G. (P. 18.)

ON THE

IMMORALITY

от

THE TRAFFIC IN ARDENT SPIRIT.

No. I.

ARDENT spirit is composed of alcohol and water, in nearly equal proportions. Alcohol is composed of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen, in the proportion of about 13, 52, and 35 parts to the hundred. It is, in its nature, as manifested by its effects, a poison When taken in any quantity, it disturbs healthy action in the human system, and in large doses suddenly destroys life. It resembles opium in its nature, and arsenic in its effects. And though when mixed with water, as in ardent spirit, its evils are somewhat modified, they are by no means prevented. Ardent spirit is an enemy to the human constitution, and cannot be used as a drink without injury. Its ultimate tendency invariably, is, to produce weakness, not strength; sickness, not health; death, not life.

Consequently, to use it is an immorality. It is a violation of the will of God; and a sin in magnitude equal to all the evils, temporal and eternal, which flow from it. To furnish ardent spirit for the use of others, is a stili greater sin, inasmuch as this tends to produce evils greater than for an individual merely, to drink it. And if a man knows, or has the opportunity of knowing, the nature and effects of the traffic in this article, and yet continues to be engaged in it, he is an immoral man, and ought to be viewed and treated as such throughout the world; for the following reasons, viz.

I. Ardent spirit, as a drink, is not needful. All men lived without it, and all the business of the world was conducted without it, for thousands of years. It is not three hundred years since it began to be generally used as a drink in Great Britain; nor one hundred years since it became common in America. Of course, it is not needful.

II. It is not useful. Those who do not use it, are, other things being equal, in all respects better than those who do. Nor does the fact that persons have used it with more or less frequency, in a greater or smaller quantity, for a longer or shorter time, render it either necdful, or useful, or harmless, or right for them

to continue to use it. More than a million of persons in this country, and multitudes in other countries, who once did use it, and thought it needful, have, within five years, ceased to use it; and they have found that they are in all respects better without it. And this number is so great, of all ages, and conditions, and employments, as to render it certain, should the experiment be fairly made, that this would be the case with all. Of course, ardent spirit, as a drink, is not useful.

III. It is hurtful. Its whole influence is injurious to the body and the mind, for this world, and the world to come.

1. It forms an unnecessary, artificial, and very dangerous appetite; which, by gratification, like the desire for sinning in the man who sins, tends continually to increase. No man can form this appetite without increasing his danger of dying a drunkard, and exerting an influence which tends to perpetuate drunkenness and all its abominations to the end of the world. Its very formation, therefore, is a violation of the will of God. It is, in its nature, an immorality, and springs from an inordinate desire of a kind, or degree of bodily enjoyment-animal gratification, which God has shown to be inconsistent with his glory, and the highest good of man. It shows that the person who forms it is not satisfied with the proper gratification of those appetites and passions which God has given him, or with that kind and degree of bodily enjoyment, which infinite wisdom and goodness have prescribed, as the utmost that can be possessed consistently with a person's highest happiness and usefulness, the glory of his Maker, and the good of the universe. That person covets more animal enjoyment: to obtain it, he forms a new appetite, and in doing this, he rebels against God. That desire for increased animal enjoyment, from which this rebellion springs, is sin; and all the evils which follow in its train, are only so many voices by which Jehovah declares "the way of transgressors is hard." The person who has formed an appetite for ardent spirit, and feels uneasy if he does not gratify it, has violated the divine arrangement; disregarded the divine will; and if he understands the nature of what he has done, and approves of it, and continues in it, it will ruin him. He will show that there is one thing, in which he will not have God to reign over him. And should he keep the whole law, and yet continue knowingly, habitually, wilfully, and perseveringly to offend in that one point, he will perish. Then, and then only, according to the Bible, can any man be saved, when he has respect to all the known will of God, and is disposed to be governed by it. He must carry out into practice, with regard to the body and the soul, "not my will, but thine be done." His grand object must be to know the will of God; and when he knows it, to be governed by it, and with regard to all things. This, the man who is not contented with that portion of animal enjoyment which the proper gratification of the appetites and passions which God has given him will afford,

but forms an appetite for ardent spirit, or continues to gratify it, after it is formed, does not do. In this respect, if he understands the nature and effects of his actions, he prefers his own will to the known will of God, and is ripening to hear, from the lips of his Judge, "those mine enemies, that would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither and slay them before me." And the men who traffic in this article, or furnish it as a drink for others, are tempting them to sin; and thus uniting their influence with that of the devil, forever to ruin them. This is an aggravated immorality; and the men who continue to do it, are immoral men.

2. The use of ardent spirit, to which the traffic is accessory, causes a great and wicked waste of property. All that the users pay for this article is to them lost, and worse than lost. Should the whole which they use, sink into the earth, or mingle with the ocean, it would be better for them, and better for the community, than for them to drink it. All which it takes to support the paupers, and prosecute the crimes which ardent spirit occasions, is, to those who pay the money, utterly lost. All the diminution of profitable labor which it occasions, through improvidence, idleness, dissipation, intemperance, sickness, insanity, and premature deaths, is, to the community, so much utterly lost. And these items, as has often been shown, amount, in the United States, to more than $100,000,000 a year. To this enormous and wicked waste of property, those who traffic in the article are knowingly accessory.

