In the first place, the use of these articles is expensive. Those can best appreciate this argument, who, as heads of families, have been called for several years to settle their alcoholic and narcotic bills, with the merchant. It is not that the price of a gallon of rum, or brandy, or wine; or of a pound of snuff, or tobacco, is a heavy tax upon a man's income; but the endless repetition of these purchases, which custom has heretofore demanded, changes the arithmetical series in the calculation, into a geometrical one. In the second place, this course will secure a man more respect and influence in society, than he could attain, while using these substances in the greatest moderation. Even habitual drinkers will respect him more, although his example may exasperate them, for taking the course which their consciences approve. And surely the temperate and respectable part of society, cannot but have a higher regard for him, who abandons every 'idol of appetite, than for him, who, giving up perhaps his ardent spirit, still clings to wine or tobacco. For they well know, that it is no difficult matter to leave one idol, if several others of the same general nature are left to us, on which to concentrate our affections and worship. J Such a blaze of light now illuminates every man's path on this subject, and so powerfully do a thousand motives urge to total abstinence, at least from alcohol, that the intelligent and virtuous part of society are suspicious, that the man, who refuses, has a secret attachment to the poison. Hence they dare not trust important interests in his hands; but will commit them rather to the decidedly temperate. Such a suspicion may seem most uncharitable to those who fall under it: Still, so long as in nine cases out of ten, the final result shows it to have been well founded, you cannot prevent men from indulging it. In the third place, to use alcoholic mixtures, at the present day, even in small quantities, occasions more inconvenience and suffering to a respectable man, in many parts of the country, than total abstinence. In order to do it, he must breast the current of public opinion, which sets so strongly in favour of temperance. Even to replenish from time to time his stores of rum, brandy, and wines, is no easy task. To go openly to the retailers for this purpose, is to expose himself to the mortification of meeting the eye, or the reproof, of some respectable friend of abstinence. To go privately, is to be haunted continually with the fear of being discovered. Still more difficult is it to find a time and place to drink. To do it publicly, is to be reckoned among the intemperate. To do it at home, is to excite the constant fear, lest some visitor should perceive the alcoholic odour of the breath. To take peppermint essence, or cinnamon, or sweet flag, as some do, affords, indeed, a little security. But what if the effluvia of the spirit should at any time predominate over the aromatics! Worse than all this, the man finds, that so long as he refuses to practice total abstinence, the whole clan of drunkards around him appeal triumphantly to his example; seem to feel and treat him as if he were a brother, engaged in a common cause with them; and lean on him as a support against the reproaches of conscience and the contempt of the world. Now he detests drunkards: and it is most mortifying to be thus dragged into their communion; to be saluted by them as a leader and protector; and then to find among the temperate and respectable, a half expressed suspicion, that he may not, in fact, be so far removed from these drunkards as he supposes. But the sure way to avoid all this mortification, insult, and anxiety, is, while young, to come up to the altar of temperance, and swear eternal enmity to alcohol. In the fourth place, literary men, by indulging in a moderate and occasional use of alcohol, expose themselves, even peculiarly, to personal intemperance. Look at the men, who for the last thirty or forty years, have successively gone from our seats of learning, to mingle with the community; and enquire into their characters. Some of them occupy the high and important stations of trust and honour in our national and state governments; some sit in our courts of justice, as judges and expounders of the law some are advocates in those same courts, to plead the cause of the injured and oppressed: some have devoted their lives to general literature, or to the oversight of extensive mercantile, manufacturing, or agricultural establishments: some have become physicians, and some min isters of the Gospel: and among all these descriptions of character, some, alas, not a few, are intemperate. : Now does any student feel as if he were in no danger, surrounded as he is, by so many wrecks? If splendid abili ties, or correct morality, or hopeful piety, or faithful warnings, or strong resolutions, or fervent prayers, could have saved them, these had not fallen: for it was not merely the stupid, the idle, and the vicious, that were ruined. But they were taught that they might safely linger about the dragon's den, and admire his sparkling eyes, and party-coloured scales, and listen to his siren voice. And ere they were aware of it, his coils were twisted around them, crushing the powers of life; and the poison of his fangs was rankling in their veins. As certain as like causes produce like effects, the youth of our literary institutions, who are coming forward to occupy stations of authority and influence, will fall, in equal numbers, into the folds of the same monster, unless they use some weapon of defence which their predecessors never employed. That weapon, of heavenly temper, is total abstinence. Oh, it is madness to rush on, unprotected by this weapon, to that deadly spot, where the mightiest lie slain by