man, farewell industry, farewell emulation, farewel attention to things worthy of attention, farewell the love of virtuous society, farewell decency of manners, and farewell, too, even an attention to person: every thing is sunk by this predominating and brutal appetite.

In how many instances do we see men who have begun life with the brightest of prospects before them, and who close it without one ray of comfort or consolation, after having wasted their time in debauchery and sloth, and dragged down many innocent persons from prosperity to misery! Young men with good fortunes, good talents, good tempers, good hearts and sound constitutions, only by being drawn into the vortex of the drunkard, have become, by degrees, the most despicable and most loathsome of mankind. At first the thing is not so visible; but in the end it is complete in its effects. The " redness of eyes" becomes the outward and visible sign of the commencement of ruin; and, at last, fortune and family, friends, parents, wife and children; all are sacrificed, if necessary, to this raging and ungovernable vice. This vice creates more unhappiness in families; is the cause of more strife between man and wife; is the cause of more of those separations, which disgrace the married parties themselves, which send the children forth into the world humbled and tarnished, and rather than be the cause of which, a father ought to be ready to suffer, if possible, ten thousand deaths of these fatal effects drunkenness in the husband is more frequently the cause than all other causes put together.

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In the house of a drunkard there is no happiness for any ore. All is uncertainty and anxiety. He is not

the same man for any one day at a time. No one knows any thing of his out-goings or of his in-comings. When he will rise or when lay down to rest is wholly a matter of chance. Whether he will be laughing or sullen at his return to his home no one can tell. At sometimes he is one man, at other times another. His time is chiefly divided between raving and melancholy Well might the Apostle warn his Disciples not to sit down at table with drunkards; for, leaving the sin of drunkenness itself out of the question, what is so intolerable as the babble of a drunken man! What so uncertain as the consequences of communication with him! This minute he shakes you by the hand; the next he seeks your life; and the only recompense you receive for the injuries he inflicts, is, an acknowledgment, that, at the time of committing the injury, he had voluntarily put himself upon a level with the brute.

Of all the afflictions in this world, there is, perhaps, none that exceeds that of having a drunken husband; next to which comes that of having a drunken son. From the very earliest times this vice was held in the greatest abhorrence and marked out for the severest punishment. MOSES, in laying down laws for the Israelites, took care to invest parents and judges with power to punish a crime, which, if suffered to go unpunished, he foresaw must be productive of the most injurious consequences to the Community of which he was the law-giver. In the xxi. Chap. DEUTERONOMY, he commands the parents of a stubborn and rebellious Son to bring him before the elders: "and they shall say unto the Elders of his City, this our son will "not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.

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"And all the men of his City shall stone him with "stones that he die: so shall thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear." Now, severe as this punishment was, who shall say, when we take into view the numerous and terrible consequences of the vice, and the total absence of all temptation to the commission of it; who shall say, when these things are considered, that this punishment was too severe ? Before we pronounce this judgment, let us look at the aged father and mother, at brethren and sisters, all plunged into misery by the drunkenness and consequent squandering of one stubborn, profligate and brutal member of the family. Let us only consider the number of unfortunate mothers, who, in their widow-hood, have a son, to whom they ought to look for consolation and support, rendered doubly miserable by that son; and, at last brought to absolute beggary by his drunkenness, drowsiness and squandering. Let us look at a mother thus situated; let us see her for years wearing herself with anxiety, humouring him, indulging him, apologizing for him; and at last, even when brought by him to want bread to put in her mouth, feeling, not for herself, but for, him. We must look at a case like this; a case, unhappily, but too frequent in this day; we must look at a case like this; we must look at the crimes of such a son; at his ingratitude, his cruelty, at that hard-heartedness which has grown out of the wilful indulgence of his appetites; and we must consider that this indulgence has been in defiance of reason and of nature, before we pronounce that the punishment allotted by the law of Moses was more than commensurate to the magnitude of the crime.

However, we must not dismiss this subject without recollecting, that, even for such a son, there may, in some cases, be an apology found; not, indeed, in the example of a King or in that of Priests, but in the example or in the negligence of parents themselves; for these have duties to perform with regard to their children, and duties, too, which justice, which good morals, and which religion imperiously demand at their hands.

They are not at liberty to say, that their children are theirs; and that, as in cases of other animals, they are to do what they please with them, and to leave undone towards them that which they please. They have, no right to give life to beings, of whom they grudge to take charge, and towards whom they are not ready to act with as much zeal and tenderness as towards their own persons. If the life and happiness of a child (the child being without offence) be not as dear to the parent as the parent's own life, that parent is deficient in parental affection, and can hardly expect an affectionate and dutiful child.

In this respect, however, let us hope that few parents are deficient; but, there is something besides parental affection due from a parent towards a child The parent has to act as well as to feel. He is to consider that which is best to be done; that which is the best course to pursue, in order to provide, not only for the existence and health of his child, but also for his future welfare, and in welfare is included his good moral conduct. It is very certain that children are, in general, prone to follow, and with great exactness, the example of their parents. Where is the father

whose sons have not told him, one after another, at the age of three years old, that they shall be big men like him; that they shall do this or that, like him? Where is the father that has not watched, and been very much pleased at, their constant attempts to imitate him, and who has not observed their contentions as to which was most like him?

Now, it is impossible not to see in these things,

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which are notorious to all the world, the clearest proof, that, with children, the example of parents always is powerful, and may be rendered, in nine cases out of ten, productive of the happiest consequences to both rents and children. If it be the ambition of the son, even from his earliest days, to be like and do like the father, how careful ought the father to be of all his words and all his actions! Nature may possibly produce a son so untoward as to become a drunkard after having been bred up by a sober father and in scenes of perfect sobriety; but this is a sort of monster in morals, and is to be excluded from all the reasonings appertaining to the subject. Nothing is truer than the rule of SOLOMON, "train up a child in the way he

should go; and when he is old, he will not depart " from it." But, in this case as well as in the case of Priest and flock, it is the example, and not the precept, upon which we ought to rely. By precept you may teach your son that drunkenness is sinful and leads to misery; but the precept will have little force when contradicted by your example. You may preach, you may warn, you may menace; but if you indulge in the bottle yourself, expect not a sober son, and complain not if he bring your grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.

Example in this case costs nothing, eitner in the way of money or of personal exertion. It is merely an abstaining from that which is in itself unnatural. It is recommended also by economy, by a love of domestic peace, and by a desire to consult the convenience, and to promote the happiness of a family. Drinking and carousing is not productive of cheerfulness; and it is cheerfulness, and not boisterous mirth, that we ought to desire for our inmate. Nobody is so dull as the daybefore drunkard; no mansion so gloomy as that which beholds the morrow of a feast. "Nabal's heart was Imerry within him; for he was very drunken;" but the next morning, when the wine was gone out of Nabal, his heart died within him and he became dead as a