man.

The habitual use of alcohol, in any of its varied combinations, strengthens the power of motives to do wrong, and weakens the power of motives to do right. The nature and tendency of strong drink are such, that mankind in general cannot continue long to indulge in the moderate use of it. From the earliest period of its introduction to the present time, these evidences of its nature and character have been uniform and certain.

These general characteristics of alcoholic liquors lead to the examination of an important distinction, which exists between intemperance and drunkenness, terms in general used synonimously without reference to a primary or natural signification. The indications of drunkenness are too obvious to require description. One of the canons of the Anglo-Saxon church in a prohibition against drunkenness, thus defines the term:- "This is drunkenness, when the state of the mind is changed, the tongue stammers, the eyes are disturbed, the head is giddy, the stomach is swelled, and pain follows." Intemperance, however, has relation to an essentially different state of the system. An individual may, in the strictest sense of the word, be habitually intemperate, without exhibiting either the staggering gait, the faltering tongue, or the disgusting ejaculations of the professed debauchee. In this circumstance lies the insidious influence of strong drink, which has ever been characterized by the unnatural changes which it effects, in too many instances, unobserved and unsuspected by its unfortunate victims.*

* "Men indulge habitually, day by day, not perhaps to the extent of producing any evident effect, either upon the body or mind at the time, and fancy themselves all the while strictly temperate, while they are, in reality, undermining their constitution by slow degrees,-killing themselves by inches, and shortening their existence several years."-Anatomy of Drunkenness, by Robert Macnish, 5th Ed. p. 254.

"It is," remarks Dr. Beecher, of America," and I fully concur with him," observes Dr. Macnish, "a matter of unwonted certainty, that habitual tippling is worse than periodical drunkenness. The poor Indian, who once a month drinks himself dead, all but simple breathing, will outlive for years, the man who, drinks little and often, and is not perhaps suspected of intemperance."

Eminent writers have advanced various definitions of the nature and meaning of temperance. By some, it has been correctly asserted, that an intemperate man is one whose appetite rules his reason; and that a temperate man, is one whose reason rules his appetite. Temperance is a virtue of self-denial or restraint. Dr. Adam Clarke defines it to be a proper and limited use of all earthly enjoyments, keeping every sense under proper restraint, and not permitting the animal part to subjugate the rational. Parkhurst renders it "self-government, temperance, continence; having power over one's own appetites." Pasor and other lexicographers of good authority, give it the same signification. In this sense also, was the word. used by one of the most distinguished philosophers of old. "Temperance," observes Cicero, " is the unyielding control of reason over lust, and over all wrong tendencies of the mind. Frugality is not so extensive as temperance. Temperance means not only frugality, but also modesty and self-government. It means abstinence from all things not good, and entire innocence of character." Temperance is that which teaches us to regulate our desires and fears, so that in desiring and in shunning things, we may always. follow reason. Fortitude is concerned in labours and dangers, temperance in renouncing pleasures.

From these observations, we may with great propriety conclude, that physical temperance consists in the moderate use of those things which are nutritious and proper for human sustenance, and in abstinence from everything which is injurious and unnecessary. This definition, is, in every sense of the word, strictly applicable, because it not only comprehends the quantity but the quality also of those things which ought to enter into the composition of

"The observation of twenty years, in this city (Dublin), has convinced me, that, were ten young men, on their twenty-first birthday, to begin to drink one glass (equal to two ounces) of ardent spirits, or a pint of port wine or sherry, and were they to drink this supposed moderate quantity of strong liquor daily, the lives of eight out of the ten would be abridged by twelve or fifteen years. They represent themselves as temperate very temperate."-Statement by Dr. Cheyne, late Physician General of Ireland, p. 54, 1829.

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human diet. Sir William Temple, a writer of considerable eminence of the seventeenth century, remarks thus :—“ I do not allow the pretence of temperance to all such as are seldom or never drunk or fall into surfeits, for men may lose their health without losing their senses, and be intemperate every day without being drunk perhaps once in their lives; but that which I call temperance, is a regular and simple diet, limited by every man's experience of his own easy digestion, and thereby proportioning, as near as well can be, the daily repairs to the daily decays of our wasting bodies.* Sir William Temple then proceeds to apply this rule of temperance to the removal of a disease on which he has written largely, and enforces the necessity of rigorous abstinence from inebriating liquor on all ordinary occasions.

