Thus though the intemperate fly as if carried on the wings of thought, towards eternity, they vainly think they are standing still. Hence they are lavish of their time. They squander moments. Oh, what madness! to waste what worlds want wealth to purchase. Let men, if they will, sacrifice gold and lands and crowns and countries and empires. Let them trust their own temporal happiness or that of their nearest and dearest friends, to the mercy of the wild tornado. Let them barter the world for a toy, or throw it from them "as a thing of nought." These are but trifles, play-things of children, valueless compared with time. On the proper improvement of this, the whole bliss of eternity rests. Let not man then, in the madness of his folly, throw time away. It is a precious treasure, which when gone can never again be ours. Who would waste this most precious blessing for that useless, nay worse than useless article, spirituous liquors ?

VII. It destroys Respectability and Usefulness.

The too free use of ardent spirits destroys a man's respectability and influence in civil society. The wealth of a Croesus, the talents of an angel, the halo of glory which sparkled for a time round the head of Alexander the Great, could not make an intemperate man respectable. His influence is always of little or no moment. Who,

in any civilized community, looks up with reverence to an intemperate person? No matter what station he occupies, he is not respected as a friend, or, his favor courted as one who is beloved. The opinions of a drunkard are generally worthless. They are seldom or never followed. The wise and good take no pleasure in his company. They pity him. They pray for him. They feel that he has already entered the vortex of dissipation. He soon discovers the estimation in which he is held by the respectable part of the community. With conscious inferiority, he shrinks back from the presence of men of sterling worth. He finds a place in the society of those who have sunk deep as himself in degradation and infamy and ruin. The drunkard has even fallen so low that disgrace itself often despises him. Let those then and those only, who would hazard their respectability and. influence, sip occasionally that which certainly will injure and may destroy both in the estimation of every wise and good man.

Little that is useful is ever accomplished by the drunkard. He seldom thinks of attempting to accomplish a laudable undertaking. To get drunk, and storm and rave, or act the part of a simpleton, and then sleep himself sober again, is the chief aim of the drunkard. If he did no harm in society, he would then be but a useless drone.

Let every man who desires to be useful to his fellow-creatures, avoid the intoxicating bowl as he would the lowest depths of disgrace. An intemperate man cannot be useful, respectable or influential.

Tho'

VIII. It deteriorates Moral Feeling. Intemperance dries up the fountain of moral feeling in the breast of man. The intemperate person sees no excellence in social duties. loveliness might clothe them in its most delightful charms, he perceives not their beauty. He does not wish to increase the happiness of his fellow-beings. He delights not to see worldly prosperity throw its mantle over them. But he, both by precept and example, strives to lead old and young from the abodes of wealth, and of honour, and of usefulness, and of happiness, into those of poverty, and disgrace, and worthlessness, and misery. Intemperance has killed even his last wish to take a high, honorable stand among moral men. It has rendered him incapable of enjoying their society. It has destroyed his moral feeling. He does not perceive that even morality would raise him almost infinitely high above the level of the drunkard. Where is the person then that has a single spark of moral feeling to warm his heart, that will not exert his every power to prevent intemperance from destroying it in others? What

is man, when his moral feeling has, through the influence of intoxicating liquor, degenerated into childish weakness, or become beastly ferocious? Let all who would cultivate moral feeling avoid that curse of curses, ardent spirits.

IX. Intemperance is a Public Evil.

The intemperate man injures his country. Every reflecting person knows, that the drunkard, no less than others, is morally bound to promote good order, good morals, and social happiness: Because all, without exception, ought to do this. But alas! what good does the drunkard do his country? We ought rather to ask, who can properly estimate the evil which he does? He voluntarily unfits himself for the proper discharge of any duty. In time of peace, he robs his country of the talents, and influence, and industry, and morality, and religion, of a good citizen. He throws upon the community a worthless drone, that lives on the labors of industry. He stalks about like a moral pestilence, scattering his vile contagion with every breath. He is a walking plague, a living death. He caters for hell. He recruits for the devil. Oh! what a deadly damp does he breathe on his country, creating a poisonous influence, and scattering a moral and physical pestilence upon its shores!

And what is the drunkard worth in the hour of danger? Should war, with its fiend-like look, and "garments rolled in blood," appear in our land, and trumpet defiance to all resistance, who should we then find ready to make his breast his country's bulwark? He in whose just estimation liberty is valued “above all price,” would meet the invading foe, with a heart of brass and a nerve of steel. He would contend with the enemy every inch of ground. Where liberty stopped, there he would stand. Where liberty fell, there he would fall. Where liberty expired, there he would die. The destroyer of his country's liberty must march over his lifeless corpse, in order to take possession of what remained when liberty And can men, when engaged in a good cause, without distilled liquors, dash through the blood, and sweat, and dust, and confusion, and cries, and groans, and death, of the battle-day? Ask the soldier who fought at Trenton and bled at Princeton, with a heart warmed with patriotic love, while the frozen earth lacerated his unshod feet. He can tell; for he knows by experience. Ask McDonough and the gallant tars who stood by him under the star-spangled banner of liberty, when our little fleet, on the bosom of Champlain, made the British lion quail. They saw what sober men, with a cool, determined bravery, could achieve. But can we imagine that a drunkard,

was no more.