e heard him from the
sacred desk again and again; but by the same use of ardent spirits that
most men justify and advocate, under the mistaken notion that they were
beneficial to him, he has at last fallen the victim of intemperance. And
this is not a solitary example. I had almost said, it is a common
example. I could easily add to the number.

And now, what security have you for yourselves? You have none but in the
course I have recommended. If it is necessary for the intemperate man to
write on every vessel containing ardent spirits, "Taste not, touch not,
handle not," and to brand them as full of the very wrath of God, it is
also necessary for the temperate man to do so, to save himself from
intemperance.

But the difficulty on this subject is to convince men of their
individual danger; that intemperance stands at their own doors, and is
knocking for an entrance into their own houses; that they and their
children are the victims that he seeks.

But if the places of the present generation of drunkards are to be
supplied, whence will the victims come but from your own children? And
who knows but that the infant the mother is now dandling upon her knee,
and pressing to her bosom, however lovely he may appear, however
respectable and elevated she is, will be selected to be one of that
degraded, and squalid, and filthy class that, in her old age, will walk
the streets as houseless, hopeless, and abandoned drunkards? You have no
security, no assurance.

But we are apt to think that the wretches whom we see and have described
were always so; that they were out of miserable and degraded families;
and that they are walking in the road in which they were born. But this
is not so. Among the number may be found a large proportion who were as
lovely in their infancy, as promising in their youth, and as useful in
early life, as your own children, and have become drunkards--I repeat
it, and never let it be forgotten--_have become drunkards by the
temperate, moderate, and habitual use of ardent spirits, just as you use
them now_. Were it not for this use of ardent spirits, we should not now
hear of drunken senators and drunken magistrates; of drunken lawyers and
drunken doctors; churches would not now be mourning over drunken
ministers and drunken members; parents would not be weeping over drunken
children, wives over drunken husbands, husbands over drunken wives, and
angels over a drunken world.

Then cease. No longer use th