of science, medicine, physiology, and chimistry; the voice of history, ancient and modern, and of philosophers, historians, and moralists of every age, is lifted up. From Revelation, God, who has spoken in all the diseases that these liquors originate, has uttered the most solemn warnings against these drinks. He tells us that they have "enlarged the grave, and opened the mouth of hell without measure." And from our hospitals, lunatic asylums, jails, hulks, condemned cells, and gallows, there is one deep groan, waxing deeper and deeper, and louder and louder, to move us to abstain. From the abodes of wretchedness and starvation, from the couches of ten thousands of the sick, excruciated with every description of pain; from the murdered, the dying, and the impenitent, perishing in his sins, there issues one appalling shriek, the most thrilling that ever reached the human ear, or pierced the human heart. Heaven, earth, and hell, cry aloud unto us, and command us to abstain. These sentiments have been sufficiently illustrated by preceding testimonies and historical facts; but that nothing may be wanting, the following declarations may be of some value. Men the most renowned in science and medicine, have given their most unequivocal and disinterested opinion in favor of the use of that simplest and purest of all beverages, water. Pliny says, that "he considered it a great absurdity that mankind should bestow so much labor and expense in making artificially such a variety of liquors, when nature has supplied to their hands a drink of so superior a quality as water. Every scholar remembers the first words in the first Olympian Ode of Pindar, “Apiotov pev v♪wp," "water is indeed the best thing." The words "living water,” and “water of life,” and “waters of salvation," are intended to express ancient opinions respecting the general use of water, and high estimation in which it was held. (6 'Spring up, O well! sing ye unto it!" is one of the beautiful odes of Scripture, addressed by water-drinkers to this wholesome beverage. The celebrated medical writer, Boerhaave, says, “If drink be required merely for allaying thirst or dryness, and diminishing the acrimony of the fluids, then is pure water the best drink for robust man. Plain food and water for drink render our bodies the most firm and strong." Dr. Hoffman, a Prussian physician of great note, considered water as a preventive for a great many diseases, as well as an absolute cure of them. "First, because pure water, is agreeable to the different natures of all men. Secondly, that no remedy can more effectually secure health and prevent disease than water." He adds, "That drinkers of pure water are more healthy and longer lived than drinkers of wines and malt liquors. It gives them a better appetite, and renders them plump and fleshy. Drinkers of water are more alert and active in body and mind than beerbibbers." Speaking of mineral springs, he says, "The major part of their efficacy is beyond all dispute, owing to the quantity of pure elementary water which they contain." Zimmerman declares "that water is the most suitable drink for man, and does not chill the ardor of genius." He says, "that the sole drink of Demosthenes was water." Sir John Floyer says, "that water drinkers are temperate in their actions, prudent, and ingenious. They live safe from the diseases which affect the head, such as apoplexies, palsies, pains, blindness, deafness, convulsions, and madness; water resists putrefaction and cools burning heat." Another writer observes, "water-drinkers are more healthy and longer lived than others; in such the faculties of body and mind are stronger; their teeth whiter and more perfect, and their sight less subject to failure. All drinks supply the wants of nature only by the quantity of elementary water which they contain." Dr. Gregory asserts, "The sole primitive and main natural drink is water, which, when pure, is suitable to all sick persons and all stomachs, however delicate. Pure spring water is the most wholesome drink, and the most grateful to those that are thirsty, whether sick or well: it quenches thirst, cools the body, dilutes and thereby obtunds the acrimony, and in various ways strengthens the stomach. And those who cannot drink common well water, can drink it after it has been boiled and cooled, and all that needs changing is the temperature and not the liquor." Dr. Cheyne says, "Without any peradventure, water was the primitive original beverage, and happy had it been for the race of man if other mixed and artificial liquors had never been invented. Water alone is sufficient and effectual for all the purposes of human drinks." Dr. Sanders says, "Water drinkers are, in general, longer livers, and less subject to a decay of the faculties than those who use other liquids." "Cold water,” adds another, "is the most proper beverage for man and for animals; it cools and clears the blood; it keeps the stomach, nerves, and head in order, and makes man tranquil, serene, and healthful." Dr. Hufeman, on the art of prolonging life, observes that "the best drink is water, a liquor commonly despised and deemed prejudicial; it is one of the greatest means of prolonging life." He mentions a surgeon, "who was a miserable hypochondriac at the age of forty, but was afterwards cured by the use of water, and lived to be eighty, his last years being his most healthy." Dr. Moseley adds, "I aver from my own knowledge and custom, as well as from that of others, that those who drink nothing but water, or make it their principal drink are but little affected by climate, and can undergo the greatest fatigue without inconvenience." 