asked, does it happen that so many continue to become the abandoned slaves of this vice; so that, although death is yearly peopling his dark dominions with thousands upon thousands of the victims of intemperance, its ranks are rather increasing than being diminished? To this we reply, that no man becomes a drunkard at once, but that every drunkard was gradually confirmed in the practice of intemperance, by the insidious nature of the liquors, to the moderate use of which he originally intended to confine himself; and that there is reason to believe, if the greater number of the unhappy beings who are now among the most hopeless of the intemperate, could have been assured, before they took the first step in their guilty career, of the condition to which it would ultimately conduct them, they would have shuddered at the very thought of experiencing such disgrace and desolation.

In the earlier stages of the drunkard's course, he may be regarded with pity, and the love and respect of which, in his sober days, he was the happy object, may continue to linger about his path, and to display the utmost anxiety for his return; but as he advances, that pity becomes changed for scorn, and, where he once received the tokens of affection, and of honour, he is often visited by the bitterest reproaches of hatred and disgust. The wife, unless demoralized by the same practice which has debased her drunken husband, spurns him from her bosom. The sober and virtuous child is almost ashamed to pronounce the name of its drunken parent; and even the servant feels no veneration for the intemperate master; and renders no obedienee to his commands, any further than obedience is necessary to secure his own advan

tage. How contemptuously did the servant and wife of Nabal speak of this wealthy, but surly and disgusting inebriate. "He is such a son of Belial, that a man cannot speak to him," is the language of the one, and, "Let not my Lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial, even Nabal, for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him," is the language of the other. Station, which under ordinary circumstances would have commanded the homage of millions-wealth, which might have purchased the most devoted services-and talents, sufficiently splendid to raise a man from the lowest obscurity, to the most enviable of positions, have all been insufficient to protect their possessors from poverty and neglect, and, in some cases, from absolute detestation, when they have become the habitual victims of intemperance.

SECTION VII.

INTEMPERANCE DESTRUCTIVE TO THE PROPERTY

OF THE INTEMPERATE.

WHILE exorbitant wealth is far from being necessary to either national, or individual happiness, poverty is universally regarded as an evil. The Sacred Scriptures, indeed, most plainly and fearfully denounce the love of money. They place the covetous among such as will infallibly be excluded from the kingdom of heaven. It must, however, be remembered that they constantly represent property, whether consisting of flocks, or of herds, of houses, or of lands, of silver, or of gold, as one of the choicest earthly gifts of a wise and benevolent Creator.

If property be viewed as a means of promoting our own comfort, as well as that of our relatives and friends, or as a means of enabling us to contribute to the general happiness of the world, since its influence is capable of operating in so many, and in such important directions, we can do no otherwise than pronounce it to be a blessing, for which the purest

gratitude is due to Him, who is the giver of "every good and every perfect gift."

Now intemperance is a vice which is most ruinous to the drunkard's property. Sometimes it dissipates what has been acquired by the care and industry of his ancestors; and at other times squanders his own earnings to an extent which is destructive of his own comfort, and that of all who are dependent upon him.

Apart, from his inspiration, no one was ever better qualified, by experience and observation, than Solomon, to instruct the world in the tendencies of both vice and virtue. And what is his testimony, in connexion with this part of our subject? "Hear thou my Son" he says, "and be wise, and guide thine heart in the way. Be not among wine-bibbers, among riotous eaters of flesh; for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags."

In itself, intemperance is a most expensive habit. When it affects the higher classes of society, it leads them to indulge in drinking the most costly of liquors; and when it affects the lower, it, frequently, occasions. the expenditure of more on one day's debauch, than would be sufficient to purchase solid and nutritious diet for a week. Gluttony is no doubt a sin, and is calculated to disorder the human body, and to produce premature death; but the glutton has this advantage, as well as many others, over the drunkard, namely, that he cannot, by any possibility, indulge his appetite, but at certain intervals, and during, comparatively, short periods; while the drunkard can continue to gratify his insatiable thirst, as long as he has strength to raise to his lips the cup, which holds

the deadly but infatuating draught. It is this circumstance, together with the fact that the desire for intoxicating liquor increases with the use of it, unless counteracted by strong moral principle, which tends to render intemperance the most extravagant of vices. Among the lower classes of society, nothing but the most squalid wretchedness—the most deplorable want of all the comforts and conveniences of life, is found in connexion with this ruinous propensity. It is not so much to relieve the wants occasioned by unavoidable misfortune, that our work-houses and hospitals are erected, and that our poor-rates are levied until the land groans beneath the burden, as to meet the necessities of those, who have reduced themselves, by intemperance to poverty and distress.

We need only mark the number, and the extent of the establishments, which are supported by the manufacture, and the sale of intoxicating drinks,* in order to be convinced, that the idol of the intemperate is not without a multitude of worshippers; and that an enormous amount of wealth is devoted to its service. In our larger towns, such establishments are found, by their magnitude and external beauty, to cast far into the shade every adjacent building; and to be more like the residences of nobles, than the resorts of starving poverty and shameless vice. Alas! that they should be erected on the ruins of all that is valuable to man, as a rational, moral, and immortal being; and that their outward splendour, should be to their internal pollution, like the beauty of a gilded, and sculptured sepulchre, to the darkness, and sickening corruption of a charnel-house.

*In the year, 1836, there were in England and Wales alone, 54,531 public houses, and 45,738 beer-shops.