have received from my fellow citizens, to have been permitted to connect my name with this institution, and to use the little personal influence I possessed in aiding its operations.

"In reviewing the progress of temperance for a few years past, the changes which have been produced in public opinion on this important subject are astonishing, even to its most sanguine friends. And it furnishes to us all the highest encouragement to continne our exertions, until the common use of ardent spirits shall be considered as disgraceful as open opposition to such use was once deemed unpopular; until reflecting men will no more think of making and vending ardent spirits, or of erecting and renting grogshops as a means of gain, than they would now think of poisoning the well from which a neighbor obtains water for his family, or of arming a maniac to destroy his own life, or the lives of those around him."

Such are becoming the views of good men of all descriptions, who are acquainted with this subject, throughout the country. They view it as a sin of high and awful aggravation; and believe that a man is as really guilty who kills himself, or is accessory to the death of his fellow men, by means of ardent spirit, as by means of opium, a knife, or a pistol; and that the hope of greater bodily gratification, or worldly gain, is no more really a justification in one case, than in the other. And they believe that the commands of God, "abstain from fleshly lusts, (bodily gratifications) which war against the soul;" "as ye would that others should do to you, do ye to them;" and "thou shalt not kill," and many others, as really forbid a man's being the occasion of death in one case, as in the other.

Says a distinguished writer,* "I challenge any man who understands the nature of ardent spirit, and yet, for the sake of gain, continues to be engaged in the traffic, to show that he is not involved in the guilt of murder." The money that is accumulated in this way is now viewed as the price of blood, and when left to the children, and scattered by them to the four winds of heaven, will be spoken of as the inheritance which the Lord hath cursed.

Another writer,† declares, "They who keep these fountains of pollution and crime open, are sharers, to no small extent, in the guilt which flows from them. They may be temperate men themselves, but they contribute to make others intemperate. They stand at the very source of the evil. They command the gateway of that mighty flood which is spreading desolation through the land; and are chargeable with all the present and everlasting con sequences, no less than the infatuated victim who throws himself

• Lyman Beecher, D. D.

† Rev. Samuel Spring..

upon the bosom of the burning torrent, and is borne by it into the gulf of wo."

The Rev. Wilbur Fiske, D. D. President of the Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. in an address to members of churches on the immorality of the traffic, says, "It is not enough that a majority of the church keep themselves from evil; if they hold the sacred and protecting banner of the church over those who cause others to sin, they are verily guilty themselves. The same train of means and causes that have produced the intemperate of the past and the present generations are still in operation to produce an equal or greater proportion in the next generation, and so on forever! And what is still worse, the church is aiding and abetting this diabolical conspiracy against the bodies and souls of men! We had indeed hoped for better things of Christians; but we are obliged to acknowledge the fact. And I appeal to the church herself, and ask her in the name of sincerity if she can clear herself of the charge? Do not many of her members use ardent spirits? Do they not traffic in the accursed thing? Do they not hold out on their signs invitations to all that pass by, to come and purchase of them the deadly poison? Then indeed is the church a partner in this conspiracy; for it cannot be denied that all the drunkenness in the land is produced by what is called the temperate use of ardent spirits.

"The conclusion, then, is irresistible, and every candid mind must feel it, every Christian will feel it, he who by use and traffic countenances the practice of drinking ardent spirits, is throwing his influence into the work of recruiting the ranks of the interperate, and renders himself personally responsible for the woes that follow. I say, then, on all the moderate drinkers in our land, on all that traffic in the accursed thing, rests the wo that God himself hath denounced on him that putteth the cup to his neighbor's mouth, and maketh him drunken.

'My Christian brother, if you saw this trade as I believe God sees it, you would sooner beg your bread from door to door, than gain money by such a traffic. The Christian's dram shop! Sound it to yourself. How does it strike your ear? It is doubtless a choice gem in the phrase-book of Satan! But how paradoxical! How shocking to the ear of the Christian! How offensive to the ear of Deity! Why, the dram shop is the recruiting rendezvous of hell! (If the term shocks you I cannot help it, for we all know it is the truth.) And shall a Christian consent to be he recruiting officer? It is here the drunkard is made, and you pander to his appetite until you have kindled up in his bosom a raging fire that can never be quenched-and all this for a little money! And when you have helped make him a drunkard, and he becomes troublesome, you drive him, perhaps, from your

house or your shop, declare you mean to keep an orderly house! express your abhorrence of drunkards! and imagine you are innocent of their blood! But it is too late to talk about denying him now. The man is ruined, and you have been the instrument. Say not, if you do not sell, others will. Must you be an ally of Satan, and a destroyer of your race, because others are? If you leave off selling, you will weaken the ranks of sin, and strengthen the hands of the righteous. Say not, if you do not sell, it will injure your business, and prevent your supporting your family. It was said by one, that such a statement is a libel upon the Divine government' Must you, indeed, deal out ruin to your fellow men, or starve? Then starve! It would be a glorious martyrdom contrasted with the other alternative. Do not say, I sell by the large quantity-I have no tipplers about me-and therefore I am not guilty! You are the chief man in this business-the others are only subalterns. You are the 'poisoners general,' of whom Mr. Wesley speaks, who murder your fellow citizens by the wholesale. But for the retailers to do your drudgery, you would have nothing to do. While you stand at the bulk head, and open the flood gates, they from this river of fire draw off the small rivulets, and direct them all over the land, to blight every hope, and burn up every green thing. The greater your share in the traffic, the greater is your guilt. There is no avoiding this conclusion. The same reasoning will also apply to the manufacturer. If any man has priority of claim to a share in this work of death, it is the manufacturer. The church must free herself from this whole business. It is all a sinful work, with which Christians should have nothing to do, only to drive it from the sacred enclosures of the church, and if possible from the earth.".

