all the
ministers of woe which attend in the train of intemperance, rests
ultimately with you. You compose the muscle and sinew of this nation.
You are to set the example by which the next generation is to be
influenced. By your influence its character will be formed. By your
stand its position will, in a great measure, be determined. You are soon
to supplant those who have passed the state of life which you now are
occupying. Soon the generation that is to grow up under the influence of
your example and instruction, will have reached your place. Thus are you
the heart of the nation. Corruption and debasement here must be felt to
the extremities of the national body. Temperance here will eventually
expel, by its strong pulsations, the last remnant of the burning blood
of drunkenness from the system, and carry soberness and health to every
member of our political constitution.

Are these things so? Suppose them exaggerations. Grant that the
importance of your vigorous and unanimous cooperation in this work of
reformation is unreasonably magnified; still, how much can you do. Were
our coasts invaded by a powerful enemy, come to ravage our cities, chain
our liberties, poison our fountains, burn our harvests, and carry off
our youth into perpetual slavery, what could young men do? To whom would
the trump of battle be sounded so effectually? Who else would feel upon
themselves the chief responsibility for their country's rescue? What
excuse could they find for supineness and sloth? Such indeed is the
enemy by which the country is already desolated. And now it is to the
warm hearts, and the strong hands, and the active energies, and the
powerful example of young men, that the dearest interests of the nation
look for deliverance.

Young men, shall we not enlist heartily and unitedly in promoting the
extermination of intemperance? What question have we to decide? Is it a
question whether the country is cursed with this plague to a most
horrible and alarming extent? No. Is it a question whether the present
power and the progressive character of intemperance among us demand an
_immediate_ rising up of all the moral force of the nation to subdue it?
No. Is it a question whether the most important part of the strength and
success of such an effort depends upon the part in it which the young
men in the United States shall take? No. Then what does the spirit of
patriotism say to us? If we love our country; if we would rise in arms