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any death, had occurred amongst them during the entire voyage, which occupied nearly seven months. Of the crew, some died on the passage, and of the remainder, several were reported sick on landing." This is an important testimony in favor of total abstinence, because the individuals on whom the experiment was made had lived very irregular lives before, and, during these seven months must have been exposed to a very great variety of climate. As one reads this narrative, he cannot help reflecting, that most of these three hundred degraded females might have been saved from infamy, if their parents, guardians, and employers, had early instilled into their minds the principles of total abstinence.

Perhaps there are no persons in the country, that enjoy such excellent health as our prisoners and convicts, and yet these are kept on water, as a beverage. The chief cause why those who are sent to lunatic asylums often return home restored to sanity, can be traced to their entire abstinence while in a state of confinement; and, alas! many of them relapse when they return to the use of fermented drinks; neither themselves nor their friends having learnt wisdom from their affliction or medical treatment.

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Cæsar, speaking of the Suevi, says that "they were by far the greatest and most powerful in war of all the nations of Germany," and adds, They live, for the most part, on milk and animal food. Wine they do not admit at all to be imported among them, because they believe that by it, men are enervated, made effeminate, and incapable of enduring labor." How exactly the judgment of these Suevi accords with the facts of history! The ancient nations were powerful in proportion as they were abstinent, and became effeminate in proportion as they indulged in inebriating liquors. Babylon and Nineveh might have been saved by tetotalism; it was drunkenness that corrupted them, and made them an easy prey to their enemies. The Persian tetotalers took Babylon, in consequence of the citizens being worse than beastly drunk. The Tower of Belus, in its present dilapidated state, seems to have been preserved until now, as the fearful tomb or monument of that drunken city. We might call it the "Drunkard's Memorial." The Persians, in their turns,

adopted the vices of those they had conquered, and then became the easy prey of their enemies. Drunkenness shivered the vast empire which Alexander commanded, and called his own. Rome conquered the world by the valor of her abstinent heroes; but luxury and intemperance paralyzed the energies of her citizens, reduced her to a state of dependency on the abstinent barbarian hordes that dwelt on her frontiers, and, at length, made her the easy prey of these courageous tetotalers. The history of the Saracens and Turks affords another illustration of the same truth. The luxurious Saracens of Bagdad trembled in the presence of the abstinent Turks, yielded to their power; and, in their turn, the Turks, inebriated with opium instead of wine, are passively waiting to be swept away from the face of the earth. And unless we, as a nation, awake from the debasing vice of intemperance we, in some future age, shall add another awful example to warn empires and individuals against the use of intoxicating drinks. We now have history, science, and every sort of information, to induce us to be wise in time; and should we be sufficiently prudent to dash from our lips the poisonous bowl, and sweep the accursed leaven or ferment from our houses and from the land, we then shall be safe and happy; but if deaf to every admonition of God and man, we still continue, by our 66 moderation," as we style it, to manufacture drunkards out of our sons, daughters, relations, friends, and neighbors, then, as we look at the ruins of Nineveh or Babel, we may read our own doom, future degradation, and ruin.

In a speech delivered at the public meeting of the New British and Foreign Temperance Society, in Exeter Hall, London, May 16th, 1838, Assaad Yokoob Kayat, a native Syrian, stated that, in attempting the conversion of the Mohammedans, the greatest difficulty arose from the question being asked him, The "Do not Christians drink strong liquors and get drunk?" Mohammedans said to him, " God has given the English the faith they profess their paradise is in this world; they will have wine only in this world, and then they will perish. Wine is their pleasure and their paradise. But Mohammedans have not the wine of drunkenness in this world, and they shall have the wine of true pleasure in the eternal world. A Mohammedan

doctor being asked, What was the most disgusting sight to his eyes? replied, 'The most disgusting sight to me is a drunken person.'" We often think that the conversion of Mohammedans is almost a forlorn hope; but we ought to remember that our habits of drinking, which to these abstinent people are so hor ribly disgusting, present an almost insurmountable barrier in the way of their receiving the Christian faith. In how many ways, alas! may it be said, that in drinking wine we are drinking our brother's blood!

