There sit, involved and lost in curling clouds Smith, cobbler, joiner, he that plies the shears, 66 The road that leads from competence and peace Society, grown weary of the load, Shakes her encumbered lap, and casts them out. That, like the filth with which the peasant feeds His hungry acres, stinks, and is of use. Drink and be mad then; 'tis your country bids; Gloriously drunk, obey the important call; Her cause demands the assistance of your throats; Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more.” The Society of Friends have also been noted, from their first foundation, in a very corrupt and dissolute age, for the inculcation, both by precept and example, of the strictest doctrines of temperance. They have scrupulously initiated these principles into the minds of their children, and taught them the art of suppressing all those dangerous passions which militate against the welfare of society. A writer of good authority has said: "The idea of prohibition is not an entirely recent one. Dr. Erasmus Darwin was in practice what is now called a teetotaler, and always expressed the most vigorous aversion to 'vinous potations.' During his life he almost banished wine from the tables of the rich of his acquaintance, and his influence and example sobered the town of Derby, where he lived. This was forty years before totalabstinence societies were introduced or known. He also recommended a total prohibition of the destructive manufacture of grain into spirits or strong ale, thus converting the natural food of man into a poison, and thinning the ranks of society both by lessening the quantity of food and shortening life by disease. 'Prometheus, and the vulture gnawing his liver, affords,' he said, an apt allegory for the drinking of spirituous liquors.' Dr. Darwin enjoyed excellent health, and this he attributed to his temperate habits. He was father to the great naturalist, Charles Darwin, whose name and fame is world-wide." JOHN WESLEY AND THE EARLY METHODISTS WERE At a very early period of his ministry, in 1743, this distinguished servant of God was convinced that intemperance was a great obstacle to the progress of religion, and he became a decided opponent of this evil, following it up with great severity and persistence through his whole life. In one of his sermons he says:' We may not sell any thing which tends to impair health. Such is eminently all that liquid fire, commonly called drams, or spirituous liquors. It is true these may have a place in medicine, . . . although there would really be no occasion for them were it not for the unskillfulness of the practitioner; therefore, such as prepare and sell them only for this end, may keep their conscience clear. . . . But all who sell them in the common way, to any that will buy, are poisoners-general. They murder his majesty's subjects by wholesale, neither does their eye pity or spare. They drive them to hell like sheep. And what is their gain? Is it not the blood of these men? Who then would envy their large estates and sumptuous palaces? A curse is in the midst of them; the curse of God cleaves to the stones, the timber, the furniture. . . . Blood, blood is there; the foundation, the floor, the walls, the roof, are stained with blood. O thou man of blood! though thou be 1 Wesley's sermon on the "Use of Money." These bold words were uttered when the use of intoxicating liquors was universal, both in England and America. clothed in scarlet and fine linen, and feast sumptuously every day, canst thou hope to deliver down thy fields of blood to the third generation ? Not so, for there is a God in heaven; therefore thy name shall soon be rooted out. In the early days of the Wesleyan societies in England, each preacher who had the charge of a circuit was directed, as soon as there were "four men or women believers in any place," to "put them into a band," and to "see that every band-leader had the rules of the bands." Among the directions given to these "bands," as early as December 25, 1744, were the following: You are supposed to have the faith that "overcometh the world." To you therefore it is not grievous, I. Carefully to abstain from doing evil; in particular, 2. To taste no spirituous liquor, no dram of any kind, unless prescribed by a physician. 7. To use no needless self-indulgence, such as taking snuff or tobacco, unless prescribed by a physician. Every preacher was instructed to enforce these rules" vigorously but calmly." Every new "helper," as the preachers were then called, when received into the Conference was asked, before that body, "Do you take no snuff, tobacco, or drams?" The seventeenth question and answer in the "Larger Minutes," were as follows: Ques. Have those in band left off snuff and drams? Ans. No. Many are still enslaved to one or the other. In order to redress this, 1. Let no preacher touch either on any account. 2. Strongly dissuade our people from them. 3. Answer their pretenses, particularly curing the colic. Mr. Wesley also prescribed a rule for his societies which excluded "drunkenness, buying or selling spirituous liquors, or drinking them, except in cases of extreme necessity." In the year 1760 the people of one of the districts of Scotland, moved with indignation at the rapid spread of intemper ance, combined to resist the spread of the evil, drawing up the following compact: We, the inhabitants of the town of Leadhills, having taken into our most serious consideration the former direful effects of the malt distilleries, and being justly apprehensive of the like fatal consequences in time coming, as we hear that these devouring machines are again to be let loose, unanimously come to the following resolutions: 1. That the malt distilleries have been the principal cause of the immoderate use of spirituous liquors, which has been found, by experience, highly detrimental, not only to the health, but also to the morals of mankind, especially to the laboring part thereof; it being productive of all kinds of debaucheries, drunkenness, indolence, and, in fine, the very enemy of social happiness. 2. They have, ever since they came to any height, been a principal cause of the famine, while such immense quantities of the best food, designed by the bountiful hand of Providence for the subsistence of his creatures, have been by them converted into a stupefying kind of poison, calculated for the sure though slow destruction of the human race; and, therefore, 3. We are firmly resolved, in order to prevent their baleful influences, to discourage to the utmost of our power, by all public methods, that pernicious practice, being determined to drink no spirits so distilled; neither frequent nor drink any liquor in any tavern or ale-house that we know sells or retails the same. And, as we have no other means left to combat these enemies of plenty, we have chosen this public way of intimating our sentiments to the world, craving the concurrence of all our brethren in like circumstances in town and country, tradesmen, mechanics, and laboring people of all denominations.1 1 "Edinburgh Magazine," April, 1760. FROM THE FIRST ENGLISH AND FRENCH SETTLEMENTS TO THE YEAR 1700 T the time of the discovery of the American Continent, the Aborigines were acquainted with only a few kinds of mild intoxicants. Those most familiar to us were made from herbs, but there is some evidence, as we shall soon see, of drinks made from grain. At the time when the English and French settlements began, the use of distilled spirits had only recently become common in Europe. Early in the seventeenth century they became a profitable commodity of commerce, and were freely imported as an article of subsistence. It has been said that distilled spirits were almost unknown to the good people of the colonies. The inore probable view is that the social habits of the colonists did not greatly differ from those of the countries from which they came. Not only malt liquors, but also wine and brandy, were in use in all the early colonies. Other distilled liquors were extensively used in later periods. The current sentiment regarded them as "the good creatures of God," as they were called in their laws. Their sale was authorized by license, and taverns were required to keep a supply of them on hand. But the excessive use of them was deprecated. This seems to have been the maximum of their temperance principles; but in maintaining them they were very rigid. They regarded drunkenness as a crime to be judicially punished, and the keeping of houses merely for tippling purposes they considered a great evil. They passed severe laws against drunkenness and the indiscriminate sale of ardent spirits. Their habits and sentiments may be inferred from facts presented in their early colonial records. |