282 "TOUCH NOT, TASTE NOT, HANDLE NOT." greatly shortened; diseases multiplied and aggravated, are thick-strown all along his short and miserable career, and his life is no longer worthy of the name; it is nothing but a living death. In view, then, of the truths herein stated, we earnestly appeal to all who have been accustomed to indulge, however moderately, in this drinking habit, to come to a pause, and weigh the facts we have now laid before them. We appeal to the reason of men, to the common sense of our readers, and to that instinct of self-preservation which the Deity has implanted in every bosom. Why should it be necessary to plead with men to save their own lives? What more than the facts spread out on these pages should be required to induce the whole community, the whole nation, to rise as one man against the enormous iniquities of the liquor business, and its use and sale!* * And may we not add, in view of the facts herein stated, and facts so undeniable and so notorious, that it is not strange that Mr. Delavan should have felt impelled (regardless of consequences), by a sense of duty to the church of which he was a member, to call attention to the deleterious and unscriptural element generally in use in the sacramental cup. Would he not have failed in his duty to that church, and to the cause of Temperance, to which he was devoting his life, his energies, and his substance, not to have done so? The question he submitted was not, as has been charged, whether wine was to be dispensed with at the Lord's Supper, but whether the pure fruit of the vine, the wine, and the only wine which the Bible authorizes, ought not to be substituted in the place of the vile enforced fabricated intoxicating liquors, falsely called wine, so generally in use-fabrications which the Bible condemns, which science condemus, and which experience proves to be injurious alike to the temporal and eternal interests of man. When the public mind shall become fully informed as to the bearing of the element generally made use of in the sacramental cup, on the overthrow of the liquor trade, and the triumph of the Temperance cause, the efforts of Mr. Delavan to purify that cup from intoxicating poisons, falsely called wine, will, we doubt not, be fully appreciated. CHAPTER XII. ADDRESS delivered in the Union House of worship before the Parent Temperance Society of Moreau, on the last Monday of Oct., 1843, on their adoption of the American Pledge of Total Abstinence from all Intoxicating Liquors; comprising the celebrated Anecdote of Little Mary, a child of seven years old (daughter of a habitual drunkard), who obtained 151 subscribers to the Temperance Pledge, the last of whom was her drunken father. "Who hath woe? Who hath sorrows? Who hath contentions? Who bath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last, it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder."PROV. Xxiii. 29-32. IN the days of King Solomon, the contaminating vice of intemperance was prevalent, and its baneful effects were daily observable. One of the principal employments of the land of Canaan, was the cultivation of vineyards, and the manufacture of wines. Mixed wines were scented with the most costly and fragrant gums, such as frankincense, myrrh, and other rich spices. The most beautiful red wines, and, probably, those of the highest flavor, were formed by a mixture of the juice of the grape and the juice of the pomegranate, a fruit of the apple kind, which excelled all others for its beautiful red both within and without, and for its most delicious flavor. The manufacture and traffic of wines of various sorts constituted a principal source of wealth in that country. 284 INTRODUCTORY ARRANGEMENT. The numerous persons employed in the business were continually exposed to the temptation of using wine as a common drink, the result of which, in numerous instances, was the formation of the habit of intemperance, with all its concomitant evils, which drown men in perdition. When the habit of intemperance had become firmly fixed, men gave themselves up to drunkenness. Much of their time was spent where the intoxicating liquor was dealt out in profusion; where the company resorting were a set of idlers, wranglers, and drunkards; and where poverty, and wretchedness, and woes, and sorrows of the most heart-rending description were multiplying on every hand, in proportion to the prevalence of the cause which produced them. Such scenes of human depravity were alluded to in the portion of Scripture selected for the subject of our present improvement. The instruction comprised in the text may be considered INTERROGATORY, ADMONITORY, and CONSEQUENTIAL. I. THE INTERROGATORY part of the text contains questions and answers on the subject of intemperance. "Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes?" These questions are thus answered: "They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine." The man who, by tasting and tippling, has contracted the habit of intemperance, is liable to all the particular evils enumerated in the forecited catalogue. Intemperate men have woe. Woe is a word of mourning, and denotes loss of happiness, and a state of depression INTEMPERATE MEN HAVE WOES. 285 under heavy calamities. Intemperate men have great cause for mourning, for their losses are very great. Their good name and reputation (acquirements which are better than precious ointment) are lost bv intemperance, and woe is their portion. . Their domestic happiness is lost. Once, home was sweet; their firesides were places of enjoyment and happiness. But now they behold wives bathed in tears; children clad in tatters; home filled with perplexity and want; themselves forsaken of all associates except tipplers; doomed to the constant gnawings of an insatiable thirst for strong drink; what can they expect, but the wretched possession of the accumulated woes which are inseparably connected with the habit of intemperance? Woe is the intemperate man's portion in this life. Woe sounds in his ears. Woe perches on his tongue. Woe thrills through every vein. Woe preys upon his conscience. Woe overwhelms his heart. Woe paralyzes his whole nervous system, and trembles on the tips of his fingers. Woe enervates all his mental faculties, and fills him with confusion. And his only resort for relief from all these woes, is his cup, his cup of deadly poison, which, when quaffed and quaffed again, prepares him only for heavier woes and deeper wretchedness. Again, the inquiry proceeds: "Who hath sorrows ?" The answer is, "They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine." The intemperate man hath many sorrows, overwhelming sorrows, which fill him with grief and vexation of the most horrific nature. Every resort to his cup for relief, only 286 WHO HATH CONTENTIONS-WHO? increases the anguish of his soul in the lucid intervals of intoxication, and prepares him for deeper, and more insupportable grief. Frequently, while his countenance wears the mask of a feigned smile, his soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, which makes him feel as though his very heart would break the bars of nature's fortification, and dissolve itself in wretchedness. In a further interrogation, the question is asked: "Who hath contentions?" Answer, "They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine." The intemperate man hath contentions. He is often engaged in debates, contradictions, quarrels, and strife, accompanied with malignity of the most ferocious nature. Spirituous liquor has a remarkable effect on the disposition of mankind. However affable and peaceful many appear when sober, it is generally the fact, that liquor renders them self-confident, self-important, self-conceited, self-willed, quarrelsome, revengeful, blood-thirsty, and inflexibly bent on being avenged on every one who comes in contact with any of their preconceived opinions. Hence it comes to pass, generally, that intemperate men are fired with the spirit of contention on emptying the first glass at a revel. Soon a debate arises, about, no matter what. Hasty and bitter contradictions follow. Violent quarrels ensue. Contention rages; and strife and malignity are kindled into a flame, which nothing can quench but an additional quantity of the overpowering stimulus of the cup, sufficient to stiffen them with a fit of intoxication in downright drunken ness. Again, it is inquired, "Who hath babbling?" If any |