intemperance. In the strong language of Scripture, _it groaneth and
travaileth in pain, to be delivered from the bondage of this
corruption_. Our country is free; _with a great price obtained we this
freedom_. We feel as if all the force of Europe could not get it from
our embrace. Our shores would shake into the depth of the sea the
invader who should presume to seek it. One solitary citizen led away
into captivity, scourged, chained by a foreign enemy, would rouse the
oldest nerve in the land to indignant complaint, and league the whole
nation in loud demand for redress. And yet it cannot be denied that our
country is enslaved. Yes, we are groaning under a most desolating
bondage. The land is trodden down under its polluting foot. Our families
are continually dishonored, ravaged, and bereaved; thousands annually
slain, and hundreds of thousands carried away into a loathsome slavery,
to be ground to powder under its burdens, or broken upon the wheel of
its tortures.
What are the statistics of this traffic? Ask the records of madhouses,
and they will answer, that one-third of all their wretched inmates were
sent there by Intemperance. Ask the keepers of our prisons, and they
will testify that, with scarcely an exception, their horrible population
is from the schools of Intemperance. Ask the history of the 200,000
paupers now burdening the hands of public charity, and you will find
that two-thirds of them have been the victims, directly or indirectly,
of Intemperance. Inquire at the gates of death, and you will learn that
no less than 30,000 souls are annually passed for the judgment-bar of
God, driven there by Intemperance. How many slaves are at present among
us? We ask not of slaves to man, but to Intemperance, in comparison with
whose bondage the yoke of the tyrant is freedom. They are estimated at
480,000! And what does the nation pay for the honor and happiness of
this whole system of ruin? _Five times as much, every year, as for the
annual support of its whole system of government._ These are truths, so
often published, so widely sanctioned, so generally received, and so
little doubted, that we need not detail the particulars by which they
are made out. What, then, is the whole amount of guilt and of woe which
they exhibit? Ask Him "unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known,
and from whom no secrets are hid." Ask _Eternity_!
The biographer of Napoleon, speaking of the loss sustained by England on
the field of Waterloo, says, "Fifteen thousand men killed and wounded,
threw half Britain into mourning. It required all the glory and all the
solid advantages of that day to reconcile the mind to the high price at
which it was purchased." But what mourning would fill _all_ Britain, if
every year should behold another Waterloo? But what does every year
repeat in our peaceful land? Ours is a carnage not exhibited only once
in a single field, but going on continually, in every town and hamlet.
Every eye sees its woes, every ear catches its groans. The wounded are
too numerous to count. Who is not wounded by the intemperance of this
nation? But of the dead we count, year by year, more than double the
number that filled half Britain with mourning. Ah, could we behold the
many thousands whom our destroyer annually delivers over unto death,
collected together upon one field of slaughter, for one funeral, and one
deep and wide burial-place; could we behold a full assemblage of all the
parents, widows, children, friends, whose hearts have been torn by their
death, surrounding that awful grave, and loading the winds with tales of
woe, the whole land would cry out at the spectacle. It would require
something more than "_all the glory_," and "_all the solid advantages_"
of Intemperance, "_to reconcile the mind to the high price at which they
were purchased_."
But enough is known of the intemperance of this country to render it
undeniable by the most ignorant inhabitant, that a horrible scourge is
indeed upon us.
Another assertion is equally unquestionable. _The time has come when a
great effort must be made to exterminate this unequalled destroyer._ It
was high time this was done when the first drunkard entered eternity to
receive the award of Him who has declared that no drunkard shall enter
the kingdom of God. The demand for this effort has been growing in the
peremptory tone of its call, as "the overflowing scourge" has passed
with constantly extending sweep through the land. But a strange apathy
has prevailed among us. As if the whole nation had been drinking the cup
of delusion, we saw the enemy coming in like a flood, and we lifted up
scarcely a straw against him. As if the magicians of Egypt had
prevailed over us by their enchantments, we beheld our waters of
refreshment turned into blood, and a destroying sword passing through
till "there was a great cry" in the land, for there was scarcely "a
house where there was not one dead;" and still our hearts were hardened,
and we would not let go the great sin for which these plagues were
brought upon us. It seems as if some foul demon had taken his seat upon
the breast of the nation, and was holding us down with the dead weight
of a horrid nightmare, while he laughed at our calamity and mocked at
our fear--when our fear came as desolation, and our destruction as a
whirlwind.
