I not have the profits as well as another?" So the highway robber and the murderer may say: "Somebody will commit the crime, and why may I not have the profits as well as another?" Because if you do you will be a robber or a murderer like the others. The money that you gain by doing wrong will be a curse to you. The wages of sin, as are those made by the sale of alcohol to be used as a beverage, will "at the last," like alcohol itself, "bite like a serpent, and sting like an adder." It is a business dangerous to those who pursue it, as well as to others. Within the last twenty years, in one county two hundred and ten persons have been licensed to sell intoxicating drinks. After a thorough investigation, it has been found that two hundred have not increased their property; that a hundred and eighty have lost the whole or a part of the property with which they commenced business; one hundred and fifty have become drunkards, and very many of their children. Thus the traffic destroys many who pursue it, as well as others. It is a business which the Lord hath cursed.

(4.) But says another, "I have a license. I can point to the law that gives me this right." Suppose you can; does that sanction and justify the wrong? Will that alter the effects of this business? Licensed selling will make drunkards, as well as unlicensed. A man bought a glass of liquor of one who was licensed; he drank it, fell under the wheels of his wagon, and was crushed to death. Did that license assuage the anguish of his father, or his mother, his wife, or his children?

(5.) I hear another say, "I force no one to buy the article. It is a voluntary thing on the part of the buyer; and if he chooses to purchase it, and injure himself, I am not responsible for the injury." But let us look at this. You sell it, knowing it will do mischief. It is sometimes as wicked to injure men through their own voluntary agency, as in any other way. Men with an appetite for drink, especially when intoxicated, are under a strange hallucination they have for a season divested themselves of reason and self-control. They are to be pitied— not furnished with the means of self-destruction. And it is wicked in this view, moreover, that when you sell this poison to the drunkard, you inflict a wrong on the family-on the wife and children. If the article is prepared for the arts, why not make it in the form of pure alcohol, in which it is needed in the arts? Why color it, and drug it for the taste?

(6.) "I know it is wrong," says one, "to sell by the glass, to retail the article." In the language of Judge Daggett, of Connecticut, "Over every grogshop ought to be written in great capitals-THE WAY TO HELL, LEADING DOWN TO THE CHAMBERS OF DEATH.' "But I do not retail; mine is a wholesale establishment." But what is the difference? The one deals out death by the hogshead; the other by the gill. The one lays his beams in blood three stories high; the other but one.

5. Again, the temperate must avoid as much as they consistently can places where intoxicating drinks are offered for sale.

It should be remembered that public meetings,

and places of public resort, have led many into intemperate habits. Military days, town meetings, vendues, raisings, balls, political meetings, agricultural fairs, cattle shows, public dinners, celebrations of independence, winter sleighing parties, and law trials, are often so arranged as to present great temptations to intemperance. It is true, the customs of society are greatly changed with reference to the use of liquor at such times. Still there is much alcohol used on such occasions, even at the present day. Temperate men may be called, it is true, to attend some of the public gatherings named above. But when they do, let their motto be, "Touch not, taste not, handle not."

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CHAPTER VII.

OBJECTIONS TO THE TEMPERANCE CAUSE.

In promoting the cause of Temperance, we find various objections brought forward against total abstinence and signing the teetotal pledge.

1. One will object on the ground that "Abstinence is not Temperance." Now to determine whether there is any force in this objection, we must first ascertain what temperance is. Many definitions of the term have been given, but the following seems to describe it accurately-"It is the proper and moderate use of whatever is adapted to the physical, intellectual, and moral nature of man; and entire abstinence from whatever is injurious to the physical, intellectual, and moral nature of man." No one, I suppose, will deny the propriety of this definition. The simple question then before us, is—“ Is it proper to drink moderately of alcoholic liquor as a beverage?" We have already seen that such use is improper. We have shown its destructive influence upon man's whole nature. We have adduced the evidence of the ablest medical authorities to show that even the moderate use of alcoholic beverages is injurious to man, in every aspect; and therefore temperance, in reference to it, must be abstinence.

2. But another objects on the ground that "Teetotalism is an extreme, and all extremes

are bad."

This is indeed a manifest absurdity. With as much propriety might one object to the enjoyment of perfect health, because it is an extreme; and endeavor to modify it by moderate sickness. As well might one object to perfect happiness, perfect security of person, or perfect virtue--and solicit a moderate degree of sorrow, a little fear, or some vice. Science and observation concur in attesting that alcoholic beverages are uniformly injurious.

3. Others object to total abstinence, because they maintain that a dram after meals promotes digestion. This is a very erroneous position. Common observation might demonstrate this. But the question has been submitted to direct experiment by Dr. Beddoes; and he found that the animals to which spirits had been given along with their food, had digested nearly one-half less, than other similar animals from which this stimulus had been withheld.

Physicians, it is true, did once recommend a little brandy and water, or wine, to those who were dyspeptic. But the opinion of the ablest of them now is, that such tonics, in most cases of this sort, give only a transient and deceitful relief, and in fact tend to exhaust the invalid's scanty strength.

4. But it is said again-"I am temperate now, and there is therefore no need of my joining a temperance society." Another says "If I can't be temperate without signing the pledge, that will not help me. A third thinks it will be a reflection upon his past life to join a temperance society. Now all these objections originate in a wrong view of the