e he shall
be able to show circumstances which abridge and palliate the
guilt of his imprudent excess, the Venerable Court will consider
these improprieties as the effects of that excess only, and not
as arising from any radical vice in his temper or disposition.
When a man is bereft of his judgment by the influence of wine,
and commits any crime, he can only be said to be morally
culpable, in proportion to the impropriety of the excess he has
committed, and not in proportion to the magnitude of its evil
consequences. In a legal view, indeed, a man must be held as
answerable and punishable for such a crime, precisely as if he
had been in a state of sobriety; but his crime is, in a moral
light, comprised in the _origo mali_, the drunkenness only. His
senses being once gone, he is no more than a human machine, as
insensible of misconduct, in speech and action, as a parrot or an
automaton. This is more particularly the case with respect to
indecorums, such as the defender is accused of; for a man can no
more be held a common swearer, or a habitual talker of obscenity,
because he has been guilty of using such expressions when
intoxicated, than he can be termed an idiot, because, when
intoxicated, he has spoken nonsense. If, therefore, the defender
can extenuate the guilt of his intoxication, he hopes that its
consequences will be numbered rather among his misfortunes than
faults; and that his Reverend Brethren will consider him, while
in that state, as acting from a mechanical impulse, and as
incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong. For the
scandal which his behavior may have occasioned, he feels the most
heartfelt sorrow, and will submit with penitence and contrition
to the severe rebuke which the Presbytery have decreed against
him. But he cannot think that his unfortunate misdemeanor,
circumstanced as he was, merits a severer punishment. He can show
that pains were at these times taken to lead him on, when bereft
of his senses, to subjects which were likely to call forth
improper or indecent expressions. The defender must further urge,
that not being originally educated for the church, he may, before
he assumed the sacred character, have occasionally permitted
himself freedoms of expression which are reckoned less culpable
{p.1