CONSCIENCE. Is it slander, or is it because I tell you the truth, that your temper is so deeply ruffled under my remonstrances? Suppose I were to hold my peace, while your hands are becoming more and more deeply crimsoned with this bloody traffic. What would you say to me, when you come to meet that poor boy who just went out, and his drunken father, and broken-hearted mother, at the bar of God? Would you thank your conscience for having let you alone while there was space left for repentance?

RETAILER. Ah, had honest trader ever such a conscience to deal with before? Always just so uncompromising—always talking about the "golden rule"—always insisting upon a moral standard which nobody can live up to—always scenting poverty, murder, and suicide, in every glass of whiskey, though it were a mile off. The truth is, you are not fit to live in this world at all. Acting in conformity with your more than puritanical rules, would starve any man and his family to death.

CONSCIENCE. Well, here comes another customer—see the carbuncles! Will you fill his bottle with wrath, to be poured out without mixture, by and by, upon your own head? Do you not know that his pious wife is extremely ill, and suffering for want of every comfort, in their miserable cabin?

RETAILER. No, Mr. E——, go home and take care of your family. I am determined to harbor no more drunkards here.

CONSCIENCE. You mean to make a distinction then, do you, between harboring those who are already ruined, and helping to destroy such as are now respectable members of society. You will not hereafter tolerate a single drunkard on your premises; but—

RETAILER. Ah, I see what you are aiming at; and really, it is too much for any honest man, and still more for any Christian to bear. You know it is a long time since I have pretended to answer half your captious questions. There's no use in it. It only leads on to others still more impertinent and puzzling. If I am the hundredth part of that factor of Satan which you would make me, I ought to be dealt with, and cast out of the church at once; and why don't my good brethren see to it?

CONSCIENCE. That's a hard question, which they, perhaps, better know how to answer than I do.

RETAILER. But have you forgotten, my good Conscience, that in retailing spirit, I am under the immediate eye and sanction of the laws. Mine is no contraband traffic, as you very well know. I hold a license from the rulers and fathers of the state, and have paid my money for it into the public treasury. Why do they continue to grant and sell licenses, if it is wrong for me to sell rum?

CONSCIENCE. Another hard question, which I leave them to answer as best they can. It is said, however, that public bodies have no soul, and if they have no soul, it is difficult to see how they can have any conscience; and if not, what should hinder them from selling licenses? But suppose the civil authorities should offer to sell you a license to keep a gambling-house, or a brothel, would you purchase such a license, and present it as a salvo to your conscience?

RETAILER. I tell you once more, there is no use in trying to answer your questions; for say what I will, you have the art of turning every thing against me. It was not always so, as you must very distinctly remember. Formerly I could retail hogshead after hogshead of all kinds of spirits, and you slept as quietly as a child. But since you began to read these Reports and Tracts about drinking, and to attend Temperance meetings, I have scarcely had an hour's peace of my life. I feared that something like this would be the effect upon your nervous temperament, when you began; and you may recollect that I strongly objected to your troubling yourself with these new speculations. It now grieves me to think that I ever yielded to your importunity; and beware that you do not push me to extremities in this matter, for I have about come to the resolution that I will have no more of these mischievous pamphlets, either about my store or tavern; and that your temperance agents may declaim to the winds and walls, if they please.

CONSCIENCE. I am amazed at your blindness and obstinacy. It is now from three to five years since I began to speak—though in a kind of indistinct undertone at first—against this bloody traffic. I have reasoned, I have remonstrated, and latterly I have threatened and implored with increasing earnestness. At times you have listened, and been convinced that the course which you are pursuing, in this day of light, is infamous, and utterly inconsistent with a Christian profession; but before your convictions and resolutions have time to ripen into action, the love of money regains its ascendency: and thus have you gone on resolving, and relapsing, and re-resolving—one hour at the preparatory lecture, and the next unloading whiskey at your door; one moment mourning over the prevalence of intemperance, and the next arranging your decanters to entice the simple; one day partaking of the cup of the Lord at his table, and the next offering the cup of devils to your neighbors; one day singing,

"All that I have, and all I am, I consecrate to Thee,"

and the next, for the sake of a little gain, sacrificing your character, and polluting all you can induce to drink! O, how can I hold my peace? How can I let you alone? If you will persist, your blood, and the blood of those whom you thus entice and destroy, be upon your own head. Whether you will hear, or whether you will forbear, I shall not cease to remonstrate; and when I can do no more to reclaim you, I will sit down at your gate, in the bitterness of despair, and cry, Murder! Murder!! MURDER!!!

RETAILER. (Pale and trembling.) "Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee."



BARNES ON THE TRAFFIC IN ARDENT SPIRITS.

There are some great principles in regard to our country, which are settled, and which are never to be violated, so long as our liberties are safe. Among them are these: that every thing may be subjected to candid and most free discussion; that public opinion, enlightened and correct, may be turned against any course of evil conduct; that that public opinion is, under God, the prime source of security to our laws and to our morals; and that men may be induced, by an ample and liberal discussion, and by the voice of conscience and of reason, to abandon any course that is erroneous. We are to presume that we may approach any class of American citizens with the conviction that if they are convinced that they are wrong, and that their course of life leads to sap the foundation of morals and the liberties of their country, they will abandon it.

Our present proposition is, that THE MANUFACTURING AND VENDING OF ARDENT SPIRITS IS MORALLY WRONG, AND OUGHT TO BE FORTHWITH ABANDONED.

We mean by the proposition, that it is an employment which violates the rules of morals that ought to regulate a man's business and conduct. The doctrine proceeds on the supposition, that there is somewhere a correct standard of morals—a standard by which a man's whole conduct and course of life is to be tried; and that this business cannot be vindicated by a reference to that standard. Or, for example, we mean that it is man's duty to love God, and seek to honor him, and that this business cannot be vindicated by a reference to that standard. That it is man's duty to love his fellow-men, and seek to promote their welfare, and that this business cannot be vindicated by that standard. That it is man's duty to render a valuable compensation to his fellow-men in his transactions with them, and that this business cannot be vindicated by that standard. That every man is bound to pursue such a course of life as shall promote the welfare of the entire community in which he lives, as shall not tend to promote crime, and pauperism, and misery, and to make widows and orphans, and that this business cannot be vindicated by that standard. In one word, that by any rules of life that have been set up to regulate the conduct of men, whether in the Bible, in the necessary relations of the social compact, in the reason and conscience of Christians, and of other men, this business is incapable of vindication, and is to be regarded as immoral.

In this proposition, however, it is important to be understood. We mean to confine it simply to the business where it is sold as an article of drink. For to sell it as a medicine, with the same precaution as other poisons are sold, would be no more immoral than it is to sell arsenic. And to sell it for purposes of manufacture, where it is necessary for that purpose, is no more immoral than to sell any other article with that design. Between selling it for these purposes, and selling it as an article of drink, there is, as any one can see, the widest possible difference.

When we speak of this business as immoral, it is also important to guard the use of the word immoral. That word, with us, has come to have a definite and well understood signification. When we speak of an immoral man, we are commonly understood to attack the foundations of his character; to designate some gross vice of which he is guilty, and to speak of him as profane, or licentious, or profligate, or dishonest, or as unworthy of our confidence and respect. Now, we by no means intend to use the word in such a wide sense, when we say that this business is immoral. We do not mean to intimate that in no circumstances a man may be engaged in it and be worthy of our confidence, and be an honest man, or even a Christian: for our belief is, that many such men have been, and are still, unhappily engaged in this traffic. The time has been, when it was thought to be as reputable as any other employment. Men may not see the injurious tendency of their conduct. They may not be apprized of its consequences; or they may be ignorant of the proper rules by which human life is to be regulated. Thus, the slave-trade was long pursued, and duelling was deemed right, and bigamy was practised. But for a man to maintain that all these would be right now, and to practise them, would be a very different thing.

In this view of the subject, we do not of course speak of the dead, or offer any reflection on their conduct or character. Many men are unwilling to regard this traffic as wrong, because, by so doing, they would seem to convey a reflection on their parents, or friends, who may have been engaged in the same business. But nothing of this kind is intended. The great laws of morals are indeed unchanged: but the degrees of light and knowledge which men possess may be very different. We should not deem it right to apply our laws and knowledge, in judging of the laws of Sparta, which authorized theft; nor our laws to judge of the conduct of the Hindoo in exposing his father on the banks of the Ganges; nor our present views to determine on the morality of our fathers an hundred years ago in the slave-trade; nor our views of the marriage relation to condemn the conduct of Abraham, David, or Jacob. Man's conduct is to be estimated by the light which he has. They who sin without law, are to be judged without law; and they who sin in the law, are to be judged by the law. Your father might have been engaged in the traffic in ardent spirits. Whether he was innocent or not, is not now the question, and has been determined by a higher tribunal than any on earth. The question now is, whether you can pursue it with a good conscience; or whether, with all that you know of the effects of the traffic, it be right or wrong for you to pursue it.

* * * * *

With these necessary explanations, I proceed to PROVE that, in the sense in which it has been explained, the traffic is MORALLY WRONG.

In proving this proposition, I shall take for granted two or three points which are now conceded, and to establish which would lead me too far out of my way. The first is, that this is not an employment in which the properties of the article are unknown. The seller has as good an opportunity to be acquainted with the qualities of the article, and its effects, as the buyer. There is no concealment of its character and tendency; there can be no pretence that you were deceived in regard to those qualities, and that you were unintentionally engaged in the sale of an article which has turned out to be otherwise than you supposed it to be. For, alas, those properties are too well ascertained; and all who are engaged in this employment have ample opportunity to know what they are doing, and engage in it with their eyes open.

