wicked and barbarous practice of war shall be abolished by the common sense and the common consent of nations; yet so long as the practice continues, no man can shrink from the performance of his duty as a soldier: But how can the drunkard, impoverished, enfeebled, and debilitated, as he is, perform his duties, either civil or military? He cannot: he is totally disqualified by his own weakness or wickedness, or both. In peace he must leave to others the burthens of taxation, and rob the treasury of its dues; and in war he must leave others to fight the battles of his country, while he is wallowing, a useless lump of mortality, in his kindred mire, or stowed away, like so much rubbish, in some miserable or detestable abode of vice and infamy, amid the offscourings of the penitentiary and the dregs of humanity. The ditch, the kennel, or the watch-house finds him at night; and if not totally lost to all the sensibilities of his nature, he shrinks from the light of day, that light which cheers and animates the hearts of the virtuous, and seeks concealment wherever he can hide himself from the eyes of his fellow-men, regardless or unconscious of that all-seeing eye before which he must finally stand to receive eternal judgment. But independent of the loss of his contributions to the treasury, and that of his strength, skill and courage in war, how can he judge of the propriety or impropriety of the conduct of his rulers? How can he decide, whether the laws they pass

are constitutional or unconstitutional, politic or impolitic, seeing that he has destroyed his rational powers by the foul dregs of the distillery and the grog-shop? Thus, politically speaking, the state loses a citizen and a soldier in every drunkard; and hence patriotism, as well as health, morality and religion, calls loudly for the zealous aid of its votaries in the glorious cause of temperance.

Brief and feeble as these portraits are, they are nevertheless sufficiently appalling to alarm the sensibilities of the hardest hearts: And here a question presents itself of no small importance both in a temporal and eternal point of view: If such be the physically, morally and politically ruinous effects, and such the spiritual and soul-damning consequences of Intemperance; how much have they to answer for, who furnish the fuel for this destructive and all

devouring flame? If this question shall but

once strike home to the hearts of the distillers and importers, the wholesale and retail dealers in strong drink, will they, can they, in the language of a modern poet

"Still breath destruction! still go on

Inhumanly ingenious, to find out

New pains for life; new terrors for the grave!

Artificers of death! still will they dream of riches, of houses growing up

From universal ruin !"

If they will-then may we justly, in the same style, exclaim

Let the parties alluded to realize, in their own imaginations, this brief apostrophe. Let them answer the question it involves, to their consciences and their God; since to these, at least, they are accountable, for the public and private evils that flow from their calling. They are accountable, in the eye of heaven and of reason, for the loss of the drunkard's services to the public-for the racking pains of their wretched victims-the heart-broken and heart-rending sighs of deserted wives and miserable children; the grey hairs of venerable and virtuous parents brought with sorrow to the grave; and to these may be added, to say nothing of minor offences, the foul and horrible crimes of arson and murder-the peaceful dwelling of industry and virtue enveloped in flames, and the dagger of the assassin streaming with the blood of innocence! For all these are the effects of that Intemperance, which could not exist but for their trade and traffic, who live by the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits. It is indeed an awful account, as I believe, which these gentlemen have to settle with their consciences and their God: And to these tribunals, I would respectfully suggest, ought they to be left for the operation of repentance and reformation. They ought to be thus left for these reasons.

The trade is a lawful one, and has been so for ages. Neither the manufacture nor the sale of ardent spirits has ever been prohibited by law.

What law sanctions, custom too often renders

fashionable in practice. Hence it is that bad habits, as well as good ones, are established and confirmed. The force of habit, most of us know, stifles reflection, and blindly reconciles men to many practices inconsistent with the laws of God, the dictates of reason, and the welfare of society.

It may be remarked here, that the moral sense, admitting its existence, so much disputed by certain eminent philosophers, is not so acute in some men as in others; and hence what strikes one man at the first glance of the mind's eye, as being mischievous, immoral, or unjust; another man, equally well disposed, but not equally quick of apprehension, may even practise for a long time, without so much as dreaming of its impropriety. The Spartans, for example, were so ignorant of the true principles of the social compact, as to count theft among the civic virAnd the several known tribes of Cannibals do not deem themselves any worse in devouring human flesh, than we are, in our own estimation, in feasting on the flesh of a chicken or a lamb. In fact, the experience of ages shows that the human mind has been slow to improve; and it is indeed the wisdom of HIM, who is emphatically styled the Rock of Ages, that has so ordained it. Hence, in all mere matters of opinion, it becomes necessary that we should extend charity to our fellow-beings. All coercive measures, or harsh epithets, against those who are engaged in manufacturing or vending ardent

tues :

spirits, are therefore contrary to the law of charity. There are, it is true, individuals among them, who forfeit all claims to our respect, by selling their poison to minors, perhaps to unprotected orphans. By stigmatising, or holding them up to infamy, however, we irritate them; we stir up their bad passions, too easily roused, and excite their violent resentment. We thus render them incapable of sober reflection; for no man will reflect seriously on the error of his ways, whilst he is goaded by censure, instead of being assailed by reason, and won over by kind persuasion And certain it is, that so long as the laws do not absolutely prohibit the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits, so long we must expect they will be manufactured and sold to an extent commensurate with the demand for them; and that too, for the simple reason, if no other, that to obtain subsistence, most men will do what their fathers have lawfully done, and what they may still lawfully do, without pausing to enquire into the morality of the action. How, then, can we expect, that in a country so extensive, and so populous as this, there will not be thousands, who will never think, till roused by the voice of conscience, reason or religion, that there is any harm in the traffic in ardent spirits; that there is any crime or sin, morally or spiritually, in doing what thousands. of their respected and venerated fathers have done before them; many of those fathers having been professed christians, and regular com