lcohol and water, in nearly equal
proportions. Alcohol is composed of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen, in the
proportion of about fourteen, fifty-two, and thirty-four parts to the
hundred. It is, in its nature, as manifested by its effects, a _poison_.
When taken in any quantity it disturbs healthy action in the human
system, and in large doses suddenly destroys life. It resembles opium in
its nature, and arsenic in its effects. And though when mixed with
water, as in ardent spirit, its evils are somewhat modified, they are by
no means prevented. Ardent spirit is an enemy to the human constitution,
and cannot be used as a drink without injury. Its ultimate tendency
invariably is, to produce weakness, not strength; sickness, not health;
death, not life.

Consequently, to use it is an immorality. It is a violation of the will
of God, and a sin in magnitude equal to all the evils, temporal and
eternal, which flow from it. Nor can the furnishing of ardent spirit for
the use of others be accounted a less sin, inasmuch as this tends to
produce evils greater than for an individual merely to drink it. And if
a man knows, or has the opportunity of knowing, the nature and effects
of the traffic in this article, and yet continues to be engaged in it,
he may justly be regarded as an immoral man; and for the following
reasons, viz.

Ardent spirit, as a drink, is _not needful_. All men lived without it,
and all the business of the world was conducted without it, for
thousands of years. It is not three hundred years since it began to be
generally used as a drink in Great Britain, nor one hundred years since
it became common in America. Of course it is not needful.

It is _not useful_. Those who do not use it are, other things being
equal, in all respects better than those who do. Nor does the fact that
persons have used it with more or less frequency, in a greater or
smaller quantity, for a longer or shorter time, render it either
needful, or useful, or harmless, or right for them to continue to use
it. More than a million of persons in this country, and multitudes in
other countries, who once did use it, and thought it needful, have,
within five years, ceased to use it, and they have found that they are
in all respects better without it. And this number is so great, of all
ages, and conditions, and employments, as to render it certain, should
the experiment be fairly made, that this would be the case with all. Of
course, ardent spiri