The effects of this traffic are well known. The public mind has been, with remarkable intensity, directed to this subject for ten years in this land, and the details have been laid before the American public. It is believed that no vice has ever been so faithfully gauged, and the details so well ascertained, as the vice of intemperance in this nation. It is far better understood than the extent of gambling, of piracy, or robbery, or the slave-trade. It is established now, beyond the possibility of debate, that ardent spirits is a poison, as certain, as deadly, and destructive, as any other poison. It may be more slow in its effects, but it is not the less certain. This is established by the testimony of all physicians and chemists who have expressed an opinion on the subject. It is not necessary for the welfare of man as an ordinary drink. This is proved by the like testimony, by the example of many thousands who abstain from it, and by the fact, that before its invention, the Roman soldier, the Scythian, and the Greek, were as hardy and long-lived as men have been since. Its direct tendency is to produce disease, poverty, crime, and death. Its use tends to corrupt the morals, to enfeeble the intellect, to produce indolence, wretchedness, and woe in the family circle; to shorten life, and to hurry to a loathsome grave; to spread a pall of grief over families and nations. It is ascertained to be the source of nine-tenths of all the pauperism, and nine-tenths of all the crimes in the land. It fills our streets with drunkards, our almshouses with loathsome wretches, our jails with poor criminals, and supplies our gibbets with victims. It costs the land in which we live more than 100,000,000 of dollars annually, and renders us no compensation but poverty, want, curses, loathsomeness, and tears.

In any single year in this Union, could the effects be gathered into one single grasp, they would present to the eye the following affecting details. An army of at least 300,000 drunkards—not made up of old men, of the feeble, but of those in early life; of our youth, of our men of talents and influence; an enlistment from the bar, the bench, the pulpit, the homes of the rich, and the firesides of piety; the abodes of the intelligent, as well as the places of obscurity, and the humble ranks—all reeling together to a drunkard's grave. With this army Napoleon would have overran Europe. In the same group would be no less than 75,000 criminals, made such by the use of ardent spirits; criminals of every grade and dye, supported at the expense of the sober, and lost to morality, and industry, and hope; the source of lawsuits, and the fountain of no small part of the expenses of courts of justice. In the same group would be no less than 200,000 paupers, in a land abounding in all the wealth that the richest soil can give, and under all the facilities which the most favored spot under the whole heaven can furnish for acquiring a decent and an honest subsistence. Paupers, supported at the expense of the sober and the industrious, and creating no small part of our taxes, to pay for their indolence, and wretchedness, and crimes. And in the same group would be no less than 600 insane persons, made such by intemperance, in all the horrid and revolting forms of delirium—the conscience destroyed, the mind obliterated, and hope and happiness fled for ever. And in the same group there would be no less than 30,000 of our countrymen, who die annually, as the direct effect of the use of ardent spirit. Thirty thousand of our countrymen sinking to the most loathsome and dishonored of all graves, the grave of the drunkard. This is just a summary of the obvious and sure effects of this vice. The innumerable woes that it incidentally causes; the weeping and groans of the widow and the fatherless; the crimes and vices which it tends to introduce into abodes that would, but for this, be the abodes of peace, are not, and cannot be taken into the account.

Now, this state of things, if produced in any other way, would spread weeping and sackcloth over nations and continents. Any sweeping pestilence that could do this, would hold a nation in alarm, and diffuse, from one end of it to the other, trembling and horror. The world has never known any thing else like it. The father of mischief has never been able to invent any thing that should diffuse more wide-spread and dreadful evils.

It is agreed further, and well understood, that this is the regular effect of the traffic, and manufacture, and use of this article. It is not casual, incidental, irregular. It is uniform, certain, deadly, as the sirocco of the desert, or as the malaria of the Pontine marshes. It is not a periodical influence, returning at distant intervals; but it is a pestilence, breathing always—diffusing the poison when men sleep and when they wake, by day and by night, in seed-time and harvest—attending the manufacture and sale of the article always. The destroyer seeks his victim alike in every hogshead, and in every glass. He exempts no man from danger that uses it; and is always secure of prostrating the most vigorous frame, of clouding the most splendid intellect, of benumbing the most delicate moral feelings, of palsying the most eloquent tongue, of teaching those on whose lips listening senates hung, to mutter and babble with the drunkard, and of entombing the most brilliant talents and hopes of youth, wherever man can be induced to drink. The establishment of every distillery, and every dram-shop, and every grocery where it is sold, secures the certainty that many a man will thereby become a drunkard, and be a curse to himself and to the world. The traffic is not only occasionally and incidentally injurious, but it is like the generation before the flood in its effects, evil, and only evil continually.

Now the question is, whether this is an employment in which a moral man and a Christian man ought to be engaged. Is it such a business as his countrymen ought to approve? Is it such as his conscience and sober judgment approve? Is it such as his God and Judge will approve?

* * * * *

In examining this, let it be remembered, that the reason why this occupation is engaged in, and the sole reason, is, to make money. It is not because it is supposed that it will benefit mankind; nor is it because the man supposes that duty to his Creator requires it; nor is it because it is presumed that it will promote public health, or morals, or happiness; but it is engaged in and pursued solely as a means of livelihood or of wealth. And the question then is reduced to a very narrow compass: Is it right for a man, for the sake of gain, to be engaged in the sale of a poison—a poison attended with destruction to the property, health, happiness, peace, and salvation of his neighbors; producing mania, and poverty, and curses, and death, and woes innumerable to the land, and to the church of God? A question this, one would think, that might be very soon answered. In answering it, I invite attention to a few very obvious, but undeniable positions.

1. It is an employment which tends to counteract the very design of the organization of society. Society is organized on a benevolent principle. The structure of that organization is one of the best adapted instances of design, and of benevolence, anywhere to be found. It is on this principle that a lawful employment—an employment fitted to produce subsistence for a man and his family, will not interfere with the rights and happiness of others. It may be pursued without violating any of their rights, or infringing on their happiness in any way. Nay, it may not only not interfere wits their rights and happiness, but it will tend to promote directly their welfare, by promoting the happiness of the whole. Or, for example, the employment of the farmer may be pursued, not only without interfering with the rights or privileges of the mechanic, the physician, or the merchant, but it will directly contribute to their welfare, and is indispensable to it. The employment of the physician not only contributes to the support of himself and family, but to the welfare of the whole community. It not only does not interfere with the rights and happiness of the farmer and the mechanic, but it tends directly to their advantage. The employment of the merchant in lawful traffic, not only contributes to his support, but is directly beneficial to the whole agricultural part of the community; for, as has been well said, "the merchant is the friend of mankind." He injures no man, at the same time that he benefits himself; and he contributes to the welfare of the community, by promoting a healthful and desirable exchange of commodities in different parts of the land, and of various natures. The same is true of the mechanic, the mariner, the legislator, the bookmaker, the day-laborer, the schoolmaster, the lawyer, the clergyman.

Now, we maintain that the traffic in ardent spirits, as a drink, is a violation of this wise arrangement. It tends to sap the foundation of the whole economy. It is solely to benefit the trafficker, and it tends to evil, evil only, evil continually. If every man should act on this principle, society could not exist. If every man should choose an employment that should necessarily and always interfere with the peace, and happiness, and morals of others, it would at once break up the organization. If every manufacturer should erect a manufactory, as numerous as our distilleries and dram-shops, that should necessarily blight every farm, and produce sterility in its neighborhood, every farmer would regard it as an unlawful employment; and if pursued, the business of agriculture would end. If a physician could live only by diffusing disease and death, who would regard his as a moral employment? if a mariner could pursue his business from this port to Calcutta or Canton, only by importing the plague in every return voyage, who would deem it an honorable employment? If an apothecary could pursue his business only by killing nine persons out of ten of those with whom he had dealing, who would deem it a lawful business? If a man can get a living in his employment only by fitting out a privateer and preying upon the peaceful commerce of the world, who will deem it a lawful employment? If a man lives only to make a descent on the peaceful abodes of Africa, and to tear away parents from their weeping children, and husbands from their wives and homes, where is the man that will deem this a moral business? And why not? Does he not act on the same principle as the man who deals in ardent spirits—a desire to make money, and that only? The truth is, that in all these cases there would be a violation of the great fundamental law on which men must agree to live together in society—a violation of that great, noble, and benevolent law of our organization, by which an honest employment interferes with no other, but may tend to diffuse blessings in the whole circle of human engagements. And the traffic in ardent spirits is just as much a violation of this law, as in any of the cases specified.