Shall this state continue? Is not the desolation advancing? Have not
facilities of intemperance, temptations to intemperance, examples to
sanction intemperance, been fast increasing ever since this plague
began? Without some effectual effort, is it not certain they will
continue to increase, till intemperate men and their abettors will form
the public opinion and consequently the public conscience and the public
law of this land--till intemperance shall become, like leviathan of old,
"king over all the children of pride," whose breath kindleth coals, and
a "flame goeth out of his mouth?" Then what will effort of man avail?
"Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook? His heart is as firm as a
stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone. He drinketh up a
river, and hasteth not. When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are
afraid."
It is too late to put off any longer the effort for deliverance. It is
granted by the common sense, and urged by the common interest; every
feeling of humanity and every consideration of religion enforces the
belief that the time has come when a great onset is imperiously demanded
to drive out intemperance from the land.
This, to be great, _must be universal_. The whole country is enslaved;
and the whole country must rise up at once, like an armed man, and
determine to be free. Of what lasting avail would it be for one section
of territory, here and there, to clear itself, while the surrounding
regions should remain under the curse? The temperance reformation has no
quarantine to fence out the infected. Geographical boundaries are no
barriers against contagion. Rivers and mountains are easily crossed by
corrupting example. Ardent spirits, like all other fluids, perpetually
seek their level. In vain does the farmer eradicate from his fields the
last vestige of the noisome thistle, while the neighboring grounds are
given up to its dominion, and every wind scatters the seed where it
listeth. The effort against intemperance, to be effective, _must be
universal_.
Here, then, are three important points which we may safely assume as
entirely unquestionable: that _our country is horribly scourged by
intemperance_; that _the time has come when a great effort is demanded
for the expulsion of this evil_; and that _no effort can be effectual
without being universal_. Hence is deduced, undeniably, the conclusion
that it is the duty, and the solemn duty of the people, in every part of
this country, to rise up at once, and act vigorously and unitedly in the
furtherance of whatever measures are best calculated to promote
reformation.
* * * * *
Here the question occurs, _What can be done? How can this woe be
arrested?_ The answer is plain. Nothing can be done, but in one of the
three following ways. You must either suffer people to drink
_immoderately_; or you must endeavor to promote _moderation_ in
drinking; or you must try to persuade them to drink _none at all_. One
of these plans must be adopted. Which shall we choose? The first is
condemned already.
What say we to the second, the _moderate use_ of intoxicating drinks? It
has unquestionably the sanction of high and ancient ancestry. It is
precisely the plan on which intemperance has been wrestled with ever
since it was first discovered that "wine is a mocker," and that "strong
drink is raging." But hence comes its condemnation. Its long use is its
death-witness. Were it new, we might hope something from its adoption.
But it is old enough to have been tried to the uttermost. The wisdom,
the energy, the benevolence of centuries have made the best of it. The
attempt to keep down intemperance by endeavoring to persuade people to
indulge only moderately in strong drink, has been the world's favorite
for ages; while every age has wondered that the vice increased so
rapidly.
