nding and perpetuating depravity in the world was not suggested by
the father of evil, until it was too late to make a formal law against
it in the Bible, or to fortify the argument of human depravity from this
source. It is neither in the Bible, nor in any other code of laws, the
custom to specify crimes which do not exist. How remarkable in a code of
laws would have been such a declaration as the trafficker demands, "Thou
shalt not deal in ardent spirits," hundreds of years before the article
was known. The world would have stood in amazement, and would have been
perplexed and confounded by an unmeaning statute. But further, it is not
the practice in the Bible, or in any other book of laws, to specify each
shade and degree of wrong. Had it been, there could have been no end of
legislation, and no end to books of law. I ask the dealer in ardent
spirits, where is there a formal prohibition of piracy, or bigamy, or
kidnapping, or suicide, or duelling, or the sale of obscene books and
paintings? And yet does any man doubt that these are immoral? Does he
believe that the Bible will countenance them? Will he engage in them,
because they are not specified formally, and with technical precision,
in the Scriptures? The truth is, that the Bible has laid down great
principles of conduct, which on all these subjects can be easily
applied, which _are_ applied, and which, under the guidance of equal
honesty, may be as easily applied to the traffic of which I am speaking.
Still further, the Bible _has_ forbidden it in principle, and with all
the precision which can be demanded. A man cannot pursue the business,
as has been shown, without violating its great principles. He cannot do
justly in it; he cannot show mercy by it; he cannot seek to alleviate
human woes by it; he cannot do as he would wish to be done unto; he
cannot pursue it to glorify God. The great principles of the Bible, the
spirit of the Bible, and a thousand texts of the Bible are pointed
against it; and every step the trafficker takes, he infringes on the
spirit and bearing of some declaration of God. And still further, it is
_his_ business to make out the propriety of the employment, not ours to
make out the case against him. Here is the rule--for him to judge. By
this he is to be tried; and unless he can find in the volume a rule that
will justify him in a business for gain that scatters inevitable woes
and death; that accomplishes more destruction than all the chario