2. Every man is bound to pursue such a business as to render a valuable consideration for that which he receives from others. A man who receives in trade the avails of the industry of others, is under obligation to restore that which will be of real value. He receives the fruit of toil; he receives that which is of value to himself; and common equity requires that he return a valuable consideration. Thus, the merchant renders to the farmer, in exchange for the growth of his farm, the productions of other climes; the manufacturer, that which is needful for the clothing or comfort of the agriculturist; the physician, the result of his professional skill. All these are valuable considerations, which are fair and honorable subjects of exchange. They are a mutual accommodation; they advance the interest of both parties. But it is not so with the dealer in ardent spirits. He obtains the property of his fellow-men, and what does he return? That which will tend to promote his real welfare? That which will make him a happier man? That which will benefit his family? That which diffuses learning and domestic comfort around his family circle? None of these things. He gives him that which will produce poverty, and want, and cursing, and tears, and death. He asked an egg, and he receives a scorpion. He gives him that which is established and well known as a source of no good, but as tending to produce beggary and wretchedness. Now, if this were practised in any other business, it would be open fraud. If in any way you could palm upon a farmer that which is not only worthless, but mischievous—that which would certainly tend to ruin him and his family, could there be any doubt about the nature of this employment? It makes no difference here, that the man supposes that it is for his good; or that he applies for it. You know that it is not for his benefit, and you know—what is the only material point under this head—that it will tend to his ruin. Whatever he may think about it, or whatever he may desire, you are well advised that it is an article that will tend to sap the foundation of his morals and happiness, and conduce to the ruin of his estate, and his body, and his soul; and you know, therefore, that you are not rendering him any really valuable consideration for his property. The dealer may look on his gains in this matter—on his houses, or mortgages, or lands, obtained as the result of this business—with something like these reflections.

"This property has been gained from other men. It was theirs, honestly acquired, and was necessary to promote their own happiness and the happiness of their families. It has become mine by a traffic which has not only taken it away from them, but which has ruined their peace, corrupted their morals, sent woe and discord into their families, and consigned them perhaps to an early and most loathsome grave. This property has come from the hard earnings of other men; has passed into my hands without any valuable compensation rendered; but has been obtained only while I have been diffusing want, and woe, and death, through their abodes."

Let the men engaged in this traffic look on their property thus gained; let them survey the woe which has attended it; and then ask, as honest men, whether it is a moral employment.

3. A man is bound to pursue such a business as shall tend to promote the welfare of the whole community. This traffic does not. We have seen that an honorable and lawful employment conduces to the welfare of the whole social organization. But the welfare of the whole cannot be promoted by this traffic. Somewhere it must produce poverty, and idleness, and crime. Even granting, what cannot be established, that it may promote the happiness of a particular portion of the community, yet it must be at the expense of some other portion. You may export poison to Georgia, and the immediate effect may be to introduce money into Philadelphia, but the only important inquiry is, what will be the effect on the whole body politic? Will it do more good than evil on the whole? Will the money which you may receive here, be a compensation for all the evil which will be done there? Money a compensation for intemperance, and idleness, and crime, and the loss of the health, the happiness, and the souls of men?

Now we may easily determine this matter. The article thus exported will do as much evil there as it would if consumed here. It will spread just as much devastation somewhere, as it would if consumed in your own family, and among your own friends and neighbors. We have only to ask, what would be the effect if it were consumed in your own habitation, in your neighborhood, in your own city? Let all this poison, which is thus exported to spread woes and death somewhere, be concentrated and consumed where you might see it, and is there any man who will pretend that the paltry sum which he receives is a compensation for what he knows would be the effect of the consumption? You keep your own atmosphere pure, it may be, but you export the pestilence, and curses, and lamentation elsewhere, and receive a compensation for it. You sell disease, and death, and poverty, and nakedness, and tears to other families, to clothe and feed your own. And as the result of this current of moral poison and pollution which you may cause to flow into hundreds of other families, you may point to a splendid palace, or to gay apparel of your sons and daughters, and proclaim that the evil is hidden from your eyes. Families, and neighborhoods, and states, may groan and bleed somewhere, and thousands may die, but your gain is to be a compensation for it all. Is this an honorable traffic?

Suppose a man were to advertise consumptions, and fevers, and pleurisies, and leprosy, for gold, and could and would sell them; what would the community say to such a traffic? Suppose, for gain, he could transport them to distant places, and now strike down by a secret power a family in Maine, and now at St. Mary's, and now at Texas, and now at St. Louis; what would the community think of wealth gained in such a traffic? Suppose he could, with the same ease, diffuse profaneness, and insanity, and robberies, and murders, and suicides, and should advertise all these to be propagated through the land, and could prevail on men to buy the talismanic nostrum for gold—what would the community think of such a traffic as this? True, he might plead that it brought a vast influx of money—that it enriched the city, or the country—that the effects were not seen there; but what would be the public estimate of a man who would be willing to engage in such a traffic, and who would set up such a plea? Or suppose it were understood that a farmer from the interior had arrived in Philadelphia with a load of flour, nine-tenths of whose barrels contained a mixture, more or less, of arsenic, and should offer them for sale; what would be the feelings of this community at such a traffic? True, the man might plead that it would produce gain to his country; that they had taken care to remove it to another population; that his own family was secure. Can any words express the indignation which would be felt? Can any thing express the horror which all men would feel at such a transaction as this, and at the cold-blooded and inhuman guilt of the money-loving farmer? And yet we witness a thing like this every day, on our wharves, and in our ships, and our groceries, and our inns, and from our men of wealth, and our moral men, and our professed Christians—and a horror comes through the souls of men, when we dare to intimate that this is an immoral business.

4. A man is bound to pursue such a course of life as not necessarily to increase the burdens and the taxes of the community. The pauperism and crimes of this land grow out of this vice, as an overflowing fountain. Three-fourths of the taxes for prisons, and houses of refuge, and almshouses, would be cut off, but for this traffic and the attendant vices. Nine-tenths of the crimes of the country, and of the expenses of litigation for crime, would be prevented by arresting it. Of 653 who were in one year committed to the house of correction in Boston, 453 were drunkards. Of 3,000 persons admitted to the workhouse in Salem, Mass., 2,900 were brought there directly or indirectly by intemperance. Of 592 male adults in the almshouse in New York, not 20, says the superintendent, can be called sober; and of 601 women, not as many as 50. Only three instances of murder in the space of fifteen years, in New York, occurred, that could not be traced to ardent spirit as the cause. In Philadelphia, ten. This is the legitimate, regular effect of the business. It tends to poverty, crime, and woe, and greatly to increase the taxes and burdens of the community.

What is done then in this traffic? You are filling our almshouses, and jails, and penitentiaries, with victims loathsome and burdensome to the community. You are engaged in a business which is compelling your fellow-citizens to pay taxes to support the victims of your employment. You are filling up these abodes of wretchedness and guilt, and then asking your fellow-citizens to pay enormous taxes indirectly to support this traffic. For, if every place where ardent spirits can be obtained, were closed in this city and its suburbs, how long might your splendid palaces for the poor be almost untenanted piles; how soon would your jails disgorge their inmates, and be no more filled; how soon would the habitations of guilt and infamy in every city become the abodes of contentment and peace; and how soon would reeling loathsomeness and want cease to assail your doors with importunate pleadings for charity.

Now we have only to ask our fellow-citizens, what right they have to pursue an employment tending thus to burden the community with taxes, and to endanger the dwellings of their fellow-men, and to send to my door, and to every other man's door, hordes of beggars loathsome to the sight; or to compel the virtuous to seek out their wives and children, amidst the squalidness of poverty, and the cold of winter, and the pinchings of hunger, to supply their wants? Could impartial justice be done in the world, an end would soon be put to the traffic in ardent spirits. Were every man bound to alleviate all the wretchedness which his business creates, to support all the poor which his traffic causes, an end would soon be made of this employment. But alas, you can diffuse this poison for gain, and then call on your industrious and virtuous countrymen to alleviate the wretchedness, to tax themselves to build granite prisons for the inmates which your business has made; and splendid palaces, at an enormous expense, to extend a shelter and a home for those whom your employment has turned from their own habitations. Is this a moral employment? Would it be well to obtain a living in this way in any other business?

5. The business is inconsistent with the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves. A sufficient proof of this would be a fact which no one could deny, that no man yet, probably, ever undertook the business, or pursued it from that motive. Its defence is not, and cannot be put on that ground. No man in the community believes that a continuance in it is required by a regard to the welfare of his neighbor. Every one knows that his welfare does not require it; and that it would be conferring an inestimable blessing on other men, if the traffic was abandoned. The single, sole object is gain; and the sole question is, whether the love of gain is a sufficient motive for continuing that which works no good, but constant ill to your neighbor.

There is another law of God which has an important bearing on this subject. It is that golden rule of the New Testament, which commends itself to the conscience of all men, to do to others as you would wish them to do to you. You may easily conceive of your having a son, who was in danger of becoming a drunkard. Your hope might centre in him. He might be the stay of your age. He may be inclined to dissipation; and it may have required all your vigilance, and prayers, and tears, and authority, to keep him in the ways of soberness. The simple question now is, what would you wish a neighbor to do in such a case? Would it be the desire of your heart, that he should open a fountain of poison at your next door; that he should, for gain, be willing to put a cup into the hands of your son, and entice him to the ways of intemperance? Would you be pleased if he would listen to no remonstrance of yours, if he should even disregard your entreaties and your tears, and coolly see, for the love of gold, ruin coming into your family, and your prop taken from beneath you, and your gray hairs coming down with sorrow to the grave? And yet to many such a son may you sell the poison; to many a father whose children are clothed in rags; to many a man whose wife sits weeping amidst poverty and want, and dreading to hear the tread and the voice of the husband of her youth, once her protector, who now comes to convert his own habitation into a hell. And there are not a few men of fair standing in society who are engaged in this; and not a few—O tell it not in Gath—who claim the honored name of Christian, and who profess to bear the image of Him who went about doing good. Can such be a moral business?

