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ever!" When a person arrives at this point, his prospects are deplorable! No man can long respect himself under the lashes of public contempt. The mind must be filled with perplexity. Every source of domestic happiness vanishes. "Poverty comes apace as one that traveleth, and want as an armed man.' Disease, like an enemy in ambush, watches opportunity to fix a death-grasp on a vital part. And not unfrequently suicide closes the scene of desolation on earth, and plunges the victim of wretchedness, unprepared, into eternity, where the solemn truth will be believed (if never before), that "drunkards shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

How astonishing it is, that in a world full of alarm many will not take warning till destruction comes upon them, and drags them down to ruin. In the summer of 1830, in the town of Ballston, and but an half mile from this spot,* I saw a man fill his bottle with spirituous liquor, after dinner, to carry into the harvest-field for the use of himself and his hired man, both of whom were lovers of the poisonous fluid. As I had been put in trust of a certain agency in that field, I earnestly remonstrated against the transportation of the bottle into the field, and proposed various substitutes for refreshment, if the liquor might be left in the house. But remonstrance and proposed substitutes were alike in vain, the bottle was carried into the field.

My next object was to exert all the friendly influence in my power over the men in the field, to lessen the use of the liquor as much as possible. In this I had reason to believe I succeeded in some degree, but though both re

* On the East Line of Ballston, where this address was first delivered, 1888

mained sober, it occasioned offense. The hired man, on some pretense, left the field before night, and a hue and cry was set up in the neighborhood against cold-water laws in the harvest-field! This aroused the indignation of the employer, who, after well replenishing his bottle the next morning, addressed his hired man in the field in my presence thus: "Here, Richard, the half of the grain in this field is mine, and the whole of the liquor in this bottle is mine; drink when you please, and as much as you please, for I am determined to be master of my own business, and, while in my employ, you shall be controlled by none."

This address had its desired effect. My mouth was closed on the subject of opposition to the bottle, and my influence in that field was gone. But mark the result of that morning's address. By ten o'clock the employer felt rich and important, and the hired man was in the full enjoyment of all the pleasures that a bottle of rum could impart. About eleven o'clock, the employer came into the house to refresh himself with a nap before dinner, and the hired man about the same time lay down on a swarth of rye in the field, to take his rest. At noon he was drunk on his bed of rye, and could not be awaked (by a cradler still in the field) to go to dinner. Immediately after dinner, the half-sober cradler went into the field, and raised an alarm. The family and a few near neighbors collected instantly in the field, on the alarm; a sheaf of rye was made for the dying drunkard's pillow; every breath was a groan of awful sound, from the effects of liquid fire preying upon his vitals, and in less than twenty minutes after

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the company were collected, the drunkard expired, a monument of ever-memorable wretchedness to perpetuate the horrors of intemperance.

To this scene, from the beginning to the end, except when at dinner, I was an eye and ear witness. The next day I preached his funeral sermon from the words of a prophet, "Woe to the drunkards of Ephraim." There are living witnesses here to-day of the solemnities of that dreadful scene which I have now described, who heard the discourse, and saw the witness of its importance in the ghastly corpse of a drunkard.

The reason why I have resumed that subject in this explicit manner, may be learned from the fact, that it was immediately rumored after that funeral, that the person died by drinking cold water; and it was so represented in the public newspapers. I read the account myself in the State of Connecticut, and in a Connecticut paper, in which was stated the name, time, and place of the death, occasioned (as it was erroneously said) by "drinking cold water." Such are the subterfuges to which the friends of intemperance are driven, to promote a cause which is sweeping its thousands down to destruction.

We hence repeat, and would reiterate the awful truth, that the evils of intemperance are incalculable. What is it that produces more than any other thing, contentions, animosities, and assault and battery? It is intemperance. What is it that fills our alms-houses with paupers, our county jails and State penitentiaries with convicts, and taxes the industrious part of community with the costs and charges of their respective poverty and criminations?

Principally, all this is the effect of intemperance. What is it that levies a heavier burden of taxation on the general community than the national debt? The answer is, intemperance. What is it that excites passions which often terminate in rapes, riots, robberies, and murders? Intemperance. The broad way to destruction is crowded with intemperate travelers, the number of which will not be known to mortals till the day cometh that "God shall judge the world in righteousness, and render to every man according as his work shall be."

An important question now arises. What shall be done to exterminate an evil which has long been sweeping over our world like a raging pestilence? An answer is prepared; join the temperance society, and unite in all laudable efforts to promote the pending National Temperance Reform. The constitution of the temperance society is based on a conviction of the EVILS OF INTEMPERANCE, and its object is to enlist volunteers from every department of community to aid in overthrowing this common enemy of mankind. The position which reformers are required to take in this mighty warfare, is to deny themselves of the use of spirituous liquors (except in case of medicine), and endeavor to persuade their neighbors to do the same. This is the exact standard of the temperance society. Under a full conviction of the gross perversion and abuse of distilled liquors, the laws of the temperance society are designed to abolish the common use of the article, and confine it to a medicinal use, for which it was first designed. Common sense dictates, that apothecary drugs and medicines are to be used only by the sick, and by

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them only under the direction of medical authority. Only let this simple, plain, common-sense rule be adopted in relation to the use of spirituous liquor, and let it become a general and universal rule, and be faithfully observed, and the Temperance Reformation would be equally extensive, and drunkenness, with all its train of evils, would be exterminated from the world.

CONCISE ANSWERS TO THREE POPULAR OBJECTIONS

to the principles of temperance and the Temperance Reformation, and a few words to the ladies, will close the subject of this chapter.

I. A popular objection to the restrictions of the temperance society is, That to abide them, mankind are deprived of their liberty and natural rights! Of what liberty and natural rights, it is inquired, do the laws of temperance deprive mankind, or any of them? The answer is, If I join the temperance society, and observe its rules, I must deprive myself of the liberty and natural right of drinking rum, gin, brandy, and other liquors when I please, without being subjected to the pains of applying to a physician to know whether I need a dram or not.

A moment's reflection will show, that the principle set up in this objection leads only to a perversion of all that liberty and natural right which are guaranteed to mankind by the constitution of heaven and the laws of every free country. Because a man is at liberty to think, speak, and act freely, does it follow that he has a right to conceive murder in his heart, to commit suicide on his own body, or put an end to the life of his neighbor? Because man