UPON the face of our country, in most other respects so free and happy, there are two plague-spots, of awful magnitude, and of mortal aspect the one is the involuntary slavery of so large a portion of its population; and the other, the voluntary and chosen slavery of numberless multitudes, to the all-destroying power of strong drink. How wide is this deadly evil spread! How immensely numerous,-how deplorably wretched, are its victims ! Among this vast group of miserables, are to be found many of opulent parentage; many, who did once inherit wealth themselves; many, who once were respectable and respected; many who once were distinguished for industry, economy and thrift; many, who were once bright in intellect, and possessed of amiable qualities of heart; many, who once had a delicate sense of honor and a nobleness of sentiment; many, who once felt, and deeply felt the endearing ties of relationship; whose company gave daily delight to parents, brothers, sisters, wives, and children; many, who were the hope and pride of their kindred, the ornaments of society-till the cup of abomination poisoned them, soul and body. Now, they are as lazy as poor; now, their once comely visages are changed to disgusting and hideous; now, their bodies are debilitated and corrupted; now, every fine and noble feeling is utterly extinguished, and all sense of honor and shame is gone and lost; now, brutal ferociousness succeeds to the former suavity of temper; now, natural affections themselves are extinct ; now, the aged and woe-struck parent is wantonly insulted, or shamefully neglected and disregarded; now, the estimable, the once so dearly loved wife, is assailed with opprobrious language and wounding blows; now, both wife and children are forsaken—or, even worse-are made to endure, day and night, the brutality of a drunken husband and father, who, instead of supporting them, has become their fiend-like tormentor. This picture, so far from being overcharged or aggravated, is but a faint copy of the ghastliness of the original. Our country is invaded, and, in a considerable part, already conquered. The enemy has entered every town, almost every village, and is dragging away, year by year, fresh numbers of our citizens into slavery for life; a slavery worse than Algerine, worse than is any where endured by the wretched Africans. This innumerable multitude of doubly, and most deeply-fallen men-scattered about over the whole face of our country-are not merely a dead loss to, but a dead weight upon, the general society. And, moreover, they are drawing others into the same vortex of perdition; each being like a mildewed ear of corn, which blasts the cars contiguous to it. Assuredly then, it behooves all who have any regard for religion, morals, or country, to employ their united and assiduous endeavors to stay this plague, ere it infect and consume the general mass of the population. Of the habitual and confirmed drunkards, there seems very little hope of a thorough cure. Somewhere it is related in substance, that a monkey, having been accustomed to the taste of strong drink, began to love it; that one day, watching his opportunity, he helped himself, and drank so freely that he became sick and dizzy, and fell into the fire and burnt his foot; and that never after, though repeatedly urged, could he be prevailed with to drink so much as a single drop. Would that, in similar cases, the like prudence were found in man! He, on the contrary, the more he experiences the effects of the raging poison, is the more bewitched after it. Though it makes him dizzy and sick, loathsome and self-loathed, and occasions him much worse bodily ills than befell the monkey; yet all this but increases the greediness of his desire, and strengthens the chains of his bondage. One, of very many, masters the habit after it has become inveterate, and thereby entitles himself to no small degree of honor. With some others there is, all their days, a struggle between moral feeling and appetite. They sometimes scotch the snake, but never kill it. Their condition is like that of the fabled Sisyphus, condemned to the fruitless toil of rolling up a steep hill a heavy stone, which ere he gets to the top, ever comes tumbling back, and compels him to begin his labor anew. But as to the general mass of drunkards, such a marvellous stupe. faction befalls them, that they seem to lose all moral sense, and all regard to consequences they are of the hospital of incurables. In no wise is it to be expected, that very many of those who have become real drunkards will ever reform; yet, where the habit is not fixed and inveterate, to master it is comparatively easy. If you are but just beginning to form this most pernicious of habits, pause,-for Heaven's sake, pause! See the pit lying before you. It is naked; it hath no covering; one step further, and you are ingulfed, and for ever lost. While it is yet in your power, dash from your lips the cup of intemperance. "For in the wreath that decks the flowing bowl, What! though young, do you need stimulants already? I heartily pity the poverty of your spirits. Assuredly, the young should have enough of that commodity-enough of genuine, unsophisti cated animal spirits, of their own. If a young man now needs stimulants to make him cheerful and lively, what a lifeless lump, what a mere inanimate clod, must he be, when his youth is departed. And besides; he that requires daily doses of strong drink in the season of youth, is almost sure to be a drunkard at middle age. Perhaps you may think you are in very little dan |