and peaceful? Does not every man become less so after drinking ardent spirits? To have a large number of men then refuse to use this article, cannot be dangerous. If societies are good, and are promoting a good cause by proper means, then the larger they are the better; but if bad, the smaller the better. The temperance society is a good one, and therefore the larger it becomes the more useful it will be to the community. The society of drunkards, or that of moderate drinkers, is bad. Each of these is yet very large. Forsake that to which you belong. The larger it is the more evil it will do. Diminish its number by one. Escape from the society of those who touch the cup of death.

3. "To join a temperance society," says another pseudo-republican, "will destroy our liberty." When we look at a cold-water-man, we cannot discover that he is a slave to any thing, no not even to the bottle. He maintains that liberty consists in having the privilege of doing right. It is right to join a temperance society. He has liberty to do so. He exercises that liberty. And who ever heard that to enjoy or exercise liberty in a proper manner, is to destroy or impair it? Since liberty consists in having the privilege of doing right, and since to exercise that privilege is to enjoy liberty, those who join the temperance society, thus exercising their privilege of doing

right, increase their enjoyment of liberty. He who has the privilege of doing good, but does not improve it, does not enjoy his liberty. He does not exercise it. He who will not do good when he has an opportunity, does not, in relation to that action, enjoy liberty. But it sounds rather odd to hear a man who is such a slave to his cups, that he cannot forsake them without reluctance even for the luxury of doing good, talking of liberty, a liberty to do wrong. This is the same kind of liberty that the thief before he is detected, enjoys. The privilege of doing wrong is that kind of bastard liberty which no honest man desires. To drink ardent spirits is wrong. The privilege of doing so then is not liberty any more than the privilege of stealing is liberty. To be bound to do right increases our liberty. The more powerful such an obligation is, the more is our liberty increased. The servant of Christ who is bound to him by the strongest possible obligations of law, love and gratitude, is the free son of the living God. He enjoys the liberty of an adopted child. He therefore who pledges himself to do right by joining a temperance society, enjoys more liberty than the person who refuses to become a member that he may have the privilege of doing wrong by drinking a little ardent spirits while in health. It is liberty to join a temperance society. It is slavery, at least in a degree, not to join.

Come forward then. Act like freemen. Enjoy your liberty. Use it in doing good. Join a temperance society.

VIII. Of Professors of Religion.

1. The professor of religion who loves to take a glass occasionally, says, "Our church is a temperance society." We hope this assertion is made. through ignorance, because it is not true. church by its discipline, enjoins entire abstinence from ardent spirits on its members. Every deno

No

mination which does or does not call itself Christian, allows its members to use a little of this article. No association of men, except the temperance society, excludes from its fellowship, a member for tasting ardent spirits as a beverage. No church countenances drunkenness, or as some churches express it, the "unnecessary use of spirituous liquors." All churches discipline members for intoxication, but none of them for the moderate use of ardent spirits. Hence there are members of high standing in all churches, who do publicly and openly, and without fear of church censure, drink rum moderately. Whether churches do right or wrong, in not excluding wholly from their pale, such a deadly evil, is not our province to determine. Nor do we wish to censure churches, or church members, or church officers. Let infidels do this. It is their peculiar province. The father.

of mercies uses them as a rod to chastise his children, when chastisement will promote their growth in grace. But we do state the fact, that there is no denomination of Christians on earth, which in its creed adopts the principles of entire abstinence.

2. "It is a good creature of God," is the reason why some professors of religion, say it ought to be or at least may be used as a drink. This objection is tortured from what Omniscience has declared in the scriptures of truth. The language of inspiration is this: "Some shall depart from the faith commanding to abstain from meats which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving." Now to say nothing of the blasphemous spectacle a drunkard would make, kneeling over a jug or barrel or hogshead of rum, thanking God for it, we would ask what kind of meat is distilled liquor? No one who reads this passage of scripture with care, can for a moment hesitate to believe that the phrases "every good creature of God" and "meats which God hath created," are synonymous. Those therefore who say that ardent spirits are included in the expression "every good creature of God," affirm that this liquor is a kind of meat. The truth is, this

article is no where in scripture called a good creature of God. It is, in fact, one of the exceedingly pernicious inventions of wicked men. Let none then taste it under the mistaken apprehension that it is a good creature of God.

3. Some who love to drink a little, but who wish to roll the sin which they thus commit from their own souls, and find a quietus for their consciences, put on a solemn look and gravely tell us, that "the Bible favors drinking a little." Though the Bible absolutely condemns all sin of every description and in every degree, there are men who would willingly father one half or more of their sins on this holy book. But where, we would ask, does the Bible countenance drinking ardent spirits in any quantity? Where does it inform us that we may use, while in health, a little distilled liquor? Is there a single passage in the whole word of God, in which we are told that we may do what will injure ourselves and others a little? It commands us to "cease to do evil; and learn to do well;" and therefore to abstain entirely from the evil practice of using ardent spirits. It directs us to "love one another," and informs us that "love worketh no ill to his neighbor." We must not therefore use ardent spirits as a drink; for if we do we injure our neighbor by our example. Where shall we find in that book which every where requires what is good