COCKROACH JUICE IN WINE!

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him the brewers' names who purchased the min large quantities.

COCKROACHES.

The Rev. T. P. Hunt, of Wyoming, Pennsylvania, writes me:

"While I lectured in Philadelphia, I became acquainted with a man who was extensively engaged in making wines, brandy, etc. Through my influence he abandoned the horrid traffic; he informed me, that in order to produce the nutty flavor,' for which Madeira was so much admired, he put a bag of COCKROACHES into the liquor, and let it remain there until the cockroaches were dissolved. I have been informed by several that this is no uncommon practice. If any wine drinker doubts it, he can soon settle the question by an experiment. Cockroaches are plenty, and many much more nauseous and poisonous substances are known to be employed by the makers and venders of intoxicating drinks. I would give you the name of the person who gave the receipt for using cockroaches, but he gave it in confidence, and is now occupying a much more moral and useful station than that of poisoning his customers."

But I forbear; if a single fellow-mortal, now on the highway to ruin through the use of the vile compounds above described, can be induced to abandon them, and place himself out of the reach of danger, I shall be richly compensated for sending you this article; and I can not but hope that this will be the case with many; now that it is known that these liquors contain an element of death; now that statistics have shown that their use shortens human life on

an average eleven years! now that it is proved that the wine in use here is not the pure wine approved by the Bible, but the mixed wine the Bible condemns; now that these things are known, is it to be believed that wise and good men will continue to sustain by their influence, and countenance by their example, drinking usages which tend to destroy the dearest interests of man in this world, and his eternal interest in the next?

This surely ought not to be-God grant that it may not be.

REFLECTIONS ON THE FOREGOING STATEMENTS,

The facts set forth by Mr. Delavan in the foregoing able and conclusive essay, and the strong and unimpeachable testimony by which his statements are supported, leave nothing to be said except two or three reflections on the effects of these adulterations on those who make factitious liquors, and those who use them.

And first, as to those engaged in the adulterating processes described, it is evident that such a business involves an immense wear and tear of conscience, and must, in the nature of things, fearfully deteriorate the moral character and sensibilities. It is not merely a systematic and stupendous fraud which is thus practiced upon the public. That were enough to deaden the hearts of those engaged in the business, and wear away all that is honorable and upright in their character. But this business is something far worse than fraudulent; it is murderous. The ingredi ents used are, in many cases, deadly poisons, and act upon the human system with unerring effect. The man who con

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cocts and sells these abominable mixtures knows full well not only that he is counterfeiting, but that he is poisoning his fellow-men; that he is making and vending an article which, when taken into the human stomach, will as certainly tend to the premature and violent death of his customers, as would arsenic or prussic acid. What a moral wreck must that man's character present, who can bring himself thus to derive his living and his fortune from such a business. What remains of honor, honesty, or humanity can we expect to find in those who are engaged in such a work?

II. The other reflections suggested by the revelations of Mr. Delavan's tract is, the greatly increased danger of those who habitually drink the poisoned liquors of the modern manufacturer. Habitual drinking, twenty or thirty years ago, was a very different thing from the practice now. Never were filthy and poisonous adulterations carried to such an extent as now. The fact is mentioned by a chief of police, that formerly persons taken up drunk in the streets, and kept at the station-house to recover, would usually become sober in three or four hours, but now they rarely come to their senses under seven or eight hours. This is but one of the indications of that aggravated poisoning material introduced into modern liquors. The wonder is that those who get drunk on such stuff ever get over it. But it is evident that the human system can not long endure it. It must break down in a comparatively short space of time. Formerly habitual drinkers might hope to live to old age, but it can not be expected now. The average length of drinking men's lives must be

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 undemiable 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 car:se, 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; compris ing 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.