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.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    539] using, and giving to their friends, from their own stores, ardent spirit and wine. As to the quantity drank, we did not all conform to the standard of one of our number, who, when inquired of by President Wheelock, answered, “ that the least quantity he could put up with, to ‘prevent the water from injuring his system, was from two to three pints daily”—but, with few exceptions, we drank too much for our health, or for our advancement in the acquisition of knowledge. For thirty years after obtaining my degree, I was engaged in trade ; and, during all that time, I sold the deleterious poison, in large and small quantities, having both a tavern and a retail license for that purpose. Is it much to be wondered at, that during nearly half a century, in which I was in the almost constant use of intoxicating drinks, and daily furnishing them for others for the last thirty years of the time, if the whole man became deeply affected by such a course ? Although in the eye of the world I may not have been considered a confirmed inebriate, as I had my seasons of intermission, and never entirely gave up business, yet I am constrained to confess, that I was descending the downhill path to destruction ; and when I seriously reflect on my then situation, it is my deliberate opinion, that, if the blessed temperance reformation had not come to my rescue, I should, like thousands, and tens of thousands of others, who began as 1 did, by moderate drinking, have found, as they have done, the same drunkard’s grave. I was constitutionally very nervous, and subject to periodical returns of depression of spirits, and I am fully persuaded, now, that this tendency was greatly increased by the use of stimu- lants, which so enfeebled my nerves that I could hardly, at times, write my name, and this, for the time, induced me to give up corresponding with my friends. But since I have refrained from ardent spirit, and more especially from all intoxicating drinks, and the use of that subtle poison, tobacco, my nervous system has regained more than its wonted tone; my hand writing is firm, and equal to that of my younger days.* My general health is much improved, and 1 have a more uniform and constant flow of animal spirits. My experience has convinced me that the free use of intox- icating drinks unfits the mind for study, meditation, and reflec- tion; and incapacitates the subject from performing, properly, his duties to himself, or to his Creator. In addition to all the other blessings which have, in my case, followed the change in my habits, I have reason to hope, that by the grace of God, I have been led to embrace the Saviour, And it, truly, is a fine specimen of penmanship.—J. E. 3