The Rev. Austin Dickinson, editor of the National Preacher, in addressing makers and venders of ardent spirit, says, "You are creating and sending out the materials of disorder, crime, poverty, disease, and intellectual and moral degradation. You are contributing to perpetuate one of the sorest scourges of our world. And the scourge can never be removed till those deadly fires which you have kindled are all put out. Without a prophet's vision, I foresee the day when the manufacture of intoxicating drink for common distribution, will be classed with the arts of counterfeiting and forgery, and the maintenance of houses of midnight revelry and pollution.-Upon the dwellings you occupy, upon the fields you enclose, upon the spot that entombs your ashes, there will be fixed an indescribable gloom and odiousness, to offend the eye and sicken the heart of a virtuous community, till your memory shall perish. Quit, then, this vile business, and spare your name, spare your family, spare your children's children such insupportable shame and reproach." And he might have added, spare yourself too the insupportable

anguish of meeting, at the tribunal of God, those whom you have polluted, debased, and ruined. All, who, by the fiery poison which you have furnished, have ripened for the fire that never can be quenched, will meet you at the judgment day, and pour out upon you, as accessories to their ruin, their deep and awful execrations! Nor do they always delay till the light of eternity awakes them. A man who had been furnished by his neighbor with the means of destruction, and been brought by it to the verge of the grave, was visited, in his last moments, by the author of his ruin; who asked him, whether he remembered him. The dying man, forgetting his struggle with the king of terrors, said, "Yes, I remember you, and I remember your store, where I formed the habit which has ruined me for this world and the next. And when I am dead and gone, and you come and take from my widow and fatherless children the shattered remains of my property to pay my rum debts, they too will remember you." And he added, as they were both members of the same church, "Yes, brother, we shall all remember you, to all eternity." And it might be added, he too, will remember them, and will remember what he did, for the sake of money to bring their husband and father and his own brother in the church, to the drunkard's grave; and to take from the widow and fatherless not merely property but that which no wealth can purchase; and which when taken, no power on earth can restore. And he may remember himself too, as the author, the guilty, polluted, execrable author of mischief which eternity cannot repair; and which may teach him, in deeper and deeper wailings, that it profits a man nothing to gain the world, and lose his soul; or be accessory to the loss of the souls of others.

The Rev. Dr. Beecher, in addressing the young men of Boston, said, "The dealers in this liquid poison of ardent spirit may be compared to men who should advertise for sale, consumptions, and fevers, and rheumatisms, and palsies, and apoplexies. But would our public authorities permit such a traffic? No The public voice would be heard at once, for the punishment of such enemies of our race; and the rulers that would not take speedy vengeance would be execrated and removed. But now the men who deal out this slow poison are licensed by law; and they talk abou: their constitutional rights, and plead that they are pursuing their lawful callings. But does the law of God, or the good of society admit of an employment to decoy the unwary, and murder the innocent? yet these traffickers in the blood of men, tell us that this work of death is their living, their means of supporting their famies; and that others will prosecute the buisness if they decline it But can they imagine that God will prosper such a course for the destruction of their fellow beings? or that he has so constituted

things as to render the transgression of his laws the necessary means of family subsistence? Should a class of persons attempt to dig pit-falls in our public streets, to insnare the passengers; or should they make use of blood-hounds to tear and devour our peaceful citizens, or should they hire a company of cut-throats to drag out our young men from their peaceful homes, and murder them in our streets; how long may we suppose the authorities of our city would endure such ravagers and spoilers? But where lies the difference in criminality between the dram-seller who administers the slow, but certain death, and the public murderer? The former is licensed in his wickedness, by law, the other must be hanged." Over every grog-shop, says Judge Daggett, should be written, in great capitals, "The way to hell, going down to the chambers of death." Nor have such appeals, which, during the past year have been multiplied from all parts of the country, been in vain. Hundreds of distilleries have been stopped, and thousands of merchants have given up the traffic. And those who have not, are becoming daily more and more criminal, often in their own view, and more often in the view of others. A distinguished gentleman from one of our principal cities writes, "Distillers, retailers, and drunkards are culprits here in the eyes of all sober men." The remark is now common, that it is as wicked to kill a man, by one kind of poison, as by another. And the conviction is settling down upon the public mind, that he who continues knowingly to do it in any way, is, in the sight of God a murderer, and as such will be held responsible at his tribunal. The opinion of Judge Cranch, with regard to the criminality of furnishing ardent spirit, as a drink, is, with conscientious and enlightened men, fast becoming common. "I know, that the cup is poisoned-I know that it may cause death-that it may cause more than death-that it may lead to crime, to sin-to the tortures of everlasting remorse Am I not then a murderer? worse than a murderer? as much worse as the soul is better than the body?"-" If ardent spirits, were nothing worse than a deadly poison--if they did not excite and inflame all the evil passions--if they did not dim that heavenly light which the Almighty has implanted in our bosoms to guide us through the obscure passages of our pilgrimage-if they did not quench the Holy Spirit in our hearts, they would be comparatively harmless. It is their moral effect-it is the ruin of the soul which they produce, that renders them so dreadful. The difference between death by simple poison, and death by habitual intoxication, may extend to the whole difference between everlasting happiness, and eternal death." Multitudes, increasing rapidly, now say, with the gentlemen who compose the committee of the New York State Temperance Society, "Disguise that busi ness as they will, it is still, in its true character, the business of de