THE 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL 



BY 



REV. JUSTIN EDWARDS, D. D. 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 

15(1 NASS A0-STREET. NEW-YORK. 



CONTENTS. 



/. Origin and catcse of intoxication, ... 7 
Origin and nature of alcohol, . . 7 

Correction of an error, .... 8 

Ways in which alcohol may be extracted, 9 

A great deception, 10 

Medical use of alcohol, . . . 11 

Its introduction into the mines and the army, 12 
Its general use and effects, . • .12 

Testimony of an old man, ... 14 

The sermon that was preached, . . .14 
The measures that were taken, . . 14 

A rousing sermon, . . . .15 

IL Change of opinion, and efforts, . , 15 

Society formed in 1826, . . . .17 

Testimony of reformed drunkards in 1834, 18 

The way to cure all drunkenness, . . 19 

A great question, and its answer, . 20 

Illustration by facts, . . . . 21 

UL The process by which alcohol deceives men, . 25 
Reasons why drinkers of alcohol increase the 

quantity, . « . . . 26 



4 • CONTENTS. 

Paga. 

Peculiarity of the alcoholic appetite, 28 

Illustration by facts, 29 

Violation of moral law, .... 30 

Difference between immediate and ultimate 

effects, ...... 31 

Medical testimony, . . . . 31 

IV. The iirocess by which alcohol ccmses deaths . 33 

Alcohol in the stomach, heart, brain, &c. 33 

Effects of giving it to children, . . » 38 

Hereditary predisposition to disease, . 39 
History of eight families, . . . .41 

V. A great principle, 44 

Influence of alcohol on digestion, . , 45 
Its course around the body, ... 45 
Organs for the supp]y of nourishment, . 45 
Organs for the removal of nuisances, . 50 
Importance of cleanliness, . . . .52 
Influence of poison, .... 52 
Manner of treatment by different sets of or- 
gans, 52 

Its effects on them, .... 54 

Testimony of one hundred and twenty phy- 
sicians, . . . . . . . 57 

Sudden deaths, and deaths by cold water, 59 

Deaths by cholera, 60 

Effects of alcohol on the muscles, nerves, 

and on the mind, . . . ,64 



CONTENTS. 5 

"age. 

Illustrations by facts, witli regard to crimes, 66 

Immorality of the traffic in spirits, . 73 

Opinion of Chief Justice C ranch, . . 73 

VL Ohjections stated and answered, . . 74 

A principle in law, 75 

Effects of the liquor traffic on its authors, 77 

The guilt of selling alcohol to sober men, • 78 
Having a license does not make it right to 

sell, 81 

Not necessary, in order to support a family, 82 

Appalling consequences, ... 83 

No excuse that alcohol is drunk voluntarily, 84 

The cases of two men, .... 85 
Light increases responsibility, . . .86 

Influence for evil extensive and eternal, . 87 

Death-bed retrospection and prospect, . 89 
1* 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 



I. Ever since man turned away from God as a 
source of enjoyment, and from his service as a 
means of obtaining it, lie lias been prone to seek 
it in some improper bodily or mental gratification. 
Of all those gratifications to which he has resorted 
for this purpose, few, if any, have been more des- 
tructive to him than that which results from the use 
as a beverage, r^f intoxicating liquor. Though it 
affords a momentary gratification, at the last it bites 
like a serpent and stings like an adder. It tends 
to form an artificial, unnecessary, and dangerous 
appetite, and thus to lead to drunkenness and ruin. 

That incQ-edient in fermented and distilled li- 
quors which is the cause of intoxication, is not 
the product of creation. The animal kingdo:n, in 
all its vast variety, saith, " It is not in me;" and the 
vegetable kingdom responds, " It is not in me." 
Those substances, however, which contain, or will 



8 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

produce sugar, after they are dead and become 
subject to laws which operate on inanimated matter, 
undergo a process which chemists call vinous fermen- 
tation. By this process a new substance is formed, 
called Alcohol. It is composed of hydrogen, car- 
bon and oxygen, in the proportion of about thirteen, 
fifty-two, and - thirty-five parts to the hundred. 
It is in its nature, as manifested in its effects, a 
subtle and diffusive 'poison. The elements, by the 
combination of which this substance is formed, ex- 
isted before ; but the substance itself which that 
combination forms, did not before exist. It is the 
product solely of vinous fermentation, and is as 
really different from vv^hat existed before in the 
fruits or the grains, as the poisonous miasma is 
different from the vegetables from the decompo- 
sition and decay of w^hicli it springs. It is as dif- 
ferent as poison is from food, sickness from health, 
or drunkenness from sobriety. 

Hence it no more follows, because fruits and 
grains are nourishing to the human system, that 
therefore alcohol is nourishing, than it follows, 
because vegetables are nourishing, that therefore 
poisonous miasma, which the decay of those sub- 
stances produces, is nourishing. The one does not 
follow from the other. They are as really differ- 
ent in their natures as life is from death. That 
difference is caused by the different combination 
which is formed by fermentation. 

To conclude therefore, because one is good as 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 9 

an article of diet, that therefore the other must be' 
good, is as really unphilosophical and false, as it 
would be to conclude, because potatoes are good 
as an article of food, that therefore the soil out of 
which they grow is good for the same purpose. 
But there is no such likeness between them as to 
lay the foundation for any such conclusions. 

We are the more particular on this point, be- 
cause there is much error with regard to it in the 
public mind. Many suppose that alcohol exists in 
all the vegetable substances whose fermentation, 
after death, will produce it. This is an entire 
mistake. Not a particle of it is to be found, ex- 
cept through the influence of vinous fermentation. 

After it is formed it may be extracted, or se- 
parated from fermented liquors in three ways. 

One is, to place the liquor under a receiver, ex- 
haust the air ; and at a temperature of about se- 
venty degress, the Alcohol, being lighter and more 
volatile than the other parts, will rise to the top, 
and may thus be obtained. 

Another way is, to precipitate the mucilaginous 
parts, the acid and the coloring matter, by means of 
the subacetate or sugar of lead ; then take off the wa- 
ter that remains by meansof the subcarbonate of po- 
tassa, or pearl-ashes, when the Alcohol will remain. 

The other way is by the application of heat, 
and then of cold, as in common distillation. This 
is the ordinary method. The art of distillation 
has been thought by some to have been known 



10 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

in China earlier than in other parts of the wo/ld. 
(See Morehead on inebriating liquors, p. 107, &c.) 
But we have no conclusive evidence that Alco- 
hol was extracted from fermented liquors till it 
was done by the Arabians, about nine hundied 
years ago. When they first obtained it they had no 
name for it. It was afterward called Alcohol; and 
that has been its chemical name down to this day. 

Alcohol, in the Arabic language, was a fine im- 
palpable powder, with which the women used to 
paint their faces in order to increase their beauty. 
Perhaps after using it, they thought they really 
were more beautiful than they were before. Men, 
when drunk with Alcohol, have often thought they 
were more beautiful, or rich, or strong, or in some 
respects better than they were before. But they 
were deceived, utterly deceived. Yet that decep- 
tion has been so powerful and complete, that mul- 
titudes, vast multitudes, in all ages, have lived and 
died under its power. The reason is, that Alco- 
hol, in its nature, is ** a mocker." It is also " rag- 
ing." He who is deceived thereby, as is the man 
who thinks that, as a beverage, it does him good, 
*' is not wise." It tends to injure his body and 
his soul ; to make him " earthly, sensual, devilish." 
That is a reason why men should not drink it. 

It does not appear that any one at first ima- 
gined that the time would ever come v*'hen men 
would extract Alcohol to be used as a drink. 

Amoldus de Villa, a physician, who, in the thir- 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 11 

teenth century, lived in the South of Europe, is, 
so far as known, the first whose opinion is record- 
ed, who recommended it, even as a medicine. Un- 
der his influence, however, and that of his dis- 
ciple, Raymond Lully, who was born in Majorca 
in 1236, and who died in 1315, its medical use 
increased and extended, till it finally spread over 
a gi'eat part of Europe. Judging from its imme- 
diate effects, it was thought to increase life. Hence 
it was called Aqua vitae, or water of life. Had it 
been named according: to its real nature and ulti- 
mate effects, it would have been called Ac[2ca moi'- 
tis, water of death, temporal and eternal. 

Yet so powerful was its influence to deceive 
men, and make them call evil good, that Theori- 
cus, as stated in Holinshed's Chronicles, wrote, in 
the sixteenth century, a treatise upon its wonder- 
fully sanative power. He says, " It sloweth age ; 
it strengtheneth youth ; it helpeth digestion ; it 
cutteth flegme ; it abandoneth melancholie ; it re- 
lisheth the heart ; it lighteneth the mind ; it quick- 
eneth the spirits ; it cureth the hydropsie ; it heal- 
eth the strangurie ; it pounceth the stone ; it ex- 
pelleth the gravell ; it puffeth away ventositie ; it 
keepeth and preserveth the head from whirling, 
the eyes from dazzling, the tong from lisping, the 
mouth from snaffling, the teeth from chattering, 
and the throat from rattling ; it keepeth the wea- 
son from stiffling, the stomach from wambling, and 
the heart from swelling ; it keei^eth the hands from 



12 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

shivering, the sinews from shrinking, the veins 
from crumbling, the bones from aching, and the 
marrow from soaking." 

Thus it was thought to be a remedy for almost 
all diseases, and many began to think that it would 
not only cure diseases, but prevent them. They 
therefore took it, not only in sickness, but in 
health. Ulstadius ascribed to it this peculiar vir- 
tue : viz. **It will burn, being kindled." It pro- 
duced a burning sensation, and men took it to 
keep them warm. It quickly evaporated, and thus 
absorbed heat, and they took it to keep them cool. 
To guard against the evils of working under 
ground, they introduced it into the mines ; and 
the English, during their wars in the Netherlands, 
furnished it to their soldiers to guard them from 
the dangers arising from the dampness and fogs of 
the low countries. The soldiers formed the habit 
of using it ; and at the close of the war brought 
the appetite for it with them to England. The use 
of it increased, extended, and has continued to in- 
crease and extend, till as stated by a British writer, 
** From that little cloud, no bigger than a man's 
hand, has been evolved that mighty mass which 
is now suspended over our country, and which 
is pouring its fiery streams through all the cur 
rents of public and domestic intercourse." Similar 
has been its course in other countries, and similar 
its effects. 

Says a medical writer, " The disease occasion- 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 13 

ed by it has been by far more destructive than 
any other plague that ever raged in Christendom; 
more malignant than any other epidemic pesti- 
lence that ever desolated our suffering race, 
vvhether in the shape of the burning typhus, the 
loathsome small-pox, the cholera of t^e East, or 
the yellow fever of the West; a disease more 
loathsome and destructive than all of them put 
toG:ether." 

Similar has been its influence among all nations 
that have used it as a beverage, whether in fer- 
mented or distilled liquors, in all ages of the 
world. Without one redeeming quality, it has 
been among the most constant and fruitful sources 
of all their woes. Yet such has been its power to 
deceive men, that while evil after evil has rolled 
in upon them, like the waves of the sea, they have 
continued till within a few years knowingly and 
voluntarily to increase the cause. This has been 
a deception among the most entire and fatal that 
has ever cursed our fallen race. 

Some few and feeble efforts at different times 
were made by various individuals to lessen the 
evils, but they continued to increase, till many, 
in view of them, sank down in despair. Fathers 
died drunkards, their widows procured liquors, 
and their children became intoxicated at their fu- 
nerals. Good men stood aghast, and then drank 
the poison : lamenting its evils, and setting exam- 
ples which tended for ever to perpetuate them. 

2 



14i TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

An old man, as he poured out his glass of 
brandy, put in the sugar, and began to stir it up, 
while his mouth was watering for the liquor, said 
to his friend, " What are we coming to 1 If we 
continue this course we shall soon be a nation of 
drunkards.'*' He then drank the liquor, without 
suspecting that he was among' the authors of the 
mischief. That, in his view, resulted from drink- 
ing ''too mucJi,;" whereas he drank only "just 
enougJi." "■ Strange," said another man, " that peo- 
ple should'nt know when they have got enough, 
but will go on and make fools of themselves." 

Temperance Societies were formed, the avowed 
object of which was to keep people from drink- 
ing* too much. A sermon was once preached be- 
fore one of those societies, and was afterwards 
published. An old man, who had read it, was 
asked what he thought of it % He answered, '* I 
should think, from that sermon, that intempe- 
rance, carried to excess, is a bad thing." So many 
thought, especially if carried to excess by the 
young. It caused apprehensions that mischief 
would come upon them in future life. But the 
apprehension arose, not fi-om the nature of the 
liquor, but from the quantity that might be used. 
The parent furnished it, drank himself, and gave 
it to his child, cautioning him not to take too much. 
Men were selected and licensed to sell it for the 
public good. They sold it, made drunkards, and, 
when they died, helped to bury them ; then took 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 15 

their property for rum debts, and sent tlieir chil- 
dren to the ahnshouse to be supported by the 
public. Ministers preached against drunkenness, 
and drank the drunkard's poison : thus setting an 
example which their hearers loved to follow. One 
man, after hearing on the Sabbath a rousing ser- 
mon against drunkenness, during the intermission 
which he spent at the tavern opposite the church, 
and while stirring his glass of liquor, said, " We 
have had an excellent sermon to-day. To drink 
as some people do is abominable. They ought to 
be preached against. But to take a little now and 
then," as he had often done, and was then prepar- 
ing to do, " I think does a man good." He then 
showed his sincerity by his actions. Other men 
thought the same : while in many places more 
than one in ten that di^ank it went down to the 
drunkard's grave ; and more than three-fourths of 
all the pauperism, crime, and wretchedness of the 
conmiunity was occasioned by the use of it. 

