M. (p. 48.)

Illustrations of the Truth, that God visits the Iniquities of the Fathers upon the Children; and that the Way of Transgressors

is hard.

FROM A MERCHANT IN NEW YORK.

"DEAR SIR-Without undertaking to answer the specific questions proposed in your letter as Secretary of the City Temperance Society, I will relate some facts that have come under my own observation. I have been engaged in trade and commerce in this city upwards of twenty-two years, and occupied the store I am not in during the whole time. Not an individual originally near me is now to be found, save three flour merchants. In casting my eyes around the neighborhood, and looking back to the period above mentioned, I ask, Where are they now? On my left were a father and his two sons, grocers, in prosperous business. The sons went down to the grave several years since in poverty, confirmed drunkards. On my right was a firm of long and respectable standing, engaged in foreign commerce, the junior partner of which some years since died, confirmed in this habit. Five or six doors above, was on, holding a highly responsible situation under our State Government; at first, he was seen to stop and take a little gin and water; soon he was seen staggering in the street; presently was laid in the grave, a victim to intemperance. On the corner immediately opposite my store was a grocer, doing a moderate business. Being addicted to drink, in a state of intoxication he went into the upper loft of his store at noon-day, put fire to an open keg having powder in it, blew off the roof of his store, and himself into eternity. One door beyond this corner was a father, an officer in one of our churches, a grocer, and his two sons: both sons have long since been numbered with the dead, through the effects of drink; a son-in-law of the above father, pursuing the same business, following the practice of the sons, has come to the same end; a young man, clerk and successor in the same store, has also gone down to the grave from the same cause. On the other side of the Slip, a wealthy grocer died, leaving a family of several young men, three of whom, together with a sister and her husband, have since died in poverty, confirmed drunkards. Next door to this, a junior partner of one of the most respectable grocers in this city has long since followed the above from the same cause, leaving behind him two brothers, comparatively young in years, but old in this vice, now living on the charity of their friends. On looking down the street in front of my store, there were seen three of middle age, grocers, but a few years since in prosperous business, now numbered with the dead from the

same cause. In the same square in which I now am, was an individual at the head of an extensive shipping house, owning several stores, renting from six to ten hundred dollars each a year; owning and occupying a house in Broadway, worth twenty thousand dollars, with a family of several sons and daughters living in affluence. From a moderate drinker, he became a confirmed drunkard: his property is now all gone, his family scattered, and himself a vagabond about our streets. His next door neighbor, a partner in one of our most respectable shipping houses, has gone to his grave, in early life, from the same cause, not having had time to spend the large amount of his previous earnings. Near me was one in the prime of life, and of respectable and pious parentage, liberally educated, engaged extensively in foreign commerce, and a while one of our City Council. In the short space of three years, he was a bankrupt, a drunkard, and in his grave! But my heart sickens at the detail, which I could extend.

"Most of those mentioned were men with whom I have had daily intercourse in the way of business, and, but for this cause, might at this moment, in the ordinary course of Providence, have been useful members of society." (N. Y. City Report.)

N. (p. 49.)

"But I pass on to notice one state of the system produced by ardent spirit, too important and interesting to leave unexamined. It is that predisposition to disease and death, which so strongly characterizes the drunkard in every situation in life.

It is unquestionably true, that many of the surrounding cbjects in nature, are constantly tending to man's destruction. The excess of heat and cold, humidity and dryness, the vicissitudes of the season, noxious exhalations from the earth, the floating atoms in the atmosphere, the poisonous vapors from decomposed animal and vegetable matter, with many other invisible agents, are exerting their deadly influence; and were it not that every part of his system is endowed with a self-preserving power, a principle of excitability, or, in other words, a vital principle, the operations of the economy would cease, and a dissolution of his organic structure take place. But, this principle being implanted in the system, reaction takes place, and thereby a vigorous contest is maintained with the warring elements without, as well as with the principle of decay within.

It is thus that man is enabled to endure, from year to year, the toils and fatigues of life, the variation of heat and cold, and the vicissitudes of the season; that he is enabled to traverse every region of the globe, and to live with almost equal ease under the

equator, and in the frozen regions of the north. It is by this power that all his functions are performed, from the commencement to the close of life.

The principle of excitability exists in the highest degree in the infant, and diminishes at every succeeding period of life; and if man is not cut down by disease or violence, he struggles on, and finally dies a natural death; a death occasioned by the exhaustion of the principle of excitability. In order to prevent the too rapid exhaustion of this principle, nature has especially provided for its restoration by establishing a period of sleep. After being awake for sixteen or eighteen hours, a sensation of fatigue ensues, and all the functions are performed with diminished energy and precision. Locomotion becomes feeble and tottering, the voice harsh, the intellect obtuse and powerless, and all the senses blunted. In this state, the individual anxiously retires from the light, and from the noise and bustle of business, seeks that position which requires the least effort to sustain it, and abandons himself to rest. The will ceases to act, and he loses in succession all the senses. The muscles unbend themselves, and permit the limbs to fall into the most easy and natural position. Digestion, respiration, circulation, secretion, and the other functions, go on with diminished rower and activity; and consequently the wasted excitability is gradually restored. After a repose of six or eight hours, this principle becomnes accumulated to its full measure, and the individual awakes, and finds himself invigorated and refreshed. His muscular power is augmented; his senses are acute and discriminating; his intellect active and eager for labor; and all his functions move on with renewed energy. But if the stomach be oppressed by food, or the system excited by stimulating drinks, sleep, though it may be profound, is never tranquil and refreshing. The system being raised to a state of feverish excitement, and its healthy balance disturbed, its exhausted excitability is not restored. The individual awakes, but finds himself fatigued rather than invigorated. His muscles are relaxed, his senses obtuse, his intellect impaired, and all his functions disordered; and it is not until he is again under the influence of food and stimulus, that he is fit for the occupations of life. And thus he loses the benefits of this wise provision of repose, designed for his preservation. Nothing, probably, tends more powerfully to produce premature old age, than midnight revels or disturbed and unrefreshing sleep.