6. The traffic is a violation of that law which requires a man to honor God. Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. And yet is this a business which was ever engaged in, or ever pursued, with a desire to honor God? Is it an employment over which a man will pray? Can he ask the God of heaven to give him success? Let him, then, in imagination, follow what he sells to its direct result; let him attend it to its final distribution of poverty, and woes, and crimes, and death, and then kneel before heaven's eternal King, and render thanksgiving for this success? Alas, it cannot be. Man pursues it not from a desire to honor God. And can the man who is engaged in a business on which he cannot implore the blessing of heaven; who is obliged to conceal all thoughts of it if he ever prays; who never engaged in it with a desire to glorify God, or to meet his approbation, can he be engaged in a business which is lawful and right?

I might dwell further on these points. But I am now prepared to ask, with emphasis, whether an employment that has been attended with so many ills to the bodies and souls of men; with so much woe and crime; whose results are evil, and only evil continually; an employment which cannot be pursued without tending to destroy the very purposes of the organization of society; without violating the rule which requires us to render a valuable consideration in business; without violating the rule which requires a man to promote the welfare of the whole of the community; which promotes pauperism and crime, and imposes heavy burdens on your fellow-citizens; which is opposed equally to the love of man and the law of God—whether this is a moral, or an immoral employment?

The question is submitted. If moral, it should be driven on with all the power of American energy; with all the aids of wealth, and all the might of steam, and all the facilities of railroads and canals; for our country and the church calls the man to the honorable employment. But if it be immoral and wrong, it should be abandoned on the spot. Not another gallon should ever pass from your store, if it be evil, only evil, and that continually.

* * * * *

We are prepared now to examine a few of the OBJECTIONS to this doctrine.

1. The first is, that the traffic is not condemned in the Bible. To this the answer is very obvious. The article was then unknown. Nor was it known until 600 years after the Bible was completed. This mode of extending and perpetuating depravity in the world was not suggested by the father of evil, until it was too late to make a formal law against it in the Bible, or to fortify the argument of human depravity from this source. It is neither in the Bible, nor in any other code of laws, the custom to specify crimes which do not exist. How remarkable in a code of laws would have been such a declaration as the trafficker demands, "Thou shalt not deal in ardent spirits," hundreds of years before the article was known. The world would have stood in amazement, and would have been perplexed and confounded by an unmeaning statute. But further, it is not the practice in the Bible, or in any other book of laws, to specify each shade and degree of wrong. Had it been, there could have been no end of legislation, and no end to books of law. I ask the dealer in ardent spirits, where is there a formal prohibition of piracy, or bigamy, or kidnapping, or suicide, or duelling, or the sale of obscene books and paintings? And yet does any man doubt that these are immoral? Does he believe that the Bible will countenance them? Will he engage in them, because they are not specified formally, and with technical precision, in the Scriptures? The truth is, that the Bible has laid down great principles of conduct, which on all these subjects can be easily applied, which are applied, and which, under the guidance of equal honesty, may be as easily applied to the traffic of which I am speaking. Still further, the Bible has forbidden it in principle, and with all the precision which can be demanded. A man cannot pursue the business, as has been shown, without violating its great principles. He cannot do justly in it; he cannot show mercy by it; he cannot seek to alleviate human woes by it; he cannot do as he would wish to be done unto; he cannot pursue it to glorify God. The great principles of the Bible, the spirit of the Bible, and a thousand texts of the Bible are pointed against it; and every step the trafficker takes, he infringes on the spirit and bearing of some declaration of God. And still further, it is his business to make out the propriety of the employment, not ours to make out the case against him. Here is the rule—for him to judge. By this he is to be tried; and unless he can find in the volume a rule that will justify him in a business for gain that scatters inevitable woes and death; that accomplishes more destruction than all the chariots of war and the desolations of gunpowder on the field of blood; that sends more human beings to the grave, than fire, and flood, and pestilence, and famine, altogether; that heaps on human society more burdens than all other causes combined; that sends armies on armies, in a form more appalling, and infinitely more loathsome than Napoleon's "food for cannon," to the grave: unless he can find some prophecy, or some principle, or some declaration, that will justify these, the Bible is against him, and he knows it. As well might he search for a principle to authorize him to plant a Bohon Upas on every man's farm, and in the heart of every city and hamlet.

2. A second plea is, "If I do not do it, others will; the traffic will go on." Then, I answer, let others do it, and on them, not on you, be the responsibility. But it is said, perhaps, if it is not in your hands—the hands of the respectable and the pious—it will be in the hands of the unprincipled and the profligate. I answer, THERE LET IT BE. There, if anywhere, it should be. There, if these principles are correct, is its appropriate place. And if that were done, intemperance would soon cease to curse the land. It is just because it is upheld by the rich, and the reputable, and by professed Christians, that the reform drags so heavily. The business has never found its proper level. And O that the dealers in it would kindly forego this plea of benevolence, and feel themselves released from this obligation. But is this a correct principle of conduct? Is this the rule which heaven has given, or which conscience gives, to direct the doings of man? Have I a right to do all which I know other men will do? Other men will commit murder. Have I a right to do it? Other men will commit adultery. Have I a right to do it? Other men will curse, and swear, and steal. Have you a right to do it? Other men will prey on unoffending Africa, and bear human sinews across the ocean to be sold. Have you a right to do it? The traffic in human flesh will go on; ships will be fitted out from American ports; and American hands will bear a part of the price of the tears and groans of enslaved men. And why should not you participate with them, on the same principle?

3. A third excuse is, that the traffic is the source of gain to the country. Now this is known to be not so. More than 100,000,000 of dollars would be necessary to repair to this land the annual loss in this business. Is it no loss that 300,000 men are drunkards, and are the slaves of indolence and want? Is it no loss to the nation that 30,000 each year go to the grave? Is there no loss in the expense of supporting 75,000 criminals, and nine-tenths of the paupers in the land? Is it no loss that bad debts are made, and men are made unable and unwilling to pay their debts? Whence are your bad debts? Whence, but directly or indirectly from this business? From the indolence, and want of principle, and want of attention, which intemperance produces?

4. The man who is engaged in this business says, perhaps, "I have inherited it, and it is the source of my gain; and what shall I do?" I answer, beg, dig—do any thing but this. It would be a glorious martyrdom to starve, contrasted with obtaining a livelihood by such an employment. In this land, assuredly, men cannot plead that there are no honorable sources of livelihood open before them. Besides, from whom do we hear this plea? As often as otherwise from the man that rolls in wealth; that lives in a palace; that clothes his family in the attire of princes and of courts; and that moves in the circles of fashion and splendor. O how cheering is consistent pleading; how lovely the expressions of perfect honesty! This business may be abandoned without difficulty. The only question is, whether the love of man, and the dictates of conscience, and the fear of God, shall prevail over the love of that polluted gold which this traffic in the lives and souls of men shall introduce into your dwelling.

During a warmly contested election in the city of New York, it is stated in the daily papers that numerous applications were made for pistols to those who kept them for sale. It is added that the application was extensively denied, on the ground of the apprehension that they were intended for bloodshed in the excitement of the contest. This was a noble instance of principle. But on the plea of the dealer in ardent spirits, why should they have been withheld? The dealer in fire-arms might have plead as the trafficker in poison does: "This is my business. I obtain a livelihood by it. I am not responsible for what will be done with the fire-arms. True, the people are agitated. I have every reason to believe that application is made with a purpose to take life. True, blood may flow and useful lives may be lost. But I am not responsible. If they take life, they are answerable. The excitement is a favorable opportunity to dispose of my stock on hand, and it is a part of my business to avail myself of all favorable circumstances in the community to make money." Who would not have been struck with the cold-blooded and inhuman avarice of such a man? And yet there was not half the moral certainty that those fire-arms would have been used for purposes of blood, that there is that ardent spirits will be employed to produce crime, and poverty, and death.

I have no time to notice other objections. Nor need I. I have stated the principle of all. I just add here, that the excuses which are set up for this traffic will apply just as well to any other business as this, and will fully vindicate any other employment, if they are to be sustained. Apply these excuses to the case of a bookseller. The question might be suggested, whether it was a moral or an immoral business to deal in infidel, profligate, and obscene pictures and books. True, it might be alleged that they did evil, and only evil continually. It might be said that neither the love of God or man would prompt to it. He might be pointed to the fact, that they always tended to corrupt the morals of youth; to blight the hopes of parents; to fill up houses of infamy; to blot out the hopes of heaven; and to sink men to hell. But then he might with commendable coolness add, "This traffic is not condemned in the Bible. If I do not engage in it, others will. It contributes to my livelihood; to the support of the press; to the promotion of business; and I am not responsible for their reading the books, nor for their desire for them. I am pursuing the way in which my fathers walked before me, and it is my living, and I will do it." Wherein does this plea differ from that of the trafficker in ardent spirits? Alas, we have learned how to estimate its force in regard to other sins; but we shrink from its application in regard to this wide-spread business, that employs so much of the time and the wealth of the people of this land.

Here I close. The path of duty and of safety is plain. These evils may be corrected. A virtuous and an independent people may rise in their majesty and correct them all. I call on all whom I now address, to exert their influence in this cause; to abandon all connection with the traffic; and to become the firm, and warm, and thorough-going advocates of the temperance reformation. Your country calls you to it. Every man who loves her welfare, should pursue no half-way measures; should tread no vacillating course in this great and glorious reformation.