II. Between the years 1820 and 1826 numbers 
became more deeply impressed than before with 
the idea, that if drunkenness is ever to be done 
away, a new principle must be adopted with re- 
gai'd to the use of intoxicating liquor : that men 
must abstain, not only from what they called the 
abuse, but from the use, as a beverage, of that 
which intoxicates ; and that this is required by 
otie of the first principles of moral duty. 



16 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

Facts were collected and embodied, designed 
and adapted to show that the use, as a beverage, of 
intoxicating liquor is wicked, for two reasons, viz. — 

1. The facts show that men loho do not use them 
are as well as men that do, and are as thoroughly 
fitted for evei'y good work. 

2. The facts also show, that such is the nature 
of those liquors, and such the nature of man, that 
he cannot continue to use them, as an ordinary be- 
verage, without in many cases forming intemperate 
appetites and habits, and leading down to drunk 
enness aiid ruin. 

Of course it is morally wrong to use them. Let 
the use of them cease, and men, as a body, will 
enjoy better health. They can perform more la 
bor; they will live longer; and all the drunken- 
ness of the world will be done away. These facts 
were published from the pulpit and the press ; 
and with the Divine blessing, carried conviction 
to many minds. Numbers discontinued the use 
of those liquors, and found themselves to be bet- 
ter than they were before. As the principles and 
the facts which illustrate them became more and 
more known, that number increased ; and it has 
continued to increase down to the present day. 
Millions, of all ages, in various countries, and in 
all kinds of lawful employments, have ceased to 
use, as a beverage, any thing which intoxicates. 
The reason is that which was expressed in the 
preamble of the constitution of a Temperan(5e 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 17 

Society which was formed in September, 1826 ; 
and which consisted of one hundred and ninety 
eight young men : viz. 

" Believing that the use of intoxicating liquors is 
for persons in health, not only unnecessary, hut 
hurtful ; that it is the tause of forming intem- 
jjcrate appetites and habits, and that ichile it is 
continued the evils of intemperance can never he 
preveMedy — 

Therefore, in order to prevent those evils, and 
for the purpose of promoting their own good and 
the fjood of others, vast multitudes of all ao^es and 
in various countries have ceased to use intoxicat- 
ing liquors. The number that now abstain from 
the use of them is supposed to exceed twelve mil- 
lions. It is not known that any of them have, in 
the end, suffered any real harm. As a body they 
appear to themselves and to others to have been 
benefitted. And while continuing that course, 
not a drunkard has ever been found among them. 
On the other hand, multitudes, who before were 
notorious drunkards, and sources of untold wretch- 
edness to themselves and others, have become 
perfectly sober men. Many of them have becofne 
industrious, useful, pious men, and sources of hap- 
piness to all around them. 

In 1S34, one of these men, in a public meeting 
said, " I stand before you a person who was a 
diunkard upwards of twenty years. I drank to 
such excess that I could scarcely hold the glass 

2* 



IS TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

to my mouth. I was destroying my health, had 
hardly a chair, or a bed to lie down upon, and 
was making every body miserable around me. It 
is now eighteen months since I have tasted any in- 
toxicating liquor, and I have laid out in my house 
and furniture above tweYity pounds. I never en- 
joyed so good a state of health. We have food, rai- 
ment, contentment, and every thing comfortable." 

Said another, " When I go through the streets 
on Sunday, it does my soul good to meet so many 
reformed drunkards, well dressed, and going to 
places of public worship. What fools you are to 
cover the landlord's tables, while you yourselves 
must live on potatoes and salt : your children 
barefooted and bareheaded, your coats out at the 
elbows, and your trowsers out at the knees, as 
mine used to be. I called the temperance people 
fools. But I found that I was the fool, and that 
they were wise men. I am now strong and hearty, 
can do my work better than ever, and am deter- 
mined to go about, preaching temperance as long 
as I live." 

Scores of others gave a similar testimony. In 
December, 1834, thirty mechanics, who had bjeen 
drunkards, and who had ceased to use intoxi- 
cating drinks, sent out through the press to 
those who were still drunkards, the following 
address, viz. 

*' Friends, — You are miserable and wretched, 
in body, in soul, and circumstances. Your fami- 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 19 

lies and friends are suffering through your folly. 
You have no peace here, and you can have no 
peace hereafter. All this proceeds from the de- 
lusive maddening habit of using intoxicating 
liquors. You are told that these liquors do you 
good. It is a falsehoody invented and propagated ^ 
for the purpose of getting your money. Judge of 
the good they have done by the effects which they 
have produced upon. yourselves and others. Shun 
the public house as you w^ould a plague, and the 
company of drunkards as you would a gang of 
robbers. 

*' Friends, we were once drunkards, and most of 
us were in the same wretched condition with your- 
selves. We are now happy ; our wives are com- 
fortable ; our children are provided for ; we are 
in better health, and better in circumstances ; we 
have peace of mind ; and no tongue can tell the 
comforts we have enjoyed since we became con- 
sistent members of the Temperance Society. 

** While we refuse no kind of food or drink 
that God hath sent, we abstain from all diluted poi- 
son^ manufactured to ruin mankind and rob our 
country of its greatness. We have seen our de- 
lusion, and we now drink neither ale, wine, gin, 
rum, brandy, nor any kind of intoxicating liquor. 
There is no safety for you nor for us, but in giving 
it up entirely. Come then, ye drunkards, attend 
our meetings, be resolved to cast off the fetters of 
intemperance, and for ever determine to be free." 



20 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

Thousands, and hundreds of thousands, have 
since become free, and not a few of them are now 
free indeed. Vast multitudes more, who never 
were drunkards, as long as they continue their 
present course will be free from the danger of 
becoming such. None who follow their example 
will ever form the drunkard's appetite, or meet the 
drunkard's doom. Let all adopt and pursue the 
same course, and drunkenness with all its abomi- 
nations will for ever cease, and temperance, with 
its attendant benefits to the body and the soul, 
for time and eternity, will universally prevail. 

Here a question arises : viz. Why do not all 
persons wlio know the facts abstain from the use 
of intoxicating drinks ? As the facts show that all 
men would be better without them ; as millions 
have tried it and can testify from their own expe- 
rience ; as their testimony is uniform and conclu- 
sive ; why does it not carry conviction to every 
individual, and control their conduct 1 How many 
witnesses are wanted in a court of justice to prove 
a case, even of life or death ] more than a mil- 
lion good men and true, who can testify from their 
own personal knowledge % No. A thousandth 
part of that number would settle any question. 
Why does it not settle this question ] Why do 
not all believe that they would be better should 
they abstain entirely from the use, as a beverage, 
of all intoxicating liquor 1 If they did not use it 
they would believe this. But unhappily some still 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 21 

continue to use it ; and in proportion as they use 
it, and thus come under its power, they are de- 
ceived. It is in its nature ** a mocker," and the 
effect which it has on them in making them think 
it does them good, is a proof of it. Some indeed 
drink it because they love it, or love the excite- 
ment which it occasions, or because other people 
drink it, though they know it does them hurt. Of 
such we are not now speaking ; but of those who 
still think, as most men once did, that a little does 
them good, and take it when it really does them 
harm. What is the ground of that deception ] 
Why do they call evil, good 1 It is on account of 
ts i?nmediate effect. 

Sometimes men take Alcohol to drown present 
corrow. A man lost his wife, the mother of his 
children, and he was in great distress. He took 
Alcohol, and under its influence gi'ew cheerful, 
and seemed full of mirth. He seized the dead 
body of his wife, and in high glee dragged her 
across the room by the hair of her head, and 
threw her into the coffin. But " the end of 
that mirth is heaviness,''^ and the soitow that 
worketh death. 

Sometimes it makes men feel rich. A rich man 
in a country town had often gone to a poor neigh- 
bor of his who was greatly injuring himself and 
hifl family by drinking Alcohol, and entreated him 
to give it up, but he would not. At last an op- 
portunity offered in which the rich man thought 



22 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

that he should certainly succeed. They were both 
at a temperance meeting. The speaker showed 
with great clearness, and from numerous facts, 
selected and arranged with care, that the drink- 
ing of Alcohol is not only needless, but hurt- 
ful : that men who do not drink it can do more 
work, and in a better manner, than those who do : 
that they enjoy better health, live longer, and are 
much more useful and happy. After the meeting 
the rich man went again to the poor man, and in 
view of the facts, which to his own mind were 
perfectly conclusive and indeed irresistible, urged 
him to give it up. The poor man replied, " If I 
were a rich man like you, I would. You are a 
rich man, you know you are rich, and have mo- 
ney enough. But I am a poor man. Nobody 
likes always to feel poor, and when a man has 
taken a little he feels five hundred dollars richer 
than he did before." But is he any richer, or is 
it all delusion 1 Delusion, utter delusion ; but no 
more a delusion than he experiences who drinks 
and thinks he is healthier or in any respect bet- 
ter. It is all delusion, and a perfect demonstra- 
tion of the truth that strong drink is " a mocker." 
Auctioneers, merchants, and others, knowing 
its nature, have often been in the habit of furnish- 
ing it to their customers, gratis, on purpose to 
make them feel more rich, and thus induce them 
to purchase more goods and at a higher price 
than they otherwise would, and thus cheat them 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 23 

out of their money. Not unfrequently they have 
succeeded, and obtained ten times as much as the 
cost of the hquor which they furnished. But is it 
right 1 No : it is wrong, morally wrong, and stamps 
on the man who does it, the guilt of a swindler. 

A lawyer who knew that it was wrong to fur- 
nish intoxicating liquor, was about to sell at auc- 
tion the wood that was standing on a certani lot 
which he owned, at a distance from the town. 
He told the auctioneer not to furnish any spirit; 
but to furnish food and such drink as would not 
injure those who should attend the sale. The 
auctioneer said, that if he insisted upon it, he 
would follow his directions. " But," he added, 
" depend upon it you will lose a great deal of 
money. I know how it works. After men have 
been drinking the trees look a great deal larger 
than they did before." But are they any larger % 
Sometimes they seem to see two trees, where be- 
fore there was but one. But are there any more 
trees, or is it all deception % Sheer deception. And 
is it right thus to deceive men in order to get 
their money ] 

A number of gentlemen assembled to consult 
upon the value of certain lots of land that were 
to be offered at public sale. After due inquiry 
and considei-ation, they concluded unanimously 
that the lots ^ere not worth more than a certain 
specified sum, and thnt 'hey would none of thera 
bid more. The sale was opened, and no man bid 



24 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

higher than the sum which had been named. The 
owner would not sell at that price, and stopped 
the sale. It being cold he invited them to go in 
and warm. While the fire was warming them 
without, he prepared some Alcohol in a very pa- 
latable manner to warm them within. He offered 
it gratis, and they drank freely. When he thought 
that they were warm enough, he again opened 
the sale. One of those men, as he himself told 
the writer, felt so much richer, and the land ap- 
peared to be worth so much more, that he ac- 
tually bid and gave for a lot four times as much 
as he, or any of those men, when not poisoned, 
thought the land to be worth. Is it wise for a 
man to consent to be thus deceived and robbed 
of his money ] Horse jockeys, gamblers, thieves, 
highway robbers and murderers furnish Alcohol 
on purpose to delude, in order that they may 
defraud, corrupt, and destroy those who come 
under its power. Long has it been, and it is now 
known to be one of the grand instruments of Satan, 
through the agency of his servants, to accomplish 
his designs. Yet, notwithstanding all this, multi- 
tudes are still making it, or furnishing materials 
for that purpose. Some are importing it : others 
are selling it, or renting buildings to be used 
for the sale of it. Many are still drinking it, and 
not a few under the delusive idea that it does 
them good. 

Why do men, who drink it and are greatly in- 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 25 

jurcd hy it,, think tliat it does tliem good 1 And 
tvhy do they so often increase the quantity, till, 
unless cut off suddenly, they go down to the 
drunkard's gravel 

These questions we shall briefly answer, and 
also show the process by which Alcohol causes 
sickness, insanity, and premature death. 

III. Such is the nature of Alcohol, that when 
taken into the stomach, its first effect is irritation 
and an increase of action, a quickening of the 
circulation, producing animation and excitement. 
That excitement, by a law of nature, is a source 
of present pleasure, and many mistake this plea- 
sure for real good. It arouses also for a moment 
the dormant energies of the system, which were 
not designed, and are not needed for ordinary 
healthful action, but only for special emergencies, 
and which cannot be awakened on ordinary occa- 
sions without diminishing their power and short- 
ening their duration. This arousing of dormant 
energy men mistake for an increase of strength. 

The commission of sin sometimes gives pre- 
sent pleasure. Is it therefore a real good ] The 
delirium of a fever sometimes awakens dormant 
energy, and the man who before could hardly 
raise a finger, now assumes the power of a giant. 
Are delirium, and fever, therefore, the sources of 
real strenQ:th 1 The man who thinks so is mis- 
taken ; but no more mistaken than is the man 

3 



25 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

who ascribes such increase of strength to Alcohol. 

The eating of the fruit which God, on pain of 
death, had forbidden, may have afforded a mo- 
mentary gratification. But he who thinks that 
eating the forbidden fi'uit was, or that sin ever is, 
a real good, or that it is wise to commit it, is en- 
tirely mistaken. He calls evil good, as does the 
man who drinks Alchohol, under the deception 
which the practice of evil occasions. No man in 
the practice of evil, and while under its power, will 
judge correctly concerning its nature and effects. 

