they really are, criminals, and will be viewed and treated as such for
ever.

There is another view in which the traffic in ardent spirit is
manifestly highly immoral. It exposes the children of those who use it,
in an eminent degree, to dissipation and crime. Of 690 children
prosecuted and imprisoned for crimes, more than 400 were from
intemperate families. Thus the venders of this liquor exert an influence
which tends strongly to ruin not only those who use it, but their
children; to render them far more liable to idleness, profligacy, and
ruin, than the children of those who do not use it; and through them to
extend these evils to others, and to perpetuate them to future
generations. This is a sin of which all who traffic in ardent spirit are
guilty. Often the deepest pang which a dying parent feels for his
children, is lest, through the instrumentality of such men, they should
be ruined. And is it not horrible wickedness for them, by exposing for
sale one of the chief causes of this ruin, to tempt them in the way to
death? If he who takes money from others without an equivalent, or
wickedly destroys property, is an immoral man, what is he who destroys
character, who corrupts children and youth, and exerts an influence to
extend and perpetuate immorality and crime through future generations?
This every vender of ardent spirit does; and if he continues in this
business with a knowledge of the subject, it marks him as an habitual
and persevering violater of the will of God.

3. Ardent spirit _impairs_, and often _destroys reason_. Of 781 maniacs
in different insane hospitals, 392, according to the testimony of their
own friends, were rendered maniacs by strong drink. And the physicians
who had the care of them gave it as their opinion, that this was the
case with many of the others. Those who have had extensive experience,
and the best opportunities for observation with regard to this malady,
have stated, that probably from one-half to three-fourths of the cases
of insanity, in many places, are occasioned in the same way. Ardent
spirit is a poison so diffusive and subtile that it is found, by actual
experiment, to penetrate even the brain.

Dr. Kirk, of Scotland, dissected a man a few hours after death who died
in a fit of intoxication; and from the lateral ventricles of the brain
he took a fluid distinctly visible to the smell as whiskey; and when he
applied a candle to it in a spoon, it took fire and burnt blue; "