Another writer, in the earlier part of the seventeenth century, in reprobating the practice of intemperance, makes the following pertinent remarks:-" It is sad to consider how many will hear this charge, for one that will apply it to himself, for confident I am, that fifteen of twenty, this city over, (London) are drunkards, yea, seducing drunkards, in the dialect of Scripture, and by the law of God, which extends to the heart and the affections." "Perhaps," observes the same writer, " by the law of the land, a man is not taken for drunk except his eyes stare, his tongue stutter, his legs stagger; but by God's law, he is one that goes often to the drink, or that tarries long at it. Prov. xxiii. 30, 31. He that will be drawn to drink when he hath neither need of it, nor mind to it, to the spending of money, wasting of precious time, discredit of the Gospel, the stumbling-block of weak ones, and hardening associates. Briefly, he that drinks for lust, or pride, or covetousness, or fear, or good fellowship, or to drive away time, or to still conscience, is a DRUNKARD."

The powerful influence which intoxicating liquors exercise on the human system, their strong tendency to lead to excess, their effects in inflaming the passions and enervating the mind, are sufficient indications, that even their moderate and habitual use is incompatible with a temperate and healthful condition of either mind or body.

* An Essay on the Cure of the Gout.-Miscellanea, Part I. 1677.

The vice of intemperance during every stage of its progress, has been characterized by some prominent and peculiar features.

1. In the first place, it may be remarked, that the use of intoxicating liquors is an acquired habit. The influence which inebriating compounds exercise over the mental and physical constitution of man, is altogether the result of artificial feelings and impressions, superinduced on those with which the system is naturally endowed.

Providence, in wisdom and bounty, has supplied the wants of man in rich profusion. Animal and vegetable creation well stored with aliment, surround him on every side. Each substance, moreover, bears characteristic evidence of the design of its munificent Creator. The vast variety of vegetables and their fruits, which enter so largely into the diet of the human race, present evident relation between the nature of their composition, and the purposes to which they are designed to be appropriated. This observation applies with equal force to water, one of the most useful substances in nature.

Alcohol, on the contrary, in all its combinations, is devoid of these nutritious characteristics, and is found to be inimical to the healthy functions of the animal economy, and productive only of that injurious excitement, which subsides into morbid debility.

It is a humiliating reflection, that man is the only animal in creation accustomed to the use of intoxicating liquors. No analogous substances are found in the whole range of animate creation. Alcoholic stimulants are purely the results of human ingenuity and invention, called into operation by the desire to gratify a sensual and sinful propensity. Mankind have thus themselves originated an evil, which has proved the severest moral and physical scourge that ever afflicted the human race.

Several prominent and striking facts are adduced in the present place, to prove that the habit of vinous indulgence is altogether acquired.

in a

Entire nations are known to have existed for ages state of comparatively superior health, comfort, and happiness, without the aid of intoxicating liquors. When

Mr. Buckingham states it to be his conviction, " judging from what he himself has seen and heard on the testimony of

first offered to the inhabitants of those countries, they have, in general, evinced considerable aversion to their use; and have been reconciled to the practice only, by a conformity to the habits and persuasions of those civilized nations who have seduced them into the destructive vice of intoxication.

A corresponding illustration of this statement, may be found in the fact, that young persons, and in particular children, almost universally exhibit signs of repugnance, when first induced to taste of any kind of intoxicating liquor; which indications of disgust are not manifested, when they partake of the almost unlimited varieties of nutritious food.

The unnatural excitement which these liquors induce when first made use of, produces unpleasant sensations on the unvitiated palates of the young. The benevolent Creator has, in his wisdom, so arranged the constitution of man, that every article of a nutritious character is calculated to afford agreeable sensations of pleasure and refreshment to the temperate consumer. The excitement produced by alcoholic stimulus, however, becomes agreeable only when the system has for some time been habituated to its use; and, in fact, not until a series of artificial feelings have been created, which require for their continuance the repeated application of the stimulating agency by which they were first produced.

The varied sensations which inebriating compounds impart to the taste, furnish an additional proof that the habit of indulgence in their use is altogether acquired. The taste and flavour of these compounds have varied in almost every age of the world. The nausea and disagreeable sensations which most of them impart, have, in the first instance, to be conquered or rendered familiar by continued use, before a vitiated appetite can relish their reception. The Jews, for example, frequently mixed frankincense and various spices with their wines, in order to increase their potency. The Romans and Greeks very

creditable writers, that one-fifth of the entire population of the globe are abstainers from all intoxicating liquors." "A number," he remarks," sufficiently large to show that they are not necessary to human existence, health, or enjoyment.