egard wind nor rain, heat nor cold, when business
is in the way."

Those men in Europe who are trained for boxing-matches would require
spirits if they were necessary for giving bodily strength and health,
since the object of this training is to produce the most perfect health,
and the greatest possible strength. But ardent spirits are not used by
them at all; and even wine is scarcely allowed.

In protracted watching by the bed of sickness, food and intervals of
rest are the only real securities against disease and weakness. Spirits
peculiarly expose a man to receive the disease, if it be contagious, and
if not, they wear out the strength sooner than it would otherwise fail.

The most exposed and trying situations in life, then, need not the aid
of ardent spirits; nay, they are in such cases decidedly injurious. They
are not, therefore, necessary, but injurious for men in all other
situations. The distiller must, therefore, give up the necessity of
using them in the community as a reason for continuing their
manufacture.

But spirits, it may be said, do certainly inspire a man with much
additional strength. Yes; and physicians tell us how. It is by exciting
the nervous system, and thus calling into more vigorous action the
strength that God has given the constitution to enable it to resist
heat, cold, and disease. If this strength do not previously exist in the
system, spirits can never bestow it; for they do not afford the least
nourishment, as food does. They merely call into action the stock of
strength which food has already implanted is the body. Hence the
debility and weakness which always succeed their use when the excitement
has passed by. Hence, too, it follows, that spirits can never give any
additional permanent strength to the body.

But this is not all; for physicians infer from this statement, that the
use of spirits, even in moderate quantities, tends prematurely to
exhaust and wear out the system. It urges on the powers of life faster
than health requires, and thus wears them out sooner, by a useless waste
of strength and spirits. True, a moderate drinker may not notice any
striking bad effects upon his health, from this cause, for many years;
nay, the excitement it produces may remove, for the time being, many
uncomfortable feelings which he experiences, and which are the early
warnings that nature gives him that she is oppressed, for the secret
poison is at work within; and if such a man is attac