and dearest friends. His mother overcome with grief, sunk into the grave. His father brokenhearted, was soon laid by her side in the cold embrace of death. His sister without a home, entered this rude unfriendly world, to contend alone with the bitter blasts of adversity. Over his wife, distress threw its thickest veil of wretchedness. The cold blank of desolation rested upon her soul. Happiness fled from her dwelling. Poverty soon became her constant companion. Her speaking eye, as it languished in silent, hopeless, uninterrupted sadness, told, in the eloquence of the heart, the tale of her anguish.

She loved the wretch and therefore mourned his absence. She dreaded his return; for his warm affections had degenerated into coldness, his coldness into indifference, his indifference into neglect, his neglect into disgust, and this he frequently manifested by personal abuse. He had murdered his time, squandered his property, thrown away his reputation, and banished every kind feeling from his heart. And yet notwithstanding all his unfeelingness and brutality, her affections were all his own. No redeeming trait was found in his character, because he was a drunkard. His children were growing up in idleness, and ignorance, and irreligion, because their father was a drunkard. His wife soon had no home, because her husband was a drunkard. Happiness here

he had none, for he was a drunkard.

The last

of his hopes of heaven had vanished, for he was a drunkard. He sickened. The physician could give him no relief, for the patient was a drunkard. He died, and left the world as he had lived, a drunkard. His body filled a drunkard's grave. His soul entered upon the drunkard's eternity.

His wife and children must now meet the scorn of an unfeeling world. His widow without a home and pinched with want, was thrown upon the charity of an uncharitable world. All the anguish that a heart can feel, she felt. The earth to her was but a dreary wilderness. At every step she saw its frown or felt its sneer. Every inch of her pathway to the tomb, was thick beset with thorns. Her anxiety and distress were indescribable. Her children- -but here the heart sickens. We must cease to describe. None but a mother can tell what a mother feels for her children in distress. Our tongue cannot tell, our imagination cannot paint what she felt for her children. She lived a while in nameless anguish, then died a broken-hearted mother. Her children, for a time distressed and alone, were at length scattered through the world. Then mingling with the tide of population, they soon disappeared.

Thus perished the drunkard's very name on earth. O! what a hateful, withering, deadly

curse does intemperance throw on domestic happiness! How it breathes a happiness-killing pestilence wherever it comes! The very atmosphere in which the drunkard moves is tainted with moral death. Where then is the man whose heart is not callous to every tender feeling, that will deliberately taste this horrid cup, or assist, in any manner or degree, to make his neighbor a drunkard? Who that has the least regard for his fellow beings, would be willing to be instrumental in destroying the social happiness of one family, not to say of hundreds? Where is the female who will not do something to snatch her sex from such misery, wretchedness and wo, as intemperate fathers or husbands or brothers inevitably bring upon them? Where is the moderate drinker that will not, in order to dry up this source of domestic misery, dash the cup from his lips, fully determined never to drink again another drop of this alcoholic poison? Reader, will you ever again assist in destroying the happiness of the domestic circle, by making or vending or using ardent spirits?

XIII. It kills the Soul.

Intemperance destroys the soul. It is a very Samiel to all happiness. It puts an extinguisher on every rational hope of bliss in the world to come. The holy example of others makes no

good impression on the drunkard.

Its irresisti

ble eloquence does not change the bent of his mind, or make him act according to the laws of God. The "gospel, in accents sweeter than angels use, whispers peace." Its language ought to carry rapture to every soul. But it charms not the drunkard. In his behalf the prayers of saints enter continually the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. But he prays not for himself. His supplicating voice ascends not to a throne of grace. Instead of praying, he staggers down to hell over all the obstructions which an indulgent, a merciful God has placed in the downward road. Presently he steps over the verge of time into the bottomless pit, there to spend the drunkard's eternity. For he who cannot lie has said, "The drunkard shall not inherit the kingdom of God.". For a cup of death, he has sold eternal life. For an earthly hell, he has bartered heaven. For the stupifying wretchedness of getting drunk, he has exchanged unending bliss in the world above. For the sake of poverty, and misery, and disgrace, and contempt, and remorse, and sickness, and premature death, he has plunged his naked soul into everlasting burnings. For the degrading, baneful, desperate society of drunkards, and for the sake of wallowing with them in every kind of filthiness, he has leaped into the jaws of undying death. To obtain all that was pitiful, and despi

E

cable, and vile on earth, he has rushed into the fearful abodes of the damned, there to spend an unending existence, a never ending life of living Wo. Who that knows the value of the soul, will exchange it for the heart freezing misery which the intemperate bring upon themselves, and which they scatter all around them? Who that feels for the souls of men or desires their salvation, will deliberately assist to make them drunk? Who that does not absolutely desire their eternal misery, will, for any price, or on any consideration, furnish men spirituous liquors, since the drunkard's soul must sink down forever in unavailing wo? Who dares, in his presumption, throw an immortal soul into hell? If none dare, then let none deal out liquid damnation, in the form of ardent spirits, to his neighbor. For by doing this, the dealer in this liquid fire, bars the gates of heaven, and entices his neighbor into the gulf of perdition. Who is prepared thus to kill the soul of his fellow man? Who would be willing to people hell with drunkards? Who? No one but him whose heart is steeled against every fine feeling of human nature. O! the soul that never dies! It is too precious, too valuable to be sold for rum. Reader, if you value your soul's immortal interest, dash the cup of death untasted, from your lips.