live without destroying them? Is land so scarce, or so eaten
up with tithes and taxes, that he cannot thence derive subsistence
unless he converts its products into money at the expense of others'
comfort, reputation, and life? Is every honest calling so crowded, or so
unproductive, that every avenue is closed? Have the men who make this
plea tried, even for a single year, to live without the manufacture of
spirits? It may be, indeed, that for a time they will find other
pursuits less productive than this. And is not this, after all, the true
reason why they shrink from the sacrifice? But if superior profits be a
sufficient reason for continuing distillation, it is a reason that will
justify the robber, the thief, and every other depredator upon the
rights of others.

But how does it appear that the stoppage of all the distilleries in the
land will reduce the price of cider and rye? Their operation has
produced a great demand for these articles, and that demand has thrown
into the market an immense supply: the consequence is, that the prices
are reduced as low as the articles can be afforded, at a very moderate
profit, and the great complaint now among farmers is, that they are so
low. Let the distilleries cease to exist, and the special demand for
these articles will cease; and consequently the market will not be
glutted with them, because no extra efforts will be made to raise them:
the result will probably be, that in a very short time their price will
be very nearly or quite as high as it now is.

But even if we suppose the worst, that the distiller and some farmers
should be reduced to absolute beggary by the cessation of this
manufacture; no reasonable, or patriotic, or Christian man can for a
moment regard this as a reason why he should continue in any business
that is productive of immense mischief to his country. Is it not better
that he and his family should come to want, than that hundreds of
thousands should be ruined, soul and body, for time and eternity? If he
has a right to derive his subsistence from the ruin of others, then
others, as the thief, the swindler, and the robber, have a right to
obtain their subsistence from his ruin.

In the fourth place, I appeal to these men _as a neighbor and a parent,
and in behalf of the drunkard's wife and children_. When Providence cast
our lot in the same neighborhood, I considered, and doubtless you
thought the same, that a regard to our mutual welfare bound us t