What horrors of mind surprise the drunkard, when he makes his first morning yawn, on the bed, to which, like a corpse, a few hours before, he had been conveyed by bearers!

Before the clammy lips are freed from their adhesion; while, the furry, parched tongue within, jags like a file, and the blood-shot eyes are burning in their sockets, and the excited arteries are fiercely throbbing against the delirious head-while the foul stomach is heaving to disgorge its sickening load, and the whole body is in one general blaze of fever and trepidation; conscience takes the opportunity of smiting with loud and bitter accusation this tormented debauchee! it repre sents to him, as in one general group of action, confused thoughts, and dreadful apprehensions of what might have been his conduct at this season of ebriety.

To lull away, if possible, these sensations which distract his very soul, and flash to

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his bewildered recollection, words, and manners, disgraceful to his character and injuri ous to his interest; in vain does he attempt to smother them in rest: but the unrefreshing, sultry bed yields to him no balmy sleep! he therefore quits it—but scarcely has he courage to meet the light of day! Unconscious it may be, of all that he has done at this unguarded season, he yet knows enough, deeply to exercise his humility, his own reproach, and sorrow.

To the mercy of any report he may be thus exposed. Ashamed to appear before his friends, he is afraid to meet his enemies: and while the former are willing to excuse the fault; he may have sadly committed himself to the malice of the latter.

"O that men should put an enemy in their mouths, to steal away their brains! That we should with joy, revel, pleasure, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts.'

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Truly

Truly acquainted with the human heart was He, who thus admonishes mankind :— "Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright, at the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder."

Would any reasonable being, therefore, to gratify a present moment, subject himself to this legacy of mournful, perhaps irrecoverable ills? For besides the immediate mischiefs we have just enumerated, intoxication lays the foundation of the most serious and fatal diseases: by destroying the texture of the blood, it paves the way to dropsies and the endless tribe of nervous affections, it gives pulmonary complaints, palsies, gouts, apoplexies, and not unfrequently sudden death! Like the sword, intoxication has slain its thousands! It would require very little argument to prove, that water alone, with some few exceptions, is sufficient to answer all the pur poses of health and spirits; and it is well

worth

worth the observation, that animals who undergo the severest labour and fatigue, are amply succoured and invigorated by water only; which fluid seems to have been de signed as the principal and universal liquor of nature. The juice of the grape, in reasonable doses, was, no doubt, a very primitive drink; but the preparations of various ardent spirits, appear to have been, but of modern and degenerate invention. The greatest feats have been performed by the most sober men, and water-drinkers have been found to be the most prolific, cheerful, and courageous!

"If one were to prescribe," says a physical writer, "for the cowardizing of a nation, it should be the bowl of intemperance and a Dalilah's lap, which are charms to effeminate an hero, and metamorphose a lion into a timorous hare.

The most effeminate climes, by temperance alone, have produced the most heroic and magnani

magnanimous people, such as were the Persians, and likewise the Romans, before luxury and dissipation enervated their manners!

For accidental ebriety some few apologies may be offered. The different qualities of the same kind of liquor, may have very unexpected effects on different constitutions. In extenuation of the guilt of Noah, it has been observed, that he was unacquainted with the inebriating quality of fermentation in liquor. Hilarity and other circumstances of society, together with the variation of animal spirits, and the difference of seasons, may have occasionally betrayed into intoxication, even such, as deserve the name of sober men. On these, as on other occasions of accident; liberal and good minds are ready to put the fairest construction, and would rather conceal, than publish, such instances of human imperfection.

But