the sin of drunkenness, may be added the voice of conscience, and the voice of God, which, if any influence will do it, ought to rouse every delinquent to a due sense of his degraded and dangerous state: But still, such is the frailty and the stubbornness of depraved human nature, and such the apathy and indifference of many who are, comparatively speaking, not depraved, towards so good a cause, that in the pursuit of our object, we are often forcibly reminded of the fate of Sysiphus in the heathen Mythology, who was doomed to roll a huge stone up hill, which, in spite of all his efforts, recoiled upon him whenever he reached a certain pitch, and reduced him to the painful necessity of re-commencing his task, or of giving it up in despair.

Almost equally vexatious, though not equally hopeless, is the task of the Temperance Reformer: It is a painful, up-hill work: It is indeed working up a hill, or rather an alpine height, so steep and so rugged, so full of brambles, thorns and stumbling blocks, that it requires on the part of its votaries not only the humility and patience of Job, but the zeal and perseverance of Paul: That they require the humility and patience of Job is certain, from the fact that Satan not only takes pride in bringing them bad tidings at every step, but is himself the author of the mischief which forms the basis of his melancholy budget, and affords the evidence of his triumph over the frailty and weakness of mankind That the zeal and perseverance of Paul ·

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are equally necessary, may be fairly inferred from the very powerful interests, and the very numerous depraved and obstinate, if not irresistible appetites that are combined against it. The importer and the domestic distiller of ardent spirits, of whom there are thousands, with the tens of thousands of wholesale and retail dealers, and the millions of keen appetites which depend upon these for their daily indulgence and gratification, form altogether a phalanx of opposition, more appalling than the missions of Satan to Job, or the mighty perils by sea, and the stormy wave of the multitude by land, which the great apostle of the cross was called upon to encounter. This formidable phalanx, the advocates of temperance must survey with a calm and scrutinizing eye, and oppose with a vigorous, firm and steady hand, if they expect to seize upon the out-posts, much less to assail successfully the citadel of the enemy's entrenchment.

I do not come here to raise mountains out of mole-hills, or to cry that there is a Lion in the way, when there is not: I am no apologist for the coward or the sluggard in this or any other good cause: For above all others I esteem the man who is not to be deterred from the pursuit of a righteous purpose, by obstacles of any kind, whether great or small: And I do mostfirmly hope and trust in God, that the friends of temperance throughout the world, are not to be appalled or disheartened by any obstacles, however numcrous and powerful, which the cunning of the Arch

Apostate, or the corruption of his satellites, may throw in their way. It is the cause of virtue and of humanity: For the happiness of existing as well as of unborn millions, depends upon the success of it; and the children of this and of all future generations, will rise up and bless the names of its advocates: It is a sacred cause in the view of Heaven, as well as in that of mankind: For it stands based upon the word and the will of God; and hence it demands the undivided, zealous and inflexible support of all who either fear God or love their fellow-men. It is indeed a cause which speaks to its enemies in a voice as potent as that which made Sinai to tremble to its foundations; whilst it supplicates the aid of its friends in tones as pathetic and persuasive as the cry of the Saints of old, when they called for help in the name of their Divine Master, amid the moral wastes and the spiritual deserts of Macedonia.

Whatever then are the obstacles which stand in our way, they ought not for a moment to damp the ardor of our zeal, or paralyze our exertions, to put a stop to a foul traffic on the one hand, and to save from utter ruin the miserable victims of that mercenary and disgraceful traffic on the other. To cry aloud and spare not, is our duty. But our cry should be in the language of reason, and our exertions such as charity, humanity and benevolence might cordially smile upon and approve. The spirit of freedom, which gave birth to our glorious Revolution, and which ever ought to be the reigning and immutable spi

rit of this country, calls upon every man, and especially every reformer, to respect the rights of others as much as he does his own. It is indeed the only true test of any man's claim to the character of a republican, that whilst he will not tamely yield up his own rights, he will never attempt to violate the rights of others. This was the spirit of the revolution; this is the spirit of the free constitutions which were purchased and are cemented by the blood of that revolution; and this is the spirit of every honest man and of every true christian. In vain, indeed, will any man claim the character of a christian, who is not animated by this celestial spirit of justice and humanity.

I have made these preliminary observations, because whatever may be my feelings or views in relation to drunkenness, I feel bound to respect the rights of drunkards: And of what, methinks I hear it said, do these rights consist? In the first place, the drunkard possesses all the rights of other and sober men. In the second place, he possesses rights peculiar to his malady or disorder, if such it be. He has a right to our charity for his weakness; to our pity for the deplorable condition to which that weakness has reduced him; to our humane interposition, to save him from any danger to which his condition has exposed him: And sometimes, if not always, he may justly claim our sympathy and commisseration, on account of the cause or causes which may have driven him to the bottle and

the bowl. Professor Upham, of Bowdoin College, in his recent work on the Elements of Moral Philosophy, furnishes a portrait, by which may be vividly seen how much compassion is due to this class of delinquents. It is extracted from an authentic work, published in England, entitled the Confessions of a Drunkard. And what does the writer say?

"Of my condition there is no hope that it should ever change; the waters have gone over me; but out of the black depths could I be heard, I would cry out to all those who have but set a foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth to whom the flavor of his first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life, or the entering upon some newly discovered paradise, look into my desolation, and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will-to see his destruction, and have no power to stop it; and yet to feel it all the way emanating from himself; to perceive all goodness emptied out of him, and yet not to be able to forget a time when it was otherwise; to bear about the piteous spectacle of his own self-ruin :-Could he see my fevered eye, feverish with last night's drinking, and feverishly looking for this night's repetition of the folly; could he feel the body of the death out of which I cry hourly, with feebler and feebler outcry, to be delivered-it were enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth, in all the pride of its mantling temptation."

Such is the portrait which an unhappy drunkard gives of himself; yet with all his frailties, all his weakness or wickedness, still he can say to us—“Am I not a man, and a brother!" And as such we are bound to consider him by the dictates of religion and humanity. We are to recollect, that although the consequences of drunkenness may be, as they often are, vicious in the extreme; yet drunkenness is not always a vice in itself; because in some cases it steals so insidiously and imperceptibly, and by such slow degrees, on the unfortunate delinquent; and in

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