It is also true, that artificial stimulus, in whatever way applied, tends constantly to exhaust the principle of excitability of the system, and this in proportion to its intensity, and the freedom with which it is applied.

But there is still another principle on which the use of ardent spirit predisposes the drunkard to disease and death. It acts on the blood, impairs its vitality, deprives it of its red color, and thereby

renders it unfit to stimulate the heart and other organs through which it circulates; unfit, also, to supply materials for the different secretions, and to renovate the different tissues of the body, as well as to sustain the energy of the brain-offices which it can perform only while it retains its vermilion color and other arterial properties. The blood of the drunkard is several shades darker in its color than that of temperate persons, and also coagulates less readily and firmly, and is loaded with serum-appearances which indicate that it has exchanged its arterial properties for those of the venous blood. This is the cause of the livid complexion of the inebriate, which so strongly marks him in the advanced stage of intemperance. Hence, too, all the functions of his body are sluggish, irregular, and the whole system loses its tone and its energy. If ardent spirit, when taken into the system, exhausts the vital principle of the solids, it destroys the vital principle of the blood also; and if taken in large quantities, produces sudden death; in which case the blood, as in death produced by lightning, by opium, or by violent and long-continued exertion, does not coagulate.

The principles laid down are plain, and of easy application to the

case before us.

The inebriate having, by the habitual use of ardent spirit, exhausted, to a greater or less extent, the principle of excitability in the solids, the power of reaction, and the blood having become incapable of performing its office also, he is alike predisposed to every disease, and rendered liable to the inroads of every invading foe. So far, therefore, from protecting the system against disease, intemperance ever constitutes one of its strongest predisposing causes.

Superadded to this, whenever disease does lay its grasp upon the drunkard, the powers of life being already enfeebled by the stimulus of ardent spirit, he unexpectedly sinks in the contest, and but too frequently to the mortification of his physician, and the surprise and grief of his friends. Indeed, inebriation so enfeebles the powers of life, so modifies the character of disease, and so changes the operation of medical agents, that, unless the young physician has studied thoroughly the constitution of the drunkard, he has but partially learned his profession, and is not fit for a practitioner of the present age.

These are the true reasons why the drunkard dies so easily, and from such slight causes.

A sudden cold, a pleurisy, a fever, a fractured limb, or a slight wound of the skin, is often more than his shattered powers can endure. Even a little excess of exertion, an exposure to heat or cold, a hearty repast, or a glass of cold water, not unfrequently extinguishes the small remains of the vital principle.

In the season that has just closed upon us, we have had a melancholy exhibition of the effect of intemperance in the tragical death

of some dozens of our fellow citizens; and, had the extreme heat which prevailed for several days continued for as many weeks, we should hardly have had a confirmed drunkard left among us.

Many of those deaths which came under my notice seemed almost spontaneous, and some of them took place in less than one hour from the first symptom of indisposition. Some died apparently from a slight excess of fatigue, some from a few hours' exposure to the sun, and some from a small draught of cold water-causes quite inadequate to the production of such effects in temperate persons." (Dr. Sewall's Address.)

"A circular letter, addressed by the New York City Society, to a number of the most respectable physicians of that state, proposing certain interrogatories respecting the effect of ardent spirits upon the human body, has been answered by at least forty of those to whom it was sent ; and whose names are given in the Report of that Society.

From those answers it appears, 1st, that the use of distilled liquors, by those in health, is, in no case whatever, beneficial for the preservation of health, or for the endurance of fatigue or hardship.

2d. That disease and death are the inevitable result of the continued use of alcohol upon the healthy human system.

3d. That ardent spirit never operates as a preventive of epidemic or pestilential diseases; but is very generally an exciting cause of such diseases, and always aggravates them.

4th. That, the tone of the nervous system being impaired by the use of intoxicating liquors, the constitution thus becomes more susceptible to the impression of all noxious agents.

5th. That nothing has a tendency more immediately and completely to destroy the moral faculty, than intemperate drinking.

6th. That the intellectual faculties are impaired by alcohol. Every excess is a voluntary insanity, and if often repeated, and carried beyond a certain degree, it often produces the horrible disease called delirium tremens; in which, while the animal powers are prostrated, the mind is tortured with the most distressing and fearful imaginations.

7th. That intemperance destroys the susceptibility of the body to the operation of medicine, so far as it injures the tone of the nervous system.

That the disease of an habitual drunkard will generally run its course, uninfluenced by medical treatment; that in the exhaustion so produced by intemperance, medicines are often useless, and the diseases of the water-drinker are, comparatively, few in number; in general, readily controlled; and when the malady is removed, the constitution is easily restored to its original health and vigor.

8th. One fifth, and perhaps one fourth, die, directly or indirectly, from intemperance. (This is the answer of the only physician who has undertaken to make an estimate of the proportion of deaths pro