Macilwain, George, Esq., M.R.C.S., Surgeon to the Finsbury Dispensary. Manifold, -, Esq., M.R.C.S., Liverpool. Matterson, William, Esq., M.R.C.S., York. Matterson, William, jun., Esq., M.R.C.S., York. Mayo, Ilerbert, Esq., M.R.C.S., F.R S., Surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital. Merriman, Samuel, M.D., Physician Accoucheur to the Westminster General Dispensary. Middlemore, Richard, Esq., M.R.C.S., Surgeon to the Eye Infirmary, Birmingham. Nightingale, Robert S., Esq., M.R.C.S., Surgeon to the Eastern Dispensary, Liverpool. Parkin, John, Esq., M.R.C.S. Partridge, Richard, Esq., M.R.C.S., F.R.S., Professor of Anatomy at King's College, and Surgeon to Charing Cross Hospital. Pinchin, R. L., Esq., M.R.C.S. Quain, Richard, M.R.C.S., Professor of Anatomy at the London University, and Surgeon to the North London Hospital. Reid, James, M.D. Roots, H. S., M.D., Physician to St. Thomas' Hospital. Roupell, G. L., M.D., Lecturer on Materia Medica, and Physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Scott, John, M.D. Stanley, Edward, Esq., M.R.C.S., F.R.S., Professor of Anatomy, and Surgeon to Teale, T. P., Esq., M.R.C.S., F.L.S., Surgeon to the Leeds General Infirmary. Thomson, Anthony Dodd, M.D., F.L.S., Lecturer on Materia Medica, and Physician to the London University. Thomson, Henry U., M.D. Travers, Benjamin, Esq., M.R.C.S., F.R.S., Surgeon Extraordinary to the Queen, and Surgeon and Lecturer on Surgery to St. Thomas' Hospital. Ure, Andrew, M.D., F.R S. Ure, Alexander, M.D., Lecturer of Chimistry at the North London School of Medicine. With such testimonies then before us, and knowing that thousands more might be added; for every city, town, village, and hamlet, has its living victims whom alcohol has smitten; surely it behooves us to pause before we again use or commend so deadly a poison. Our bodies are not our own, but belong to our Creator, and therefore we have no right to subject them to disease, and render them unfit for the duties of life. We have seen, from the most disinterested and scientific testimonies of accredited medical physiologists, that disease on the one hand, is produced by these stimulating drinks, and that health on the other hand, is promoted, and often restored, by abstaining from them. What right then, have we wantonly, in the face of evidence, which every day's observation corroborates, to drink a beverage which has been, and still continues to be, the cause of so much misery, crime, and mortality? tem. Perhaps your constitution at present is good, and therefore, as yet, you can drink without perceiving much injury to your sysStill you must not forget the case of St. Martin; he, after drinking, complained of nothing, except an uneasy sensation and tenderness at the pit of the stomach, and some vertigo, with dimness and yellowness of vision on stooping down and rising up again," and yet, at the same time, his stomach was ulcerated, the gastric juice lessened and corrupted, and thus the foundation was being laid for chronic indigestion, and numerous other diseases. The injury to yourself and others may be so much the greater from the present iron constitution that enables you to swallow poison with, as you imagine, little or no inconvenience. Dr. Farre speaks of a hoary-headed drinker, who was the president of a drinking-club, who had buried three generations of associates, and who for the example he set in drinking, and the ruin he brought upon others, was termed by the publicans, "The Devil's Decoy." Isaiah says, "Wo unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink." Such may be able for years to indulge in this poison without perceiving its consequences upon their own frame, but " wo unto them!" the example they set may be the destruction of hundreds. Your child, your neighbor, or friend may not be possessed of your constitution, or self-control, and therefore, what seems to inspirit you, may poison his frame and ruin his morals. Hardy as may be our frame, and however impregnable to disease our system may appear to be, yet there is vigor enough in the virus of alcoholic drinks to undermine our health, and bring us to an untimely end; and when we enter the world of spirits and perceive how many our "mightiness to drink strong drink" may have tempted and ruined, our bodily strength, instead of being a matter of congratulation, will be our condemnation. The Rev. Mr. Scoresby, when detailing before Parliament, deaths from drunkenness, mentions, "That in Liverpool, in 1829, he had ascertained thirty-one cases of deaths from drinking, out of which, fourteen were those of females. Of these one had fallen into a tub of hot water, and was scalded to death; a female, from fighting when drunk, received a blow of which she died—another woman was burnt to death; another female, when tipsy, jumped out of a window and was killed; another woman, when drunk, hung herself; one man, by stealth, got at a puncheon of rum, and, by sucking the liquid fire through a reed, brought on almost instant death; another cut his throat; and another hung himself, from drinking. One died of a rapid disease brought on by tippling. Two boatmen, in a drunken quarrel, fell overboard, and were drowned. One man, under a depression that followed a fit of drunkenness, cut his throat; and another, from the same cause, hanged himself. One person, from being drunk, fell so heavily down a short flight of steps that he was killed immediately. Another died suddenly at the public-house, where he had been drinking. A woman, returning from a revel, drunk, died in