thousands. Let the student recollect, that scarcely any other man in society is so peculiarly exposed to intemperance as himself. In the first place, it is very natural to seek relief, in the stimulus of wine, or ardent spirit, from the debility consequent upon vigorous mental efforts; although the constitution is then in a very bad state to resist their influence. In the second place, literary men are peculiarly subject to nervous maladies; and the depression of spirits accompanying them, receives a temporary relief, though an ultimate aggravation, from stimulants; and the result of using them, most commonly, is confirmed intemperance. In the third place, the delicacy of constitution possessed by literary men, is sooner overcome by alcoholic poisons, than the coarser and more robust stamina of the active and labouring classes. In the fourth place, men of the learned professions, the physician, the lawyer, and the clergyman, are more exposed than others, to those special occasions when it is customary to use alcohol. Civil courts of every grade, furnish one of these occasions; and rarely are the temptations stronger, or the defences weaker. Among the sick, alcohol is thought to be essential; and there the physician is tempted to make up by stimulants, for the fatigue and sleeplessness of the preceding night; and there the clergy : man guards himself, as he supposes, against contagion, by the same means: and thus in spite of the loud warnings, uttered by the science of the one, and the religion of the other, they both become drunkards. Finally, if I mistake not, literary men-perhaps I ought to say all persons of sedentary habits are more addicted than others, to smoking and chewing tobacco and it is well known that tobacco, by rendering the taste of water insipid, inclines a person strongly to resort to ardent spirit. This is illustrated in the "Confessions of a Drunkard," who undertook to substitute tobacco for alcohol. "The devil," says he, "could not have devised a more subtle trap to retake a backsliding penitent. The transition from gulphing down draughts of liquid fire, to puffing out innocuous blasts of dry smoke, was so like cheating him. But he is too hard for us; when we think to set off a new failing against an old infirmity, 'tis odds but he puts the trick upon us, of two for one. That (comparatively,) white devil of tobacco, brought with him in the end seven worse than himself.” "It were impertinent to carry the reader through all the processes by which, from smoking at first with malt liquor, I took my degrees through thin wines, through stronger wine and water, through small punch, to those juggling compositions, which, under the name of mixed liquors, slur a great deal of brandy or other poison under less and less water continually, until they come next to none, and none at all. But it is hateful to disclose the secrets of my Tartarus."* Oh, let the student turn his eye backward, and look at the almost countless wrecks of talent and genius, that are strewed over the ocean of intemperance. Select a single example, if you will-say that of Burns-and ask yourself, whether you would desire even his glory for your name, if it must also be loaded with his infamy! Let his epitaph, written by * An almost infallible attendant upon brandy, wine and tobacco, is gambling; and most cordially do I join in the earnest wish of an able friend to temperance; "O! that every society for the suppression of intemperance, would shut out also the vice of gambling-would bauish it entirely! Little gambling is like little drinking; one degree leads on to another. All great vices have little beginnings, and these little beginnings are what we are most cautiously to avoid. As these two vices then are so intimately connected while living, separate them not in death, but bury them both in the same grave. And bury them deep too-pile high the earth upon them, that their noisome presence may never cloud the pure light of virtue." Sweetser's Address before the young men of Burlington, March 24th, 1830. p. 8. himself, sink deep into the memory of every youthful votary of science. But thoughtless follies laid him low And stain'd his name, Reader attend! Whether thy soul I make my appeal, III. ON THE GROUND OF PATRIOTISM. Patriotism requires that the man, who loves his country, should shrink from no personal sacrifice, if he can thereby arrest some great national evil. How great an evil in this country, is the use of alcoholic and narcotic substances, will appear from a few facts. The amount of ardent spirit and wine annually consumed by the 13,000,000 inhabitants of the United States, cannot be less than 50 or 60 millions of gallons. This, at half a dollar per gallon, would cost 25 or 30 millions of dollars. It is impossible to estimate exactly the amount of opium and tobacco unnecessarily used among us: yet their value can hardly be thought less than 5,000,000 dollars. Let us look at some of the injurious consequences resulting from such an immense expenditure, and from the consumption of these deleterious substances. 1. From 300,000 to 500,000 persons are thereby made habitual or occasional drunkards. If each of these earns less per annum, by $100, than if he were temperate, the whole loss to the country is from 30 to 50 millions. Some will say, that the country is not impoverished in this way, to such an extent; because the distillation, transportation, and vending of these articles, amounts even to a greater sum. This reasoning would be sound, if the persons who distil, transport, and vend them, could find no other employment: but other employments might be found; probably n less lucrative Suppose this to be done, and that each of th intemperate were to earn $100 more per annum, than h now does. The wealth of the country would certainly b |