The falling of a child into a river, or its expo- 
sure to be consumed in a house on fire, may 
awaken in a mother, for a moment, almost the 
strength of Hercules for its rescue. But is it a 
source of real and permanent strength ? And if 
repeated, daily, will it prolong life 1 He who 
thinks so, is deluded. So with the drinking of 
spirituous liquors. Whatever present appear- 
ances may be, the ultimate effect is weakness, not. 
strength ; sickness, not health : death, and not 
life. Yet, as it gives present pleasure, and some- 
times appears to increase health, strength, riches, 
or some other desirable thing, a motive is thereby 
created to drink it. In view of that motive, and 
for the purpose of obtaining the fancied good, 
many do drink it. By its use they form an appe- 
tite for it ; and to gratify that appetite continue to 
drink till they die. 

But why do they increase the quantity 1 What 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 27 

is the temptation to do that 1 The system having 
been poisoned, becomes in some measure deranged. 
Too much excitement of the organs and too in- 
tense action, without additional strength, produces 
weakness, and causes a sensation of exhaustion. 
That by a law of nature, causes pain. An inex- 
pressible uneasiness pervades the system, which 
is the voice of nature crying out for help, under 
the abuse which she has suffered. A man cannot 
thus irritate and chafe his orsrans without subse- 
quent languor, any more than he can put his hand 
in the fire and not be burnt. He violates a law ; 
that law has a penalty ; and the uneasiness which 
he feels is evidence that " the way of transgressors 
is hard." 

In that state two motives arise to induce the man 
to drink again. One is, to obtain the former plea- 
sure ; the other is, to rid himself of present pain. 
Hence he drinks again; but .as the system is now 
somewhat exhausted, the same quantity will not 
produce the same effect. It will not raise him so 
high, or cause his weary organs to move so brisk- 
ly. Of course it will not make him feel so well 
as he did before, or wholly remove his present 
pain. To do that, he must take a little more, and 
the next time a little more. Hence, by laws 
which are fixed in his constitution, he creates con- 
stantly incr/3asing motives to take constantly in- 
creasing quantities ; till he loses the power of mo- 
tion, and falls into the ditch. Such is the phi' 



28 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

losophy of drunkenness. It is in accordance with 
the nature of things that Alcohol should operate 
in that way. Can a man take coals into his bosom 
and his clothes not be burned ] There are laws 
and penalties which he can neither annul nor 
evade. As a man soweth so must he I'eap. Of 
thorns he cannot gather figs, nor of bramble 
bushes can he gather grapes. He must eat the 
fruit of his own way, and be filled with his own 
devices. He who drinks poison must feel the ef- 
fects of poison. Even if he calls it bread, it will 
not affect him like bread ; or if he thinks it to be 
milk, it will not produce the effect of milk. There 
are laws fixed by the Creator. Every substance 
has its own nature, and whatever man may think, 
it will produce its appropriate effects. 

The appetite formed by Alcohol is not like the 
natural appetite for bread, or milk, or any nourish- 
ing and proper food or drink. This aj)petite a man 
may gratify every day, and instead of increasing 
his danfjer it will lessen it. It does not increase in 
its demands. What satisfied it years ago as to 
quantity will satisfy it now, and will continue to 
satisfy it through life. But with this new, artificial, 
unnecessary and dangerous appetite, which men 
by the use of Alcoholic liquors form, it is not so. 
What satisfied that years ago, will not satisfy it 
now. It cries for ever, ** Give, give," and never 
has enough. Hence the reason why the incau- 
tious youth, or the sober man, who had unhappily 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 29 

formed this appetite, went on, step by step with 
increasing velocity, to the drunkard's grave. Not 
a man on earth can form this appetite without in- 
creasing his danger of dying a drunkard. And 
though the father should withstand such an appe- 
tite, it may ruin his children and children's chil- 
dren, to the third and fourth generation. 

" You will produce a great effect on our peo- 
ple," said a man to one who was about to deliver 
an address on temperance ; ** for we have just 
buried a man who killed himself by intemperance. 
He was the son of a respectable mechanic who 
had two sons, and took them both into his own 
business when they were young. His practice 
was to drink moderately two or three times a 
day. His sons did the same. Before they were 
eighteen they were both drunkards. The oldest 
lingered on to twenty-three and died. The young- 
est can't live to be twenty-three. He is going 
rapidly the same way. The father stands it, but 
the sons are ruined." 

That short sentence tells the history of many a 
family of once moderate drinkers : ** The father," 
it may be, " stands it ; but the sons are ruined." In 
many cases the father also, and even the mother 
and daughters as well as the sons, are ruined. 
Whole families lie side by side in the drunkard's 
grave : families too, who once were respectable, 
and had no more idea of becominsr drunkards than 
have any families or individuals who are now, 

3* 



so TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

however moderately, drinking intoxicating liquor. 
There is no safety but in abstinence, entire, fer- 
petual ahstinence. If a man begins to drink this 
" mocker," he knows not, and he cannot know 
where it will end. 

There is a violation of moral law at the out- 
set of this practice. Every man is bound by his 
duty to God, himself, and his fellow-men, to be 
satisfied with that amount of animal enjoyment 
which he can obtain by the proper gratification of 
the natural appetites and passions which God has 
given him. He has no right to covet more. If to 
obtain more he takes other substances, or forms a 
new appetite, which, like the desire for sinning in 
the man who sins, tends continually to increase, 
he violates a moral latv. He shows himself to be 
dissatisfied with the revealed will of God, and the 
language of his practice is, " Not thy will, but 
mine be done." The pleasures of drinking Alco- 
hol are guilty pleasures ; and the profits of furnish- 
ing it for that purpose are guilty profits, that will 
not be likely to benefit their possessors. 

There is another reason why men who drink 
Alcohol often continue and increase the quantity 
till they die. The more a man partakes of the un- 
natural and guilty pleasures which that poison oc- 
casions, the more indifferent he becomes to natu- 
ral and innocent pleasures, which result from the 
proper gratification of the natural appetites and 
passions, from the contemplation of the works of 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 31 

God, from the exercise of the social affections, and 
from the discharge of the various duties of life. 
The consequence is, such a person becomes more 
and more destitute of all enjoyment except that of 
this " mocker." Like Pharaoh's lean kine, it eats 
up all other kine, and yet its craving is not abated. 
Give the man more, and still more, till he tumbles 
senseless into the gutter, and lies there for hours, 
a breathing corpse ; yet when he awakes he will 
** seek it yet again," and will take it again, with- 
out abating his leanness or his thirst. 

While its immediate effects become more and 
more the sum of all his joys, its ultimate effects 
become more and more the concentration of his 
woes. Thus, by the cravings for pleasure on the 
one hand, and the terrors of woe on the other, he 
is goaded on to death. Of all the devices of the 
** old murderer " and his agents to increase the 
descent of a man on his way to perdition, and 
augment the difficulty of his return, the drinking 
of Alcohol is among the most fatal. Its name is 
legion, for its victims are many. 

The following testimony of Dr. Samuel Emlin, 
iate Secretary of the College of Physicians and 
Surgeons of Philadelphia, is philosophically true. 
** We should not admit the popular reasoning as 
applicable here, that the abuse of a thing is no ar- 
gument against its use. Ml use of ardent sjnrits 
(that is as a beverage) is an abuse. They are mis- 
chievous under all circumstances." Dr. Cheyne, 



32 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

of London, states, ** that they are most like ot)ium 
in their nature, and like arsenic in their delete- 
rious effects." . Dr. Frank declares ** that their 
tendency, even when used, moderately, is to induce 
disease, premature old age and death." Dr. Trot- 
ter states, " that of all the evils of human life no 
cause of disease has so wide a range, or so large a 
share as the use of spirituous liquors ; and that 
more than half the sudden deaths are occasioned 
by them." Dr. Harris states, " that the moderate 
use of liquor has destroyed many who were never 
drunk ;" and Dr. Kirk gives it as his opinion, 
" that men who were never considered intempe- 
rate, by daily drinking, have often shortened life 
more than twenty years ; and that the respectable 
use of this poison nas killed more than even drunk- 
enness itself." 

Says Dr. Alden, of Massachusetts. ** On every 
organ they touch, ardent spirits operate as a poi- 
son. No where in the human body are they al- 
lowed a lodgment until the vital powers are so far 
prostrated that they cannot be removed. They 
are hurried on from one organ to another, mark- 
ing their course with irregularity of action and dis- 
turbance of function, until at last they are taken 
up by the emunctories, the scavengers of the 
system, and unceremoniously excluded. When 
through decay of organic vigor this process ceases, 
the work of destruction is drawing to a close, and the 
last glimmerings of life are soon extinguished. To 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 33 

a man in health there is no such thing as a tempe- 
rate use of spirits. In any quantity they are an 
enemy to the human constitution. Their influence 
upon the physical organs is unfavorable to health. 
They produce weakness, not strength ; sickness, 
not health ; death, not life." 

In the language of Dr. Mussey, of the Ohio 
Medical College, " Does a healthy laboring man 
need Alcohol 1 No more than he needs arsenic, 
corrosive sublimate, or opium." Yet he takes it. 
He thinks it does him good. He feels uneasy 
without it. He cannot feel as well sis he did be- 
fore unless he takes more, and still more. So he 
continues to take it, and to increase the quantity, 
till in one half, or one quarter of his natural life, 
he goes down to the grave. 

IV. Why does the drinking of Alcohol cause 
death 7 Were the human body transparent, and 
could we see the effects of Alcohol as we see the 
color of men's faces, every man might answer this 
question for himself. He would have ocular de- 
monstration that Alcohol is a poison, and that the 
drinkiuG: of it is a violation of natural and moral 
laws. It has no nourishment in it. The difrestive 
organs cannot decompose it or turn it into blood, 
flesh, bones, or anything by which the human 
body is nourished, strengthened, and supported. 
When swallowed, it goes into the stomach, the 
common receptacle of food. This is a delicate 



34 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

and principal organ, and its state affects the whole 
body. Its inner coat, in a healthy condition, is 
slightly tinged with a reddish color. The blood- 
vessels which spread over it are exceedingly nu- 
merous, and yet so small that the naked eye can- 
not discern them. They give to it a delicate red- 
dish hue, like tlie delicate tinge on the cheek of 
a healthy child. Alcohol, when it touches tliat 
delicate organ, irritates the surface, and produces, 
through the medium of the nerves, a tingling sen- 
sation. This sensation is a note of alarm : a warn- 
ing to the system that an enemy has invaded it. 
The heart, that great sentinel, starts anew, and 
throws additional forces on to the invaded spot, 
in order to protect it. The blood in greater quan- 
tity and with greater force rushes into those little 
vessels till, by and by, if the process be continued, 
they become enlarged, so that you can see them 
spreading out all over the inner surface of the 
stomach in thousands of ramifications, like the 
branches of a tree. The surface becomes inflamed 
and begins to grow black. The blood settles ; the 
coats become thickened ; ulcers begin to form and 
spread out, till, if the process is continued and in- 
creased, as in the case of the drunkard, the whole 
inner coat of that fundamental organ puts on the 
appearance of mortification, and becomes in color 
like the back of a chimney. Not unfrequently 
cancers are formed, and the whole surface be- 
comes one common sore. 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 35 

The man cannot digest his food. The system 
is not nourished. Other organs become diseased, 
till the body itself is literally little else than a 
mass of putrefaction. Says the late Thomas Se- 
wall, M. D. Professor of Pathology and the prac- 
tice of medicine in the Columbian College, Wash- 
ington, D. C. "Alcohol is a poison, for ever at 
war with man's nature ; and in all its forms and 
degrees of strength produces irritation of the sto- 
mach which is liable to result in inflammation, ul- 
ceration, and mortification : a thickening and in- 
duration of its coats and finally schirrhus, cancer, 
and other organic affections. It may be asserted 
with confidence that no one who indulges habitu- 
ally in the use of Alcoholic drinks, whether in the 
form of wine or more ardent spirits, possesses a 
heakhy stomach. That beautiful network of blood 
vessels which was invisible in the healthy stomach, 
being excited by Alcohol, becomes dilated and 
extended with blood, visible and distinct. This 
effect is produced upon the well known law of 
the animal economy, that an irritant applied to a 
sensitive texture of the body induces an increased 
flow of blood to the part. The mucous or inner 
coat of the stomach is a sensitive membrane, and 
is subject to this law. A practical illustration of 
this principle is shown by a reference to the hu- 
man eye. If a few drops of Alcohol be brought 
in contact with the delicate coats of the eye, the 
fine VQssels which were before invisible become 



36 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

distended with blood, and are easily seen. If this 
operation be repeated as the temperate drinker 
takes Alcohol, the vessels become habitually in 
creased in size, and distended with blood." So 
with the stomach. Besides, " the mucous coat of 
the stomach becomes thickened and softened. And 
these changes occur in the temperate drinker, as 
well as in the confirmed drunkard." The conse- 
quence is, that the stomach necessarily becomes 
unfitted to digest food, and the whole system 
suffers. 

From the stomach the Alcohol, unchanged, is 
taken up by the absorbent vessels and carried into 
the blood, that great receptacle and common car- 
rier of nourishment. With that, it is circulated 
through the system, till as a nuisance it is seized 
upon by the emunctories, the scavengers, and 
thrown off. But it was Alchohol, a subtle and ir- 
ritating poison when taken into the stomach, and 
it is the same when sucked up by the absorbent 
vessels and carried into the blood. It is Alcohol 
in the heart, in the lungs, in the arteries, in the 
brain, in the veins and nerves and tissues and 
fibres of the whole body, and it is Alcohol when, 
having passed through all the circulations, it is ex- 
pelled. Give it to a dog, take the blood from his 
foot and distil it, you have Alcohol — the same 
which the dog drank — no, not that which he 
drank, for a dog knows too much to drink it ; it 
is the same which, in opposition to the instinct 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 37 

which God gave him, and drunkenness had not 
obliterated, you forced upon him. 