But more especially may I call on young men, and ask their patronage in this cause. For they are in danger; and they are the source of our hopes, and they are our strength. I appeal to them by their hopes of happiness; by their prospects of long life; by their desire of property and health; by their wish for reputation; and by the fact that by abstinence, strict abstinence alone, are they safe from the crimes, and loathsomeness, and grave of the drunkard. Young men, I beseech you to regard the liberties of your country; the purity of the churches; your own usefulness; and the honor of your family—the feelings of a father, a mother, and a sister. And I conjure you to take this stand by a reference to your own immortal welfare; by a regard to that heaven which a drunkard enters not—and by a fear of that hell which is his own appropriate, eternal home.

Again I appeal to my fellow professing Christians; the ministers of religion, the officers and members of the pure church of God. The pulpit should speak, in tones deep, and solemn, and constant, and reverberating through the land. The watchmen should see eye to eye. Of every officer and member of a church it should be known where he may be found. We want no vacillating counsels; no time-serving apologies; no coldness, no reluctance, no shrinking back in this cause. Every church of Christ, the world over, should be, in very deed, an organization of pure temperance under the headship and patronage of Jesus Christ, the friend and the model of purity. Members of the church of God most pure, bear it in mind, that intemperance in our land, and the world over, stands in the way of the Gospel. It opposes the progress of the reign of Christ in every village and hamlet; in every city; and at every corner of the street. It stands in the way of revivals of religion, and of the glories of the millennial morn. Every drunkard opposes the millennium; every dram-drinker stands in the way of it; every dram-seller stands in the way of it. Let the sentiment be heard, and echoed, and reechoed, all along the hills, and vales, and streams of the land, that the conversion of a man who habitually uses ardent spirits is all but hopeless. And let this sentiment be followed up with that other melancholy truth, that the money wasted in this business—now a curse to all nations—nay, the money wasted in one year in this land for it, would place a Bible in every family on the earth, and establish a school in every village; and that the talent which intemperance consigns each year to infamy and eternal perdition, would be sufficient to bear the Gospel over sea and land—to polar snows, and to the sands of a burning sun. The pulpit must speak out. And the press must speak. And you, fellow-Christians, are summoned by the God of purity to take your stand, and cause your influence to be felt.



THE FOOLS' PENCE.



Have you ever seen a London gin-shop? There is perhaps no statelier shop in the magnificent chief city of England. No expense seems to be spared in the building and the furnishing of a gin-shop.

Not many years ago a gin-shop was a mean-looking, and by no means a spacious place, with a few small bottles, not bigger than a doctor's largest vials, in the dusty window. But now, however poor many of the working classes may be, it seems to be their pleasure to squander their little remaining money upon a number of these palaces, as if they were determined that the persons whom they employ to sell them poison should dwell in the midst of luxury and splendor. I do not mean to say, that we have a right to throw all the blame upon the master or the mistress of a gin-shop. For my part, I should not like to keep one, and be obliged to get rich upon the money of the poor infatuated creatures who will ruin both soul and body in gin-drinking; but the master of the gin-shop may be heard to say, "I don't force the people to drink; they will have gin, and if I do not sell to them somebody else will." The story of "The Fools' Pence," which follows, is worth attending to.

A little mean-looking man sat talking to Mrs. Crowder, the mistress of the Punch-bowl: "Why, Mrs. Crowder," said he, "I should hardly know you again. Really, I must say you have things in the first style. What an elegant paper; what noble chairs; what a pair of fire-screens; all so bright and so fresh; and yourself so well, and looking so well!"

Mrs. Crowder had dropped languidly into an arm-chair, and sat sighing and smiling with affectation, not turning a deaf ear to her visitor, but taking in with her eyes a full view of what passed in the shop; having drawn aside the curtain of rose-colored silk, which sometimes covered the window in the wall between the shop and the parlor.

"Why, you see, Mr. Berriman," she replied, "our business is a thriving one, and we don't love to neglect it, for one must work hard for an honest livelihood; and then you see, my two girls, Letitia and Lucy, were about to leave their boarding-school; so Mr. Crowder and I wished to make the old place as genteel and fashionable as we could; and what with new stone copings to the windows, and new French window-frames to the first floor, and a little paint, and a little papering, Mr. Berriman, we begin to look tolerable. I must say too, Mr. Crowder has laid out a deal of money in fitting up the shop, and in filling his cellars."

"Well, ma'am," continued Mr. Berriman, "I don't know where you find the needful for all these improvements. For my part, I can only say, our trade seems quite at a stand-still. There's my wife always begging for money to pay for this or that little necessary article, but I part from every penny with a pang. Dear Mrs. Crowder, how do you manage?"

Mrs. Crowder simpered, and raising her eyes, and looking with a glance of smiling contempt towards the crowd of customers in the shop, "The fools' pence—'tis THE FOOLS' PENCE that does it for us," she said.

Perhaps it was owing to the door being just then opened and left ajar by Miss Lucy, who had been serving in the bar, that the words of Mrs. Crowder were heard by a man named George Manly, who stood at the upper end of the counter. He turned his eyes upon the customers who were standing near him, and saw pale, sunken cheeks, inflamed eyes, and ragged garments. He turned them upon the stately apartment in which they were assembled; he saw that it had been fitted up at no trifling cost; he stared through the partly open doorway into the parlor, and saw looking-glasses, and pictures, and gilding, and fine furniture, and a rich carpet, and Miss Lucy, in a silk gown, sitting down to her piano-forte: and he thought within himself, how strange it is, by what a curious process it is, that all this wretchedness on my left hand is made to turn into all this rich finery on my right!

"Well, sir, and what's for you?"

These words were spoken in the same shrill voice which had made the "fools' pence" ring in his ears.

George Manly was still in deep thought, and with the end of his rule—for he was a carpenter—he had been making a calculation, drawing the figures in the little puddles of gin upon the counter. He looked up and saw Mrs. Crowder herself as gay as her daughters, with a cap and colored ribbons flying off her head, and a pair of gold earrings almost touching her plump shoulders. "A glass of gin, ma'am, is what I was waiting for to-night, but I think I've paid the last 'fools' pence' I shall put down on this counter for many a long day."

* * * * *

George Manly hastened home. His wife and his two little girls were sitting at work. They were thin and pale, really for want of food. The room looked very cheerless, and their fire was so small that its warmth was scarcely felt; yet the commonest observer must have been struck by the neatness and cleanliness of the apartment and every thing about it.

"This is indeed a treat, girls, to have dear father home so soon to-night," said Susan Manly, looking up at her husband as he stood before the table, turning his eyes first upon one and then upon another of the little party; then throwing himself into a chair, and smiling, he said,

"Well, children, a'n't you glad to see me? May not those busy little fingers stop a moment, just while you jump up and throw your arms about your father's neck, and kiss him?"

"O yes, we have time for that," said one of the girls, as they both sprang up to kiss their father.

"But we have no time to lose, dear father," said Sally, pressing her cheek to his, and speaking in a kind of coaxing whisper close to his ear, "for these shirts are the last of the dozen we have been making for Mr. Farley, in the Corn-market."

"And as no work can be done to-morrow," added Betsy gravely, who stood with her little hand in her father's, "we are all working as hard as we can; for mother has promised to take them home on Monday afternoon."

"Either your eyes are very weak to-night, dear wife," said George, "or you have been crying. I'm afraid you work too hard by candlelight."

Susan smiled, and said, "Working does not hurt my eyes," and as she spoke, she turned her head and beckoned with her finger to her little boy.

"Why, John, what's this that I see?" said his father. "What, you in the corner! Come out, and tell me what you have been doing."

"Nay, never mind it, dear husband; John will be very good, I hope, and we had better say no more about what is past."

"Yes, but I must know," said he, drawing John close to him. "Come, tell me what has been the matter."

John was a plain-spoken boy, and had a straight-forward way of speaking the truth. He came up to his father, and looked full in his face, and said, "The baker came for his money to-night, and would not leave the loaves without mother paid for them; and though he was cross and rough to mother, he said it was not her fault, and that he was sure you had been drinking away all the money; and when he was gone, mother cried over her work, but she did not say any thing. I did not know she was crying, till I saw her tears fall, drop, drop, on her hands; and then I said bad words, and mother sent me to stand in the corner."

"And now, John, you may bring me some coal," said Susan; "there's a fine lump in the coal-box."

"But first tell me what your bad words were, John," said his father; "not swearing, I hope?"

"No," said John, coloring, but speaking as bluntly as before, "I said that you were a bad man. I said, bad father."

"And they were bad words, I am sure," said Susan, very calmly; "but you are forgiven, and so you may get me the coal."

George looked at the face of his wife, and as he met the tender gaze of her mild eyes now turned to him, he felt the tears rise in his own. He rose up, and as he put the money into his wife's hands, he said, "There are my week's wages. Come, come, hold out both hands, for you have not got all yet. Well, now you have every farthing. Keep the whole, and lay it out to the best advantage, as you always do. I hope this will be a beginning of better doings on my part, and happier days on yours; and now put on your bonnet, and I'll walk with you to pay the baker, and buy a bushel or two of coal, or any thing else you may be in want of; and when we come back I'll read a chapter of the Bible to you and the girls, while you get on with the needle-work."

Susan went up stairs to put on her bonnet and shawl, and she remained a little longer, to kneel down on the spot where she had often knelt almost heart-broken in prayer—prayer that her heavenly Father would turn her husband's heart, first to his Saviour, and then to his wife and children; and that, in the meantime, he would give her patience. She, knelt down this time to pour out her heart in thanksgiving and praise. The pleasant tones of her husband's voice called her from her knees.

