CHAPTER I.

PECULIARITIES OF INTEMPERANCE AS A VICE.

If the physician, on taking charge of an invalid, should simply employ himself in laying down rules for the preservation of perfect health, it is evident that his advice Iwould be of but little service in the removal of any existing disease under which his patient might be laboring. His rules might be excellent, his theory correct; but how would such a patient benefit by either? His malady would require the application of some direct and practical remedy, before he could be in a situation to take advantage of any method, however excellent, for the preservation of perfect health.

It is thus with the moral, as well as the physical maladies of mankind. It would be a comparatively easy and pleasant task to lay down rules for the preservation of sobriety, order, and happiness, provided they had never been interrupted; but when evil habits have once gained the ascendancy, and the moral harmony of society has been destroyed, there must be a corrective employed to check what is evil, before any incentive can efficiently operate in promoting what is good.

Although the exceeding sinfulness of sin precludes all idea of there being in the Divine sight, any degree or modification in the nature of sin itself; yet with regard to particular vices as they come under

human observation, there are certain points of distinction which demand particular attention, and require appropriate treatment, as we see by the variety of regulations instituted for the well-being of society, and the still greater variety of systems of moral discipline brought into exercise for the purpose of controlling the evil tendencies of our common nature.

None who have ever been truly awakened to a sense of the all-sufficient power of religious influence upon the human heart, will be liable to suppose, that any mode or system of moral discipline, simply as such, can be effectual in its operation upon the life and character, so as, ultimately, to secure the salvation of the soul; but as a child is carefully taught that truth and kindness are good, and falsehood and cruelty evil, long before it knows any thing of the religion of the Bible; so, in the case of every particular vice which has been known in the world, it may fairly be said to be better that it should be given up, than continued; provided only, it cannot be overcome except by the substitution of another. It is no small point gained, when an immortal being, a fellow-traveller in the journey of life, is prevailed upon to cease to do evil in any one respect. He is, at least, in a better condition for learning to do well, than while persisting in his former course.

If a child, a servant, or any one under our care, has been accustomed to tell

falsehoods, we rejoice over the first symptoms of their having learned to fear a lie, even though their conduct should evince no other indication of a moral change. We do not say, "Let him return to the evil of his ways, for it is of no use his leading a stricter life in this respect, unless he becomes altogether a changed character." We do not say this, because we know that the well-being of society, and the good of every individual connected with him, require that he should give up this particular habit, and if for no other reason, we think it sufficient that it should be given up for this-that the tendency of all evil is to contaminate, and that no vice can exist alone, but if indulged will necessarily extend itself, and pollute whatever it comes in contact with, by this means producing innumerable poisonous fruits from one deleterious root. Thus the state of society is proportionally improved every time a vicious habit is wholly given up; and if this be true of vice in general, how eminently is it the case with that if intemperance; because there is no other, which, on the one hand, is so countenanced by the customs of the world, and which, on the other, spreads its baneful influence to so fearful and deadly an

extent.

Intemperance is the only vice in the dark catalogue of man's offences against the will, and the word, of his Maker, which directly assails the citadel of human reason, and by destroying the power to choose betwixt good and evil, renders the being whose similitude was originally divine, no longer a moral agent, but a mere idiot in purpose, and animal in action. The man who is habitually intemperate consequently makes a voluntary surrender of all control over his own conduct, and lives for the greater portion of

his time deprived of that highest attribute of man-his rational faculties. It is, however, a fact, deserving our most serious consideration, that in this state he is more alive, than under ordinary circumstances, to the impulse of feeling, and of passion; so that while on the one hand he has less reason to instruct him how to act, on the other he has more restlessness and impetuosity to force him into action.

It has been calculated that of persons thus degraded, there are at the present time existing in Great Britain more than six hundred thousand, of whom sixty thousand die annually, the wretched victims of this appalling vice.

Such, then, is the peculiarity of intemperance, that while all other vices leave the mind untouched and the conscience at liberty to detect and warn of their com mission, this alone subdues the reasoning powers, so that they have no capability of resistance; and while all other vices are such from their earliest commencement, this alone only begins to be a vice at that precise point when the clearness of the mind, and the activity of the conscience, begin to fail; and thus it progresses, according to the generally received opinion, by increasing in culpability in the exact proportion by which mental capability and moral power are diminished.

What an extraordinary measurement of guilt is this for an enlightened world to make! In all other cases a man's culpability is measured precisely by the ability he has to detect evil, and the power he possesses to withstand temptation. In this alone he is first encouraged by society, and this is while his natural powers remain unimpaired. No blame attaches to him then. He is a fit companion for wise and good men: but no sooner does his reason give way than he is first slightly

censured by society, then shunned, then despised, and finally abhorred; just according to the progressive stages by which he has become less capable of understanding what is right, and controlling his own inclinations to what is wrong.

