e our neighbor as ourselves. A sufficient proof of this would
be a fact which no one could deny, that no man yet, probably, ever
undertook the business, or pursued it from that motive. Its defence is
not, and cannot be put on that ground. No man in the community believes
that a continuance in it is required by a regard to the welfare of his
neighbor. Every one knows that his welfare does not require it; and that
it would be conferring an inestimable blessing on other men, if the
traffic was abandoned. The single, sole object is gain; and the sole
question is, whether the love of gain is a sufficient motive for
continuing that which works no good, but constant ill to your neighbor.

There is another law of God which has an important bearing on this
subject. It is that golden rule of the New Testament, which commends
itself to the conscience of all men, to do to others as you would wish
them to do to you. You may easily conceive of your having a son, who was
in danger of becoming a drunkard. Your hope might centre in him. He
might be the stay of your age. He may be inclined to dissipation; and it
may have required all your vigilance, and prayers, and tears, and
authority, to keep him in the ways of soberness. The simple question now
is, what would you wish a neighbor to do in such a case? Would it be the
desire of your heart, that he should open a fountain of poison at your
next door; that he should, for gain, be willing to put a cup into the
hands of your son, and entice him to the ways of intemperance? Would you
be pleased if he would listen to no remonstrance of yours, if he should
even disregard your entreaties and your tears, and coolly see, for the
love of gold, ruin coming into your family, and your prop taken from
beneath you, and your gray hairs coming down with sorrow to the grave?
And yet to many such a son may you sell the poison; to many a father
whose children are clothed in rags; to many a man whose wife sits
weeping amidst poverty and want, and dreading to hear the tread and the
voice of the husband of her youth, once her protector, who now comes to
convert his own habitation into a hell. And there are not a few men of
fair standing in society who are engaged in this; and not a few--O tell
it not in Gath--who claim the honored name of Christian, and who profess
to bear the image of Him who went about doing good. Can such be a
_moral_ business?

6. The traffic is _a violation of that law which requires a ma