ones what the miserable
wretches that you see staggering the streets are now. And who, I ask,
would not do it? What father, who knew that one of his sons that he
loves was, in a few years, to be what hundreds you can name are now,
would hesitate, that he might save him, to banish intoxicating drinks
from his premises for ever?

But if all will do it, he is saved; and he who contributes but a mite in
this work of God, deserves the everlasting gratitude of the republic. If
the names of a Brainerd, of a Swartz, of a Buchanan, have been rendered
immortal by their efforts to convert the heathen to Christianity, the
names of those men who shall succeed in converting Christians to
temperance and sobriety, should be written in letters of ever-during
gold, and appended by angels in the temple of the living God. The sum of
their benevolence would be exceeded only by His, who came down from
heaven for man's redemption. Then banish it; this is the only way to
save your children. As long as you keep ardent spirits in your houses,
as long as you drink it yourselves, as long as it is polite and genteel
to sip the intoxicating bowl, so long society will remain just what it
is now, and so long drunkards will spring from your loins, and so long
drunkards will wear your names to future generations. And there is no
other way given under heaven, whereby man can be saved from the vice of
intemperance, but that of _total abstinence_.

And, if ardent spirits are the parent of all the poverty, and disease,
and crime, and madness, that I have named, and if they produce no good,
what rational man will use them? If he loves himself, he will not; if he
loves his children, he will not; and as Hamilcar brought Hannibal to the
altar, at eight years of age, and made him swear eternal hatred to the
Romans, so every parent should bring his children to the altar, and make
them swear, if I may so speak, eternal hatred to ardent spirits. He
should teach them by precept and example. He should instil into his
children a hatred of ardent spirits, as much as he does of falsehood and
of theft. He should no more suffer his children to drink a little, than
he does to lie a little, and to steal a little.

And what other security have you for your children, or for yourselves?
Yes, for yourselves. I knew a man who, a few years ago, was as temperate
as any of you; was as respectable as any of you, as learned as any of
you, and as useful in life as any of you; I hav