ntented with that portion of animal enjoyment which the proper
gratification of the appetites and passions which God has given him will
afford, but forms an appetite for ardent spirit, or continues to gratify
it after it is formed, does not do. In this respect, if he understands
the nature and effects of his actions, he prefers his own will to the
known will of God, and is ripening to hear, from the lips of his Judge,
"Those mine enemies, that would not that I should _reign_ over them,
bring them hither and slay them before me." And the men who traffic in
this article, or furnish it as a drink for others, are tempting them to
sin, and thus uniting their influence with that of the devil for ever to
ruin them. This is an aggravated immorality, and the men who continue to
do it are immoral men.

2. The use of ardent spirit, to which the traffic is accessory, causes a
great and wicked _waste of property_. All that the users pay for this
article is to them lost, and worse than lost. Should the whole which
they use sink into the earth, or mingle with the ocean, it would be
better for them, and better for the community, than for them to drink
it. All which it takes to support the paupers, and prosecute the crimes
which ardent spirit occasions, is, to those who pay the money, utterly
lost. All the diminution of profitable labor which it occasions, through
improvidence, idleness, dissipation, intemperance, sickness, insanity,
and premature deaths, is to the community so much utterly lost. And
these items, as has often been shown, amount in the United States to
more than $100,000,000 a year. To this enormous and wicked waste of
property, those who traffic in the article are knowingly accessory.

A portion of what is thus lost by others, they obtain themselves; but
without rendering to others any valuable equivalent. This renders their
business palpably unjust; as really so as if they should obtain that
money by gambling; and it is as really immoral. It is also unjust in
another respect: it burdens the community with taxes both for the
support of pauperism, and for the prosecution of crimes, and without
rendering to that community any adequate compensation. These taxes, as
shown by facts, are four times as great as they would be if there were
no sellers of ardent spirit. All the profits, with the exception perhaps
of a mere pittance which he pays for license, the seller puts into his
own pocket, while the burdens are thrown upon t