Take the blood from the foot of a drunkard, 
from his head, or his liver, and distil it — you have 
Alcohol. It has actually been taken from the 
brain, strong enough, on the application of fire, 
to burn. Dr. Kirk, of Scotland, dissected a man 
who died in a fit of intoxication. From the lateral 
ventricles of the brain he took a fluid distinctly 
sensible to the smell as whiskey. When he ap- 
plied a candle to it, it instantly took fire and 
burned blue : ** the lambent blue flame," he says, 
** characteristic of the poison, playing on the sur- 
face of the spoon for some seconds." 

The lungs also are loaded with it, as is mani- 
fest from the breath of the drunkard. The liver 
is often greatly enlarged, and instead of four or 
five pounds, its common weight, it has been known 
to weigh eight, ten, and in some cases twelve* 
pounds. Its secretions, instead of being of a bright 
yellow, its common and healthy color, have been 
changed to green, and even to black ; and from 
being a thin limpid fluid, have become thick, like 
tar ; forming not unfrequently biliary calculi, or 
largo gall stones. 

The kidneys become granulated, softened, and 
changed into a pale color ; and even the moderate 
use of Alcoholic drinks leads to some of the most 
fatal complaints in the catalogue of human diseases. 

In the language of Dr. Mussey, " Not a blood 

4 



38 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

vessel, however minute, not a thread of nerve in 
the whole animal economy escapes its influence." 
It enters the delicate organs of the nursing mother 
which prepare the food for her tender offspring. 
It is taken from her into the stomach and passes 
through the system of the child, producing where- 
ever it goes the appropriate effects of the drunk- 
ard's poison. The babe which before was restless, 
now sleeps like a drunkard ; and for the same 
reason. The drunkard's appetite has been formed 
at the breast, or in the cradle. Said one of the 
first literary men in the United States to the 
writer, after speaking on the subject of tempe- 
rance, " There is one thing, which as you visit dif- 
ferent places, I wish you to do everywhere ; that is, 
to entreat every mother never to give a drop of it 
to a child. I have had to fight as for ray life all 
my days to keep from dying a drunkard, because 
I was fed with spirit when a child. I acquired a 
taste for it. My brother, poor fellow, died a drunk- 
ard. I would not have a child of mine take a di'op 
of it for anything. Warn every mother, wherever 
you go, never to give a drop of it to a child." 

Facts abundantly show that the children of 
those mothers who drink Alcohol are more likely 
than others to become drunkards, and in various 
ways to suffer. Often they are not so large and 
healthy as other children. They have less keen- 
ness and strength of eye-sight, less firmness and 
quietness of nerves, less capability of great bodily 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 39 

and mental acliievement, and less power to with- 
stand the attacks of disease, or the vicissitudes of 
climates and seasons. 

Instances a#e known where the first childreii of 
a family, who were born when their parents were 
temperate, were bright, active, and healtliy, while 
the last children, who were born after the parents 
had become intemperate, were feeble, stupid, 
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 intem- 
perance in the parents seemed to be marked by 
a corresponding deterioration in the bodies and 
minds of the children. In one of the families the 
oldest is industrious, respectable, and accumulates 
property. The next is inferior, and spends all he 
can get in strong drink. The third is dwarfish in 
both body and mind ; and, to use his own lan- 
guage, *' is a miserable remnant of a man." 

The other family consists of daughters. The 
oldest is smart, active and intelligent. The others 
are aflllcted with different degrees of bodily and 
mental 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 promis- 
ing, while the four last children, who were born 



40 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

after the mother became addicted to the use of 
opium, appeared to be stupid, and all at about the 
same age died of a disease apparently occasioned 
by the habits of the mother. ■> 

Dr. Darwin says, ** It is remarkable that all the 
diseases arising from drinking spirituous or fer- 
mented liquors are liable to become hereditary, 
even to the third generation ; gradually increasing, 
if the cause be continued, till the family becomes 
extinct." 

A committee of the British Parliament in their 
report on this subject, say, " Intemperate parents, 
according to high medical testimony, give a taint 
to their offspring. The poisonous stream of ar- 
dent spirits is conveyed through the milk of the 
mother to the infant at the breast, so that the foun- 
tain of life, through which nature supplies that 
pure and healthy nutriment of infancy, is poisoned 
at its source. A diseased appetite is created which 
grows with its growth, and strengthens with its in- 
creasing weakness and decay." 

Dr. Caldwell remarks, " By habits of intempe- 
rance parents not only degrade and ruin themselves, 
but transmit the elements of like ruin and degrada- 
tion to their posterity. In hundreds of instances 
parents who have had children born while their 
habits were temperate, have become afterwards 
intemperate, and had other children born. In such 
cases it is matter of notoriety that the younger 
children have become addicted to the practice of 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 41 

intoxication much more frequently than the elder, 
in the proportion of five to one." 

Says a distinguished writer, " On this subject, 
at the present day there exists little differ^ice of 
opinion among medical men." 

Another gentleman mentions a case which is, if 
possible, more dreadful. A respectable and in- 
fluential man, early in life adopted the practice of 
using a little intoxicating drink daily. He and six 
of his children, three sons and three daup-hters, 
now lie in the drunkard's grave. The other and 
only remaining child is hastening ra^^idly to the 
same dismal end. 

The following is the history of eight families in 
one town, the heads of which used intoxicating 
liquor. The first had one child, a daughter. A 
great sum was expended on her education. She 
died from the effects of strong drink. 

The second had an only son. He was educated 
with great care and at great expense, but was 
killed by wine. 

The third had four sons and one daughter. The 
daughter is a drunkard, and one son has gone to 
the drunkard's grave. 

The fourth had three sons. One died of intem- 
perance, one was killed in a duel, and the other is 
a drunkard. 

The fifth had one son who killed himself by 
drinking, and two step-sons are drunkards on 
wine. 

4* 



42 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

The sixth had five sons. Two are dead through 
intemperance, and another is a drunkard. 

The seventh had five sons. Four are drunkards, 
and one through the influence of liquor is an idiot. 

The eighth had five sons and three nephews. 
Four of the sons have been killed by alcohol, and 
the fifth is a drunkard, and the three nephews aro 
in the drunkard's grave. 

Thus the sin of drinking and its punishment go 
from parents to children, sweeping many, very 
many to a premature grave, and rendering many 
more a torment to survivors. 

Of two hundred and elghty-six persons in one 
insane hospital, one hundred and fifteen were de- 
prived of reason by strong drink. Of four hundred 
and ninety-five in another hospital, two hundred 
and fifty-seven, according to the testimony of their 
own friends, were rendered insane in the same 
way. And the physicians who had the care of 
them, gave It as their opinion that this was the case 
with many others. 

Nor is it strange, that, with a poison In the 
brain, men should lose their reason. It would bo 
strange if they should not, especially with such an 
irritating poison as alcohol. That is the reason 
why men after drinking It, have so much less rea- 
son than they had before. They have a poison in 
the brain. Hence merchants who drink it often 
repent, on the subsequent morning, of the bargains 
which they made the previous afternoon ; and the 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 43 

people often have occassion to be ashamed of the 
speeches which are made, and the legislation which 
is adopted by their rulers, in the evening. Many 
of them had a " mocker " in the brain, and were 
more fit subjects for an insane hospital than for 
the halls of legislation. A distinguished medical 
practitioner who had had great experience on this 
subject, stated that, in his judgment, more than half 
the cases of insanity that had come under his no- 
tice were occasioned either directly or indirectly 
by intoxicating liquor. Says Dr. Pearson, " The 
love of strong drink and the proneness to mania 
are interchangeable causes." 

It also produces numerous other diseases. In 
the language of Dr. Sewall, " Dispepsia, jaundice, 
emaciation, corpulence, dropsy, ulcers, rheuma- 
tism, gout, tremors, paljoitation, hysteria, epilepsy, 
palsy, lethargy, apoplexy, melancholy, madness, 
delirium tremens, and premature old age, compose 
but a small part of the catalogue of diseases pro- 
duced by alcoholic drinks." 

Of ninety-one adults who died in New Haven, 
Connecticut, in one year, thirty-two, according to 
the united testimony of the Medical Association, 
were occasioned by strong drink. 

Of sixty-seven adult deaths in New Brunswick, 
New Jersey, more than one-third were occasioned 
in the same way. 

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of 
Philadelphia gave it as their opinion, that out of 



44 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

four thousand two hundred and niiiety-two deaths 
in that city, seven hundred, or more than one in 
seven, were occasioned by intoxicating liquors. 

The Physicians of Annapolis, Maryland, stated, 
that of eighteen males over eighteen years of age, 
who died in one year in that city, half were occa- 
sioned by intemperance, and they add, "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 jus- 
tified in expressing the belief that, were the use 
of them discontinued, the number of deaths am.ong 
the male adults would be diminished one-half." 

The facts that alcohol is indigestible, affords no 
nourishment, and is an irritating poison, would 
seem to show that it must be hurtful, and there- 
fore that it must be morally wrong to drink it, or 
to furnish it to be drunk by others. 

V. All the organs of the human body have as 
much work to do as is consistent with permanent- 
ly healthful action, when they have to remove only 
what is occasioned by nourishing food and drink. 
God designed in that case that they should all be 
" diligent in business." In the structure of the 
body he has given them as much to do as they can 
perform, and yet to the longest preserve human 
life. If you withhold what is nourishing, and thus 
diminish their strength, or load them with what 
is not nourishing, and thus increase their labor, 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 45 

you necessarily wear them out too soon, and pro- 
duce premature decay and death. 

By drinking alcohol you do both. You also 
deteriorate the quality of the nourishment which 
you do afford. Amidst the irritation and excite- 
ment which the poison occasions, the functions of 
the digestive organs are deranged. TJiey cannot 
furnish nourishment so pure and healthful as they 
otherwise would. The consequence is, other parts 
of the body become diseased, and thus you work 
out destruction. 

Digestion is one of the most important of all 
the animal functions. The object is to convert 
food into nourishment, for the purpose of renovat- 
ing and sustaining the system, by repairing the 
wastes which are continually taking place. This 
function alcohol peculiarly disturbs. From the 
stomach food passes into the intestines, having 
been changed first into chyme and then into chyle. 
The nourishing properties are there taken up by 
absorbent vessels, poured into the blood, and car- 
ried with it to the right side of the heart. From 
that, in tubes which God has prepared, called ar- 
teries, it is sent to the lungs. There it comes in- 
to contact with atmospheric air, and takes out of 
it what it needs in order, with what it has, to sup- 
port the body. It is then sent back in another 
set of tubes, called veins, to the left side of the 
heart. From that it is sent in arteries to all parts 
of the body, carrying to each part what each part 



46 TEMPERANCE MANUAL 

needs. On these tubes, through wbich the blood 
with its treasures flows, are multitudes of little 
vessels whose office is, each one, to take out from 
the blood the kijid and quantity of nourishment 
•which it needs for its own support, and also for 
the support of that part of the body which is com- 
mitted to iis care. These little vessels, although 
exceedingly minute and delicate, are endowed 
with the power of taking that kind and quantity 
of nourishment which they need for the above- 
mentioned purposes, and of abstaining from what 
they do not need, and letting it pass on to places 
where it may be needed, or if not needed any 
where, may be in due time thrown out of the body. 
And they are endowed with the pov/er of doing 
this with a precision and accuracy which led God 
himself, in view of their operations, to pronounce 
them " very good." Had they not been deranged 
by sin, and abused by sinners, they would have 
shown to perfection the wisdom and goodness of 
their Author. 

For instance : the vessels which are placed at 
the end of the fingers, as the blood comes there, 
will take out what is needed for their own support, 
and also what is needed to make finger nails, while 
they cautiously abstain from that which will only 
make hair and let it go to the head. Those placed 
there will take out what they need for their sup- 
port, and also what will make hair and work it up, 
or cause the hair to grow, while they will abstain 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. ' 47 

from that which will only make eye-balls, and let it 
go to the eyes. The waiters that stand there will 
take that out and work it up into eyes, or cause 
them to grow. So throughout the whole body. 

Among the millions and millions of little work- 
ers, day and night — all " diligent in business " when 
not invaded by transgression, there is the most pure' 
and perfect harmony, the most delicate sensibility, 
and the most wonderful sympathy. " If one mem- 
ber suffer, all the members suffer with it ; and if 
one member rejoice, all the members rejoice with 
it." There is " no schism in the body." The good 
of each is the good of all, and each, in view of all, 
echoes the declaration of its Maker, " Very good." 

When the blood has reached the extremities, hav- 
ing traversed all parts of the body and left its trea- 
sures as they were needed along on the way, there 
is another set of tubes to take the blood from which 
the nourishment has been abstracted, and with it 
what is not needed, or has been worn out, and carry 
it back again to the right side of the heart. On its 
way back, when it gets under the left shoulder, it 
receives from the stomach, through what is called 
whe thoracic duct, a new supply of chyle, and car- 
ries it to the heart, and from that to the lungrs. 
Then by expiration, or breathing out, is thrown off 
a portion of the worn out and poisonous matter 
which if retained would only do mischief; and by 
inspiration, or breathing in, it takes a new supply 
of what is needed to turn the chyle into blood, 



48 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

change the blood from a dark to a bright red color, 
vivify the whole, and prepare it to go back to the 
left side of the heart, and from that around the 
body. 

