son is lost, and the power of conscience laid asleep; the passions, at all times sufficiently strong, assume, with increased strength, the absolute control of the man; and spur and goad him on to every crime within his reach. In this situation, it is to be remembered, he is rarely alone. Other Drunkards are usually around him; whose reason is equally enfeebled, and whose passions are equally awake. Among men of strong passions, and little reason, disputes cannot fail to arise. In such men disputes generate anger of course. Anger, here, regularly issues in quarrelling; and quarrelling terminates in maimed limbs, blood-shed, and death. A large part of the murders, which have existed in this world, have grown out of Intoxication.

4. A Drunkard necessarily Wastes his own Property.

This he often does, as I have already observed, by the foolish and mischievous bargains, which he makes during the hours of intoxication. But this is far from being all. In the mere purchase of strong drink he expends greater sums, than any man, without an arithmetical calculation, would suspect; and obviously greater, than moderate property can bear.

Nor is this all. A great part of his time is spent in preparing the means of intoxication; in the haunts, to which he resorts for it; among his drinking companions; and in sleeping, and wearing off, its immediate effects. All this time would, otherwise, have been employed in useful business; and would have thus been the means of increasing, instead of diminishing, his property.

Nor is he less a sufferer by that gradual diminution of bodily and mental powers mentioned above. His frame, and limbs, are of course diseased. In this manner he becomes, at times, disabled from pursuing his business at all; and, at other times, obliged to pursue it to very little purpose. What he does in this situation is but half done; and would often have been as well or much better omitted. His judgment also, and skill, are equally impaired; and, instead of directing his business with success, are wasted on feeble, fruitless plans, miserably executed. As these powers decay, he becomes careless, listless, and negligent of his concerns; and sees them continually declining, and him

self daily approaching towards beggary, without either the pow er, or the will, to stay the deplorable progress.

Thus he voluntarily robs himself of a comfortable support in old age, and in the sickness, to which he is so eminently exposed; and, at an untimely period, withers the power, and wastes the means, of enjoyment.

5. The Drunkard destroys his Health.

No Constitution is able to resist the scorching efficacy of that liquid fire, which this slave of sense and sin incessantly swallows. Pain, sorrow, and disease, are its inevitable effects. The stomach becomes speedily too much weakened to receive, and the appetite to relish, food; until both have been stimulated by a new draught. Speedily, the limbs complain, and decay; the senses become obtuse; and all the energy of the body gradually wastes away.

In this situation, also, the skill of the Physician, and the pow. er of Medicine, are rendered useless. A large proportion of all the useful medicines, those, particularly, which the diseases of drinking men chiefly demand, are stimulants. But these men have used one of the most powerful of all stimulants so often, and so long, that medicines of this nature cease to operate upon their constitutions with their proper sanative power. They are left, therefore, in a peculiar degree, to the ravages, and sufferings, of disease, without the usual means of cure, alleviation, or hope.

6. The Drunkard wastes his Reputation.

A good name is better than great riches. It would be no small consolation, therefore, to a man of this description, under the loss of his property and his health, if he could at the same time preserve his Character. But, unhappily for him, his repu tation is squandered faster than his property, and destroyed more suddenly than his health. Drunkenness is a sin, which, after it has once become habitual, is so rarely relinquished, as hardly to admit the feeblest hope of reformation. In a very carly part of his progress, therefore, he becomes branded with the full and entire character of a Drunkard. His reputation, of course, is lost at an untimely period; and his infamy is of a premature growth. But what character can be more degrading,

more indicative of the loss of virtue, and common sense, and of the voluntary assumption of folly and self-pollution? What name is more scandalous; more evidential, that a man has left his proper rank in the Creation, and sunk himself down to the level of brutes; than that of a Sot? But on this reputation, thus wantonly and profligately wasted, hangs almost all the comfort and usefulness of men. To preserve it fresh and untainted, therefore, is alike their interest and their duty: a duty indispensable; an interest, which cannot be estimated. He, who does not highly value it, is a fool. He, who wantonly throws it away, is a madman.

7. The Drunkard destroys his Reason.

Reason has been often, and justly, styled "the light of the mind." Mr. Locke with great force and beauty styles it," the candle of the Lord, shining within man." It is our only ultimate directress. Even the doctrines and precepts of Revelation can be nothing to us, until Reason has first discerned it to be a Revelation; and determined the real import of its precepts and doctrines. Still more absolutely is it the Arbiter of all our ordinary concerns. For these we have no other guide, and can submit them to no other control. In a word, Reason makes us men; and without it we should be brutes.

