Ardent Spirits:

"Who has not observed the extreme satisfaction which children derive
from quenching their thirst with pure water? And who that has perverted
his appetite for drink, by stimulating his palate with bitter beer, sour
cider, rum and water, and other beverages of human invention, but would
be a gainer, even on the score of mere animal gratification, without any
reference to health, if he could bring back his vitiated taste to the
simple relish of nature?

"Children drink because they are dry. Grown people drink, whether dry or
not, because they have discovered a way of making drink pleasant.
Children drink water because this is a beverage of nature's own brewing,
which she has made for the purpose of quenching a natural thirst. Grown
people drink anything but water, because this fluid is intended to
quench only a natural thirst; and natural thirst is a thing which they
seldom feel."

There is a great deal of truth, as well as of sound philosophy, in these
two paragraphs, and little less of truth in the following paragraph from
Dr. Dewees:

"We have witnessed very often, with sorrow, parents giving to their
young children wine, or other stimulating liquors. Nature never intended
anything stronger than water to be the drink for children. This they
enjoy greatly; and much advantage is occasionally experienced from its
use, especially after they have commenced the use of animal food."

Two things are to be observed in the last remarks, which are, that
children demand drink of any kind but seldom, and that even this
occasional demand is often the special result of the use of animal food.
Here comes out an important secret. It is the use of animal food, to a
very great degree, in adults and children both, that creates so much of
that unnatural thirst which prevails in the community. When we shall
come to lay aside animal food, in childhood, youth, manhood and age,
much that is now _called_ thirst will be banished; and much of the
intemperance and other kinds of sensuality which follow in its train.

It has been sometimes said that there is but one kind of drink in the
world--and that is water. This is strictly, or rather _physiologically_
true. For, though many mixtures are _called_ drinks, it is only the
water which they contain that answers any of the legitimate purposes for
which drink was intended by the Creator.

The object of drink, besides quenching our thirst, or rather _while_ it
quenches it, is,