mind. O, how black the catalogue! What a fearful list of all that is horribly disgusting and base! Has crime to you lost its odiousness? If not, why hesitate to strike out of existence that which multiplies it to such an alarming extent? Why should you blush to dry up one of the sources of crime, by becoming a consistent member of the temperance society? Are you an ambassador for the Prince of Peace? Intemperance, like a sea of sin, has rolled its mountain waves over the world. Holiness has fled before it, and taken shelter in its sanctuary, the pious heart. Wherever this monster lives, true religion dies. You love holiness, and desire to see the cause of true religion flourish.-You are anxious to promote the glory of the great Jehovah on earth. Then practise uninterrupted, eternal opposition to intemperance in all its degrees and forms; then join a temperance society. Professional men, you have great influence in civil society. Your learning and talents and other estimable qualities, entitle you to respect.Your opinions are noted and reverenced. Your responsibilty is therefore very great. You are all, most solemnly bound to use your influence, in promoting the glory of God and the best good of man. Will you do so by subscribing a pledge of entire abstinence? XIII. To Professors of Religion. Every person both by precept and example, favors entire abstinence from the ordinary use of ardent spirits, or he countenances drunkenness. Professor of religion, which cause do you promote, that of entire abstinence or that of drunkenness? Neutral you cannot be. Are you a cold-water-man, or do you drink a little? When you came out from the world and were received into the church of Christ, you declared your willingness to be "prepared unto every good work." Here is a good work; a work which hides a multitude of sins and prevents multitudes more. Are you prepared to engage in promoting it; or are you ready to say, that you have become weary in well-doing?" If you are not weary of doing good, why hesitate to give your name in order to promote the cause of temperance which you know to be good? If you are distilling or vending the article, you know you are manufacturing drunkards, and are therefore living habitually in the commission of á known, wilful, atrocious sin. Who can believe that the man who knowingly destroys his neighbor's soul, is a true christian? Give up your soul-killing trade, or give up your professsion of that religion which requires you to "do good to all." You cannot now plead ignorance on this subject. You know that all you make and sell injures the consumer. You know that you seldom or never furnish it for medicine. As you value the cause of Christ, relinquish this nefarious business in which you are engaged, or relinquish your profession of religion. Do not wrap the cloak of religion round a heart which is so attached to "filthy lucre," that for its sake it would suffer you to destroy an immortal soul in hell. A religion that will suffer its professor to act thus habitually, with his eyes open, cannot be christanity. If you are yet ignorant on this subject, you have closed the eyes of your understanding against the light of truth which, in its meridian splendor has been shining around you. Doing this cannot justify you. But you are not ignorant of the evil. This is impossible. A sight of the drunkard has told you, in language which you cannot misunderstand, that the business of distilling or vending ardent spirits is destroying your fellow creatures for time and eternity.You are doing this. Others are doing it. Every man who distils, or sells, or drinks ardent spirits is doing it. All such persons know they are doing this. They all encourage each other in their vicious practice, that of dealing in or using distilled liquor. They all encourage the drunkard to drink. They will all for his money, give him the poison, at least when he is sober. - Professor of religion, will you knowingly and deliberately destroy, for this world and the world to come, your fellow-man, and yet pretend that you love him? O, let conscience answer. Will you throw your neighbor into hell for a shilling, and then say you love him? What shameless depravity! How can the professed follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, harden his heart against the tears of the mother and the cries of the worse than orphaned children, while he turns the husband and the father into a demon; and to pay him for doing so, often takes the last morsel of bread from their table and leaves them to beg or starve? Will you again repeat this crime by making your neighbor drunk? Will you sell him what you know will injure him? Will you by drinking, encourage the degrading vice of drunkenness? Will you not join a temperance society and thus do all in your power to discountenance the ordinary use of intoxicating liquors? If you will not forsake this abominable traffic, if you will not lay aside the drunkard's cup, how can you believe that yours is the spirit of Christ ?— For the sake of that religion which you profess, do be entreated to forsake your injurious business, and the pernicious custom of moderate drinking. . XIV. To the Ladies. In conclusion, I must say one word to those who exercise such a sweet, mild, heavenly, and therefore irresistible influence over mankind. Ladies, we are engaged in a glorious warfare. It is one of extermination. We give no quarter.We ask none. Our enemy is intemperance; that is, any use of ardent spirits as a drink. Our weapons are smiles, and tears, and persuasion, and entreaty. Our field of battle is the world.The particular post which we occupy is our own country. Our strong hold is our own neighborhood. Will you engage for us, or for our enemy? There is no neutrality in this warfare. You either drink no ardent spirits or you drink a little, a very little. If you drink none, you are for us; if you drink any you are against us. If you are with us with all your heart, then the victory is ours. Your influence is great, it is powerful, it is irresistible, and will remain so till every man on earth becomes a Türk, a pagan or a drunkard. All the men in the universe combined cannot resist your influence. If you are in favor of our enemy, we cannot succeed. We must eventually give up the contest. We cannot if we would, resist your influence; and we would not if we could. We would only enlist it in favor of that cause which is now spreading the mantle of comfort over the world. |