tice, our houses of correction, our places of imprisonment. We shall find that the vice of intemperance is the root from which springs most of the evil, these institutions are designed to prevent or punish. The moral faculties are blunted by pernicious habits, and all the pride of character annihilated. Wayward passions are let loose, and crime follows crime, until the day of retribution arrives. And of all who are thrown upon public charity by the accidents of life, there are few indeed, whose misfortunes may not be traced to their own habits of inebriation, or to those of their kindred, who by nature and law are required to provide for and protect them. The child is thus involved in the consequences of the parent's guilt, and scenes of depravity are the examples by which he is taught his own duty, and a father's principles. Who can cast his eyes abroad upon the fair prospects our country presents, and not rejoice that his lot has been cast in this land of freedom? But with abundant cause for exertion and gratulation, we can claim no superiority over the other nations of the earth in this great characteristic of modern degeneracy. Indeed, we have the concurrent testimony of our countrymen, who have visited other regions of the world, fortified by the statistical details which have been collected and published, that there are many countries where this vice is much less prevalent than here. Whence this unfortunate difference? There is no want of intelligence, virtue, or religion among us, and the energy and efficacy of pub lic opinion are demonstrated in every page of our history. Industry is here free from legal restraints, and enterprize from the bonds of opinion; and both are sure of their reward. What then sends our countrymen from their proper employments, from the office, the shop and the field, to scenes of dissipation and the haunts of vice?-From abundance to poverty, from happiness to misery, from hope to despair? Under less favorable circumstances, far different scenes are elsewhere exhibited. In the memorable contest of three days, which gave security to France, and hope and confidence to Europe, there is one incident recorded, not less honorable to the French character than the valor and patriotism so triumphantly displayed. It is said that during that memorable struggle, not a drunken person was seen in the streets of Paris. Gallant and generous nation! Wherever patriotic devotion and public morals are honored and esteemed, your conduct will be had in remembrance. In such days and nights of anxiety, alarm and exertion, few indeed are the villages in this land of freedom, which could make this boast. And have we not as much cause for public gratitude as the French people? Do we not enjoy as full a measure of equal rights, of national prosperity, of individual happiness? And even in the regions of the east, where the crescent has supplanted the cross, and whence literature, science, and free dom have long been banished, this vice is unknown. The sensual paradise of Mahomet admits no inebriated person to its promised pleasures. And if the devout Moslem expect to share the company of the Houris in the land of spirits, he must refrain from the intoxicating bowl, which poisons while it exhilirates. Are we then, who are proud and may well be proud of the general intelligence which is spread through the country, and of the high privileges we enjoy, are we to place ourselves in the front rank of nations, and to bend the knee the lowest to this idol of a depraved appetite? To offer our fame and fortune and lives to this unhallowed Juggernaut, whose car is steeped in blood, and whose wheels have crushed more victims, than ever assembled between the Indus and the Ganges, to join the triumphal processions of these disgusting images, which ignorance and superIstition have been taught to adore. But let us hope, that a brighter day is opening upon us. The extent and consequences of this evil are now fully appreciated, and the conviction has spread far and wide, that the best interests. of society require a vigorous and united effort for its suppression.. A few years only have elapsed, since public attention was drawn to the subject. Some zealous individuals proposed the formation. of societies for the prevention of intemperance, and labored long. and successfully for their establishment. They had prejudices to encounter, interests to contend with, and inveterate habits to. subdue. But they have seen the triumph of their principles and plans. Associations have been formed, both here and in Europe, for the accomplishment of this great object. And they are earnestly striving to arrest the march of those, who are on the road to destruction, and to fortify those, who are exposed to temptation. Destitute of all legal authority, their efforts are limited to persuasion, to conviction, to example. The most beneficial results have already followed their labors. The manufacture and consumption of ardent spirits have been reduced.Many have been recalled to a better life and better prospects And what is far more important, experience has set its seal upon the value and practicability of the plan. Ebriety has ceased to be the standard of hospitality, nor does fashion require its votaries to convert scenes of rational conviviality into scenes of vice, and sometimes crime. I was forcibly impressed with the extent of this salutary change, when looking along a well filled table, during the past season, in one of our most splendid team boats, those floating palaces which we owe to the genius and enterprize of Fulton, I perceived that not a drop of ardent spirits was placed upon the table, nor demanded by a traveller. 14. The voluntary engagements abstain from the use of spirits, which are assumed by these associations, operate powerfully upon the members. Self respect and the pride of character are thus brought to the aid of virtuous principles and just resolutions, frequently in a contest with habits and appetites, whose strength and power can only be fully known to those, who have yielded to their dominion. Such pledges are in themselves both virtuous and salutary. All societies, having just and definite objects must require the members to co-operate in their attainment. This condition is the very bond of their union, the life preserving principle, which gives and maintains, their existence-and if any are saved by the obligations and associations thus assumed, as members of temperance societies, all who are co-laborers in the work, are entitled to commendation, and to the respect and gratitude of the community. Ask the father, who has seen the son of his age and hopes, qualified by nature, habit, and education, to perform an honorable and useful part on the stage of life; who has seen him abandon all these prospects, and become the slave of this most disgusting propensity, and the companion of all that is vile in the community; ask the father the value of an association, which will redeem the lost one from this thraldom, and restore him to society, to his friends, to himself. Ask the heart-broken wife, who has seen the partner of her cares, the father of her children forget all, abandon all, and ruin all