ATTACHING A FALSE ESTIMATE TO INTOXICATING LIQUORS, LEADS TO INTEMPERANCE.

HAVING investigated the nature and extent of an evil, the next stage in our inquiries concerning it, if our object be its entire removal, should be to discover, if possible, its causes.

There are some diseases the causes of which have never yet been accurately ascertained; and hence, although physicians have acquired, by means of frequent experiments, the art of curing them, they have not been able to guard the public health against their recurrence; while, in the case of many of those maladies which are found to be incurable, our want of success in the treatment of them is, in all probability, to be attributed rather to our ignorance of their causes, than to the want of remedies suited to their character. Now we consider intemperance as a most fatal malady, as a disease by which the body politic is so far affected, that all its vital interests are brought by it into a deplorable condition of weakness, disorder, and

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decay. Such being the case, while anxious for its speedy removal, we should be acting most irrationally did we aim at any thing short of its utter extinction. To accomplish such an object, we must first endeavour to obtain a clear and comprehensive view of the evil itself, to the end that we may be deeply convinced of the necessity of employing the most prompt, and decisive measures for its counteraction; and must then obtain such an acquaintance with its causes, as will enable us, by the removal of them, to prevent for ever the return of so fearful a pestilence.

The only immediate cause of intemperance is, undoubtedly, the excessive drinking of intoxicating liquors; but in endeavouring to trace this evil to its origin, we must take into account, as so many more or less remote causes of it, the various circumstances which lead to such excess. No man is naturally a drunkard; and if such as become drunkards could, in the days of their perfect sobriety, foresee all the direful consequences of intemperance, there is reason to believe they would sooner abstain altogether from intoxicating drinks than be willing to encounter those consequences. But be this as it may, it is certain, that in the case of the vast majority, who become drunkards, they are led on, from one stage in their drinking career to another, by causes, which, unless removed, will be continually recruiting the ranks of the intemperate, as fast as death performs among them his work of destruction.

The attaching of a high degree of value to distilled and fermented liquors, as the promoters of health, strength, and happiness, must be considered one of the most powerful causes of intemperance, inasmuch

as it leads to their being used, with such frequency, as excites for them an intemperate appetite.

In what way a fictitious value first came to be put upon such liquors, and indeed, in what way they were first discovered, it is somewhat difficult to ascertain. The probability is, that when men first became dissatisfied with water, they employed, as a beverage, the pure juice of fruit, and especially of the grape. Whether such liquor was in use before the deluge it is impossible to say. We are informed, in the Sacred Scriptures, that after the flood, "Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine and was drunken." That his intoxication was intentional we have no reason to believe; nor have we any right to suppose that he even knew of the intoxicating-nature of the wine he had taken before he experienced its effects. It might have happened that he had extracted a larger quantity of liquor from the produce of his vineyard than he had immediate use for, which having spontaneously fermented, by being kept, became intoxicating. Supposing however, that Noah was the first who discovered the intoxicating nature of fermented wine, it is still difficult to determine to what extent the discovery was the means of giving a character to the drinking customs of his descendents. No men

tion is made of wine, in the Sacred Scriptures, after the case of Noah, until they inform us that Melchisedeck, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine, for the refreshment of Abraham, when returning from the slaughter of Chedorlaomer and his allies; and this circumstance must have occurred several centuries after the intoxication of Noah. Throughout

the subsequent history of Abraham, as well as that of Isaac and Jacob, no such allusions are made to wine as would warrant us to draw any positive conclusions respecting the extent to which, in their time, it was in use. Water is, indeed, spoken of in such a way as to lead us to infer, that it was the common drink of these patriarchs, and of their families; but whether they possessed wine, and if they did possess it, whether it was generally used in a fermented state or not, are questions which must remain undecided.*

After men had generally discovered that the juice of fruit, by being fermented, acquired the property of exciting their animal passions, and of relieving them from a sense of langour and exhaustion, their natural proneness to sensuality seems to have induced them to value fermented liquors, in proportion to their strength; and to set no limits to the use of them, but what a conviction of their ultimately injurious influence might suggest, as necessary or expedient. The art of producing intoxicating liquors, such as ardent spirits, by means of distillation, must be regarded as the result of, comparatively, modern science. When first discovered these liquors were almost wholly confined to the purposes of chemistry, but being found to possess all the peculiar qualities of fermented liquors, but in a higher degree, they easily established themselves in the favour of those, who had previously valued the stimulating property of fermented liquors, and in some countries they have nearly supplanted, as common beverages, all the less powerfully intoxicating drinks.

* In the 28th and 37th verses of the 27th chapter of Genesis, Isaac must be considered as merely prophesying, that the posterity of Jacob would inhabit a land, abounding with vineyards.

In this country, as well as in some others, both ardent spirits and fermented liquors have long been regarded as almost essential to existence, and as absolutely necessary to human happiness; and although, year after year, they have been seen to destroy their tens of thousands, and have been known to produce an incalculable amount of poverty and crime, we have continued to cling to the delusion with the most irrational fondness. Alcoholic drinks, from the strongest of ardent spirits, to the weakest ale or cider, have been, as it were, our household gods, by whose powerful influence we were to remove the pressure of all our sorrows, to recruit our wasted energies, to enliven our drooping spirits,-to expel the diseases of the body,-to stimulate into life and activity the dormant energies of the mind, and, above all, to render more firm and pleasing the ties of friendship and affection. And in the character of household gods, these alcoholic drinks have occupied the most costly shrines;-they have been adorned with gold, and silver, and crystal;-they have been guarded with the most jealous care;-and if ever idolatrous incense was offered to a heathen deity, such incense has been presented to these idols, in the form of the most senseless adulation, by their infatuated worshippers. The monarch upon the throne, and all the princes of the land,—the judge, the senator, the inferior magistrate, the priest at the altar, the teachers of the most pure and sublime morality, the delicate female, whose easy and luxurious life hardly requires her to brush an insect from the silken drapery which infolds her, and the hardy rustic, and still hardier mariner, have all bowed down before the alcoholic