At last we have been awakened to a fair estimate of the success of the
plan. And what is it? So far from its having shown the least tendency to
exterminate the evil, it is the mother of all its abominations. All who
have attained the stature of full-grown intemperance, were once children
in this nursery, sucking at the breasts of this parent. All the "men of
strength to mingle strong drink," who are now full graduates in the
vice, and "masters in the arts" of drunkenness, began their education
and served their apprenticeship under the discipline of moderate
drinking. All that have learned to lie down in the streets, and carry
terror into their families, and whom intemperance has conducted to the
penitentiary and the madhouse, may look back to this as the beginning of
their course--the author of their destiny. No man ever set out to use
strong drink with the expectation of becoming eventually a drunkard. No
man ever became a drunkard without having at first assured himself that
he could keep a safe rein upon every disposition that might endanger his
strict sobriety. "_I am in no danger while I only take a little_," is
the first principle in the doctrine of intemperance. It is high time it
were discarded. It has deluged the land with vice, and sunk the
population into debasement. The same results will ensue again, just in
proportion as the moderate use of ardent spirits continues to be
encouraged. Let the multitude continue to drink a little, and still our
hundreds of thousands will annually drink to death.
It is settled, therefore, that to encourage moderate drinking is not the
plan on which the temperance reformation can be successfully prosecuted.
The faithful experiment of generation after generation, decides that it
must be abandoned. A cloud of witnesses, illustrating its consequences
in all the tender mercies of a drunkard's portion, demand that it should
be abandoned. Its full time is come. Long enough have we refused to open
our eyes to the evident deceitfulness of its pretensions. At last the
country is awaking, and begins to realize the emptiness of this dream.
Let it go as a dream, and only be remembered that we may wonder how it
deceived, and lament how it injured us.
But, if this be discarded, what plan of reformation remains? If nothing
is to be expected from endeavoring to promote a _moderate_ use of ardent
spirits, and still less from an _immoderate_ use, what can be done?
There is but one possible answer. _Persuade people to use none at all._
_Total abstinence_ is the only plan on which reformation can be hoped
for. We are shut up to this. We have tried the consequences of
encouraging people to venture but moderately into the atmosphere of
infection; and we are now convinced that it was the very plan to feed
its strength and extend its ravages. We are forced to the conclusion,
that, to arrest the pestilence, we must starve it. All the healthy must
abstain from its neighborhood. All those who are now temperate must give
up the use of the means of intemperance. The deliverance of this land
from its present degradation, and from the increasing woes attendant on
this vice, depends altogether upon the extent to which the principle of
total abstinence shall be adopted by our citizens.
But suppose this principle universally adopted, would it clear the
country of intemperance? Evidently it is the only, but is it the
effectual remedy? Most certainly, if all temperate persons would disuse
ardent spirits, they could not cease to be temperate. Many a drunkard,
under the powerful check of their omnipresent reproof, would be sobered.
His companions would totter, one after another, to their graves. A few
years would see them buried, and the land relinquished to the temperate.
Then what would be the security against a new inroad of the exterminated
vice? Why, public opinion would stand guard at every avenue by which it
could come in.
Consider the operation of this influence. Why is it now so easy to
entice a young man into the haunts of drunkenness? Because public
opinion favors the use of the very means of his ruin. He may drink
habitually, and fasten upon himself the appetite of drink, till he
becomes enchained and feels himself a slave; but if he has never fallen
into manifest intoxication, he has forfeited no character in public
opinion. All this is a direct result of the fact, that those considered
as temperate people set the example, and patronize the snare of moderate
drinking. But suppose them to take the ground proposed, and bear down
with the whole force of their example and influence on the side of
entire abstinence, would they not create an immense force of public
opinion against the least use of ardent spirits? How then could a
temperate man ever become a drunkard? He has not yet contracted the
desire for ardent spirits; and how will he contract it? Will he risk his
character; fly in the face of public feeling and opinion; despise all
the warnings in the history of intemperance, to get at the use, and put
himself under the torture of that for which, as yet, he has no
disposition? Only post a wakeful public sentiment at the little opening
of moderate drinking, and the whole highway to the drunkard's ruin will
be closed up. All its present travellers will soon pass away, while none
will be entering to keep up the character of the road.
Most assuredly, then, the reformation of the land is in the power of
public opinion. It is equally certain, that public opinion will
accomplish nothing but by setting its influence directly in opposition
to _any_ indulgence in strong drink. And it is just as plain, that in
order to accomplish this, the temperate part of the population must
create a power of example by setting out upon the firm and open ground
of total abstinence. In proportion, then, as the temperate throughout
the country shall come up to this ground, will the redemption of our
enslaved republic be accomplished.