But this invaluable possession, this essence of his character as a human being, himself, his all, the Drunkard rapidly wastes away.

8. The Drunkard destroys his Usefulness.

This Evil is dreadfully involved in the loss of his property, health, reputation, and reason. The perpetual degradation, with which he daily appears to the eyes of those around him, not only forbids the esteem, and confidence, which are indispensable to the attainment of useful business; but renders him an object of abhorrence and loathing. Thus, without reputation to recommend him to others, or property, or even inclination, to befriend them; with health and Reason so decayed, as to be unable to befriend himself; he ceases to be of any serious use to either. Of course, he becomes a burden, a nuisance, a calamity, to the world. Good would it have been for this man, if he had never been born.

In the mean time, sunk and lost as he is, he continues, and usually for a length of time, to be a merry and jovial haunter of taverns and dram-shops; and, like a vessel of variolous matter occasionally opened, spreads, from day to day, a pestilential contagion through the clusters of miserable wretches, who frequent these dangerous resorts. Few men injure a community more dreadfully than a drunkard. The sin, which peculiarly constitutes his character, is almost wholly derived from example. Every such example therefore, is the real cause of extending the evil to succeeding generations, as well as of corrupting his contemporaries. Were the injurers of mankind to receive their real deserts; Newgate would exchange many of its present tenants for the mischievous slaves of strong drink.

9. The Drunkard ruins his Family.

In this comprehensive and affecting article, several particulars merit the most serious consideration.

First; He spreads through his family the habit of Intoxica

tion.

The influence of parental example, especially when an evil example, I have already had occasion particularly to unfold. In the present melancholy case, all the power of such an example is felt to the utmost. It is an example seen daily, in the house, and in the parent. It is seen by children so soon as they can see any thing; and long before their minds are capable of distinguishing its nature, or its tendency. The parent visibly regards spirituous liquors as a peculiarly interesting enjoyment of sense, at a time when they know no enjoyments but those of Of course, they cannot but think it eminently valuable. The means of intoxication are also provided to their hand; and their own home, so far as a dangerous and malignant influence is concerned, is changed into a Dram-shop. The mother, in the mean time, not unfrequently contracts the same evil habit from the father; and thus both Parents unite in the unnatural and monstrous employment of corrupting their children. What a prospect is here presented to our view! A husband and wife, to whom God has given children, to be trained up by them for Heaven, united together in taking them by the hand, and leading them coolly to perdition. What heart, not made of stone,

ean look at such a family, without feeling exquisite distress, and the most terrible forebodings? Contemplate, for a moment, the innocent helpless beings, perfectly unconscious of their danger, and incapable of learning it, thus led as victims to the altar of a Modern Moloch, less sanguinary indeed, but not less cruel, than the heathen god, before whom the Israelitish Parents burnt their own Offspring; and say, whether you most pity the chil dren, or detest the parents.

Secondly. By squandering his property he deprives them of both Comfort and Respectability.

The comfort, which we enjoy in the present world, so far as the world itself is concerned, is principally found in realizing the expectations, which we have rationally, and habitually, formed concerning our future circumstances in life. These expectations are, of course, grounded on the circumstances of our Parents. We expect what we are thus taught to expect; and this naturally is, that we receive such an Education, and pass through life in such a manner, as is common to the children of those, who are in similar circumstances. These expectations the drunken parent gradually fritters away with the gradual diminution of his Estate. The mind of the Child sees, with more and more discouragement, one expected gratification vanish after another, till it ceases to expect at all; and sinks down into sullen, or broken-hearted, despair.

Among the evils, which children suffer, a prime one is the loss of Education, of that Education, I mean, which is suited to their condition in life. The instructions, which children receive, are a debt, which no parent can without extreme guilt refuse to discharge; and of which no child can be prevented, but by robbery, as well as fraud. They are the chief means of his future comfort, and his future usefulness. They take him out of the list of Savages; and place him in the rank of Men. They form him to wisdom, to worth, and to honour. Beyond this, they open to him the gates of virtue, glory, and immortality; and point to him the path to Heaven.

The most important of these instructions the Parent himself is able, and therefore bound, to give; the instructions especially of VOL. IV.

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