyes of the patient become red and fiery; the tongue
swells to an immoderate size and obstructs utterance, and delirium of
the most horrid character ensues. The name of this reptile is, 'THE WORM
OF THE STILL.'" I suspect it is one of the same family which is
infesting the peaceful villages of New England, and whose ravages have
alarmed the country, and caused you this day to leave your homes and
seek its destruction. I would not here inquire minutely into its
history. It is said to have originated in Arabia, the country of the
false prophet. The aborigines of our forests never knew it. They could
proudly tread on the rattlesnake and copperhead, but never fell before
the worm of the still. O woful day when it found its way to our coasts;
when here it first generated its offspring.