Permanent temperance documents, of the American Temperance Society. Vol. I.

Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Permanent temperance documents, of the American Temperance Society. Vol. I. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    557] pravecl and earthly in a minister, and to extinguish all that is spiritual and holy, it is poison to the soul, as really as to the body. Such is my conviction, and there are hundreds and thousands who have the same conviction, and will express it in terms equally strong. Nor is it any matter of imagination or conjecture with us. We know it just as certainly as any- one, from uniform experience and observation, knows the ef- fect of opium or arsenic upon the animal system ; and just as certainly as any Christian knows by experience the effect pro- duced upon his spiritual state by the commission of sin. We know it by sorrowful recollection. We know it by what was, at the time, a real but frequently a suppressed inward conscious- ness. And it was this deep consciousness, which always kept me and most other ministers from drinking any distilled or fer- mented liquor, just before engaging in any religious service, public or private. And now, let us render praise to him, from whom all good thoughts, wise counsels and useful actions proceed. Thanks be to God for what his hand has wrought, and for the unlook- ed for success with which he has crowned the labors of his ser- vants, who have been enlisted in this cause. For where, my brother, in all New England, and I was going to say, in the United States of America,—where now can a true minister of Christ be found, who keeps up the practice of using strong drink ? If unhappily I should find such an one, whether old or young, I would earnestly beseech that dear brother, by the mercies of God, to lay aside a practice which thousands of ministers know assuredly to be a clog to devotion, and a hin- drance to growth in grace, to spiritual enjoyment, and to min- isterial success.” Such are specimens of the effects produced upon hundreds of thousands, of all ages, and in all departments oflife, of abstinence from the use, as a beverage, of all intoxicating liquor. These specimens might be multiplied to almost any extent, did the cause require it; but enough, it is believed, have been exhibited, in connection with the foregoing principles, reasonings, and facts, to set this matter, in the minds of all candid, unprejudiced persons, forever at rest. All the information which the committee have been able to obtain, and all the views, which, after ten years labor, they are now able to take of this subject, go to confirm tile cor- rectness of the above-mentioned statements. And they cannot but consider it as now fully proved, that intoxicating liquor, as a bev- erage, is not needful or useful to men; that it is, indeed, an ene- my to the human constitution, and, in its effects, hurtful to the body and soul; that it produces many, and aggravates most, of
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