Part 2
That desire for increased animal enjoyment from which rebellion springs is sin, and all the evils which follow in its train are only so many voices by which Jehovah declares "the way of transgressors is hard." The person who has formed an appetite for ardent spirit, and feels uneasy if he does not gratify it, has violated the divine arrangement, disregarded the divine will, and if he understands the nature of what he has done, and approves of it, and continues in it, it will ruin him. He will show that there is one thing in which he will not have God to reign over him. And should he keep the whole law, and yet continue knowingly, habitually, wilfully, and perseveringly to offend in that one point, he will perish. Then, and then only, according to the Bible, can any man be saved, when he has respect to all the known will of God, and is disposed to be governed by it. He must carry out into practice, with regard to the body and the soul, "Not my will, but thine be done." His grand object must be, to know the will of God, and when he knows it, to be governed by it, and with regard to all things. This, the man who is not contented with that portion of animal enjoyment which the proper gratification of the appetites and passions which God has given him will afford, but forms an appetite for ardent spirit, or continues to gratify it after it is formed, does not do. In this respect, if he understands the nature and effects of his actions, he prefers his own will to the known will of God, and is ripening to hear, from the lips of his Judge, "Those mine enemies, that would not that I should _reign_ over them, bring them hither and slay them before me." And the men who traffic in this article, or furnish it as a drink for others, are tempting them to sin, and thus uniting their influence with that of the devil for ever to ruin them. This is an aggravated immorality, and the men who continue to do it are immoral men.
2. The use of ardent spirit, to which the traffic is accessory, causes a great and wicked _waste of property_. All that the users pay for this article is to them lost, and worse than lost. Should the whole which they use sink into the earth, or mingle with the ocean, it would be better for them, and better for the community, than for them to drink it. All which it takes to support the paupers, and prosecute the crimes which ardent spirit occasions, is, to those who pay the money, utterly lost. All the diminution of profitable labor which it occasions, through improvidence, idleness, dissipation, intemperance, sickness, insanity, and premature deaths, is to the community so much utterly lost. And these items, as has often been shown, amount in the United States to more than $100,000,000 a year. To this enormous and wicked waste of property, those who traffic in the article are knowingly accessory.
A portion of what is thus lost by others, they obtain themselves; but without rendering to others any valuable equivalent. This renders their business palpably unjust; as really so as if they should obtain that money by gambling; and it is as really immoral. It is also unjust in another respect: it burdens the community with taxes both for the support of pauperism, and for the prosecution of crimes, and without rendering to that community any adequate compensation. These taxes, as shown by facts, are four times as great as they would be if there were no sellers of ardent spirit. All the profits, with the exception perhaps of a mere pittance which he pays for license, the seller puts into his own pocket, while the burdens are thrown upon the community. This is palpably unjust, and utterly immoral. Of 1,969 paupers in different almshouses in the United States, 1,790, according to the testimony of the overseers of the poor, were made such by spirituous liquor. And of 1,764 criminals in different prisons, more than 1,300 were either intemperate men, or were under the power of intoxicating liquor when the crimes for which they were imprisoned were committed. And of 44 murders, according to the testimony of those who prosecuted or conducted the defence of the murderers, or witnessed their trials, 43 were committed by intemperate men, or upon intemperate men, or those who at the time of the murder were under the power of strong drink.
The Hon. Felix Grundy, United States senator from Tennessee, after thirty years' extensive practice as a lawyer, gives it as his opinion that four-fifths of all the crimes committed in the United States can be traced to intemperance. A similar proportion is stated, from the highest authority, to result from the same cause in Great Britain. And when it is considered that more than 200 murders are committed, and more than 100,000 crimes are prosecuted in the United States in a year, and that such a vast proportion of them are occasioned by ardent spirit, can a doubt remain on the mind of any sober man, that the men who know these facts, and yet continue to traffic in this article, are among the chief causes of crime, and ought to be viewed and treated as immoral men? It is as really immoral for a man, by doing wrong, to excite others to commit crimes, as to commit them himself; and as really unjust wrongfully to take another's property with his consent, as without it. And though it might not be desirable to have such a law, yet no law in the statute-book is more righteous than one which should require that those who make paupers should support them, and those who excite others to commit crimes, should pay the cost of their prosecution, and should, with those who commit them, bear all the evils. And so long as this is not the case they will be guilty, according to the divine law, of defrauding, as well as tempting and corrupting their fellow-men. And though such crimes cannot be prosecuted, and justice be awarded in human courts, their perpetrators will be held to answer, and will meet with full and awful retribution at the divine tribunal. And when judgment is laid to the line, and righteousness to the plummet, they will appear as they really are, criminals, and will be viewed and treated as such for ever.
