of ardent spirits? Here, then, an aristocracy of bad influence has already risen up, which bids defiance to law, and threatens the extirpation of civil liberty. As intemperance increases, the power of taxation will come more and more into the hands of men of intemperate habits and desperate fortunes; of course, the laws gradually will become subservient to the debtor, and less efficacious in protecting the rights of property. This will be a vital stab to liberty, to the security of which property is indispensable. For money is the sinew of war; and when those who hold the property of a nation cannot be protected in their rights, they will change the form of government, peaceably if they may, by violence if they

must.

In proportion to the numbers who have no right in the soil, and no capital at stake, and no moral principle, will the nation be exposed to violence and revolution. In Europe the physical power is bereft of the right of suffrage, and by the bayonet is kept down; but in this nation the power which may be wielded by the intemperate and ignorant is tremendous. These are the troops of the future Cæsars, by whose perverted suffrages our future elections may be swayed, and ultimately our liberties destroyed. They are the corps of irreligious and desperate men, who have something to hope, and nothing to fear, from revolution and blood. Of such materials was the army of Catiline composed, who conspired against the liberties of Rome. And in the French revolution, such men as Lafayette were soon swept from the helm, by mobs composed of the dregs of creation, to give place to the revolutionary furies which followed.

We boast of our liberties, and rejoice in our prospective instrumentality in disenthralling the world. But our own

foundations rest on the heaving sides of a burning mountain, through which, in thousands of places, the fire has burst out, and is blazing around us. If it cannot be extinguished, we are undone; our sun is fast setting, and the darkness of an endless night is closing in upon us.

33*

LECTURE IV.

THE REMEDY OF INTEMPERANCE.

"Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high, that he may be delivered from the power of evil! Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people, and hast sinned against thy soul. For the stone shall cry out of the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.

"Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness! Thou art filled with shame for glory: drink thou also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered: the cup of the Lord's right hand shall be turned unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on thy glory." HABAKKUK 2: 9-11, 15, 16.

We now come to the inquiry, BY WHAT MEANS CAN THE EVIL OF INTEMPERANCE BE STAYED? And the answer is, not by any one thing, but by everything which can be put in requisition, to hem in the army of the destroyer, and impede his march, and turn him back, and redeem the land.

Intemperance is a national sin, carrying destruction from the centre to every extremity of the country, and calling upon the nation to array itself en masse against it.

It is in vain to rely alone upon self-government, and voluntary abstinence. This, by all means, should be encouraged and enforced, and may limit the evil, but can never expel it. Alike hopeless are all the efforts of the pulpit and the press, without something more radical, efficient, and permanent. If owledge only, or argument, or motive, were needed, the task

of reformation would be easy; but argument may as well be exerted upon the wind, and motive be applied to chain down the waves. Thirst and the love of filthy lucre are incorrigible. Many may be saved by these means; but, with nothing more, many will be lost, and the evil will go down to other ages.

Alike hopeless is the attempt to stop intemperance by mere civil coërcion. There is too much capital vested in the importation, distillation, and vending of ardent spirits, and too brisk a demand for their consumption in the market, to render mere legal enactments and prohibitions of sufficient influence to keep the practice of trafficking in ardent spirits within safe limits. As well might the ocean be poured out upon the Andes, and its waters be stopped from rushing violently down their sides. It would require an omniscient eye, and an almighty arm, punishing with speedy and certain retribution all delinquents, to stay the progress of intemperance in the presence of the all-pervading temptation of ardent spirits.

Magistrates WILL NOT, and CANNOT if they would, execute the laws against the unlawful vending and drinking of ardent spirits, amid a population who hold the right of suffrage, and are in favor of free indulgence. The effort, before the public sentiment was prepared for it, would hurl them quick from their elevation, and exalt others who would be no terror to evil-doers. Our fathers could enforce morality by law; but the times are changed, and unless we can regulate public sentiment, and secure morality in some other way, WE ARE

UNDONE.

Voluntary associations to support the magistrate in the execution of the law are useful, but, after all, are ineffectual; for though in a single town or state they may effect a temporary reformation, it requires an effort to make them

universal, and to keep up their energy, which never has been and never will be made.

Besides, the reformation of a town, or even of a state, is but emptying of its waters the bed of a river, to be instantly replaced by the waters from above; or, like the creation of a vacuum in the atmosphere, which is instantly filled by the pressure of the circumjacent air.

The remedy, whatever it may be, must be universal— operating permanently, at all times, and in all places. Short of this, everything which can be done will be but the application of temporary expedients.

There is somewhere a mighty energy of evil at work in the production of intemperance; and until we can discover and destroy this vital power of mischief, we shall labor in vain.

Intemperance in our land is not accidental; it is rolling in upon us by the violation of some great laws of human nature. In our views, and in our practice as a nation, there is something fundamentally wrong; and the remedy, like the evil, must be found in the correct application of general principles. It must be a universal and national remedy.

What, then, is this universal, natural, and national remedy for intemperance?

IT IS THE BANISHMENT OF ARDENT SPIRITS FROM THE LIST OF LAWFUL ARTICLES OF COMMERCE, BY A CORRECT AND EFFICIENT PUBLIC SENTIMENT; SUCH AS HAS TURNED SLAVERY OUT OF HALF OF OUR LAND, AND WILL YET EXPEL IT FROM THE WORLD.

Nothing should now be said by way of crimination for the past; for verily we have all been guilty in this thing, so that there are few in the land whose brother's blood may not cry

t against them from the ground, on account of the bad