George Manly told his wife that evening, after the children were gone to bed, that when he saw what the pence of the poor could do towards keeping up a fine house, and dressing out the landlord's wife and daughters; and when he thought of his own hard-working, uncomplaining Susan, and his children in want, and almost in rags, while he was sitting drinking, and drinking, night after night, more like a beast than a man, destroying his own manly strength, and the fine health God had given him, he was so struck with sorrow and shame, that he seemed to come to himself at last. He made his determination, from that hour, never again to put the intoxicating glass to his lips, and he hoped he made it in dependence upon God for grace and strength to keep it.

It was more than a year after Mrs. Crowder, of the Punch-bowl, had first missed a regular customer from her house, and when she had forgotten to express her wonder as to what could have become of the good-looking carpenter that generally spent his earnings there, and drank and spent his money so freely—

"There, get on as fast as you can, dears; run, girls, and don't stop for me, your beautiful dresses will be quite spoilt; never mind me, for my levantine is a French silk, and won't spot."

These words were screamed out as loud as her haste would permit, by Mrs. Crowder, who was accompanying her daughters, one Sunday evening, to the tea-gardens.

She was answered by Miss Lucy, "You know, ma, we can't run, for our shoes are so tight."

"Then turn into one of these houses, dears," said the mother, who was bustling forward as fast as she could.

"No, indeed," replied the other daughter, who found time to curl her lip with disdain, notwithstanding her haste and her distress, "I'll not set a foot in such filthy hovels."

"Well, dears, here is a comfortable, tidy place," cried the mother at length, as they hastened forward; "here I'll enter, nor will I stir till the rain is over; come in, girls, come in. You might eat off these boards, they are so clean."

The rain was now coming down in torrents, and the two young ladies gladly followed their mother's example, and entered the neat and cleanly dwelling. Their long hair hung dangling about their ears, their crape bonnets had been screened in vain by their fringed parasols, and the skirts of their silk gowns were draggled with mud. They all three began to stamp upon the door of the room into which they had entered with very little ceremony; but the good-natured mistress of the house felt more for their disaster than for her floor, and came forward at once to console and assist them. She brought forth clean cloths from the dresser-drawer, and she and her two daughters set to work to wipe off, with quick and delicate care, the rain-drops and mud-splashes from the silken dresses of the three fine ladies. The crape hats and the parasols were carefully dried at a safe distance from the fire, and a comb was offered to arrange the uncurled hair, such a white and delicately clean comb as may seldom be seen upon a poor woman's toilet.

When all had been done that could be done, and, as Miss Lucy said, "they began to look themselves again," Mrs. Crowder, who was lolling back at her ease in a large and comfortable arm-chair, and amusing herself by taking a good stare at every thing and every one in the room, suddenly started forward, and cried out, addressing herself to the master of the house, upon whose Bible and at whose face she had been last fixing her gaze, "Why, my good man, we are old friends: I know your face, I'm certain; still, there is some change in you, though I can't exactly say what it is."

"I used to be in ragged clothes, and out of health," said George Manly, smiling, as he looked up from his Bible; "I am now, blessed be God for it, comfortably clad, and in excellent health."

"But how is it," said Mrs. Crowder, "that we never catch a sight of you now?"

"Madam," said be, "I'm sure I wish well to you and all people; nay, I have reason to thank you, for words of yours were the first means of opening my eyes to my own foolish and sinful course. You seem to thrive—so do we. My wife and children were half-naked and half-starved only this time last year. Look at them, if you please, now; for, so far as sweet, contented looks go, and decent raiment befitting their station, I'll match them with any man's wife and children. And now, madam, I tell you, as you told a friend of yours one day last year, that ''tis the FOOLS' PENCE which have done all this for us.' The fools' pence! I ought to say, the pence earned by honest industry, and spent in such a manner that I can ask the blessing of God upon the pence."

When Mrs. Crowder and her daughters were gone, George Manly sat without speaking for some considerable time. He was deep in thought, and his gentle, pious wife felt that she knew on what subject he had been thinking so deeply; for when he woke up from his fit of thought, a deep sigh stole from his lips, and he brushed away the tears which had filled his eyes.

"Susan," he said, "what can I render to the Lord for all his goodness to me? From what a fearful depth of ruin have I been snatched! Once I met some of my old companions, who so set upon me to draw me to drink with them, that I thought Satan must have urged them on. Another time, I went walking on, and found myself at the door of the poison-shop, without knowing how I got there; but God gave me strength to turn instantly away, and not linger a moment to daily with temptation.

"I could not help thinking, as I was reading this holy book, when that showy dame came in from whose hand I so often took the poisonous cup, how much I owed to God for saving me from ruin, and giving me that peace and satisfaction in religion which I now enjoy; and making me, I hope, a blessing to you all. O, what a love was the love of Christ to poor sinners! He gave his own blood as our precious ransom; he came to save us from our sins, that we may serve him in newness of life."

* * * * *

The above history, which is taken from a Tract of the Religious Tract Society in London, has its counterpart in the case of multitudes in our own country. Let him who would not shorten his days, and make his family wretched, and ruin his own soul, resolve with George Manly, "never again to put the intoxicating glass to his lips;" and like him, let him go humbly and with childlike confidence to God for strength to keep his resolution, and for grace to pardon all his sins, through the blood and righteousness of Christ. Then shall he have peace of mind, and be a blessing in his day; and when this brief life is ended, he shall enter into eternal joy.

PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.



THE POOR MAN'S HOUSE REPAIRED;

OR,

THE WRETCHED MADE HAPPY.

A NARRATIVE OF FACTS.



For fifteen years of my married life I was as miserable as any woman could be. Our house was the picture of wretchedness externally, and it looked still more wretched within. The windows were patched, the walls shattered, the furniture defaced and broken, and every thing was going to ruins.

It had not always been so: once my home was happy, and I used to take much pleasure and some pride in hearing the neighbors say, "How neat and trim neighbor N——'s house always looks!" But they could not say so long. One thing after another changed. Our table was no longer spread with comfortable food, nor surrounded with cheerful faces; but there were scanty meals, sour looks, and loud and angry words; while, do the best I could, I was not able to conceal the tatters of my own and my children's clothing. My husband is a mechanic; his employment is good, and he might have made his family as happy as any family in the place; but he was in the habit of taking ardent spirit every day. He thought it did him good; I knew it did not, for I found him every day more and more unkind. Our comforts, one by one, were stripped away, till at last I saw myself the wife of a confirmed drunkard.

I well remember, one evening, I was sitting by the fire, mending my poor boy's tattered jacket. My heart was very sad. I had been thinking of the happy evenings I had spent with my husband before our marriage; of the few pleasant years that succeeded; of the misery that then came; of the misery yet to come; and for me there seemed no ray of hope or comfort. My husband was a terror to his family, and a nuisance to the neighborhood; my children were idle, ragged, and disobedient; myself a heart-broken wife and wretched mother. While I thought of all this, I could no longer retain my composure, but, dropping my work, I leaned my head upon my hand and wept bitterly. My husband had been absent all day, and I was now expecting him home every minute. It was growing late, so I wiped away my tears as well as I could, and put the embers together, to make my fireside look as inviting as possible. But I dreaded my husband's return—his sharp voice and bitter words pained me to the heart, and rougher treatment than all this I often experienced from him who had once been to me all that I could wish.

At length the door opened, and Robert entered. I saw by his flushed countenance and angry expression that I had better remain silent; so, with a sinking heart, I placed a chair for him by the fire, and continued my work without speaking.

Robert broke silence, and in a sharp tone said, "What on earth do you sit there for, at work on that dirty rag? Why don't you give me something to eat?" and snatching the work roughly from my hands, he threw it into the fire. I sprang forward to rescue my poor child's garment, and so quick were my movements, that I saved it from much injury. But while I was shaking the ashes from it, my husband again snatched it from my hands, and with a terrible oath, defying me to touch it, once more threw it into the fire. I was afraid to attempt to save it; so I turned away, with bitter feelings to see my labor all lost, and my destitute child made still more destitute by its father's hand. But, as patiently and kindly as I could, I set before Robert the supper I had prepared for him. It did not look very inviting, to be sure; but I could offer nothing more. He swore he would not taste a particle. I now reproached him for not having provided any thing better for myself and children. But this was no time for reproach. Robert's anger rose to the highest pitch. He dashed the cup and plate I had placed for him to the floor, and seizing me roughly by the arm, he opened the door, and forcing me from the dwelling, bid me enter again, if I dared. The night was cold and windy. I was thinly dressed, and even ill. But I forbore to take refuge under a neighbor's roof. My heart was too sad and desolate to admit of human consolation. At this sorrowful moment I remembered that

"Earth hath no sorrow that heaven cannot heal;"

so, falling almost unconsciously upon my knees, I prayed that God would comfort my stricken heart; that my sins might be pardoned; that I might be enabled to repose all my griefs in the bosom of that gracious One who has kindly promised to give the heavy-laden rest. I then prayed for my miserable husband, that God would have mercy upon him, and deliver him from his dreadful delusion before it was too late. I prayed, too, for my poor children, with all the fervor of a mother's soul. This was the first prayer I had offered for years; for I had been an impenitent woman. Had I prayed sooner, I might have saved myself much sorrow and distress. But as it was, I arose from my knees with feelings far less hopeless and bitter. I then crept back to the house, and on looking in at the window, I found that Robert had fallen asleep; so I opened the door quietly, without disturbing his heavy slumbers, and laid myself down to rest.