There is another view in which the traffic in ardent spirit is manifestly highly immoral. It exposes the children of those who use it, in an eminent degree, to dissipation and crime. Of 690 children prosecuted and imprisoned for crimes, more than 400 were from intemperate families. Thus the venders of this liquor exert an influence which tends strongly to ruin not only those who use it, but their children; to render them far more liable to idleness, profligacy, and ruin, than the children of those who do not use it; and through them to extend these evils to others, and to perpetuate them to future generations. This is a sin of which all who traffic in ardent spirit are guilty. Often the deepest pang which a dying parent feels for his children, is lest, through the instrumentality of such men, they should be ruined. And is it not horrible wickedness for them, by exposing for sale one of the chief causes of this ruin, to tempt them in the way to death? If he who takes money from others without an equivalent, or wickedly destroys property, is an immoral man, what is he who destroys character, who corrupts children and youth, and exerts an influence to extend and perpetuate immorality and crime through future generations? This every vender of ardent spirit does; and if he continues in this business with a knowledge of the subject, it marks him as an habitual and persevering violater of the will of God.
3. Ardent spirit _impairs_, and often _destroys reason_. Of 781 maniacs in different insane hospitals, 392, according to the testimony of their own friends, were rendered maniacs by strong drink. And the physicians who had the care of them gave it as their opinion, that this was the case with many of the others. Those who have had extensive experience, and the best opportunities for observation with regard to this malady, have stated, that probably from one-half to three-fourths of the cases of insanity, in many places, are occasioned in the same way. Ardent spirit is a poison so diffusive and subtile that it is found, by actual experiment, to penetrate even the brain.
Dr. Kirk, of Scotland, dissected a man a few hours after death who died in a fit of intoxication; and from the lateral ventricles of the brain he took a fluid distinctly visible to the smell as whiskey; and when he applied a candle to it in a spoon, it took fire and burnt blue; "the lambent blue flame," he says, "characteristic of the poison, playing on the surface of the spoon for some seconds."
It produces also, in the children of those who use it freely, a predisposition to intemperance, insanity, and various diseases of both body and mind, which, if the cause is continued, becomes hereditary, and is transmitted from generation to generation; occasioning a diminution of size, strength, and energy, a feebleness of vision, a feebleness and imbecility of purpose, an obtuseness of intellect, a depravation of moral taste, a premature old age, and a general deterioration of the whole character. This is the case in every country, and in every age.
Instances are known where the first children of a family, who were born when their parents were temperate, have been healthy, intelligent, and
## active; while the last children, who were born after the parents had
become intemperate, were dwarfish and idiotic. A medical gentleman writes, "I have no doubt that a disposition to nervous diseases of a peculiar character is transmitted by drunken parents." Another gentleman states that, in two families within his knowledge, the different stages of intemperance in the parents seemed to be marked by a corresponding deterioration in the bodies and minds of the children. In one case, the eldest of the family is respectable, industrious, and accumulates property; the next is inferior, disposed to be industrious, but spends all he can earn in strong drink. The third is dwarfish in body and mind, and, to use his own language, "a poor, miserable remnant of a man."
In another family of daughters, the first is a smart, active girl, with an intelligent, well-balanced mind; the others are afflicted with different degrees of mental weakness and imbecility, and the youngest is an idiot. Another medical gentleman states, that the first child of a family, who was born when the habits of the mother were good, was healthy and promising; while the four last children, who were born after the mother had become addicted to the habit of using opium, appeared to be stupid; and all, at about the same age, sickened and died of a disease apparently occasioned by the habits of the mother.
Another gentleman mentions a case more common, and more appalling still. A respectable and influential man early in life adopted the habit of using a little ardent spirit daily, because, as he thought, it did him good. He and his six children, three sons and three daughters, are now in the drunkard's grave, and the only surviving child is rapidly following in the same way, to the same dismal end.
The best authorities attribute one-half the madness, three-fourths of the pauperism, end four-fifths of the crimes and wretchedness in Great Britain to the use of strong drink.
