-your highest _honor_--thus to apply
them. And on the bed of death, in near prospect of the judgment, it will
surely be a melancholy reflection that, as regards the happiness of
mankind, your life has been an utter _blank_.

2. The business of distilling is not only useless, but _is the occasion
of many and great evils_. Recent examination has developed a number of
appalling facts, which few, if any, pretend to question. It is admitted
that the use of ardent spirit has been a tax on the population of our
country, of from _fifty to a hundred millions of dollars_ annually. It
is admitted that three-fourths of all the _crimes_ of the land result
from the use of intoxicating liquor. It is admitted that at least
three-fourths of all the sufferings of _poverty_ arise from the same
source. It is admitted that upwards of _thirty thousand_ of our citizens
have annually descended to the _drunkard's grave_. It is admitted, by
those who believe the Bible, that _drunkards shall not inherit eternal
life_, but must _have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and
brimstone_. In a word, it is admitted that health, fortune, social
happiness, intellect, conscience, heaven, are all swept away by the tide
of intemperance.

And now, what you are specially bound to ponder is, that this burning
tide, with all its desolations, flows from those very fountains _you_
have opened--the boiling flood can be perpetuated only by those fires
which _your_ hands kindle, and which it is your daily task to tend.

The position you occupy, then, is one of most fearful responsibility.
You are directly and peculiarly accessary to a degree of guilt and
misery which none but the infinite mind can comprehend. I hear for you a
loud remonstrance from every court of justice, from every prison of
collected crime, from every chamber of debasement, and from every
graveyard, as well as from the dark world of despair. I hear the cries
of unnumbered mothers, and widows, and orphans, all with one voice
imploring you to extinguish those fires, to dry up those fountains, and
to abandon an occupation pregnant with infamy, and death, and perdition.

3. The business of distilling _destroys, to a great extent, the bounties
of Providence_. Many of the substances converted into ardent spirit are
indispensable to the comfort of man--some of them the very staff of
life. But the work of distillation not only destroys them as articles of
food, but actually converts them to p