the night; and another wretched female, when drunk, fell into a cellar, and was killed on the spot. One child was killed by its mother, who was staggering drunk, falling upon it; and another was overlaid and killed by its parents, who were both dead drunk.” Here, Christian reader, you have cruelty, crime, and carnage, to loathing. You have heard of Juggernaut and Moloch, and have deplored the unhappy victims which have been sacrificed to these idols; but you must remember, that neither Moloch in Israel, nor Juggernaut in India, ever destroyed so cruelly and brutally, or so many annually, as are now destroyed by the beer, wine, and spirits of your country; and yet, you, as a moderate drinker, by using and commending these poisons, are actually dragging along in triumph the car of the British Apollyon, and, as you smile over your glass, are kindling the pile of Tophet. Taking the deaths from drunkenness in Liverpool for one year as an average, the Rev. Mr. Scoresby concluded that the persons who die accidentally in the United Kingdom from the same cause, must amount to "six thousand four hundred" persons annually! We query whether Juggernaut or Moloch could ever boast of receiving sixty or seventy hecatombs of human victims in any single year. The Druids, the South Sea Islanders, and even the cannibals of ancient or modern times, could never vaunt of such recklessness of human blood as Christian Britain displays at the present time. Yet all these lives that have been destroyed, and souls that have perished, were duly prepared for future immolation by moderate drinking and moderate drinkers. Their parents and Christian friends gave them the first glass, and commended the poison which captivated their taste, destroyed their self-control, and doomed them to untimely deaths and to premature judgment. Is it a wonder that, in our day, considering the means employed, conversions are comparatively rare, and that we preach and pray almost in vain? Surely the Father of mercies must be indignant, and the Holy Spirit grieved, at seeing so many immortals rendered in body a mass of disease, and in mind, a mass of moral corruption, by the wanton use of a poison, which before our eyes is seen to destroy so many thousands. In the evidence of Professor Edgar, it is said, that “in the county Down, one young man presented a list of twenty-two persons of his own acquaintance, and within five miles of his residence, all of whom had perished miserably from drunkenness. Another young man in the county Antrim, presented a list of twenty-seven persons within the circuit of a few miles, all of whom had, within his own recollection, come to an untimely end, directly or indirectly, from drinking. A gentleman who lived within six miles of the same young man, made out a list of forty-seven persons, in a district within two miles of his residence, all of whom were known to have cut short their days by drinking. Within two miles of Portadown, and in three months, thirteen individuals perished miserably from drunkenness; three of them were drunk in the same house at night, and were found dead in the same bed the next morning!" The Professor added, that he could furnish many illustrations of the murderous influence of these drinks, "some even worse than those given above." Dr. Cheyne showed that in the West and East Indies, the mortality among the troops in 1827 amounted to one in every sixteen, and that the chief cause of these deaths was drinking. In many instances, the profanity and impiety that drinking induces, is truly horrible. In a company of gentlemen who had indulged in a long debauch, one of their number reclined on his chair and died: it being observed, after some time, "that he looked very grim and cadaverous," one of the party replied, "that it was no wonder, for he had been with his Maker for two hours, and that he knew this to be the case, only he did not like to spoil the mirth of the company" by making it known. This occurred a little later than the middle of last century in Dumbartonshire, and will show us that death, crime, and impiety, as the companions of drinking, are not of yesterday's growth, but have revelled in carnage and iniquity for years, and during that time have destroyed millions. John Dunlop, Esq., who gave the above statement, declared that 'many hundred thousands of British subjects every year die of drink directly, or predispose themselves by it to mortal disease." "Thus," he says, "it was understood by all ranks in Scotland, that drinking led to predisposition to cholera, and also that contact with the disease which was highly dangerous; and instances might be advanced of men, women, and children sitting upon a cholera coffin, with a corpse inside, drinking themselves speechless." 66 Perhaps, reader, you tell me that there is poison in bread, and poison in the atmosphere; but did you ever know breathing the wholesome air which God has compounded, or eating the wholesome food which he has created, produce such impiety and madness? This occurred, remember, in moral Scotland, since 1830, and among a people better acquainted with the gospel than any nation upon the earth. Yet you perceive that alcohol, which, if a moderate drinker, you recommend, can deprive these people of reason, conscience, morality, and even human feeling: beasts that want "discourse of reason," would act with less indecency, than did these educated people in the examples stated above. Nor will facts allow you to conclude that these examples are rare: enter the country pot-house, the tavern, the traveler's |