into utter ruin. A large
proportion of the inmates of our madhouses are the victims of ardent
spirit. Our hospitals and poor-houses speak volumes of the ruin that
awaits the bodily powers of those who indulge in even moderate tippling.
It exposes the system to much greater ravages when disease attacks it.
The powers of nature are weakened, and less able to resist disease; and
medicines will never act so promptly and kindly upon those who are
accustomed to strong drink as upon those who are not.

But where is the _soul_, the disembodied spirit of a deceased drunkard?
"No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God," is the plain declaration
of sacred writ; and were there no such scriptural denunciation of the
wretched inebriate, the very nature of his case would render his
prospect dark and dismal. In the intervals of his cups, when his animal
powers are not goaded by artificial excitement, his distressed spirit
partakes of the horrible collapse of its polluted tenement, and can
contemplate no motive, however weighty, nor entertain any other thought,
be it ever so interesting, than how to relieve its present wretchedness.
When, then, can the unhappy man find peace with God amid this tumult of
his unbalanced faculties, this perturbation of his unholy passions? How
utterly unfitted to perform those duties which are requisite to secure a
blessed immortality?

Our FOURTH REASON for the disuse of alcoholic liquors is, that _any
thing short of entire abstinence exposes to all the dread consequences
just named_. Here is the grand hope of our cause. TOTAL ABSTINENCE
defies all danger and mocks at consequences. With it, we are safe;
without it, in peril.

No man was ever _born_ a drunkard; nor are we born with a natural taste
or thirst for alcoholic drinks, any more than we are born with an
appetite for aloes, assafoetida, or any other drug or medicine. And
the child when first taught to take it, is induced to do so only by
sweetening it, and thus rendering it palatable, as is the case with
other medicines. Neither is it, at any time, the taste or flavor of
alcohol, exclusively, that presents such charms for the use of it; but
in the effect upon the _stomach and nerves_ lie all the magic and
witchery of this destructive agent. In proof of this, watch the
trembling victim of strong drink while he pours down his morning or
mid-day dram, and see him retch and strangle like a sickened child at a
nauseous medicine. Ask him, too, and