CHAPTER XV. TEMPERANCE ADDRESS. [Delivered before the Hon. Legislature of the State of New York, in the Assembly Chamber of the Capitol, in Albany, March 29, 1853, by the Author.] MESSRS. SPEAKERS, Gentlemen, Members of the Hon. Legislature in Senate and Assembly of the reputed Empire State of New York, Ladies and Gentlemen: I CAN NOT but esteem it a favor that I am providentially permitted to address you in the Legislative Capitol of the State which gave me birth, more than seventy-seven years ago, and on a subject of no less importance in its results than weal or woe to our whole country, and to the whole human family comprised in the nations of this globe of earth on which we dwell. The subject to which I allude will comprehend a brief review of the past and present prevalence of intoxicating liquors as a common beverage, their results on various individuals and classes of the general community, and the past and present diversity of public sentiments and measures adopted, pro and con, under the influence of a public array, against the predominant vice of Intemperance, and its concomitant degrading and destructive evils. Time was, when the prevalence of intemperance in the unrestrained use of intoxicating liquors as a common beverage, created no special alarm. Liquors abounded, in variety and plenty. The rich indulged freely in the use of their choicest wines, cordials, and higher stimulants, according to their appetites and pleasures. The poor took pride in their independent privilege to use such beverages as their appetite craved and their means of procuring would furnish, for daily use and frequent seasons of hilarity. Farmers planted orchards, and filled their cellars with cider for the constant use of their families. Grapes, currants, hops, barley, and various other fruits of the earth, were manufactured into wine, beer, whisky, and other kinds of intoxicating liquors, suited to create, nourish, and confirm a morbid appetite for strong drink. And thus the whole community were under temptation to become drunkards, without molestation. As soon as children were able to leave the mother's breast for a mug of cider, they were in a way of training for the formation of an ungovernable appetite for intoxicating liquors, till confirmed habits fitted thousands and millions of human beings for higher attainments and more degrading scenes of inebriation, under the reigning influence of the powers of Intemperance, whose infernal banners were unfurled and colors flying, to enlist the millions of the human family into the ranks of the fell destroyer, the Great Enemy of God and man! And, it must be confessed (for the existing fact is evident to the world's observation), that the result of the enemy's devices has thrown the family of mankind into habits of intoxicating desolation more dangerous ADDRESS BEFORE THE LEGISLATURE. 411 and more to be dreaded than all the prevalent contagious, pestilential, inflammatory diseases, that abound in the world, because more destructive to morals, more subversive of all religious principles, and more ruinous to the property, reputation, and happiness of both bodies and souls of mankind. Hence, such has been the overwhelming desolation of Intemperance during the period of a number of centuries last past, that the generations of mankind, as they have passed away, may be considered (without perversion of the Holy Scriptures), as having fallen under the apostolic warning from the isle of Patmos, "Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." (Rev. xii. 12.) During the above period, of the past to the present time, many thousands of human beings from childhood training have become cider tipplers, wine-bibbers, rum manufacturers, venders, and consumers, downright drunkards, paupers, robbers, pickpockets, counterfeiters, pirates, and murderers! By such means the sober, honest, industrious portion of the community have been loaded with burdensome taxes, and laid under enormous tribute of continued fear, night and day, of incendiary destruction of property and life from the baneful votaries of intemperance. Such evils in times past, and to the present moment, originating from the prevelant use of intoxicating liquors, have been witnessed among all classes of the general community as fearful woes! Merchants, mechanics, farmers, day-laborers, police, and marine-officers and crews, masters and servants, rowdies and boobies, in common, even with lawyers and statesmen, have fallen into the vortex of inebriation, and gloried in their independ ence of choosing what they please to drink, and of drinking when, where, and as much as they please, without the control of any superior power. And, alas! the worst has not been told. Members of Christian churches of different denominations of professed Evangelical Christians, and even ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, have not considered it degrading to take the social glass of liquor with friends, and even that, too, both before and after the public services of the sanctuary of God on the holy Sabbath. Numerous and degrading instances of the kind were once admissible and customary in all Christian countries to the deposition of some professed gospel ministers from their sacred office, and to the fearful ruin of many souls. With reflections of deep humiliation, I state the following eye-witness facts, as specimens of what was once the custom of devoted Christian churches, in making provision for the entertainment of ministers and their delegates, at ministerial meetings of presbyteries, synods, and general meetings of ministers and churches. Before a Temperance Society was known to have been organized on the earth, it was the uniform custom of the pious friends of religion, and lovers of pious ministers of the gospel, to provide intoxicating liquors in variety and abundance, in their houses of ministerial enter ADDRESS BEFORE THE LEGISLATURE. 413 tainment. This custom was known to be general, and it was followed uniformly without known scrupulosity or remonstrance. About the year 1807, the Saratoga Associated Presbytery of Congregational Ministers, of which I was a member, met in session at my house in Moreau, among whom were the venerable Rev. Messrs. Elias Gilbert, Daniel Marsh, Chas. M'Cabe, Elisha Yale, and others, who are now hopefully with their Saviour in heaven. A committee of arrangements provided for their dinner, and tea in the evening, at my house. In the absence of a fashionable sideboard (for I had none), the lid of a large chest of drawers, which is still in my house, in Ballston, as a monitor of humiliation, was then loaded by the aforesaid committee of arrangements with decanters, bottles, and glasses, filled with a variety and plenty of choice wines, cordials, old cogniac brandy, and a bottle of old-fashioned St. Croix rum-bitters! And the compliment was presented, more than once, by the foreman of the committee to ministers and delegates, as follows, or words of similar import: "Brethren, the only rule of our prescription is, that every one should help himself to such refreshments as he pleases from the stock of liquors on the chest," naming them, pointed out in bottle array! and the rule was followed without objection or disorder!!! Such have been, in times past, the customs and results of an unmolested use of intoxicating liquors. An overwhelming flood of desolation under the controlling influence of the Great First Enemy of |