The individual just quoted remarked, that "he had lately visited Mount Lebanon: there he found the people as large as giants, and very strong and active; they lived almost entirely on dates, and drank only water, and there were many among them 100, and 110 years of age." It was wittily observed by this Syrian, that the term "Gin," in the Arabic language, means the "Devil." And the facts he advanced proved that if we were under the inspirations of Satan himself, we could not more effectually perform his work than we do, when we drink gin or other alcoholic liquors. By using these drinks, we prejudice foreigners against Christianity; we shorten human life, and we ruin men's souls; and I need not add that these are the works of the devil, and the works of gin. Not Lucifer is more potent to destroy than gin, and other alcoholic liquors.

To the facts already advanced, to show that men are better, stronger, live longer, and are more active and more moral, if they abstain from alcoholic liquors, I may add the testimonies of the thousands who have now for several years made trial of the principle. Indeed, without appealing to these, we might learn from the families of drunkards, and from drunkards themselves, that these liquors are far from being necessary. Notwithstanding the ardor with which men contend for nutritious properties of these drinks, yet it is well known that the drunkard generally makes tetotalers of his wife and his children, and keeps them, at the same time, on the scantiest and coarsest provision; and yet, who enjoys the best health ?—the tippler, or his abstinent family? After all their privations and hardships, the poor half-starved wife and children are in much better health and habit of body than the guzzling husband, bloated

with ale, or poisoned with gin. The extravagance of the drunkard also dooms him, for a great portion of the week, to live hard, work hard, and drink water; and he is compelled to own that he never is so fit for labor as when he is a tetotaler. Our principle, therefore, is good, "our enemies themselves being judges."

But we have other witnesses. The following is the testimony of harvest-laborers in Bedfordshire.

We, the undersigned, do testify that we harvested this year for Mr. W. S. Partridge, of Leegrave, in the parish of Luton, Bedfordshire, and acted upon the principle of total abstinence from all intoxicating drink; and we feel much pleasure in stating that we have done our work with much less fatigue, less thirst, and enjoyed better health than we did in harvests before, when we drank ale. We used, this harvest, tea, coffee, and toast-water for our drink."

(Signed)

Sept. 9, 1837.

WILLIAM GROOM, Luton.
RICH. TEAVLE, Houghton Regis.
DAVID TEAVLE,

do.

do.

The following is the declaration of some stone-masons, at Milbank::

"We not only approve the principle of total abstinence, but have ourselves adopted the practice; since which, we not only feel better in health, and improved in circumstances, but we can work better, and feel less fatigue in its performance, at the same time that our general habits and moral characters are essentially improved."

Sept. 17, 1837.

(Signed) WILLIAM TORTOISESHELL,
WILLIAM BLOWER,

THOMAS KING.

We have another statement, more numerously signed.

"We, the undersigned operative smiths and cutlers, members of the New British and Foreign Temperance Society, having acted upon the principle of total abstinence from all intoxicating drinks, willingly state, that since we have done so, we

have found ourselves much more capable of performing our work, with less fatigue, with our healths improved, and our domestic comforts greatly increased."

This declaration was signed in London by three coach-spring makers, two coach-spring makers' hammermen, one tyresmith, two coach-smiths, one smith and farrier, one engineer's hammerman. Five blacksmiths, one scale-beam maker, and two cutlers. These men varied from the age of eighteen to sixty and some of them had adopted and practised total abstinence for nearly two years. From Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Preston, the ironworks of North Wales and Scotland, we could obtain similar statements. From ministers of the gospel, medical men, females nursing their children; from confirmed drunkards, and those who had never been intoxicated; from the sickly, and those who seemed to be strong, we have the same testimony, that they have adopted total abstinence with the greatest advantage to their health, vigor, comfort, and moral feeling. From the united voices of upwards of one million of tetotalers in England, and from full a million voices in America, we have the same testimony, that study and mental exercise; that bodily labor, whether that of the sedentary mechanic, of the smith, or plowman, can be performed with less fatigue and much more pleasure and comfort by the agent, if nothing intoxicating is drunk.

In upwards of a thousand vessels and ships trading from America to this country, total abstinence is practised. Hundreds of seamen, therefore, exposed to all the hardships of the deep, are performing their labor with much less fatigue, and with infinite advantage to their health and morals, and to the safety of their cargoes. Thus, then, there is one voice in favor of total abstinence which comes from every nation, ancient or modern; from him who tills the torrid plains, from him who dwells in the frosts of the North, and from him that cultivates or labors in the temperate zones. The Nazarite, the priest, the prophet, the prince, the general, the soldier, the sailor, the reaper, and the mechanic, in all ages, in all climates, in all countries, have practised total abstinence with advantage. On the other hand, against the use of intoxicating drinks, the voice

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