* * * * *
Thus have we arrived at the last refuge of this cause. ABSTAIN ENTIRELY,
is the grand principle of life, to be written upon the sacred standard
of all temperance movements, and under which the contending host may be
as sure of victory as if, like Constantine, they saw inscribed with a
sunbeam upon the cloud, _In hoc signo vinces_.[F] But such being the
eminent importance of total abstinence, it deserves to be presented in
detail. We begin, therefore, with the position, that
_Entire abstinence from ardent spirits is essential to personal
security._ Such is the insidious operation of strong drink upon all the
barriers we may set up against excess; so secretly does it steal upon
the taste, excite the appetite, disorganize the nervous system, and
undermine the deepest resolutions of him who imagines himself in
perfect security; so numerous and awful have been its victories over
every barrier, and every species of mental and bodily constitution, that
we may lay it down as an assertion, which none who know the annals of
intemperance will dispute, that no individual who permits himself to use
ardent spirits moderately, has any valid security that he will not
become a victim to its power.
[Footnote F: Under this standard you shall conquer.]
We know the remarks which instantly mount to the lips of many at the
sight of such an assertion: "Surely the little we take can never hurt
us. Look around and see how many have done the same, and continued the
habit to the end of life, without having ever been betrayed into
drunkenness." We do look around, and are constrained to remark, how many
have seemed to live temperately to the end, who, if the reality were
known, would be quoted as warnings against the insidiousness of the
poison, instead of examples of the security with which it may be used in
moderation. They were never delirious; but were they never fevered?
Fever is often fatal, without delirium. Ah, did every disease with which
human beings are fevered, and swollen, and slain, receive a candid name;
were every gravestone inscribed with a true memorial, as well of the
life, as the death of him at whose head it stands; could every
consumption, and dropsy, and liver-complaint, disclose its secret
history; did every shaking nerve, and palsied stomach, and aching
temple, and burning brain, and ruptured blood-vessel, relate how it
began, and grew, and triumphed, we should hear, indeed, of many who died
in consumption, or dropsy, and other diseases, without any impulse
towards the grave from the use of strong drink; but of how many, never
regarded as intemperate, should we learn that the real, though slow and
silent cause of their death was _drink_. They lingered long, and their
malady was called a disease of the lungs; or they fell suddenly, and it
was a case of apoplexy; or they were greatly swollen, and it was
considered dropsy; they lost their powers of digestion, and were said to
be troubled with dyspepsia; every vital function refused its natural
action, and the poor victim was treated for a liver-complaint. But why?
what produced the disease? Alcohol! They were poisoned. They died of the
intemperate use of ardent spirits, however moderately they may have had
the credit of indulging in them.
But again, we look at the world, and while we cannot acknowledge that
they have habitually indulged in even a moderate use of ardent spirits
without receiving some injury--for alcohol must hurt a healthy man in
some way or other--we do acknowledge that many have thus indulged with
no very perceptible injury. They have continued sober. But so it must be
acknowledged, that many have breathed the air and mingled with the
victims of a pestilence, without being infected; or stood amidst the
carnage of battle, without receiving a wound. But were they in no
danger? Because they came off unhurt, shall _we_ be willing to rush into
the streets of an infected city, or join the conflict of charging
battalions?
But again, we look at the world, and see how many have been slain, while
many have lived; how many who, if exalted station, eminent talents,
great attainments, excellent feelings, and heavy responsibilities, are
any security, might, with more than usual reason, have flattered
themselves with the assurance of safety: men of all professions, of
strong nerves, and numerous resolutions and precautions, at last reduced
to a level with the brutes; and this spectacle forces the conviction
that entire abstinence is the only security against final ruin. Had you
a tree in your gardens, the fruit of which should be discovered to have
inflicted disease as often as the prudent use of ardent spirits has
resulted in the sorrows of intemperance, that tree would be rooted up.