It is another striking feature in the character of intemperance as a vice, that it commences not only under the sanction of the low, but under that of what is called the best society; not only under the sanction of the world, but under that of religious professors, who believe themselves called out of darkness into light. It begins with the first welcome which kind and Christian friends assemble to give to a young immortal being, just ushered into a state of probation, by which it is to be fitted for eternity; and it extends through all the most social and cheering, as well as through many of the most lasting and sacred associations we form on earth; until at last, when the tie is broken, and the grave receives our lost and loved, the solemn scene is closed, and the mourner's heart is soothed, by the commencement of intemperance.

I say the commencement, for who can tell at what draught, what portion of a draught, what drop, for it must really come to this-who can say, then, at what drop of the potent cup sobriety ceases, and intemperance begins? The intemperate man himself cannot tell, for it has justly been observed, that "instead of feeling that he is taking too much, his only impression is, that he has not had enough." Who then shall warn him? Even if he were in a condition to listen to remonstrance, who should be his judge? If it be perfectly innocent, nay right, in the first instance to partake of this beverage, say to the extent of two thousand drops; if all sorts of persons, up to the

highest scale of religious scrupulosity, take this quantity, and more, and deem it right to take it, even to double or treble it as occasion may demand, it must be strong evidence that quantity, as regards a few thousand drops, can be of little consequence. Still there is, there must be a precise point at which mankind ought to stop, or why is the unanimous voice of society lifted up against the intemperate? But why, above all, are we told that no drunkard can enter the kingdom of Heaven?

Ask this question of a hundred persons, and they will in all probability each give you a different account of the measurement by which they ascertain at what point intemperance begins; because there are all the different habits and constitutions of mankind to be taken into account, as well as all the different degrees of potency in the intoxicating draught, according to its name and quality. Of twenty persons seated at the same table, and regaling themselves with the same wine, it is more than probable that the fatal drop at which intemperance begins, would not be in the same glass with any two among them. Who then shall decide this momentous question? for it is momentous, since eternal condemnation depends upon it. Let us reduce the number of persons, and see whether by this means the case will be more clear. We will suppose, then, that three persons sit down to table to take their wine, or whatever it may be, in what is called an innocent and social way. Out of this small number, it is possible that one may commit a deadly sin without taking more than the others. Yet to him it is sin, simply because the drop of transition between good and evil, from the peculiar constitution of his bodily frame, occurs in his glass at an earlier

stage than it does with the others. These three men, consequently, rise from that table according to the opinion of the world in a totally different moral state, for one has been guilty of a degrading vice, and the others are perfectly innocent. Yet all have done the same thing. Who then, I would ask again, is to decide in such a case? I repeat, it cannot be the guilty man himself, because that very line which constitutes the minute transition between a state of innocence and a state of sin, is the same at which he ceased to be able clearly to distinguish between one and the other.

It is impossible, then, that this question should ever be decided, unless every one who indulges in the use of such beverage would take the trouble to calculate the exact distance between the extremes of sobriety and intoxication, not only computed by every variety of liquid in which alcohol is contained, but by every variety of bodily sensation which he may be liable to experience. This calculation will bring him to one particular point, which may not improperly be called the point of transition, at which positive evil begins, and beyond which it is a positive sin to go. Who, then, I ask again, shall fix this point? It must of necessity be left to the calculations of the man whose inclination in the hour of temptation is not to see it, whose desire is to step over it, and whose perceptions at that time are so clouded and obscured, that he could not ascertain it if he would.

Here, then, we see a marked difference betwixt intemperance and every other vice. Theft, for instance, is as much theft at the beginning as it is at the end; and if a case should occur in which there was any doubt about the act being really such, reason might immediately be ap

plied to as unimpaired; nor would any other of the faculties of the mind have suffered in the slightest degree from the commission of a dishonest deed. Neither are there any degrees of theft openly countenanced by the world, and by religious society. We will not say that there are not tricks in trade, and dishonest practices which exist to the discredit of our country and our profession, but they are chiefly done in secret, and acknowledged, at least in the pulpit, to be wrong.

Another characteristic of intemperance is, that it often begins in what are considered the happiest and most social moments of a person's life. It begins when the hospitable board is spread, and when friend meets friend; when the winter's fire is blazing; when the summer's ramble is finished; on the eve of parting, when moments glide away with the preciousness of hours; when hearts warm towards each other; when broken confidence is restored; when the father wel. comes back his son; and when the young and trusting bride first enters her new home. All these, and tens of thousands of associations, all as tender, and some of them more dear, are interwoven with our recollections of the tempting draught, which of itself demands no borrowed sweets.

How different from this are all other vices! Injurious to society in the first instance, as well as in the last, selfish in their own nature, and avowedly abhorred, they no sooner appear in their naked form, than a check is put upon them by the united voice of society. The thief is not welcomed into the bosom of kind families after he has been known to steal a little. The miser, whose evil propensi ties are, next to intemperance, the most insidious in their nature, is spurned and