It is that worn out and hurtful matter which, by 
breathing out, is thrown off, that makes the breath 
offensive, and renders it unfit to be breathed over 
again. Hence the reason why, in a crowded room 
where the air which was breathed out is breathed 
in again, people so often faint. If they could not 
get fresh air they would die, as people do in a close 
room from the fumes of burning charcoal. Hence 
too the reason why sleeping rooms, to be most 
healthful, must be large and airy, so that the oxy- 
gen, or vital principle of the atmosphere shall not 
be exhausted ; or the carbon, the poisonous pro- 
perty in that which is breathed out, shall not be 
breathed in again. It is the carbon which gives to 
the blood after it has been around the body, its 
blackish color. It has a stronger affinity for atmos- 
pheric air than it has for blood. Of course, when 
it reaches the lungs, it leaves the blood, combines 
with the air, and is thrown off. The oxygen has a 
stronger affinity for blood than for air. Of course it 
leaves the air and combines with the blood, turns 
it to a bright red color, gives it life, and prepares 
it to carry life through the body. Thus is God in 
his providence continually breathing into the blood 
the breath of life, and making it a living substance, 
while man is continually breathing out what is dead 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 49 

and, if retained, would cause his death. Vegeta- 
tion takes up the carbon which man breathes out, 
and lives upon it, while it gives out oxygen, upon 
which man lives. Thus they mutually supply and 
aid each other, doing good according to their na- 
ture, as they have opportunity, and so, as do all the 
works of God, praising their Maker. Of course it 
is healthy to have shade trees and vegetation about 
our dwellings to take up the carbon and furnish 
oxygen. 

After oxygen has vivified the blood and pre- 
pared it to nourish and support the body, the 
heart, like a steam-engine, worked, not by fires 
which men can kindle, but by the breath of the 
Almighty, to give the blood with its treasures good 
speed, keeps constantly moving, day and night, 
summer and winter, through storm and sun-shine, 
sickness and health, till the immortal passenger, 
according to his character and conduct on the 
voyage, is landed in his eternally appropriate 
abode. 

The quantity of blood which, in the course of 
man's life is thus carried through the heart, and 
thence is circulated th'rough the body, is very great. 
About two ounces in a healthy man are exjielled 
at every contraction or beating of the heart. If it 
beat sixty times a minute, it makes seven and a 
half pounds, equal to four hundred and fifty pounds 
in an hour, ten thousand eight hundred pounds, or 
five tons eight hundred pounds in a day. This 

5 



50 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

amount is sent from the heart to the lungs and 
around the body daily. Who can estimate its in- 
fluence on health and life, or the importance of its 
being in a good condition ] Whatever vitiates the 
blood^cripples the heart and impairs the lungs; tends 
to undermine the constitution and to shorten hu- 
man life. The stomach, as we have seen, is the 
feeder of the w^hole. Is it possible that alcohol 
should corrupt its juices, inflame its membranes, 
thicken its coat, and ulcerate its surface and not 
injure the body 1 Judge ye. 

In addition to the organs which have been des 
cribed, there is another set of vessels, too numerous 
and minute for any man to number, whose office is 
to take up nuisances, refuse matter and worn out 
particles which, if retained, would bo hurtful, and 
throw them out of the body. What other organs 
reject and thus show to be enemies, these organs 
seize upon, and turn out of doors. By so doing 
they protect the body from poisons which are gene- 
rated, and keep it from being destroyed before its- 
time. Some of these poisons, as we have seen, are 
thrown off from the lungs through the mouth and 
nose ; others are thrown off through the skin by 
insensible perspiration. The amount excluded by 
this latter method in a healthy man, is between one 
and two pounds a day. It is that which soils the 
linen and renders it needful, would a man be most 
healthy and long-lived, or avoid becoming offen- 
sive, frequently to wash it in order to free it frojn 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 61 

the dead and poisonous matter which has been 
expelled from the body. When a person exercises 
freely the perspiration becomes more abundant and 
visible. The whole surface is covered with it. 

The skin is full of pores or little openings for 
the purpose of permitting this offensive matter to 
escape. If the linen and the skin are often wash- 
ed, and the pores kept open, the poison will escape 
easily, and the vessels whose business it is will 
expel it more thoroughly. That is the reason why 
frequent bathing of the whole body is so healthful. 
It enables nature more easily and thoroughly to 
do her work, to keep the body clean within as 
well as without. If by filth, or by sitting, when 
warm, in a current of cold air, or in any other 
way, the pores are stopped up, perspiration will 
be checked. That which should have been thrown 
off through the skin will be retained, produce irri- 
tation, head-ache, loss of appetite, inflammation 
and fever. Or it will be turned inward upon the 
lungs, as in a cold, and create a cough. That 
which should have been expelled through the skin 
must now be thrown off in masses, through the 
mouth and nose ; often with great labor, and not 
a little danger. Or if it cannot be thrown off fast 
enough in that way, it may inflame the parts, oc- 
casion swellings, tumors, and abscesses, which will 
break and run, and the poisonous matter be ex- 
pelled in that way. Or if it cannot be removed so, 
it may produce obstructions of the liver, the kid- 



52 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

« 
neys, and other organs. Or it may cause inflamma- 
tion and ulceration of lungs, and the person die of 
consumption. Many cases of consumption every 
year spring from checked perspiration, a neglect- 
ed cold, or a failure to keep the skin in a clean 
and healthy condition. Just imagine a pound of 
dead, putrifying matter which should hare been 
excluded, left in the body, to spread putrefaction 
and death through the delicate fibres, organs, and 
tissues of the frame. Would you be most healthy, 
and have existence a source of constant delight, 
let not only your linen, but your skin, often feel 
the purifying influence of clean water. Keep all 
the pores in an open, active and healthful state, 
that all the poisons which are generated, the worn- 
out and hurtful particles, may be easily and tho- 
roughly excluded. Above all, take no artificial 
poisons, which were never made for food or drink. 
If you take thcrriy you commence a process of suicide^ 
hy requirhig the organs to perform an increased 
amount of labor, while at the same time you dimi- 
nish their strength, and thus necessarily wear them 
out before their time. Alcohol, in all its 

FORMS, IS SUCH A POISON. 

From the manner in which these two different 
sets of organs, viz. those for the deposit of nou- 
rishment, and those for the expulsion of poisons, 
treat any substance which is taken into the body, 
and from the manner in which that substance treats 
them, we learn its nature, and the will of God in 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 53 

regard to the use of it. If the organs for the de- 
posit of nourishment will take hold of it and work 
it up into flesh, or bones, or any thing by which the 
body is nourished, or which causes it to grow 
strong and healthy, then the substance is good, and 
it is proper to use it. But if those organs reject it, 
and thus show that they have no need of it ; and 
the organs for the expulsion of poison seize upon 
it, and drive it from the territory, then it is an 
enemy, and ought not to be admitted into the camp. 

How then do these two sets of organs treat al- 
cohol 1 First, how do those treat it, whose business 
is to deposit nourishment 1 Do they take it and 
work it up into flesh, or bones, sinews, nerves, or 
any thing by which the body is nourished, strength- 
ened, and supported 1 Never. They all instinc- 
tively reject it. They have no need of it; they 
cannot use it. Alcohol it was, alcohol it is, and 
alcohol it will be, in spite of all they can do with 
it. It only injures them. 

We have seen how it treats the stomach, swell- 
ing its ten thousand little blood-vessels to many 
times their proper size, inflaming, thickening, and 
ulcerating its coats, and changing its delicate, 
reddish hue into blackness. When carried into 
the blood it goes to one gi'oup of vessels and they 
reject it, to another, and they reject it. If they can 
prevent it they will not suffer it even to stop. " It 
is hurried on from organ to organ, marking its 
course with irregularity of action and disturbance 

5* 



54 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

of function," till, having passed around the body, 
it has been rejected by all. Nor is this the whole : 
while they fight against it, it impedes their pro- 
gress, or goads them on to madness. Having to 
labor amidst the fire and fumes of an irritating, 
poisonous foe, they become irritated and poisoned ; 
their sensibilities are blunted, their energies crip- 
pled, and they cannot do their proper work. Those 
parts of the body which are dependent on them 
for support are not supplied, and they complain. 
The organs retort, the harmony of the system is 
interrupted, sympathy between the parts is weak- 
ened, and then destroyed. Confusion ensues, and 
every evil work. In their blind intoxicated frenzy 
they bite and devour one another, and so are con- 
sumed one of another. 

The marks of that warfare, when it has contin- 
ued long and proceeded far, are seen in the crim- 
soned face, the bloodshot eye, the swollen nose, the 
palsied tongue, the trembling hands, the tottering 
steps and the falling body ; while the common ene- 
my goes on from conquering to conquer, till, if he 
cannot be expelled, death and destruction reign 
over all. Were the body transparent you would 
see the footprints of the enemy on the inside, long 
before you discover them on the outside. 

Such is the reception which alcohol receives 
from the organs designed to deposit nourishment, 
and such are some of the effects which it produces 
on them. 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL 55 

• 

What reception does it meet with from the or- 
gans whose business is to watch for enemies 
and clear off nuisances 'i Do they let it alone 1 or, 
do they, like the other organs, suffer it to continue 
to pass on through the highway of the system ? If 
they should, they would [_.i traitors. But they are 
not traitors, nor are they cowards. Any invading 
foe, however powerful, they will attack, even al- 
cohol itself. No sooner does it come within their 
reach than they seize it, work at it, and never 
leave it, unless they are conquered, till they expel 
it. It is a war of desperation ; never to cease till 
one party or the other is conquered. The first in- 
vaders they expel, and the next, and the next. But 
if new recruits, with increasing numbers and pow- 
er continue to invade, and their own recruits begin 
to fail, their resources to diminish, and their pow- 
er to decline : especially if 7/oUf who are their 
guardian, and ought to be their protector, for 
whom they have labored with untiring assiduity 
day and night for years, if you turn traitor, side 
with the enemy, and pour in his recruits, those 
organs, in that sickly climate, with that deadly foe, 
will begin to faint, and by and by sink down in 
despair, while they and you, by your own suicidal 
hands, will die together. 

Keep in mind that this is all extra labor, of a 
most exhausting kind, with a deadly foe, and in a 
poisonous atmosphere which that foe creates. It 
ir cruelty to one's self, more abominable than that 



56 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

• 
"which Egyptian taskmasters exercised towards 
their slaves. They required them to make brick 
without straw, but they did not lessen their food ; 
ihey did not poison their atmosphere ; they did 
not diminish their strength ; they did not multiply 
their enemies. All these the rum-drinker does to 
his own organs, which he is bound, by every prin- 
ciple of duty and interest, to protect, and to nour- 
ish as a part of himself. But in violation of all, he 
becomes his own destroyer. Human life in this 
way is often cut off ten, twenty, and sometimes 
fifty years sooner than sin or Satan, without alco- 
hol, would accomplish it. The poor soul by vio- 
lence is driven from its earthly tenement, and not 
permitted to stay out its proper time by half a cen- 
tury. No wonder unerring Justice and infallible 
Truth should say, " Woe unto him that giveth his 
neighbor drink, that puttest thy bottle to him and 
makest him drunken." 

Suppose a farmer should take aw^ay from his 
laborers a part of their food, should poison their 
atmosphere, and thus diminish their strength ; 
should set enemies to oppose them, load them 
with fetters, and then with a whip compel them to 
do double duty, he would treat them somewhat as 
the drinker of alcohol treats his own body. 

Facts, carefully collected and extensively circu- 
lated, justify the conclusion that alcohol has within 
fifty years cut off in the United States more than 
thirty million years of human life j and ushered 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 57 

more than a million of souls uncalled into the pre- 
sence of their Maker. 

Seventy-five physicians of Boston have given 
the follovi'inor testimony, viz. " Men in health are 
never benefitted by the use of ardent spirits ; on 
the contrary, the use of it is a frequent cause of 
disease and death, and often renders such dis- 
eases as arise from other causes more difficult of 
cure and more fatal in their termination." 

Forty-five physicians of Cincinnati have stated 
as follows : " Ardent spirit is not only unneces- 
sary, but absolutely injurious in a healthful state of 
the system. It produces many, and aggravates most 
of the diseases to which the human frame is liable. 
It is equally poisonous with arsenic, operating 
sometimes more slowly, but with equal certainty." 

Similar testimony has been given by hundreds 
of the most learned and intelligent medical men. 
An aged physician, after long and extensive prac- 
tice, remarks, " 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 lemoved the difficulty, 
and the man been well. Many men who were 
never intoxicated, when visited with a fever might 
be raised up were it not for that state of the sys- 
tem which daily moderate drinking occasions, who 



58 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

now, notwithstanding all that can be done, sink 
down and die." 

An aged physician in Maryland stated, that 
when the fever breaks out there, Ders^^ns who do 
not use spirituous liquors are not half as likely as 
others to have it, and when they do have it, they 
are ten times as likely to recover. 

A physician who had lived in a country town 
more than forty years, stated, that from De- 
cember, 1829, to January, 1834, the number of 
men who died was twenty-five. Sixteen died 
drunkards. Two of the remaining nine were 
young men, who were suddenly killed. The ave- 
rage age of the drunkards was about foity-four 
years.- They lived after they became drunkards, 
on an average, about eleven years. The average 
age of the sober men who died a natural death, 
was upwards of seventy-four years; making, upon 
an average, a difference between the drunken and 
the sober of about thirty years. 