The events of this evening were no uncommon events to me. Each succeeding day brought but the same rough treatment, the same wretchedness and want. Robert grew worse and worse. He not only destroyed all our peace, but brought noise and discord into the whole neighborhood, till at last, for the sake of quiet, he was taken to the house of correction. I never can forget that dreadful night when he was carried away. He came home shockingly intoxicated. The little children crept into the farthest corner of the house to shield themselves from his fury. He threatened every thing with destruction. I was in danger of my life, and ran for safety into the nearest house, where a poor widow lived. Robert followed—we fastened the door—he swore he would set fire to the building, and burn it over our heads. But some one passing by heard the uproar, and went for the town officers. Several of them came, just as my infatuated husband was pelting the window with stones. They took him away by force, while he was uttering the most shocking oaths. I sat down and wept with shame and vexation. My little Jane put her arm round my neck, and said, "Don't cry, ma—he has gone—wicked pa has gone, and I hope he will never come back—he is so cross, and beats us so." I hardly knew what to say in answer to my little girl, but I felt that it was a dreadful thing to have my children speak so of him whom I would gladly have taught them to love and honor.

I determined, now my husband was away, to support my family by my own work; for wretched as my home was, I could not bear to leave it and come upon the town. I could not earn much, for my health was feeble, but I managed, by depriving myself of several meals, to save enough to mend my poor neighbor's window.

But Robert longed to regain his liberty. He resolved that he would do better, and upon promising orderly conduct, was permitted to return to his family. Badly as he had treated me, I was glad to see him back again. He looked humble, and spoke to me kindly. He kissed the younger children, too, and for a while every thing went on smoothly. To me it seemed like the dawning of better days, and when Robert one evening brought home some new shoes for our oldest boy, and a new gown for my little Jane, I actually wept for joy, and Jane said, her "wicked pa had come back very good."

But these bright days were not to last. Darker ones came, darker than I had ever known before, or perhaps they seemed darker, from the transient sunshine that had gleamed upon us. I again heard my children crying for food, when I had no food to give them. I was again often turned from my dwelling, or, if I offered any resistance, was forced to receive harsh words and cruel blows. But it is in vain to tell all I suffered. Many have gone through the same fiery trial, and will feel that a recital of my woes is but a recital of what they too have borne.

There was one privilege, the want of which I at this time felt deeply. The village church was within sight of our door. I used to hear the bell ring, and see the children of the neighborhood go by, neatly dressed, to the Sabbath-school; but I had no gown, nor bonnet, nor shawl fit to wear, and my children were still more destitute than myself. So we were obliged to spend the Sabbath in sadness at home, while Robert, if the day was fine, would profane it by going on the water to fish, or would linger with his companions round the door of the grogshop—not to enter, it is true; for the dram-seller, with his wife and children, dressed very fine, and were accustomed to attend church; and but for that dreadful shop, I might have gone there too.

Our minister was one of those who thought it his duty to "reason on temperance," as well as "righteousness," and "judgment to come;" and through his exertions, and the exertions of other good men, a reform had commenced, which gave great encouragement to the friends of human happiness and virtue. Temperance-meetings were held once a month in different parts of the town, and in spite of much opposition, and many prophecies to the contrary, the cause went on.

I heard much said about these meetings, and resolved to attend the next; so, when the evening came, I borrowed a cloak and bonnet of one of the neighbors, and hastened to the church. The prayers I there heard did my wounded spirit good, and the plain, impressive language of the minister spoke to my very heart. I resolved to persuade my husband, if possible, to go with me when there should be another meeting.

A circumstance occurred about this time that quite destroyed my remaining courage, and almost caused me to give Robert up for lost. We lived in a small, shabby-looking house, a part of which he rented to a very poor family. They could not pay the rent immediately upon its being due. It was in the depth of winter, and the poor woman had a little infant, not more than two weeks old. But Robert's heart was shut to all kind feelings. One very stormy day he drove the whole family out of doors, and they were obliged to seek some other dwelling. It was too much for the poor woman in her feeble state. She caught a severe cold, and died in a few days. After this heartless act, my faiths quite failed me, and I felt as if nothing could recall my husband to a sense of duty. But I little knew the workings of his mind. He seemed to return a little to his senses, when he saw that his cruelty had probably caused the death of the poor woman, and rendered a large family of helpless children motherless. His countenance became more dark and gloomy, and he scarcely raised his eyes to notice any one.

Things were in this state, when one day our minister called, as he was visiting the people of his parish. I was very glad to see him, and told him all my griefs freely. He gave me what consolation he could, and informed me that there was another temperance-meeting in the evening, which he hoped I would attend; "and," added he, "bring your husband along with you, if you can persuade him to come."

When Robert came home to supper, I was surprised and delighted to find him sober; so I told him of the minister's visit, and the meeting in the evening. He seemed pleased that the minister had called, and even asked me how things looked about the room, "for," said he, "we don't look quite so stylish here as we once did, Mary."

"No, Robert," said I, with a sigh, as I surveyed the wretched apartment; "but if you would attend the temperance-meeting, and hear what the minister says about saving money, I think it would soon look much better here, and the boys might have better jackets, and I might have a better gown. Oh, Robert"—

I would have said more, but my eyes filled with tears, and I could not. Robert hung down his head, and looked ashamed. He knew he had spent, for rum, money enough to feed and clothe his family well. I thought he had half a mind to tell me he would go with me. When I had cleared away the supper, and sent the children to bed, I put on my bonnet, and said, "I will just step into neighbor Warren's, and borrow Nancy's cloak."

"Have not you any cloak of your own?" said he.

"No," I replied, "I have been without one a long time."

Robert said no more, but when I came back with the cloak, and said to him, "Will you go with me?" he said, in a tone which seemed as if he were trying to suppress kinder feelings, "Go along, Mary, and don't be always fretting about me." I was grieved, but said nothing, and proceeded to the meeting alone, praying that Robert might think better of it, and come. The services were even more interesting than they had been at the preceding meeting. The minister said every thing to convince, and I felt a distressing anxiety, that I could not control, to have my husband hear all that was said. Judge, then, of my surprise and pleasure, when, a short time after I had returned home, Robert entered, and said, "Guess where I have been, Mary."

"Not to meeting, Robert."

"Yes, Mary, to meeting. I took up my hat after you had gone, thinking that I would go down to the shop; for I felt uneasy, and wanted something to suppress my disagreeable thoughts. But as I passed by the meeting-house, it was so well lighted up, and the bell was ringing, and the people going in, I thought perhaps I had better go in too; and I am glad I did. Wife, I do believe the minister is right. I know that hard drinking has been the ruin of myself and family, and while the minister was speaking, I thought I would try to break away from my bad habits."

"O, Robert, will you try?" I exclaimed, while my heart beat with pleasure to hear him thus speak.

"'Tis hard work, Mary, harder than you think for."

"I know it is hard, my dear husband; but only think of the happiness it would bring to us all—of the ruin from which it will save our little boys—the agony from which it will save your poor wife. O, Robert, if you have one spark of love remaining in your bosom for any of us"—

I could not go on; but leaning my hands upon my husband's shoulder, I sobbed aloud.

Robert seemed affected, and said, in a doubtful tone, "Perhaps I might leave it off by degrees."

"O no, Robert, no," I answered, "that will never do. Don't you remember how particular the minister was to say, 'Leave it off at once?' You will never do it by degrees."

Robert looked steadily into the fire, and did not say one word more. When not under the influence of strong drink, he is a man of good sense, and I thought it better to leave him to his own reflections. I know not what passed through his mind. The kinder and better feelings of other days seemed to be awakened from their slumber, or rather, He from whom "all just thoughts and holy desires proceed," was influencing his determination. As for myself, I longed in secret to pour out my soul to God. So I went into the bedroom, where my poor children were fast asleep; and after seeing that they were well covered up, I kissed each one of them, and knelt down by their side to offer up my prayer. I prayed as I had never done before. I seemed, through my Redeemer, to gain a nearer and bolder access to the throne of grace. My heart was filled with deep gratitude, penitence, humility, and joy; and from that hour I have dared to hope myself a child of God. O that blessed, blessed night. It caused joy among the angels in heaven, over the reconciliation of one soul to God—over the desire of another soul to return to the path of duty. It caused joy on earth, in our poor, humble dwelling—joy in the bosom of the long-afflicted wife—joy that her own soul was trusting in Christ—joy that her husband was purposing to forsake his wretched way, and turn into a happier, better path.

The next day, before Robert went out, I encouraged him all I could to persevere. I brought to his remembrance as much of the lecture as I could, so that it might be fresh in his mind. He left me in good spirits, and promised to see me again at night a sober man. But O, what an anxious day was it for me! I dreaded, and yet longed for evening to come, and my heart beat as I heard his footstep at the door. But he had kept his word—he had not tasted a drop of spirit during the day. He had seen, too, the minister and several members of the Temperance Society. In consequence of the meeting on the last evening, many new names were added to the temperance list, and they had promised, in case of entire abstinence till the next meeting, to receive his. I could scarcely believe my senses when I heard my husband speak thus, and the prospect of his becoming a sober man seemed too delightful to be ever realized. For a time, I rejoiced with trembling; but when, day after day, I saw him return orderly and quiet, my courage revived, and I felt that he would persevere.

