ndition in life is surrounded by inducements to drink. You scarcely
buy or sell a domestic animal in fair or market, that you are not
tempted to drink; you cannot attend a neighbor's funeral that you are
not tempted to drink--'tis the same at the wedding and the christening,
and in almost all the transactions of your lives. How then can you
answer for yourselves, especially when your spirits may happen to be
elevated, and your hearts glad? Oh! it is then, my friends, that the
tempter approaches you, and probably implants in your unguarded hearts
the germ of that accursed habit which has destroyed millions. How often
have you heard it said of many men, even within the range of your own
knowledge, 'Ah, he was an industrious, well-conducted, and respectable
man--until he took to drink!' Does not the prevalence of such a vile
habit, and the fact that so many sober men fall away from that virtue,
render the words that I have just uttered a melancholy proverb in the
country? Ah, there he is--in rags and misery; yet he was an industrious,
well-conducted, and respectable man once, that is--before he took to
drink! Prevention, my dear friends, is always better than cure, and in
binding yourselves by this most salutary obligation, you know not how
much calamity and suffering--how much general misery--how much disgrace
and crime you may avoid. And, besides, are we not to look beyond this
world? Is a crime which so greatly depraves the heart, and deadens its
power of receiving the wholesome impressions of religion and truth, not
one which involves our future happiness or misery? Ah, my dear brethren,
it is indeed a great and a cross popular error to say that sober men
should not take this pledge. I hope I have satisfied you that it is a
duty they owe themselves to take it, so long as they feel that they are
frail creatures, and liable to sin and error; and not only themselves,
but their children, their friends, and all who might be affected, either
for better or worse, by their example.

"There is another argument, however, which I cannot overlook, while
dwelling upon this important subject. We know that the drunkard, if God
should, through the instrumentality of this great and glorious movement,
put the wish for amendment into his heart, still feels checked and
deterred by a sense of shame; because, the truth is, if none attended
these meetings but such men, that very fact alone would prove a great
obstruction in the way of their r