Dr. Cheyne, of Dublin, after upwards of thirty 
years of medical practice, observation, and expe- 
rience, gives the following opinion : " Let ten 
young men begin at twenty-one years of age to 
use but one glass of spirits of only two ounces a 
day, and never increase the quantity, nine out of 
ten of those young men will shorten life upon an 
average more than ten years." 

But let us take only half those numbers. Sup- 
pose that moderate drinking shortens life, upon an 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 59 

average, five years, and drunkenness fifteen ; that 
there are in the United States twenty-five mode- 
rate drinkers to one drunkard, and that there are 
three hundred thousand drunkards, alcohol would 
cut off in one generation forty million years of 
human life ; equal to twenty years each of more 
than two millions of men. And this in ordinary 
times without any special sickness, and under the 
operation of only the ordinary causes of mortality. 
In seasons of special sickness and prevalent 
epidemics, and by sudden deaths, the number 
might be greatly increased. Of seventy-seven per- 
sons found dead, sixty-seven, according to the co- 
roner's inquest, were killed by strong drink, A 
single coroner held an inquest on twenty-four per- 
sons, all of whom came to their death through the 
influence of liquor. Nine-tenths of those who in 
hot weather die suddenly after drinking cold wa- 
ter are persons who had been addicted to the use 
of spirits. Life had been so diminished that they 
could not endure what would give a sound healthy 
man no inconvenience. When a candle is just 
flickering in the socket it may be extinguished 
by a breath of air, which if it burned brightly, 
would only make it blaze the higher. So with 
those men who are killed by cold water. The 
lamp of life was so nearly extinguished that a 
slight change put it out. So, that ex})osure in un- 
healtliy seasons and climates, which a man who 
takes no alcohol vv^ill withstand, and from which he 



60 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

will suffer little or no inconvenience, will prostrate 
a drunkard and even a moderate drinker. That 
sickness of which the former may easily be cured 
will kill the latter. He was half, two-thirds, or 
three-quarters dead before. 

Hence the following facts : Dr. Bronson, of Al- 
bany, who spent some time in Montreal, Canada, 
during the prevalence of the cholera in 1832, 
wrote as follows : 

" Cholera has stood up here as it has every 
where, the advocate of temperance. It has pleaded 
most eloquently, and with ti'emendous effect. The 
disease has searched out the haunt of the drunk- 
ard, 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 
any quantity have been highly detrimental. Some 
temperate men resorted to them, during the pre- 
valence of the malady, as a preventive, or to re- 
move the feelings of uneasiness about the stomach, 
or for the purpose of drowning their apprehen- 
sions, but they did it at their peril. Intemperance 
of any kind, but particularly in the use of distilled 
liquors, has been a more productive cause of cho- 
lera than any other, and, indeed, than all others. 
Drunkards and tipplers have been sought out with 
such unerring certainty as to show that the arrows 
of death have not been dealt out with indiscrimi- 
nation. There seems to be a natural affinity be- 
tween cholera and ardent spirits !" 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 61 

Dr. Rhmelancler, who was deputed from New- 
York to visit Canada at the same time, says, " We 
may ask who are the victims of this disease. I an- 
swer, the intemperate it invariably cuts off." A 
INIontreal paper stated, after twelve hundred in that 
city had been attacked, that not a drunkard attack- 
ed with the disease had recovered ; and that almost 
all the victims were at least moderate drinkers. 

In Paris, the thirty thousand who died of that 
disease were, with few exceptions, those who 
drank freely intoxicating liquor. Nine-tenths of 
those who died in Poland were stated to be of the 
same class. 

In St. Petersburg and Moscow, in Russia, the 
average number of deaths recorded in the bills of 
mortality during the prevalence of the cholera 
when the people abstained from the use of brandy, 
was no greater than when they used it during the 
ordinary months of health : brandy drinking and 
attendant dissipation may have killed as many, in 
the same time, as the cholera. 

The London Morning Herald, after stating that 
the disease fastened its deadly grasp upon that 
class of men, added, •' The same preference for the 
intemperate and uncleanly has characterized the 
cholera everywhere. Intemperance is a qualifica- 
tion which it i^ever overlooks. Often has it passed 
harmless over a wide population of temperate coun- 
try people, and poured down, as an overwhelming 
scourge, upon the drunkards of some distant town." 

6 



62 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

Rammohun Fingee, the famous Indian doctor, 
states with regard to India, where the cholera has 
most prevailed, " People who do not take opium 
or spirits do not take the disease, even when they 
are with those who have it." 

Such statements must, of course, be taken with 
some limitations, and are understood to mean that 
the temperate are by no means as hkely to take 
the disease as the intemperate ; and that when 
they do take it they are much more likely to re- 
cover. Facts abundantly authorise this conclusion. 
Monsieur Huber, who in one town in Russia saw 
two thousand one hundred and sixty persons fall 
by this disease, says, *' It is a remarkable circum- 
stance, that persons given to drinking have been 
swept away like flies. In Tiflis, containing twenty 
thousand inhabitants, every drunkard has fallen." 

Dr. Sewall, of Washington, D. C. in a letter 
from New- York stated, that, of two hundred and 
four cholera cases in the Park Hospital, there 
were only six temperate persons ; and that those 
had all recovered, while of the others one hundred 
and twenty-two, when he wrote, had died ; and 
that the facts were similar in all the other hospi- 
tals. It was afterwards stated in the Journal of 
Commerce, that more than nine-tenths who died 
at the Park Hospital were intemperate persons. 

In Albany, with a population of less than thirty 
thousand, there died that year of the cholera three 
hundred and thirty-six persons, over eighteen years 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 63 

of age, viz. of intemperate persons, one hundred 
and forty; of free drinkers, fifty-five; of moderate 
drinkers, mostly habitual, one hundred and thirty- 
one. Of those who were strictly temperate there 
were five ; and of the five thousand members of 
the Temperance Society, there were only two. 
•Three died whose habits were not known. 

All the above cases were particularly examined, 
and a certificate obtained with regard to each one 
from the attending physician. The truth of the 
above statement was attested by the Board of 
Health, consisting of eight among the most respect- 
able physicians in the city. 

It will be seen that of the three hundred and 
thirty-six victims of this disease, all but ten were 
either moderate or immoderate drinkers. Oi' those 
ten the habits of three were not known. Of the 
remaining seven it may be remarked that several 
died of relapse, and in consequence, as is believed, 
of imprudence or neglect. Some were wives of 
drunken husbands. Had there been no more deaths 
in proportion to the number among the whole po- 
pulation than there were among the members of 
the Temperance Society, there would not have 
been a dozen. Of the three hundred and thirty-six 
who died, ninety-seven in a hundred, as appears 
from the above, were known to be drinkers of al- 
coholic liquor. 

When all such facts are taken into consideration 
it must be evident, to all who are acquainted with 



g4 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

tliem, that the number of deaths occasioned by the 
drinking of such liquor must be exceedingly great. 

Men therefore who with a knowledge of these 
facts continue to drink it, to sell it, or rent build- 
ino-s to be used for the sale of it, are guilty of aid- 
ing in the destruction of their fellow-men. They 
inflict a deep and lasting injury on the communi- 
ty ; and will be held answerable at the bar of Him 
who hath said, " Vengeance is mine, I will repay, 
saith Jehovah." 

In the language of Chancellor "Walworth, " Dis- 
guise that business as you may, it is still in its true 
character the business of destroying the bodies and 
souls of men. The vender and maker of spirits, in 
the whole range of them, from the pettiest grocer 
to the most extensive distiller, are fairly charge- 
able, not only with supplying the appetite for spi- 
rits, but with the making of that unnatural appe- 
tite ; not only with supplying the drunkard with 
the fuel of his vices, but with the making of the 
drunkard." And they will be held responsible, ac- 
cording to their influence, for the effects. 

In addition to the sets of organs which have 
been above described, there is another set, called 
muscles, whose business is to give motion, or enable 
the will to control the limbs and other parts of the 
body. These also are irritated, chafed and crip- 
pled by the use of alcohol ; and they show it in 
inflammations, stiffness of joints, cricks, rheuma- 
tisms and gout. 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 65 

There is another set of these organs whose bu- 
siness it is to furnish sensation. They are spread 
over the surface of the body in such great numbers 
that you cannot stick the point of the finest cam- 
bric needle into any place without hitting some of 
them, and thus producing pain. They seem to foim 
the connecting Hnk between the body and the mind, 
and to be the medium through which one acts upon 
the other. Of course whatever affects them will 
affect not the body only but also the soul. Their 
seat is the brain. From this they receive excita- 
bility and power to communicate it to all parts of 
the system. On these depends the power of feel- 
in«^, seeinf^, hearing^, tasting^ and smelling^. In order 
to furnish excitement pure and healthy, the brain 
must itself be excited, and kept in a healthy con- 
dition. What it needs for this is that which is fur- 
nished by pure arterial blood when men take no- 
thing but suitable food, drink, exercise, rest and 
sleep. For this it eagerly waits. This it joyfully 
receives and instantly communicates. The man 
feels it through his whole frame, in a glow of 
health, animation and buoyancy of spirits. With 
almost lightning speed, it sends a quickening in- 
fluence through the whole man, making existence 
amidst the exuberance of Divine kindness, a source 
of constant and exquisite delight. 

But if, as it stands waiting to receive and com- 
municate the bread and the milk of heaven, you 
throw in alcohol, instead of bread, you give i'; 

6* 



66 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

serpents ; instead of milk, scorpions. They go 
hissing and darting their scorpion-like influence 
through tlie whole man, body and sou] ; turning 
husbands, once affectionate and faithful, into de- 
mons ; fathers, loving and kind, into fiends ; caus- 
ing men to become the slaves of Satan, and fitting 
them for destruction. 

In one State, in the course of a few weeks, four 
men, under the influence of this poison, killed 
their own wives. One of them killed also six of 
his children. One of these children he placed, 
with his own hands, on the fire of his hearth, and 
kept it there, to broil to death under the eye of 
its father. 

The judge in passing sentence on another, 
whose children had been rendered motherless, 
said, " By one fatal act your wife was sent to the 
cold and silent mansions of the dead. Your chil- 
dren were deprived of the endearments and fos- 
tering care of their mother, and you are to ex- 
piate your offence upon a gallows. Upon a review 
of this shocking transaction the question presents 
itself — what could so have perverted your nature ; 
what could so have steeled your heart 1 The an- 
swer is — spirituous liquor. It has had the effect 
to estrange you from the most endearing relations, 
from the ties of blood, from your obligations to 
your fellow-beings, and to your Creator. If any 
further evidence were wanting to manifest the 
desolating effects of ardent spirits, which have 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. ' 67 

moved like a destroying angel over our land, we 
have it in the astounding fact, that, within the 
last two months, three men have been arraisrned 
before me on charges of murdering their wives. 
All these offences were committed by intem- 
perate men." 

At one assize in England nine persons were 
tried for murder. Each committed the crime under 
the influence of liquor. Twenty-two persons who 
suffered death for their crimes, and whose execu- 
tion was attended by one high-sheriff, all declared 
that drinkino: and Sabbath-breakinor bad brought 
them to that dismal end. 

Did alcohol destroy the body only, however 
many it might bring to the grave, its effects would 
not be 80 dreadful, but it destroys also the soul. 
Not that it annihilates its existence, but its ex- 
cellence, usefulness and happiness. It cuts off 
its probation and its hopes. It also enfeebles its 
powers, corrupts its character, and aggravates all 
its moral diseases, while it tends to counteract all 
the means which God has provided for their re- 
moval, and thus to bring upon it the unending 
horrors of the " second death." 

In proof of its increasing the wickedness of the 
Boul, we have only to advert to the above facts. 
Nearly all the convicts in all our prisons are per- 
sons who drank it. In the jail at Ogdensburgh, 
New- York, seven-eights of the criminals in 1838, 
were intemperate men. In Litchfield county jail 



68 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

Connecticut, thirty-five out of tliirty-nine convicts 
were drunkards. In the State Prison of Ohio in 
1829, of one hundred and thirty-four convicts, 
ninety-eight acknowledged themselves to have 
been intemperate. Of six hundred and forty- 
eeven in the Auburn State Prison, three hundred 
and forty-six were under the influence of liquor 
when they committed the crimes for which they 
were imprisoned ; and more than ninety out of 
one hundred and twenty were of the same class 
at the State Prison in Wethersfield, Connecticut. 
Of two hundred and three who were committed to 
the Auburn State Prison in one year, all drank 
alcohol, except one. Of forty-four murders, all, 
according to the testimony of the witnesses, were 
committed by intemperate men, or upon intem- 
perate men, or those who at the time of the mur- 
der were under the power of strong drink. 

A distinguished lawyer testified that of eleven 
cases of murder in which he was called to defend 
the prisoner, ten were occasioned by spirituous 
liquor; and that nine out of ten of all cases of 
assault and battery, affrays and riots, were from 
the same cause. Another lawyer testified that ot 
eleven other cases of murder tiied at the courts in 
which he practiced, in every case the murderer or 
the murdered were intemperate ; and in most in- 
stances both were so. With regard to other cases 
of personal violence, assaults with intent to kill, 
and common assaults, be says he has witnessed 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 69 

trials almost innumerable, and cannot recollect a 
case in which one or both the parties were not 
more or less intoxicated. He has also witnessed 
very many cases of trial for larceny, and can re- 
collect but one instance in which the prisoner was 
not in the habit of drinking liquor, or was not un- 
der its power when the crime was committed. 
Another lawyer states that in the course of his 
practice he has been called to examine twenty 
cases of murder, and that all were committed in 
consequence of intemperance. 