that should be nearest and dearest to him, and seek pleasure in the abodes of vice and intoxication, ask her whether these labors of love and charity which pluck the brand from the burning, are useless and inoperative. Ask the children, whose father is a stranger to their love and affection, and who barters their happiness and his own for scenes of dissipation and intoxication, and let them calculate the value of redemption and their gratitude to those, who break his bonds and set the captive free. Ask society, whether the restoration to a useful and honorable life, of some of its most promising but once lost and unhappy members, is not a source of satisfaction and gratulation-and all this has been done and is now doing. Who ventures to say, there is no cure for this malady of mind and body? No signal of safety, which can be lifted up, like the brazen serpent of old, and whereon the afflicted may look and be healed? No power of conscience-no regard for the present, no dread of the future. which can stay the progress of this desolating calamity? It is indeed a disorder, which falls not within the province of the physician. Empyricism has prescribed its remedies, and various nostrums have been administered, with temporary success, calculated to nauseate the patient, and thus by association, to create a revulsion of feeling. But little permanent advantage has attended this process. As the habit of intoxication, when once permanently engrafted on the constitution, affects the mind and body. both become equally debilitated. And restoration to health and self-possession can only be expected from a of treatment, which shall appeal to all the better feelings of our nature, and which shall gradually lead the unhappy victim of his passions to a better life and to better hopes. The pathology of the disease is sufficiently obvious. The difficulty consists in the entire mastery it attains, and in that morbid craving for the habitual excitement, which is said to be one of the most overpowering feelings that human nature is destined to encounter. This feeling is at once relieved by the accustomed stimulant, and when the result is not pleasure merely, but the immediate removal of an incubus, preying and pressing upon the heart and intellect, we cease to wonder. that men yield to the palliative within their reach. That they drink and die. That often, in one brief night, they lie down in time and awaken in eternity. But important to society as is the change from a life of vicious indulgence to one of temperance and virtue, in all those whose situation calls for this change, still this subject becomes unimportant, when compared with the ultimate object of those, who are prosecuting the warfare against this great enemy of the human They seek not only to cure the malady, but to render its recurrence impossible-to save all from the dangers which threaten them To prevent the abuse. by preventing the use, of stimulating liquors, and thus preparing the way for the entrance upon life, of a generation not exposed to this fatal temptation. race. Let then one mighty effort be made, to banish from our land this bane of national and individual prosperity. Let there be a union of hearts and exertions Experience and reflection will soon disclose the most practicable plan of effecting the object. Precept and example, when they go together, go far in their operation upon human affairs. Let them be here united. The nature and extent of the evil must be laid open to all. Such an effort would be a crusade, far holier than that which sent the nations of Christendom to the land of Judea, to seek through battle and slaughter the tomb of the Saviour. It would be a crusade of virtue against vice. An effort to give tone and strength to public sentiment, and to direct it to the attainment of one of the most important objects which remains to man to accomplish. Which would reduce the black catalogue of crimes and criminals, and give an entire new aspect to human affairs. It is now conceded by the most profound observers, and the ablest writers, who have made this subject their study, that ardent spirits are never required in a state of health. They are not merely useless, but injurious. Ingenious physicians, who have watch ed their operation upon the human system, and with the express purpose of ascertaining whether their administration be proper in cases of exhaustion from cold or fatigue, have borne testimony to their utter inefficacy. Our eminent countryman, Doctor Rush, coincides in this opinion, and assert that a small quantity of food restores the system to its usual vigor, far better than these destructive stimulants, after it has been debilitated by exertion or suffering. And in some of the most terrible shipwrecks, recorded in naval annals, it has been found that the persons, who refrained from the use of spirits, were better enabled to resist the caiamities impending over them, than those who sought strength and consolation in this indulgence. Experience upon this subject is as decisive, as it is satisfactory. And in the disastrous retreat from Moscow, which broke the sceptre of Napoleon, and wrested the nations of Europe from his iron grasp, it is recorded by the historians of the expedition, that the soldiers, who were perfectly temperate, resisted the elemental war around them, when the general pulse of life stood still," and when a scene was presented, which in terrible sublimity surpasses all that the wildest imagination has ever shadowed forth. When the spirit of the storm was abroad, and the chivalry of Europe fled or fell before the northern blast, "Faint in his wounds, and shivering in the blast, Thought of his home, and closed it with a sigh." The experience of the civilized world, during the past year, furnishes another memorable lesson upon this deeply interesting subject. A lesson which, if properly appreciated, may well con sole us, for all the calamity with which it was accompanied. Who has forgotten that desolating pestilence, which, borne on the wings of the wind, traversed the old continent from the frontiers of China to the western limits of Europe! Vainly we hoped the Ocean, which separates the hemispheres, would present an impassable barrier to this mighty destroyer. But it came, and with it despair and death. But there came also the triumph of temperance. For though many a sacrifice was made among the virtuous and exemplary, still the stroke fell chiefly upon those, whose constitutions had been impaired by habitual indulgence, and who were thus prepared for the disease." Too long have those, who are yielding to this propensity, deluded themselves and others with this pretence of the necessary use of ardent spirits. It is time the foundation were broken up and the superstructure demolished. What was the state of the ancient world where the process of distillation was unknown? the Arabian chemists were the first to introduce it, and not all the drugs of Arabia have been able to counteract its pernicius influThere is nothing which leads to the belief, that men were less able to endure fatigue, or that the average duration of numan life was shorter. On the contrary, some of the most stupendous ence. |