Its fruit would be entitled _poison_. The neighborhood would be afraid
of it. Children would be taught to beware of so much as venturing to try
how it tastes.
Again: _The total disuse of ardent spirits, on the part of parents, is
the only plan of safety in bringing up their children._ How many are the
parents whose lives are cursed with children who, were it not that "no
drunkard hath any inheritance in the kingdom of God," they would be
relieved to hear were dead! But how were those children ruined? "_Ah, by
those corrupting companions; by that vile dram-shop_," the parents would
answer. But what first inclined their way to that house of seduction? By
what avenue did evil associates first effect a lodgment in those
children's hearts? How many parents must turn and look at home for an
answer! They have not been intemperate; but while the tastes and habits
of their children were forming, they used to drink moderately of ardent
spirits. The decanter containing it had an honorable place on the
sideboard and on the table. It was treated respectfully, as a fountain
of strength to the feeble, of refreshment to the weary; and as perfectly
safe when used in moderation. To offer it to a friend was a debt of
hospitality. Thus the whole weight of parental example was employed in
impressing those children with a favorable idea of the pleasure, the
benefit, and the security, not to speak of the necessity, of the use of
ardent spirits. Thus the parents presented the decanter of strong drink
to their children, with a recommendation as forcible as if every day
they had encircled it with a chaplet of roses, and pronounced an oration
in its praise.
And what consequences were to be expected? Children who revere their
parents will honor what their parents delight to honor. It was not to be
supposed that those children would do else than imitate the high example
before them. Most naturally would they try the taste, and emulate to
acquire a fondness for strong drink. They would think it sheer folly to
be afraid of what their parents used. In a little while the flavor would
become grateful. They would learn to think of it, ask for it, contrive
ways of obtaining it, and be very accessible to the snares of those who
used it to excess. Thus easily would they slide into the pit. And thus
the history of the decline, and fall, and death of multitudes must
commence, not at the dram-shop, but at the tables of parents; not with
describing the influence of seductive companions, but with a lamentation
over the examples of inconsiderate parents, who furnished those
companions with their strongest argument, and wreathed their cup of
death with a garland of honor.
Such consequences must be looked for wherever parental example is
expected to be held in reverence among children. A father may venture to
the brink of a precipice, and stand without giddiness upon the margin of
the torrent that rushes by and plunges into a deep abyss; but will he
trust his child to occupy the same position? But if the child see him
there, is there no danger that when the parent's eye is away, he too
will venture, and go and play upon the frightful verge, and be amused
with the bubbles as they dance along the side of the cataract, and at
last become giddy, and be drawn in with the rush of the tide?
Entire abstinence from the drink of drunkards is the parents' only plan
in training up their children.
Again: _The total disuse of ardent spirits is essential to the
beneficial influence of the example of the temperate upon society at
large._
However novel the assertion to some, it can be easily shown that the
example of all who use ardent spirits, except as they use prescribed
medicine, _is in the scale of intemperance_. As far as its influence
extends, it helps directly to fill up the ranks of the intemperate, and
annually to launch a multitude of impenitent souls into a hopeless
eternity. Can this be true? Suppose all the rising generation, in
imitation of their elders, should commence the moderate use of strong
drink. They are thus attracted into the current of the stream which is
setting silently, smoothly, powerfully, towards the roaring whirlpool.
But now they are urged by those whose example they have thus far
followed, to go no farther. "Beware," they cry, "the tide is strong; do
like us; drop the anchor, ply the oar." Ah, but now their influence
fails. It was strong enough to persuade the thoughtless into danger; but
now it is perfectly impotent to keep them from ruin. They have none of
the strength or prudence by which others have been enabled to keep their
place. They have no anchor to drop, nor skill at the oar. They yield,
and go down, and perish. But where must we look for the prime cause of
this destruction? To those whose example enticed them into the way--_the
example of prudent drinkers_.