J. O. Cole, Police Justice of Albany, New- York, 
testified that of fifty criminal cases brought before 
him in one week, forty-eight originated in drink- 
ing ; and that ninety-six in a hundred of all crimi- 
nal cases which he had investiofated durinri: tlie 
year, might be traced to the same cause. If he 
wljo " was a murderer from the beginning, and 
abode not in the truth," were to seek for a drink 
lo make men in character like himself, bring them 
under his power, fit them to do his work, and pre- 
pare them for his place of torment, he might find 
it in alcohol. It is suited to prepare men for, and 
incline them to engage and continue in his service. 
Let men live under its influence, and he will lead 
them captive at his pleasure, and use them as his 
slaves. It blinds the understandinof, sears the con- 
science, pollutes the affections, hardens the heart, 
debases, palsies and ruins all the powers of tho 
soul ; blots out the loveliness of virtue, and the 



70 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

hate fulness of vice ; leads men to call good evil, 
and evil good ; put light for darkness and dark- 
ness for light; sweet for bitter and bitter for 
Bweet. It lessens the power of motives to do right, 
and increases the power of motives to do wrong. 

Temptations to the commission of crime, which 
the mind when not under the power of strong 
drink will withstand, will lead it, when it is, to 
commit the crime. Iniquity, from which the soul 
before recoiled with abhorrence, becomes the ele- 
ment of its delicious revel ; and crimes, from the 
thought of which it revolted, it now commits with 
greediness. So perfectly is this understood, that 
the agents of Satan often furnish it on purpose to 
lead men to do his work. 

In 1833 a young man committed a murder. He 
Avas tried and pronounced guilty. " Yes," said he, 
'* I am guilty," and pointing to his mother who 
stood by, he said, " Slie was the cause of it." Shq 
had become incensed against a man and resolved 
to take his life. She agreed with her son that he 
should shoot him. The time, place, and circum- 
stances were fixed. A pistol was provided and 
put in order; but she was afraid that her son, be- 
ing a young man, when he came to the trial would 
shrink back. So she got a bottle of whiskey and 
went with him to the spot. The man came along, 
not suspecting any thing. The son relented, and 
said he could not shoot him. The mother pro- 
duced the whiskey, and said, *' drink that." He 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 71 

drank it, shot the man, and was hanged. She was 
the cause, whiskey the means, the death of her 
neighbor and son the result. 

It renders the soul reckless, and leads it to rush 
headlong upon its ruin. Under its influence, a 
Imsband killed his wife, while nursing her babe. 
In the atjonies of death she was found welterino- 
in her blood, and pressing her babe to her bosom 
with an affection stronger than death. 

A father took a little child by his legs and dashed 
his head against the house, and then, with a boot- 
jack, beat out his brains. Once that man was a 
respectable merchant, in good standing, but he 
drank alcohol ; his wife was driven from her home, 
and his little child was murdered. 

A gentleman writes, " I was called yesterday 
to a house where a man had just murdered his 
wife. The purple gore was flowing, and life was 
not extinct when I arrived. The husband was 
intoxicated, and the wife speedily expired. I at- 
tended the inquest, and the verdict was, " Wilful 
murder." 

The day before a child was burned to death, 
while both the father and mother were so drunk 
that they could render it no assistance. 

A family consisting of a father, mother, and a 
son about twenty-two years old, bought a quantity 
of rvmi. The next day an altercation took place 
between the mother and son. He said he wished 
he was dead, and if she would get a rope^ he 



72 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

would hang himself. She got a rope. He tool? 
it, went a few rods from the house, and hung him- 
self. He was found suspended from a tree, and 
the mother was told that he was dead. She said, 
" I am glad of it, and I hope he is in hell." She 
made her way to the spot, took from his pocket a 
bottle containing liquor, and drank to intoxication. 
Not long after her husband was found on the floor 
of his house, dead. 

A shocking crime was committed in which a 
man was left for dead. He afterwards revived, 
and was called as a witness. The mao^istrate asked 

o 

him if the men who committed the crime had 
been drinking. He said, " I wonder that a gentle- 
man of your knowledge should ask such a ques- 
tion. Surely you do not think they would come 
without preparing themselves." It was so uni- 
versal for men to prepare themselves for crime in 
that way, that he wondered the magistrate should 
have a doubt on the subject. 

A distinguished magistrate stated that many 
convicts had assured him that it was necessary, 
before they could commit crimes, to have recourse 
to ardent spirit ; and that they resorted to it to 
prepare themselves for their work. Said one of 
tliem, ** I could not enter your house in the dead 
of nio'ht, and take the chance of your shooting 
me while in it, or of my being hanged when I 
got out of it, unless I were to get well primed 
first." But when such men are " well primed " 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 73 

they can do any thing to which sin or Satan may 
tempt them ; and continuing that course they can 
withstand all the means which infinite wisdom 
and kindness will ever use to recover them from 
the snare of the destroyer. All therefoiB who 
continue to use it as a beverage, to furnish it by 
sale or otherwise to be so used, who rent buildings 
for the sale of it, or are accessory to the continu- 
ance of such use of it, are aiding in increasing the 
wickedness, augmenting the guilt, and perpetuat- 
ing the wretchedness of their fellow-men. 

Is that an employment worthy of immortal 
minds, which are created by the power, preserved 
by the goodness, and redeemed by the grace of the 
Savior ; and which are capable of bearing his im- 
age, proclaiming his praise, and rising with him 
from glory to glory, or as outcasts from his pre- 
sence, of sinking from depth to depth in pollution-, 
infamy and woe ] Is it an employment, Avhich, 
with a full knowledge of its effects, is fit for any 
one, not a fiend incarnate, or who would not, for 
money, make others such 1 though at the sacrifice 
of all their interests, the honor of their Maker, and 
the good of the universe ! It is an employment 
which, from beginning to end is immoral, vicious^ 
DESTRUCTIVE. Those who continue it, with a 
knowledge of its nature and effects, are ** treasur- 
ing up wrath against the day of wrath, and the re- 
velation of the righteous judgement of God." 

In the language of Chief Justice Cranch, of 
7 



74 TEMPERANCE MANUAL, 

Washington, D. C. "I know that the cup is poi- 
soned, I know that it may cause death, that it may 
cause more than death, that it may lead to crime, 
to sin, to the tortures of. everlasting remorse. Am 
I not then a murderer ] Am I not worse than a 
murderer — as much worse as the soul is better than 
the body ] If ardent spirits were nothing but a 
deadly poison, if they did not inflame all the evil 
passions, if they did not dim that heavenly light 
which the Almighty has implanted in our bosoms 
to guide us through the obscure passages of our 
pilgrimage, if they did not quench the Holy Spirit 
in our hearts, they would be comparatively harm- 
less. It is their moral effect ; it is the ruin of the 
soul which they produce, that renders them so 
dreadful. The difference between death by simple 
poison and death by habitual intoxication may ex- 
tend to the whole difference between everlasting 
happiness and eternal death." 

VI. But it is said, *' It is not the making of in- 
toxicating liquor, or the selling of it, that does the 
mischief; it is the drinking of it." But does not 
the making and selling minister to the drinking ] 
Does it not teach the fatally erroneous doctrine, 
that the drinking of it is right, and does it not aid 
in perpetuating it 1 

Suppose a traitor to his country, who in time 
of war should manufacture and sell fire arms to 
the enemy, should say, " It is not the making or 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 75 

selling of fire arms that does the mischief, it is the 
usi7ig of them." Would that shield him from his 
country's indignation, or save him from the doom 
of a traitor 1 

" True," says a man, " the opening of those 
grog-shops, and selling spirit by the glass, is aho- 
minahle." In the lanffuaofe of Judfre Dacraett, 
** Over every grog-shop ought to be written in 
great capitals, * The way to hell, leading down to 
the chambers of death.' But I do not keep a grog- 
shop : mine is a wholesale establishment. I sell 
only in large quantities." Is that any better ] 
Suppose the counterfeiter should say, " This pass- 
ing counterfeit money by dollars and cents is hor- 
rible ; but I only make it, import it, or sell it in 
large quantities. Would that keep him, or ought 
it to keep him from the state prison ] Is not the 
making and the selling of it, in large quantities, 
criminal, as well as in small quantities 1 

A traitor might say, ** I never sell to the enemy 
a single gun, or a sword ; that would be treason. I 
only sell in large quantities, and from a respecta- 
ble establishment." Would that save his life ? 

The making of fire-aiTns for the enemy, and the 
selling of them, by wholesale as well as retail, 
ARE TREASON, and will subject him who does it 
to a traitor's doom. It is a principle in law, that 
the perpetrator and the accessory in the commis- 
sion of crime are both guilty. Men have been 
banged for violating this principle. The same prin- 



76 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

ciple applies to the law of God. If a man lias an 
ox that is known to be dangerous, and he does not 
keep him in, hut lets him go out, and that ox kills 
a man, the owner is guilty. Under the Old Tes- 
tament dispensation, such a man, by the direction 
of God, was to be put to death. It is a great crime 
for a man to endanger the lives, corrupt the charac- 
ter, and feed the vices of his fellow-men. If he does 
it, he will be held responsible at the Divine tribunal. 
" But," says another, ** if I should not sell, 
somebody else would. Men will have it, and why 
may not I have the profits as well as others." So 
the man-stealer, the highway-robber, and the mur- 
derer may say, " There is such a good opportu- 
nity to make money, somebody will commit the 
crime if I do not, and why may I not have the 
profits of it as well as others V Because, if you 
do, you will be a man-stealer, a robber, or a murr 
derer, like the others ; and will be partaker of 
their woes. The money you gain hj doing wrong 
will only be a curse to you : you had better be 
without it, and rest contented with what you can 
gain by diligence, economy, and the blessing of 
heaven, in doing right. That is all to which you 
can get a just title, all that you ought to wish for, 
and all which, if you are a wise man, you will be 
willing to have. The v/ages of sin, as are those 
made by the sale of alcohol to be used as a beve- 
rage, will " at the last," like alcohol itself, " bite 
like a serpent and sting like an adder." 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 77 

It is a business which is dangerous to those who 
pursue it, as well as to others. In one town, in 
twenty-two years, twenty-nine men undertook to 
make money by the sale of intoxicating liquor. 
Five afterwards abandoned it as a bad business, 
and four died drunkards. Twenty, when this ac- 
count was written, were living, all drunkards, 
poor, and most of them a town charge. 

In one part of a single city there were sixty- 
seven retailers of spirituous liquor. When this 
account was written fifty-three were dead, and 
forty-three died drunkards. In two counties for 
forty years more than half the men who followed 
the business of selling strong drink became? drunk- 
ards, and more than twice as many of their chil- 
dren in proportion to the number became drunk- 
ards, as of the children of others. 

Within the last twenty years, in one county, 
two hundred and ten persons have been licensed 
to sell intoxicatincT drink. After a thorouo^h exam- 
ination it has been found that two hundred have 
not increased their property, that a hundred and 
eighty have lost the whole, or a part of the pro- 
perty with which they entered into business ; one 
hundred and fifty have become drunkards, and 
many, very many of their children. Thus the 
traffic destroys many of those who pursue it, as 
well as others. Its fruits are bitterness and death. 
It is a business which the Lord hath cursed. 

"Ah," says one, "those men took too much? 

7* 



78 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

they sold it too, probably, to drunkards. That is 
always mischievous ; but I never sell to drunk- 
ards. I sell only to sober men." Is that any bet- 
ter 1 Is it not worse ] Does it not do more to per- 
petuate drunkenness and all its evils than the sell- 
ing of the poison even to drunkards themselves ] 
Suppose there is a quantity of poisonous food in 
the market, and that the more a man takes of it 
the more his appetite for it is increased, the less 
reason he has, and the more he will continue to 
take, till it kills him. By the quantity it can be 
bought cheap, because it is poisoned ; and in 
small quantities it would sell high to those who 
like it, because under its influence they are beside 
themselves. They imagine they are rich, when 
they are poor; strong, when they are weak; and 
well, when they are ready to die. Knowing its 
nature and effects, you purchase and sell it, in 
order to make money. Your customers sicken 
and die ; but before they die they become de- 
ranged. One kills his father, another his mother, 
his wife, or children. Another kills his neighbors, 
or their children. No man's life is safe. The 
whole community is in an uproar. The people 
assemble and remonstrate with you, who, to make 
money, will sell poisonous food. 

" To sell to the sick and deranged," you say, 
" would be most iniquitous. The man who does 
it ought to be hung, or at least imprisoned for life ; 
but I sell only to the healthy. I never sell to the 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 79 

sick. When I see a man so poisoned that he be- 
jjins to staGfQfer, or so derano^ed that he talks about 
killing his father, or his mother, I turn him over 
to others, and let them take the responsibility of 
killing him (especially if he is poor and cannot 
pay me.") Is that any better *? If you and men 
like you would never sell to the healthy, but only 
to those who are so poisoned that they cannot 
live, the evil would soon cure itself. You would 
kill all your customers, and make no new ones. 
But the difficulty is, you sell to the healthy, and 
poison them ; so that by the time the father is 
dead, the son is ready to take his place. 

So with men who sell poisonous drink. If they 
sold to none but drunkards, they would soon kill 
them, and the evil would cease. But the difficulty 
is — they sell to sober men. No sooner have they 
killed one generation than they have prepared an- 
other to be killed in the same way. That is ahomi- 
nahle, and ought to receive universal execration. 