At length the evening came round for the next meeting, and my husband and myself went, O so happy! and put our names to the pledge. What a different prospect did our home now present. I could not keep my countenance for joy, when the neighbors came in to congratulate me on the change. I could now dress my children neat and comfortable, and send them to the Sabbath-school. I went myself with my husband constantly to church, and on making known my wish to our minister, publicly professed my faith in the Saviour of sinners. Thus happily did the winter and summer pass away. One day in autumn, as the minister was passing by, my husband was in the road in front of the house.

The minister remarked, "I am glad, Robert, to see your house repaired and looking so well."

"Thank you, sir; why, it does look some better." As the minister was about to pass on, Robert added, "Mr. G., I have not drank a drop of rum for one year, come next Monday. So you see the effect upon my house. I used to work hard before, and spent about all I earned for rum, to drink myself, or to give away. Many a time I have been at my work on a Sunday, and earned a dollar or more in the course of the day, and taken the money, and then laid out the whole in rum. Now I can clothe my family well, and have something to lay out upon my house. Last summer, my boy and I saved sixty dollars besides supporting the family."

Sixty dollars saved! But who can tell the value of the happy days and nights of this year; or the worth of a kind, sober, industrious husband and father, compared with a cross, cruel, and drunken one? Ask the wife; what would she tell you? Ask the children; what would be their answer?

Some of my husband's former wicked companions felt piqued and envious that Robert was free from their degrading habit. They saw him thriving, respected, and happy. His life and prospects were a continued reflection upon theirs. They longed to see him fall, and determined, if possible, to effect his ruin. As he was quietly returning home one evening, he passed by the shop which he was once so much in the habit of frequenting. They accosted him: by taunts and jeers which he had not firmness enough to resist, they drew him into their company. Once there, they thought him within their power. When they could not induce him to violate his pledge by taking rum, they called him a "cold-water man;" "a white-livered coward;" "priest-ridden;" "afraid of his minister," and many other titles of reproach. They then told him he had not promised to drink no wine; and, after much persuasion, they induced him to take a glass. But in this glass they had mingled the poison. Once stimulated, he called for more and yet more, till these wretches had the pleasure of seeing him who had so long stood firm, reeling from the shop, to mar at once all that was pleasant and peaceful at home. When my husband did not return at supper-time, I felt rather anxious, but thought he might be delayed, as he sometimes is; so I put his supper to the fire and sat down to my knitting-work, while one of the boys read to me from his Sabbath-school book.

We were thus employed when my deluded husband entered. O the agony of that moment! Had he been brought to me a corpse, I could not have been more shocked. Had those wicked men that thus seduced my husband entered my house and done the same things that they caused him to do, they might have been indicted for the outrage. In the morning Robert had come to himself; but he saw in the broken furniture, in the distrustful looks of the children, in the swollen eyes and distressed countenance of his wife, more than he cared to know. There was a mixture of remorse and obstinacy in his looks, and when he left me for the morning, instead of his usual "Good-morning, Mary," he shut the door roughly after him and hurried away.

When evening came again, Robert returned to the shop, and asked for a glass of rum. He wanted something to stifle the keen reproaches of conscience. The dram-seller knew my husband, knew of his reform, that from being a nuisance to the town, he had become an orderly and respectable citizen; and now that he had been seduced from the right way, instead of denying him the cause of all our former misery—instead of a little friendly advice—with his usual courteous smile, he put the fatal glass into his hand.

For a time my poor Robert continued in a very bad way. He mingled again with his profane and wicked associates; he was ashamed to see his minister, and took no notice of him when he passed; hung down his head when he met any of his temperance friends, and seemed to be fast returning to his former miserable habits.

But he was not thus to become the dupe of wicked and designing men. His wife's prayers and tears were not thus to be of no avail. On a sudden he awoke from his delusion. He had lived a whole year without rum; and though exposed to all weathers, he knew his health had been better, his head clearer, his nerves firmer, his purse heavier, and his home happier. He called one evening to see the President of the Temperance Society; confessed his weakness in yielding to temptation; asked the forgiveness of the Society; requested to have his name, which had been erased from the temperance list, renewed; and promised never again to violate the pledge. Since that night my husband has continued a perfectly temperate man. No temptation has ever led him again to violate his pledge.

I have been induced to give this history of his reform to the world, in order, if possible, to persuade others to follow his example, to show them how quiet and plenty were restored to a wretched dwelling, virtue and respectability to a ruined family, and the poor man's house repaired.

* * * * *

A clergyman, worthy of all confidence, and acquainted with the writer of the above, and the circumstances detailed, testifies, that the case is "literally and faithfully described."



JAMIE;

OR,

A VOICE FROM IRELAND FOR TEMPERANCE.

A TRUE NARRATIVE.

BY PROFESSOR EDGAR, OF BELFAST.

In a populous and civilized district of Ulster lived JAMIE, a day-laborer; a fellow of right good sense and practical talent, carpenter and mason, shoemaker and blacksmith, and aught else the case required. The variety of his powers had nearly ruined him. On all hands he was in requisition, and everywhere he was a favorite—kindness flowing to him in its common channel, spirituous liquor. Wherever he went, he was treated. This was too much for flesh and blood, and Jamie became, in the style of the world's false charity, "fond of the drop." His cash flew to the spirit-shop, and brought neither health nor happiness in return. The neighbors called him—alas, for such lullabies to conscience!—an honest, good-hearted fellow, who did nobody any harm but himself. While, however, they tempted, and flattered, and deceived, their victim was posting to ruin.

But, while moderate drinkers were training him to drunkenness, God was raising up the Temperance Society as an ark of safety to him from the flood of their temptations. One of the publications of the Ulster Temperance Society fell into his hands, and he read it, for he was of an inquiring spirit, and a blessing attended it. What, said he, in amazement, can this be true?—distilled spirits of no more use to any man in health than arsenic or opium? "Distilled spirits are too tempting, and dangerous, and violently intoxicating, to be used as a common beverage at all!" O, thought he, that at least is true. "Distilled spirits are in their very nature injurious to the human constitution; and every man who indulges even in their moderate use, injures himself in proportion to the quantity which he consumes." Jamie was astonished, and well he might be; but Jamie was conscientious, and though he had the manhood to confess, what few moderate drinkers will, that he liked a glass, yet, because he had still a conscience, notwithstanding the searing it had got from the fiery drink, he said to himself, "I must, at least, try whether these wonderful statements respecting distilled spirits be true." James tried, and the effects were delightful. In a very short time he found, from happy experience, that his health was better from the change; that his purse was better; that soul and body, the whole man of him was far better, in all respects, since he renounced the maddening draught.

His duty was now clear before him—to abstain from the raging drink which, in time past, had been emptying his pocket, destroying his character, and bringing down his body to the grave, and his soul to hell. He did his duty in the right way for doing duty—at once, and right on.

He saw, however, that something more was incumbent on him than merely doing his duty in this particular—he must, for the good of others, let it be known, without ostentation, that his duty was done. Abstaining, he said to himself, has done me good; the banishment of spirituous liquors would do my country good; what is every man's duty is my duty; and therefore, in love to my brethren, I'll freely give the blessing which to me has been so freely given. Union is strength, thought he: separate efforts are a rope of sand; united, they are the cable which holds the mighty ship. He resolved to establish a Temperance Society.

For this purpose, he supplied himself immediately with a number of Tracts on temperance; for Jamie knew that when self-interest or passion come in, second thoughts are not always best; and forthwith he commenced travelling around, reading them, at spare hours throughout the neighborhood, wherever he could find half-a-dozen people to listen to him. He was a good reader, and very soon found that his reading was not without effect; for in a short time he heard of a decent woman telling her neighbor to send for Jamie to the wake which was to be held in her house, if she wished to save her whiskey, and have peace and quietness; for, said she, he came to the wake in my house, and read and talked about temperance, till both the whiskey and the people seemed either persuaded or frightened, for hardly one had the courage to put to his lips what Jamie called, indeed too truly, "the accursed thing."

Jamie, however, soon found to his cost that he had commenced a very great and a very sore work. The spirit-sellers, four of whom were at a single cross-roads in his neighborhood, he expected to be against him, and drunkards he expected would be against him too; but he soon found that his chief opponents lay in quite another quarter. Sensible people soon began to see that spirit-sellers are drones on the community, doing no good, but much harm: and, besides, one of them having first allowed a temperance meeting to be held in his barn, conscientiously shut up his spirit-shop, and joined the Temperance Society, being convinced that spirit-selling is poison-selling, and that each spirit-shop might justly have on its sign-board, "Beggars made here." Of the drunkards, some indeed did call him hard names, and impute to him base motives; but from among even these, lost as they seemed to be to all hope, he was, by God's grace, enabled to reclaim some, as brands snatched from the burning, while others of them said to him, in the bitterness of their reflecting moments, Go on, Jamie, your work is God's work. Had you commenced but a little sooner, what a blessing might your Society have been to us; but alas, it is all over with us now!

What at first surprised Jamie much was, that the fathers or husbands of these very drunkards were his most bitter opponents. He went to them with a glad heart, expecting that they would hear with delight of a plan by which drunkards, in great numbers, have been reclaimed, and by which the temperate can be effectually secured against temptation; but his heart sunk when he found, not that they received him coldly, for to such receptions he was accustomed, but that they, as well as others who boast much of being "temperate enough already," lost all temper at the very sound of temperance.