CHAPTER III.

Fifth Epoch-Origin and cause of Appeals for Legislative Aid in favor of the Liquor Craft, to fortify the legal bulwark against encroachments, by the progress of the Temperance Reformation-The example of Appeals is followed by Petitions for legal aid to favor the cause of Temperance-Cause for such Appeals-Origin and character of the Liquor Law of the State of Maine-The general Community electrified by the promulgation of the Law of Maine, for and against it-Hundreds of thousands Petition for the Maine Law Statute in the State of New York-Thousands remonstrate against it, in New York City, for Twelve specific Reasons-Three of the Remonstrative Reasons analyzed and answered.

INTEMPERANCE is one of the most consummate works of Satan for human destruction. The destruction of this evil requires that alcoholic liquor, which produces the mischief, should, itself, be legally destroyed, as a deadly poison-a venomous serpent-a rabid mad dog, spreading hydrophobia, distraction, and death-or a wild bull among children, raving for their destruction! In such frightful invasions of human life, who would not rush to the encounter, and, with any efficient weapon of death, aim the direful blow, and kill the serpent, the dog, the bull, as animals under sentence of death by the common law of every community of human beings! Not less dangerous to human life is the poison of intoxicating liquors in daily use to drunkenness; and no less under the condemnation of destruction by the sentence of the common law of all lands on this globe of earth, is the portion of intoxicating

CERTAIN CURE OF INTEMPERANCE.

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poisonous beverages of daily use, which makes drunkards, and destroys them body and soul. All intoxicating liquors, the destroyers of mankind, must be destroyed, except for the necessary use of medicine and mechanical purposes.

This, evidently, is the doctrine and whole amount of the celebrated LIQUOR LAW of the State of Maine. A full conviction of the deficiency of the best concerted measures, the most pungent doctrines, forcible appeals, and alarming facts that could be presented by all the combined eloquence and powers of the practical science of moral suasion, to move liquor makers and traffickers to abandon their lucrative business of human destruction for the sake of GAIN; yes, a full conviction of all this, and much more, induced the Hon. Neal Dow, mayor of the city of Portland, in the State of Maine, to devise a statute law for the effectual arrest, seizure, and DESTRUCTION of all existing alcoholic liquors within the State of Maine (with legal exceptions for specified, necessary uses), under special fines and imprisonments, to be secured by bonds of indemnity for the faithful discharge of all legal requirements and prohibitions, by officers legally appointed to execute. the law of exceptions, and total abolition of all intoxicating liquors not excepted, but kept for use in the said State of Maine.

The legal practicability of this stringent law of Maine, since its legislative enactment, A. D. 1851, during the past year (to the composition of these historical reminis cences in February, 1852), as has been authentically certified, has been thoroughly tested; yes, the law of Maine

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OPPOSITION TO IT POWERLESS.

has been thoroughly tested, by an inviolable observance of its prohibitions and injunctions, in the face of all attempts of opposition throughout the whole State. And thus it stands, recommended as impregnable, to every power of opposition within the bounds of a State government, based on principles of moral virtue and independence, compatible with the revealed laws of Heaven, and comprised in the law of love to God and man. Mr. Dow, himself, has been heard to affirm, in the city of New York, that "Opposition to the Liquor Law of Maine by citizens of the State was powerless."

This, it is confessed, is a step in advance of any hitherto projected plan, for the effectual consummation of the Temperance Reform; and thus recommends itself to all good people in every State of the American Union, and to all other nations of the earth, whatever may be their religion and government. Irrespective of all relationship or adherence to any system of Bible religion or human government, the abstemious principles of temperance, in their most stringent form of security against drunkenness and its deleterious consequences, must be considered as indispensable to human purity, prosperity, and happiness, even on earth, and no less indispensable to preparation for an interminable residence in heaven.

The facts existing, connected with the legal enactment and practical enforcement of the Liquor Law of Maine, which have been extensively published, have already produced a greater degree of rational excitement in favor of the Temperance Reformation, on principles of total absti nence from all intoxicating liquors, than all other move

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ments in compound, since the first epoch of the Temperance Reformation. Scarcely a person is to be found, male or female, rich or poor, from the ripe Sabbath-school scholar to the gray-headed sire or matron, that has not sentimentally, if not practically, become identified, either for or against the principles and progress of the Temperance Reformation. A large portion of the citizens of New York, also of the inhabitants of the Empire State, and throughout the whole American Union, have become, to a greater or less degree, electrified by the power of truth, into the belief that the Temperance Reformation is of God, for the destruction of the curse of intemperance, and all its appendages of woes, degradation, and ruin of the bodies and souls of mankind. And it is believed that this pestilential evil must, and can be driven headlong from earth by the CIVIL POWER OF LEGISLATION, after the noble and pioneer example of the inflexible woodmen of the State of Maine, who first planned, next, trusted in God, then plied the convincing power of moral suasion, to move the question forward into their halls of legislation, by the humble petitions of independent freemen, praying their legislature to give them such a stringent law against the poison of all intoxicating beverages (with necessary exceptions), as would pour them into the bowels of the earth for their utter destruction, to save men's stomachs from alcoholic pestilential diseases! And thus they took hold, held on, and never let go, nor ceased the instrumentalities of moralsuasory petitional prayers, until their legislature, electrified with like convictions of their humble and inflexible petitioners, answered their prayers by a STATUTE (doubtless

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THE LIQUOR LAW OF MAINE.

recorded with Divine approbation upon the sacred registry of heaven), giving to the people the Liquor Law of Maine, A. D. 1851, as an EXAMPLE which, when universally followed, will as extensively drive the contagion of drunkenness from human existence. But the "cap of the climax" of the law of Maine is, the inviolable sustentation of the law by inflexible temperance advocates, who effectually resist, even to a punctilio, all attempts of its enemies to overthrow it, although their craft has suffered shipwreck by the legislative enactment. This sentence, however, must not be construed as an insulting triumph of victory over the fallen, for it was not so designed, but directly the reverse; i. e., as a sentimental fact of the modern Divine fulfillment of an ancient revealed purpose of the Supreme Ruler of the universe, to "destroy the works of the devil." And, surely, no greater blessing could come, even upon the whole combined monopolizers of the liquor craft, with all their fanciful anticipated advantages, than the providential total overthrow of their soul-destroying traffic, for the salvation of their own souls, and the souls of their children, as well as others. No class of mankind will, or can, be more benefited by the total annihilation of the liquor craft, than those who are most interested in the souldestroying business.

Hence the whole subject is hereby designed to be understood as comprised in the following sentimental theory: That the Temperance Reformation of this nineteenth century can be consummated only by a war of extermination. The moral evil of intemperance must be exterminated from the earth in preparation for the divinely foretold blessings