4. Ardent spirit increases the number, frequency, and violence of _diseases_, and tends to bring those who use it to a premature grave. In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, of about 7,500 people, twenty-one persons were killed by it in a year. In Salem, Massachusetts, of 181 deaths, twenty were occasioned in the same way. Of ninety-one adults who died in New Haven, Connecticut, in one year, thirty-two, according to the testimony of the Medical Association, were occasioned, directly or indirectly, by strong drink, and a similar proportion had been occasioned by it in previous years. In New Brunswick, New Jersey, of sixty-seven adult deaths in one year, more than one-third were caused by intoxicating liquor. In Philadelphia, of 4,292 deaths, 700 were, in the opinion of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, caused in the same way. The physicians of Annapolis, Maryland, state that, of thirty-two persons, male and female, who died in 1828, above eighteen years of age, ten, or nearly one-third, died of diseases occasioned by intemperance; that eighteen were males, and that of these, nine, or one-half, died of intemperance. They also say, "When we recollect that even the temperate use, as it is called, of ardent spirits, lays the foundation of a numerous train of incurable maladies, we feel justified in expressing the belief, that were the use of distilled liquors entirely discontinued, the number of deaths among the male adults would be diminished at least one-half."
Says an eminent physician, "Since our people generally have given up the use of spirit, they have not had more than half as much sickness as they had before; and I have no doubt, should all the people of the United States cease to use it, that nearly half the sickness of the country would cease." Says another, after forty years' extensive practice, "Half the men every year who die of fevers might recover, had they not been in the habit of using ardent spirit. Many a man, down for weeks with a fever, had he not used ardent spirit, would not have been confined to his house a day. He might have felt a slight headache, but a little fasting would have removed the difficulty, and the man been well. And many a man who was never intoxicated, when visited with a fever, might be raised up as well as not, were it not for that state of the system which daily moderate drinking occasions, who now, in spite of all that can be done, sinks down and dies."
Nor are we to admit for a moment the popular reasoning, as applicable here, "that the abuse of a thing is no argument against its use;" for, in the language of the late Secretary of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Philadelphia, Samuel Emlen, M. D., "All use of ardent spirits," _i. e._ as a drink, "is an abuse. They are mischievous under all circumstances." Their tendency, says Dr. Frank, when used even moderately, is to induce disease, premature old age, and death. And Dr. Trotter states, that no cause of disease has so wide a range, or so large a share, as the use of spirituous liquors.
Dr. Harris states, that the _moderate_ use of spirituous liquors has destroyed many who were never drunk; and Dr. Kirk gives it as his opinion, that men who were never considered intemperate, by daily drinking have often shortened life more than twenty years; and that the respectable use of this poison kills more men than even drunkenness. Dr. Wilson gives it as his opinion, that the use of spirit in large cities causes more diseases than confined air, unwholesome exhalations, and the combined influence of all other evils.
Dr. Cheyne, of Dublin, Ireland, after thirty years' practice and observation, gives it as his opinion, that should ten young men begin at twenty-one years of age to use but one glass of two ounces a day, and never increase the quantity, nine out of ten would shorten life more than ten years. But should moderate drinkers shorten life only five years, and drunkards only ten, and should there be but four moderate drinkers to one drunkard, it would in thirty years cut off in the United States 32,400,000 years of human life. An aged physician in Maryland states, that when the fever breaks out there, the men who do not use ardent spirit are not half as likely as other men to have it; and that if they do have it, they are ten times as likely to recover. In the island of Key West, on the coast of Florida, after a great mortality, it was found that every person who had died had been in the habit of using ardent spirit. The quantity used was afterwards diminished more than nine-tenths, and the inhabitants became remarkably healthy.
A gentleman of great respectability from the south, states, that those who fall victims to southern climes, are almost invariably addicted to the free use of ardent spirit. Dr. Mosely, after a long residence in the West Indies, declares, "that persons who drink nothing but cold water, or make it their principal drink, are but little affected by tropical climates; that they undergo the greatest fatigue without inconvenience, and are not so subject as others to dangerous diseases;" and Dr. Bell, "that rum, when used even moderately, always diminishes the strength, and renders men more susceptible of disease; and that we might as well throw oil into a house, the roof of which is on fire, in order to prevent the flames from extending to the inside, as to pour ardent spirits into the stomach to prevent the effect of a hot sun upon the skin."
