t down
together at the same communion-table?

We must not return home without calling at the next miserable hovel,
where the widow of a drunkard, with half a dozen ragged, squalid
children, is dragging out a miserable existence. Hark, she is reading
the Bible. Did you hear that stifled groan, as she read in that holy
book, _Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor
drunkards, shall inherit the kingdom of God_.

MYSELF. I believe I have not seen you, madam, since the death of your
husband. I hope you find support.

WIDOW. Oh, sir, resignation is easy if we feel a confidence, or even a
feeble hope, that our friends who are taken away will escape the agonies
of a second death. But how can we hope against the express declarations
of the word of God?

DISTILLER. And yet, madam, your husband had many excellent qualities.

WIDOW. And he would still have lived to bless me and the world by their
exhibition, had it not been for your distillery.

DISTILLER. I have no idea of sitting in judgment upon our departed
friends, and sending them to hell because they had a few failings.

WIDOW. Ah, sir, if my husband has gone there, it was your distillery
that sent him. Before that was built no man was more kind, temperate,
and happy. But you persuaded him to labor there, and paid him in
whiskey, and it ruined him, and ruined us all. Look at me--look at these
children, without food, without raiment, without fire, without friends,
except their Friend in heaven. I do not ask you to bestow upon us any
articles for the supply of our temporal necessities; but look at us, and
be entreated to tear down your distillery, so that you may not multiply
upon you the execrations of the widow and the orphan, wrung from them by
the extremity of their sufferings.

Gentlemen, let me exhort you to take such a tour of observation as this
once a month. Oh, I entreat every one in the land, who has any concern
in the manufacture of ardent spirits, to do the same; and ere long, I am
persuaded, you would either abandon every claim to humanity, or abandon
for ever your pernicious employment.

In the fifth place, I advise and forewarn these men _as their personal
friend_. If you distil ardent spirits, or furnish the materials, you
must use them yourselves and allow of their use in your families;
otherwise your inconsistency, not to say dishonesty, would subject you
to universal contempt. Now, to have your children familiar with the
sling, t