land, and the larger cities of England, other alcoholic drinks are filling our smaller towns, and villages, and our most retired hamlets, with a diseased and debilitated population. A Physician in Dublin declares, that "if an end were put to the drinking of port, punch, and porter, disease would be comparatively rare, simple, and manageable." "Twenty years experience," he says, "has convinced me, that were ten young men, when of age, to commence drinking one glass of ardent spirits, or a pint of port or sherry, and to continue to drink that quantity daily, the lives of eight of them would be abridged twelve or fifteen years." In his anatomy of drunkenness, Dr. Macnish affirms, that in seven cases out of ten, malt liquor drunkards die of apoplexy or palsy. And Dr. John James, a physician in the United States, declares, that even "the moderate use of all intoxicating liquor, undermines the constitution, without exciting the suspicion of the victim, until reformation is all but hopeless." "We should never taste," he adds, "vinous, or other fermented liquors, without remembering that danger lurks in every cup." Of all the forms of disease, to which man is subject, insanity must be acknowledged the most distressing: but "of 286 lunatics, confined in the Richmond Asylum, 115 were admitted, by their friends, to have been made mad by drinking; "+ and throughout both Great Britain, and North America, it has been found that, at least, two-fifths of all the cases of insanity may be traced to the same fatal cause. * Dr. Cheyne. + Rev. John Edgar. The deleterious influence of intoxicating drinks, in destroying human health, has not, however, been confined to modern ages. In the time of Pliny they were observed to produce paleness, and sunken cheeks, ulcerated eyes, and trembling hands, restless nights, and terrific dreams. "Pallor, et genæ pendulæ, oculorum ulcera, inquies nocturna." Seneca has remarked, in a powerful and affecting manner, on their injurious effects, in respect to both mind and body; and has left on record his opinion that intemperance is voluntary madness. "Ebrietas est voluntaria insania." The inspired volume is not without its cautions against indulging in the use of intoxicating liquors ; nor its vivid descriptions of the dreadful consequences resulting from the abuse of them :-on the contrary, there is not to be found in the whole circle of uninspired writings, a passage so admirably descriptive of their insidious nature, and of their ruinous effects upon human health and happiness, as that which was penned by Solomon. "Who hath wo? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder." But we have no need of further testimonies to prove that intemperance is fatal to health; for we are daily witnessing its direful influence on the human frame, in the debilitated and diseased condition of neighbours, relatives, or friends. It is not too much to affirm, that if the aggregate amount of those diseases, which the existing population of the globe are labouring under, and which may be justly charged to the improper use of intoxicating liquors, were placed on the one side, and the entire amount of such diseases as have resulted from all other causes were placed on the other, it would be found that the former would so far exceed the latter, as to present an appalling proof, that the abuse of such liquors, is a far more terrific evil, than the imagination is able to conceive, when unaided by such appeals to the senses. SECTION V. INTEMPERANCE DESTRUCTIVE TO HUMAN LIFE. THE evil now to be considered necessarily results from the deleterious influence of intoxicating liquors upon the human frame; for although there are some infirmities and diseases which may not, materially, shorten the lives of such as are subject to them, it is found, by experience, that the diseases, occasioned by intemperance, are of the most violent and intractable character. Occasionally, individuals are to be found, who, from having been placed in circumstances favourable to longevity, and who, from having been blessed with an unusually vigorous, and well organized constitution, have been enabled to resist the destructive power of intoxicating liquors, to something like a good old age. But from the number and violence of the maladies, which such liquors are in all ordinary cases, known to produce, it may be rationally concluded, that had such as have braved their destructive influ C ence for three score years and ten, or for four score years, refrained from them altogether, they would have lived a far more lengthened period; and, instead of being distinguished, in their latter days, by palsied limbs, by racking pains, and an intellect betokening a state of dotage, that they would have sunk into the grave, as into a state of sweet repose, at the close of a long and happy day; and, perhaps, have been enabled to the last, to relish the enjoyments of reason and religion, and to communicate to others the lessons of wisdom which they had been taught by their own experience. But few, however, who have been addicted to intemperance, have either lived in the enjoyment of health, or been distinguished by longevity:-on the contrary, the most confined communities are continually affording ample evidence in proof, that intemperance, of all the evils which have a tendency to shorten human existence, is by far the most powerful. To be convinced of this it is not necessary to visit the crowded lanes and alleys of populous cities; from which thousands upon thousands, of the lower orders, are, annually, carried to the grave, having fallen victims to intemperance long before they had reached the meridian of life. In every town and village, this savage and insatiable Moloch, is not only, with appalling frequency, offering fresh sacrifices upon his altar, but is delighting to show that neither beauty, nor intellect, nor the activity of youth, nor the vigour of maturer years, can secure the object he has marked out for immolation, from his mighty and relentless grasp. Dr. Farre, when examined before the Parliamentary c 2 |