66 Navigators from the northern regions testify that the greater part of those who die under the severity of the cold are those who drink other drinks than water, while the water-drinkers survive. Dr. Beardley says, respecting the water-drinkers of Asia and the Himmalaya mountains, that "they are able to carry a burden of four hundred weight, and that one of them had more strength than three British soldiers." This latter fact was affirmed by a British officer. Dr. Mainwaring, in his "Method and Means of Enjoying Health," asserts that "water is the most wholesome drink, the most suitable for human nature, answering all the purposes of common drinks; it is a drink that is a rule to itself, and requires little caution in the use of it, since none will be tempted to drink more of it than he needs. In the primitive ages of the world, water drinkers were the longest livers by hundreds of years; not so often sick or complaining as we are." Dr. Keill, treating of the stomach in his "Abridgment of the Anatomy of Human Bodies,” says that "water seems the fittest to promote the digestion of food; all spirituous liquors have a property by which they hurt, rather than help digestion; those who by a long use thereof have lost their appetites, are hardly ever restored without drinking water." Dr. Pratt, in his "Treatise of Mineral Waters,” shows it to be his judgment, that "if people would drink water, they would be free from many diseases, such as tremblings, palsies, apoplexies, giddiness, pains in the head, gout, stone, dropsy, rheumatism, piles, and such like. Drinking water strengthens the stomach, causes an appetite, preserves the sight, makes the senses lively, and cleanses all the passages of the body, especially those of the kidneys and bladder." Dr. Duncan, in his "Treatise on Hot Liquors," says, “They had more health and strength who contented themselves with water; that strong liquors raise the heat of the stomach to excess, whereas water keeps it in due temper; that, by these drinks, the blood is inflamed, and hence arises fluxes, rheums, ill digestion, pains in the limbs, head-ache, dimness of sight, and, especially, hysteric vapors and ulcers." I have, in a former chapter, given the testimonies of several medical men against the use of alcoholic drinks, and, of course, if the use of these beverages is injurious, then it naturally follows that water, or drinks no stronger than water, must be the most wholesome beverages for every individual. Many medical practitioners have given us the premises, but seem to be halting about coming to the conclusion. They allow that alcohol is bad, but do not, as yet, assert that the utter abandonment of alcoholic drinks would be good. However, we have distinguished and honorable exceptions. We have already mentioned Messrs. Higginbotham, Beaumont, Jeffreys, and others, and it is with pleasure that we quote the following testimony of the medical men of Lewes. We, the undersigned, hereby declare that spirituous liquors do not contain any nourishment, and that the nutritious matter of malt liquors being combined with a large proportion of alcohol, those drinks cannot be taken to any extent without detri ment to health, and are not at all necessary to the laboring man who enjoys good health, and can command a sufficiency of wholesome solid food; that the habitual use of both spirits and malt liquors is a principal and frequent cause of disease, poverty, crime, and misery, and that abstinence from them would greatly contribute to promote the health, good morals, and happiness of the community. (Signed) "THOMAS BARKER, M. D. ANDREW J. DOYLE, Surgeon. THOMAS HAIRE, M. D., Surgeon. G. THICKWOOD, Surgeon. ROBERT COLGATE, Surgeon." Mr. Higginbotham, at the late anniversary of the New British and Foreign Temperance Society, held in London, stated that he knew an old lady of ninety-seven years of age, by the name of Martha Bagshaw, who had suckled twenty-two children; she was a strong hale woman; she told him that " she had never taken any thing stronger than water while suckling, or a little whey, when she could get it." This same gentleman said, that children often drop into the grave at an early age and mothers die an untimely death, in consequence of the use of alcoholic drinks during the time of nursing their offspring. It may here be observed, that Mr. Higginbotham is a surgeon with an extensive business, and has practised total abstinence during the last thirty years that he has followed his profession. I now have my eye on an old man, upwards of seventy years of age, who, since he has adopted total abstinence, has had an amazing increase of strength, and yet requires less food. He is a gardener, and works in his garden every day. He has been a beerdrinker for sixty years, and was become so weak as to be scarcely able to dig. He declares that he is now stronger than he has been for the last ten years. All who are acquainted with the life of Dr. Franklin are aware, that when he worked hard in London as a printer, he practised total abstinence, and that he defended himself against |