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. I jM J