gaged in this destructive
employment, are viewed and treated as wicked men; the work which the
Lord hath commenced and carried forward with a rapidity, and to an
extent hitherto unexampled in the history of the world, will continue to
move onward till not a name, nor a trace, nor a shadow of a drunkard,
or a drunkard-maker, shall be found on the globe.

PROFESSED CHRISTIAN--In the manufacture or sale of ardent spirit as a
drink, you do not, and you cannot honor God; but you do, and, so long as
you continue it, you will greatly dishonor Him. You exert an influence
which tends directly and strongly to ruin, for both worlds, your
fellow-men. Should you take a quantity of that poisonous liquid into
your closet, present it before the Lord, confess to him its nature and
effects, spread out before him what it has done and what it will do, and
attempt to ask him to bless you in extending its influence; it would,
unless your conscience is already seared as with a hot iron, appear to
you like blasphemy. You could no more do it than you could take the
instruments of gambling and attempt to ask God to bless you in extending
them through the community. And why not, if it is a lawful business? Why
not ask God to increase it, and make you an instrument in extending it
over the country, and perpetuating it to all future generations? Even
the worldly and profane man, when he hears about professing Christians
offering prayer to God that he would bless them in the manufacture or
sale of ardent spirit, involuntarily shrinks back and says, "That is too
bad." He can see that it is an abomination. And if it is too bad for a
professed Christian to pray about it, is it not too bad for him to
practise it? If you continue, under all the light which God in his
providence has furnished with regard to its hurtful nature and
destructive effects, to furnish ardent spirit as a drink for your
fellow-men, you will run the fearful hazard of losing your soul, and you
will exert an influence which powerfully tends to destroy the souls of
your fellow-men. Every time you furnish it you are rendering it less
likely that they will be illuminated, sanctified, and saved, and more
likely that they will continue in sin and go down to the chambers of
death.

It is always worse for a church-member to do an immoral act, and teach
an immoral sentiment, than for an immoral man, because it does greater
mischief. And this is understood, and often adverted to by the immor