The Cold-Water-Man; Or, a Pocket Companion for the Temperate

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1832 Excerpt: ... XIV. All feel its Evils. We have all, either directly or indirectly, felt, in our own persons, the evil of using ardent spirits. There is not, perhaps, a single family in the United States, which has not, or does not, numher, in some of its hranches, one drunkard, it may be many. The national disgrace which it produces, its demoralizing influence on society, what it adds to the amount of our taxes, its withering influence on the community, are some of the ways in which the use of spirituous liquors indirectly injures all. There are very few individuals who have not, in some degree, been injured by using it themselves. And who has never been disgusted by the sight of a drunkard? An evil which we all feel or have felt, we all ought to attempt to remedy. Who can say that not one of his relations has ever disgraced himself and his friends by intoxication? What a merciless, destructive monster, that must be, from whose horrid fangs, no family, and scarcely an individual, has wholly escaped! Let all then who have felt the disgraceful influence of intemperance, refuse to taste the drunkard's cup. Who can, for a moment, reflect on the evils of intemperance and then say: " The drunkard h jures none but himself; that he is only his own enemy?" He injures all. He is an enemy of all. He is death to the temporal happiness of many. He murders his own soul. Reader, what is that in your hand? Is it the drunkard's bowl?--Does it contain the inebriate's disgusting potion? Is it filled with voluntary delirium? Is that madness which sparkles on its surface? Then throw it from your hand. It will wither, it will kill your joys in time. It will poison your soul; for it is filled with the venom of eternal death. Will you then, can you drink that cup? Can you throw a blighting mora...