Is it not as really wicked to make drunkards of 
sober men, as it is to kill drunkards ? Ask that 
widowed mother who did her the gi'eatest injur}'", 
he who killed her long lost, drunken husband; or 
he who made a drunkard of her only son, the hope 
of her youth and the support of her declining 
years 1 Ask those orphan children, who did them 
the greatest injury, the man who made a drunkard 
of their kind affectionate father, and thus blasted 
all their hopes ; turning home, sweet home, into 



80 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

an emblem of perdition ; obliging them and their 
sick mother to flee at the dead of night, in the 
midst of winter, without a covering or a shelter, 
till she was going down with a broken heart to an 
untimely grave ; or the man, who, after long years 
of this unutterable anguish, sold him the last glass 
which closed his eyes, and caused in that long tu- 
multuous habitation, a great calm ] Can you doubt 
which of the two did that lovely family the great- 
est mischief? If the guilt of the latter may be that 
of murder, what must be that of the former ] 

You do nothing but knowingly, with your eyes 
open, in view of the facts, persevere in the busi- 
ness of making drunkards ; turning sober youth 
and respectable men into sots ; preparing them, as 
soon as one generation of drunkards has gone, to 
roll the burning curse down on the next genera- 
tion, and induce them to roll it onward ; and so, 
you hope to escape. Vain hope ! If any beings 
in human shape will receive the lasting execration 
of an intelligent and thoroughly temperate and vir- 
tuous community, it will be those who, notwith- 
standing all that can be done by sound argument, 
kind persuasion, the tears of the widow and the 
gioans of the orphan, will continue, in full view 
of the facts, for the purpose of making money, to 
do that which they have reason to believe will turn 
temperate men into drunkards, and entail upon 
their families and posterity the innumerable evils 
and untold agonies of the drunkard's woes. 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 81 

By all that is dear on earth and in heaven, you 
ought to be persuaded, never, no never, to sell 
the drunkard's poison to sober men, least of all to 
young men. 

Suppose that all the evils which you bring upon 
the drunkard and his family, should come upcn 
you and your family. Suppose as you approach' 
they should be obliged to flee for their lives, or 
should be turned out at midnight in the depth of 
v/inter without a covering or a shelter, and foj* 
years should be made so utterly wretched that 
even your death would be a relief to them. Would 
you not think that the man who, to get your money, 
should knowingly continue to bring such evils up- 
on them, must be indeed a wretch ] And if you 
continue knowingly to sell that which brings such 
evils upon others, are not you that man ] 

'* But I have a license ; I have a license." Sup- 
pose y(5u have ; does that altar the nature of the 
business, or prevent its effects 1 Will that soothe 
the heart-broken widow, or feed the famishingr 
children 1 Licensed selling will make drunkards 
as well as unlicensed; and the woes which it 
brings upon suffering innocence are as dreadful. 
A man bought a glass of liquor of one who was 
licensed ; he drank it, fell under the wheels of 
his wagon, and was crushed to death. Did that 
license assuage the anguish of his father or his 
mother, his wife or his children ? 

Suppose a man should be licensed to throw poi- 



82 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

son into your well, would that justify him in doing 
it? No more will it justify you in selling poison to 
be mixed with water which is drawn from the 
well. Men have been licensed to keep gambling 
houses, to establish brothels, and commit other 
gross iniquities. The licensing of men to commit 
sin does not alter its nature, prevent its conse- 
quences, or do away its guilt. Nor will it pre- 
vent the ruin of those who continue knowingly to 
practise it. 

" But if I should not continue to sell intoxicat- 
ing liquor, I could not support my family." If it 
were true that you could not support your family 
in any other way, it would be better for the pub- 
lic to support you and your family in the alms- 
house. But it is not true. The declaration is a libel 
upon your Maker. Has he made it impossible to 
support your family except by a business vjhich 
destroys other families 1 No. Nine-tenths of all the 
families are supported in other ways, and the other 
tenth can be supported. 

" But in that case I must change my business." 
So must the thief, the highway robber, and the 
murderer. If they have been accustomed to sup- 
port their families in their ways, and are in future 
to support them in other ways, they must change 
their business. But is that any reason why they 
should not change it ] They have no right even to 
support a family in wrong ways. No more has 
the seller of intoxicating, drink. Family or no fa- 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 83 

mily, he is bound without delay to cease to do evil. 
Let him do right, and in well doing trust his fa- 
mily to Him who feeds the sparrow, clothes the 
lily, and opens his hand and supplies the wants 
of every living thing. He will find that there is no 
need of destroying other families in order to sup- 
port his own. 

Suppose when he is about to commence his bu- 
siness as a liquor seller, or when intending to con- 
tinue it, he should tell the public honestly what 
will be its effects. Suppose he should write in ca- 
pitals on his sign-board what his traffic will do : 
thai so many it will make paupers, send to the 
almshouse, and oblige others to support ; that so 
many more it will excite to the commission of 
crimes, and thus tax the people for their prose- 
cution ; that so many it will send to the jail, so 
many to the state prison, and so many to the gal- 
lows ; that so many it will deprive of reason ; so 
many it will visit with distressing sickness ; and 
that in so many cases, diseases, that would have 
been comparatively harmless, it will render fatal ; 
in so many cases it will cause sudden death ; so 
many wives it will make widows, and so many 
children orphans ; in so many cases it will cause 
children to grow up in idleness, ignorance, vice 
and crime ; and in so many other cases prevent 
the efficacy of the Gospel, and ruin the souls of 
men. 

As all faces gather paleness in view of approach- 



84: TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

ing desolation, and inquire how can any human 
being consent to prosecute such a business ? sup- 
pose you answer, ** If I should not do it I must 
change my business ;" or, " I could not support my 
family;" or, *' I have a license;" or, ** I sell only 
to sober men ;" or, *' If I should not sell somebody 
else would;" or, " I sell only in large quantities." 
Would any, or all, and a thousand more such ex- 
cuses, lessen the evils or diminish the guilt of such 
a traffic % Would it ward off the indignation of an 
outraged community, or in any measure shield you 
from the righteous retribution of an offended God % 
Truth answers, No. But would it be any worse 
for a man to write out beforehand, and tell the 
people honestly what he will do, than it is for him, 
without warning, to go forward and do it? 

But it is said, " He does not bring those evils 
upon others without their own voluntary agency." 
That in many cases may be true, but it is as really 
wicked to injure men through their own volunta- 
ry agency as in any other way. It is wicked to in- 
duce men, or tempt them to injure themselves, or 
to aid them in doing it. Especially is it wicked, 
as in the liquor trade, to injure their unoffending 
wives and children, and bring untold calamities on 
others. The fact that liquor sellers do this, through 
the voluntary but perverted agency of the buyers, 
instead of lessening often increases their guilt ; for 
?hey involve in sin and consequent misery not o^ly 
themselves but their fellow-men. 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 85 

To make this plain, take a case. Here are two 
men. One of them goes out at midnight, and to 
obtain money kills a father. The whole family are 
in mourning. By and by he goes out again, and 
o obtain more money kills the mother. The chil- 
dren are orphans. Soon he kills one of them, then 
another, and another, till the whole family are 
dead. They were murdered, all murdered to ob- 
tain their money ; but not by themselves. They 
fell prematurely, but not by their own hands. 
They were innocent of that great transgression ; 
and are followed by the kind remembrances and 
the weeping sympathies of all the people, with the 
exception of the man who killed them. The guilt 
fastens and the retribution will fasten, only on him. 

But the other man does not kill the father or 
the mother, or the children, directly with his own 
hand. To obtain their money he sells the father 
poisonous drink. That drink forms an intempe- 
rate appetite. That appetite the seller continues 
to feed, until the man becomes a drunkard. His 
wife becomes a drunkard; the children become 
drunkards, and spread the influence of drunkards 
through the neighborhood. He furnishes the known 
cause of their drunkenness, and feeds the fuel of 
their vice, till the father, the mother, and the chil- 
dren, one after another, are all dead, and, as has 
actually been the case, lie side by side in the 
drunkard's grave. 

Which is the most guilty man ? Money was the 

8 



86 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

object in both cases. One permitted the whole 
family to go down, each innocent ; the other know- 
ingly assisted to render all guilty, each of his own 
death. Which is the most guilty man 1 "I speak 
as to wise men ; judge ye." To their own omnis- 
cient, infallible, righteous Judge they both must 
give account. We bid them prepare to meet him. 

" But our fathers made and sold intoxicating 
liquors, and drank them. Were not they good 
men]" 

Some of them, we trust, were good men. And 
good men, or those who professed to be good, once 
carried on the slave trade, had a multiplicity of 
wives, and did many other wicked things. But 
they had not all the light which we have with 
regard to the nature and effects of those things, 
and the will of God with regard to them. The 
times of that ignorance he may have '* winked at," 
but now he " commandeth all men everywhere," 
who know his will, " to repent" of all such sins ; 
because " he hath appointed a day in which he 
will judge the world in righteousness, by that Man 
whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given as- 
sui'ance to all men, in that he hath raised him from 
the dead." 

The principle which applies to this case is that 
to which our Savior referred when he said, *.* If I 
had not come and spoken unto them, they had not 
had sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin." 
As to light and knowledge, it is repuired of men 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL. Si 

according to what they have, or might have, and 
not according to what they have not, and cannot 
have. Sins committed in comparative darkness 
and consequent ignorance are less guilty than 
those committed against light and knowledge. Our 
fathers had not the means of knowing, to the ex- 
tent that we have, that intoxicating liquors are 
needless and hurtful ; that they cause a great por- 
tion of all the pauperism, crimes, sickness, insanity, 
wretchedness and death in the community. The 
facts had not then been collected, as they now 
have been, and spread out before the public. If, 
with the knowledge of facts that we have, men 
continue to act as those did who had not this 
knowledge, they will accumulate greater guilt, 
and ripen for more aggravated condemnation. 

To all such I would say with the greatest kind- 
ness, and the greatest plainness, relinquish at once 
and for ever, I entreat you, that vicious, criminal, 
DESTRUCTIVE employment. 

Could the poisons that you have furnished, all 
come back and tell you the history of their effects ; 
could they describe to you all their consequences 
to the bodies and souls of men ; could they show 
you the ruined fathers, the heart-broken mothers 
and agonizing children, who, through your instru- 
mentaUty, have gone down, self destroyers, to the 
grave ; could they uncover to your view the drunk- 
ard's eternity, and go with you through a few of 
the millions of those ages of endless being, in 



88 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

which you will witness the results of your labors 
and reap the fi'uit of your doings, would you not 
at once and for ever renounce your destestable 
employment'? What if you must change your 
business in order to support your family! What 
if vou have a license, or do not sell to drunkards, 
or to any in small quantities ? And what if others 
will sell if you do not] If you are making or sell- 
ing, or renting buildings to be used for the sale of 
intoxicating liquors, you are aiding in the continu- 
ance of a practice which is ruining multitudes of 
your fellow-men, a practice which will endanger 
the lives and souls of your children, and, if con- 
tinued, will extend moral and spiritual degrada- 
tion and death to future generations. 

The influence of a man does not die with him. 
Long after Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, was dead, 
Jehovah declared that he would bring sore and 
distressing calamities on the nation of Israel, for 
the sins of Jeroboam, wherewith he made Israel 
to sin. Not that they would be punished for his 
transgressions as their own ; but they would be 
punished for their own sin in yielding to his influ- 
ence and following his wicked example. He taught 
them by practice, the most expressive of all teach- 
ing, that it was best to worship idols, and follow 
each one his own way, in opposition to the re- 
vealed will of God. Ages after he was dead the 
nation was reaping the bitter fruits of that perni- 
cious influence, which outlived its author, and 



TEMPERANCE MANUAL 89 

poured its deadly curses upon succeeding genera- 
tions. Ages after you are dead, men may be going 
down to death and perdition in consequence of 
your influence. As they meet you in eternity, and 
in the light of that world see the influence which, 
foi the sake of money, you exerted upon them, and 
as you trace its consequences onward for ever, 
what will be your impressions ] Will you not wish 
that you had renounced your wicked business ] 

Suppose yourself, now, where, unless cut off 
suddenly, you soon will be, on your death-bed. 
See the property which you have taken without 
furnishing any valuable equivalent ; or have caused 
to be wasted by others ; see the pauperism, crime, 
degradation and wretchedness which have fol- 
lowed in the wake of your employment ; the fami- 
ly comforts you have banished, the lives you have 
destroyed, and the souls you have ruined, and 
which your influence will tend to ruin in all com- 
ing time. Suppose that these are now the only 
things which you have to comfort you as you go 
down the valley of the shadow of death, and that, 
as flesh and heart are failing, they are your only 
support, and are to be your portion for ever ; and 
as you close your eyes upon them here, imagine 
them all to open upon you afresh in the blazing 
light of eternity. Will you not wish that you had 
now, at once and for ever renounced this employ- 
ment 1 Act now, I entreat you, as you have rea- 
son to believe you will wish you had done when 



90 TEMPERANCE MANUAL. 

you enter upon a course of endless experience, 
that, " as a man soweth so shall he reap." Cease 
to do evil, and choose to do well. Ask wisdom 
of God ; repent of sin, and trust in Jesus Christ. 
Obey his will. Do good, and good only, to all, as 
you have opportunity and ability. Thus will good, 
all needed good, be given to you. 



END. 



E^^ Every Minister of the Gospel into whose 
hands this Manual shall come is respectfully re- 
quested, should it appear to him to be adapted to 
be useful, to preach on the Sabbath a sermon to his 
people, exhibiting the Biblical principles in their 
application to the subject of Temperance in its con- 
nection with righteousness and judgment to come, 
and to open the way to put a copy of this Manual 
into every family in his congi'egation. 



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