Part 14

What do you think of the golden rule of _doing unto others as we would they should do unto us_? Should you suppose your neighbors were conducting towards you according to this rule, were they unnecessarily to pursue such a business, or to set such an example as would inevitably lead any of your children or friends into confirmed drunkenness? If not, then how can you, consistently with this rule, distil, use, or furnish materials for the manufacture of ardent spirits, when you thereby, directly or indirectly, render intemperate from two hundred thousand to three hundred thousand of your fellow-citizens, and every year also raise up new recruits enough to supply the dreadful ravages which death makes in this army? This you are certainly doing; for were your distilleries to stop, and you to stop drinking, few would become drunkards, from want of the means.

How would you like to have your neighbors one after another break down your fences, and turn their cattle into your corn-fields, cut down your fruit and ornamental trees, set your house or barn on fire, and threaten you with poverty and slavery? If you would not have your neighbor do thus to you, provided he had the power, then how can you, by preparing the food for intemperance, subject the property, the peace, the morality, the religion, and the liberties of your country to those dangers and fearful depredations which you are now inflicting upon her?

How would you like to have your neighbors, directly or indirectly, but unnecessarily, cause the premature death of every fortieth of your children and friends, and of one in three of those above the age of twenty? I know you would not that they should do thus to you, and yet your manufacture of spirits causes the premature death of five hundred of your fellow-citizens every week; in other words, about that number die every week through the intemperance produced by your distilleries.

Again, I ask the men whom I am addressing, how they reconcile their manufacture and sale of spirits with another command of the Bible? _Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness._ True, this applies most emphatically to the retailer of spirits: but what could the retailer do if there were no distillery; and what could the distiller do if the farmer withheld the materials? All these men are engaged, directly or indirectly, in giving their neighbors drink; and though it may pass through many hands before it reaches all their mouths, yet where must the burden of the guilt rest, if not upon those who stand at the head of the series, and first convert the articles which God has given to nourish and sustain life into active poison for its destruction; and then, for the sake of a paltry pecuniary profit, send it round amongst their neighbors, accompanied with all the plagues that issued from the fabled Pandora's box?

Finally, let me ask these men how the business of preparing ardent spirits for the community appears to them when they think most seriously of another world? In the hours of sober reflection, on the Sabbath, during seasons of devotion, when sickness overtakes you, and death seems near, or you stand by the dying-bed of some one of your family or neighbors; at such seasons can you look back upon this pursuit with pleasure? If conscience then tells you that this business ought to be given up, Oh remember, that conscience is an honest and faithful friend at such times, and that, as this pursuit then appears to you, so will it appear when you come actually to die. Test this business, I beseech you, by bringing it in imagination to the scrutiny of your dying hour. Whether it be lawful or unlawful, certain it is that it sends five hundred drunkards into eternity every week; and you have the express testimony of the Bible, that no drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God. As the Bible is true, then, are not the manufacturers of ardent spirits in our land the means of sending five hundred souls to hell every week? Tell me, my friends, how will this awful truth appear to you on the bed of death? And how does it appear when you look forward to the final judgment, and realize that you must meet there fifty or an hundred, or five hundred times five hundred drunkards, made such through your instrumentality, for one, or two, or ten years, and must there justify yourselves for this instrumentality, or go away with them into perdition, covered with their blood and followed by their execrations?

Oh, my friends, these are realities; and they are near. Do you begin to doubt whether you are in the path of duty? Listen, I beseech you, to the first whispers of the faithful monitor in your bosom.

By the reasonings of philosophy, by the testimony of physicians, by the expostulations of your bleeding country, by the tears, the rags, and the wretchedness of three hundred thousand drunkards, with their wives and children; by the warnings of personal friendship, and by the sanctions of the divine law, the solemnities of death and the judgment, and the groans of ten thousand drunkards, rising from the pit, I entreat you, abandon at once and for ever this most unrighteous employment, and save yourselves from the eternal agonies of conscience, the execrations of millions, and the wrath of Omnipotence.

ADDRESS TO THE YOUNG MEN OF THE UNITED STATES, ON TEMPERANCE.

BY RT. REV. C. P. M'ILVAINE, D. D.

In addressing the Young Men of the United States in regard to the great enterprise of promoting the universal prevalence of Temperance, we are not aware that any time need be occupied in apology. Our motives cannot be mistaken. The magnitude of the cause, and the importance of that cooperation in its behalf which this address is designed to promote, will vindicate the propriety of its respectful call upon the attention of those by whom it shall ever be received.

It is presumed that every reader is already aware of the extensive and energetic movements at present advancing in our country in behalf of Temperance. That an unprecedented interest in this work has been recently excited, and is still rapidly strengthening in thousands of districts; that talent, wisdom, experience, learning, and influence are now enlisted in its service, with a measure of zeal and harmony far surpassing what was ever witnessed before in such a cause; that great things have already been accomplished; that much greater are near at hand; and that the whole victory will be eventually won, if the temperate portion of society are not wanting to their solemn duty, must have been seen already by those living along the main channels of public thought and feeling. Elevated, as we now are, upon a high tide of general interest and zeal--a tide which may either go on increasing its flood till it has washed clean the very mountain tops, and drowned intemperance in its last den; or else subside, and leave the land infected with a plague, the more malignant and incurable from the dead remains of a partial inundation--it has become a question of universal application, which those who are now at the outset of their influence in society should especially consider: "What can _we_ do, and what _ought_ we to do in this cause?" For the settlement of this question we invite you to a brief view of the whole ground on which temperance measures are now proceeding.

It cannot be denied that our country is most horribly scourged by 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