Of seventy-seven persons found dead in different regions of country, sixty-seven, according to the coroners' inquests, were occasioned by strong drink. Nine-tenths of those who die suddenly after the drinking of cold water, have been habitually addicted to the free use of ardent spirit; and that draught of cold water, that effort, or fatigue, or exposure to the sun, or disease, which a man who uses no ardent spirit will bear without inconvenience or danger, will often kill those who use it. Their liability to sickness and to death is often increased tenfold. And to all these evils, those who continue to traffic in it, after all the light which God in his providence has thrown upon the subject, are knowingly accessory. Whether they deal in it by whole sale or retail, by the cargo or the glass, they are, in their influence, drunkard-makers. So are also those who furnish the materials; those who advertise the liquors, and thus promote their circulation; those who lease their tenements to be employed as dram-shops, or stores for the sale of ardent spirit; and those also who purchase their groceries of spirit dealers rather than of others, for the purpose of saving to the amount which the sale of ardent spirit enables such men, without loss, to undersell their neighbors. These are all accessory to the making of drunkards, and as such will be held to answer at the divine tribunal. So are those men who employ their shipping in transporting the liquors, or are in any way knowingly aiding and abetting in perpetuating their use as a drink in the community.
It is estimated that four-fifths of those who were swept away by the late direful visitation of CHOLERA, were such as had been addicted to the use of intoxicating drink. Dr. Bronson, of Albany, who spent some time in Canada, and whose professional character and standing give great weight to his opinions, says, "Intemperance of any species, but
## particularly intemperance in the use of _distilled liquors_, has been a
more productive cause of cholera than any other, and indeed than all others." And can men, for the sake of money, make it a business knowingly and perseveringly to furnish the most productive cause of cholera, and not be guilty of _blood_--not manifest a recklessness of character which will brand the mark of vice and infamy on their foreheads? "Drunkards and tipplers," he adds, "have been searched out with such unerring certainty as to show that the arrows of death have not been dealt out with indiscrimination. An indescribable terror has spread through the ranks of this class of beings. They see the bolts of destruction aimed at their heads, and every one calls himself a victim. There seems to be a natural affinity between cholera and ardent spirit." What, then, in days of exposure to this malady, is so great a nuisance as the places which furnish this poison? Says Dr. Rhinelander, who, with Dr. De Kay, was deputed from New York to visit Canada, "We may be asked who are the victims of this disease? I answer, the intemperate it invariably cuts off." In Montreal, after 1,200 had been attacked, a Montreal paper states, that "not a drunkard who has been attacked has recovered of the disease, and almost all the victims have been at least _moderate_ drinkers." In Paris, the 30,000 victims were, with few exceptions, those who freely used intoxicating liquors. Nine-tenths of those who died of the cholera in Poland were of the same class.
In St. Petersburgh and Moscow, the average number of deaths in the bills of mortality, during the prevalence of the cholera, when the people ceased to drink brandy, was no greater than when they used it during the usual months of health--showing that brandy, and attendant dissipation, killed as many people in the same time as even the cholera itself, that pestilence which has spread sackcloth over the nations. And shall the men who know this, and yet continue to furnish it for all who can be induced to buy, escape the execration of being the destroyers of their race? Of more than 1,000 deaths in Montreal, it is stated that only two were members of Temperance societies. It was also stated, that as far as was known no members of Temperance societies in Ireland, Scotland, or England, had yet fallen victims to that dreadful disease.
From Montreal, Dr. Bronson writes, "Cholera has stood up here, as it has done everywhere, the advocate of Temperance. It has pleaded most eloquently, and with tremendous effect. The disease has searched out the haunt of the drunkard, and has seldom left it without bearing away its victim. Even _moderate_ drinkers have been but little better off. Ardent spirits, in any shape, and in all quantities, have been _highly_ detrimental. Some temperate men resorted to them during the prevalence of the malady as a preventive, or to remove the feeling of uneasiness about the stomach, or for the purpose of drowning their apprehensions, but they did it at their peril."
Says the London Morning Herald, after stating that the cholera fastens its deadly grasp upon this class of men, "The same preference for the intemperate and uncleanly has characterized the cholera _everywhere_. Intemperance is a qualification which it never overlooks. Often has it passed harmless over a wide population of temperate country people, and poured down, as an overflowing scourge, upon the drunkards of some distant town." Says another English publication, "All experience, both in Great Britain and elsewhere, has proved that those who have been addicted to drinking spirituous liquors, and indulging in irregular habits, have been the greatest sufferers from cholera. In some towns the drunkards are all dead." Rammohun Fingee, the famous Indian doctor, says, with regard to India, that people who do not take opium, or spirits, do not take this disorder even when they are with those who have it. Monsieur Huber, who saw 2,160 persons perish in twenty-five days in one town in Russia, says, "It is a most remarkable circumstance, that persons given to drinking have been swept away like flies. In Tiflis, containing 20,000 inhabitants, every drunkard has fallen--all are dead, not one remains."