as a fiend. No
matter what may be the original materials of the man; his figure may
possess every grace of the sculptor; his mind may be imbued with every
art and science; he may be fit to command at the head of armies, to sway
a Roman senate, to wield the destinies of nations; his heart may be the
seat of every virtue; but ardent spirits will strip him of the whole,
and convert him into a demon. Need I tell how? Need I point out the
change that ebriety produces in the moral and social affections? Need I
present the sword red with a brother's blood? It was in a drunken revel
that the infuriate Alexander slew his best friend and most beloved
companion Clytus. And it was in a drunken revel that he proclaimed
himself a god, and died.

"But have not ardent spirits one good quality, one redeeming virtue?"
None. I say, none. There is nothing, not even the shadow of a virtue, to
rescue them from universal and everlasting execration.

"But they are good as a medicine." No, not as a medicine. There is no
physician, that does not love them, that needs them in his practice.
There is no disease that they cure or relieve, that cannot be cured or
relieved without them. They add to no man's health; they save no man's
life.[C]

[Footnote C: The writer is aware that spirits or alcohol are
necessary in some preparations of the chemist and apothecary.
But it is the use of them as drinks which he is combating, and
which, he is assured by respectable physicians, are not only
unnecessary, but hurtful, in sickness and in health. Were they
to exist only in the apothecary's shop in the state of
alcohol, it would be all that the world needs of them. Some
physicians, nevertheless, may think them useful in two or
three cases or conditions of the body; but it is apprehended,
that if they should discontinue the use of them altogether,
except in certain tinctures, etc., they would be as successful
as they now are. They are often used where they would not be,
if they were not the most common thing that could be found.]

It is impossible to name a single good thing that they do. Give them to
the divine; do they add to his piety, to his zeal, to his faithfulness,
to his love of God or man? No; they destroy them all. Give them to the
physician; do they increase his skill, his power to discriminate amid
the symptoms of disease, his judgment to apply the appropriate remedies,
his kind and affectionate solicitude