A portion of what is thus lost by others, they obtain themselves; but without rendering to others any valuable equivalent. This renders their business palpably unjust; as really so, as if they should obtain that money by gambling; and it is as really immoral. It is also unjust in another respect; it burdens the community with taxes, both for the support of pauperism, and for the prosecution of crimes; and without rendering to that community any adequate compensation. These taxes, as shown by facts, are four times as great as they would be, if there were no sellers of ardent spirit. All the profits, with the exception perhaps of d mere pittance which he pays for license, the seller puts into his own pocket; while the burthens are thrown upon the community. This is palpably unjust, and utterly immoral. Of 1969 paupers, in different alms-houses in the United States, 1790, according to the testimony of the overseers of the poor, were made such by spirituous liquor. And of 1764 criminals in different prisons, more than 1300 were either intemperate men, or were under the power of intoxicating liquor, when the crimes, for which they were imprisoned, were committed. And of 44 murders, according to the testimony of those who prosecuted or conducted the defence of the murderers, or witnessed their trials, forty-three were committed by intemperate men, or upon intemperate men, or those who at the time of the murder were under the power of strong drink.

A distinguished Senator in Congress,* after thirty years extensive practice as a lawyer, gives it as his opinion, that four-fifths of all the crimes committed in the United States can be traced to intemperance. A similar proportion is stated, from the highest authority, to result from the same cause in Great Britain. And when it is considered that more than 200 murders are committed, and more than 50,000 crimes are prosecuted in the United States in a year; and that such a vast proportion of them are occasioned by ardent spirit,—can a doubt remain on the mind of any sober man, that the men who know these facts, and yet continue to traffic in this article, are among the chief causes of crime, and ought to be viewed and treated as immoral men? It is as really immoral for a man by doing wrong to excite others to commit crimes, as to commit them himself; and as really unjust wrongfully to take another's property, with his consent, as without it. And though it might not be desirable to have such a law, yet no law in the statute book is more righteous than one which should require that those who make paupers should support them, and those who excite others to cominit crimes, should pay the cost of their prosecution, and should, with those who commit them, bear all the evils. And so long as this is not the case, they will be guilty, according to the divine law, of defrauding, as well as tempting and corrupting their fellow men. And though such crimes cannot be prosecuted, and justice be awarded in human courts, their perpetrators will be held to answer, and will meet with full and awful retribution, at the divine tribunal. And when judgment is laid to the line, and righteousness to the plummet, they will appear as they really are, criminals, and will be viewed and treated as such forever.

No. II.

There is another view in which the traffic in ardent spirit is manifestly highly immoral. It exposes the children of those who use it, in an eminent degree to dissipation and crime. Of 690 children prosecuted and imprisoned for crimes, more than 400 were from intemperate families. Thus the venders of this liquor exert an influence which tends strongly to ruin not only those who use it, but their children; to render them more than four times as liable to idleness, profligacy, and ruin as the children of those who do not use it; and through them, to extend these evils to others, and to perpetuate them to future generations. This is a sin of which all who traffic in ardent spirit are guilty. Often, the deepest pang which a dying parent feels for his children, is, lest through the instrumentality of such men, they should be ruined. And is it not horrible wickedness for them, by exposing for sale one of the chief causes of this ruin, to tempt them in the way to death. If he who takes money from others without an equiva

Hon. Felix Grundy, United States Senator from the State of Teunessee.

lent, or wickedly destroys property, is an immoral man, what is he who destroys character; who corrupts the children and youth, and exerts an influence to extend and perpetuate immorality and crime through future generations? This, every vender of ardent spirit does; and if he continues in this business with a knowledge of the subject, it marks him as an habitual and persevering vio

lator of the will of God.

3. Ardent spirit impairs, and often destroys reason. Of 781 maniacs, in different insane hospitals, 392, according to the testimony of their own friends, were rendered maniacs by strong drink. And the physicians who had the care of them, gave it as their opinion, that this was the case with many of the others. Those who have had extensive experience, and the best opportunities for observation with regard to this malady, have stated, that probably from one half to three fourths of the cases of insanity, in many places, are occasioned in the same way. Ardent spirit is a poison, so diffusive and subtil that it is found by actual experiment, to penetrate even the brain.

Dr. Kirk, of Scotland, dissected a man who died in a fit of intoxication, a few hours after death. And, from the lateral ventricles of the brain, he took a fluid distinctly visible to the smell, as whiskey; and when he applied a candle to it in a spoon, it took fire, and burnt blue; "the lambent blue flame," he says, "characteristic of the poison, playing on the surface of the spoon for some seconds."

It produces also in the children of those who use it freely, a predisposition to intemperance, insanity, and various diseases of both body and mind; which, if the cause is continued, becomes hereditary, and is transmitted from generation to generation; occasioning a diminution of size, strength, and energy; a feebleness of vision, a feebleness and imbecility of purpose, an obtuseDess of intellect, a depravation of moral taste, a premature old age, and a general deterioration of the whole character. This is the case in every country, and in every age.

Instances are known, where the first children of a family, who were born when their parents were temperate, have been healthy, intelligent, and active; while the last children, who were born after the parents had become intemperate, were dwarfish, and idiotic. A medical gentleman writes, "I have no doubt that a disposition to nervous diseases of a peculiar character, is transmitted by drunken parents." Another gentleman states, that, in two families within his knowledge, the different stages of inicmperance in the parents, seemed to be marked by a corresponding deterioration in the bodies and minds of the children. In one case, the eldest of the family is respectable, industrious, and accumulates property; the next is inferior, disposed to be industrious, but spends all he can earn in strong drink. The third is dwarfish in body and mind, and, to use his own language, "a poor miserable remnant of a man.