tippling_, the other
to those _periodical_ drunken frolics, which, having an interval of
weeks or months between them, give the system time to recover, in part,
(but _in part only_) from the violence it had sustained.

I wish to put the younger portion of my readers upon their guard
against a set of wretches who take pains to initiate youth, while yet
almost children, into the practice of the vice to which I have here
adverted. Domestics--where the young are too familiar with them--_have_
been known to be thus ungrateful to their employers. There are,
however, people of several classes, who do not hesitate to mislead, in
this manner.

But the misfortune is, that this book will not be apt to fall into the
hands of those to whom _these_ remarks apply, till the ruinous habit is
already formed. And then it is that counsel sometimes comes too late.
Should these pages meet the eye of any who have been misled, let them
remember that they have begun a career which multitudes repent
bitterly; and from which few are apt to return. But there have been
instances of reform; therefore none ought to despair. 'What man has
done, man may do.'

They should first set before their minds the nature of the practice,
and the evils to which it exposes. But here comes the difficulty. What
_are_ its legitimate evils? They know indeed that the written laws of
God condemn it; but the punishment which those laws threaten, appears
to be remote and uncertain. Or if not, they are apt to regard it as the
punishment of _excess_, merely. _They_, prudent souls, would not, for
the world, plunge into excess. Besides, '_they_ injure none but
_themselves_,' they tell us.

Would it were true that they injured none but _themselves_! Would there
were no generations yet unborn to suffer by inheriting feeble
constitutions, or actual disease, from their progenitors!

Suppose, however, they really injured nobody but themselves. Have they
a right to do even this? They will not maintain, for one moment, that
they have a right to take away their own life. By what right, then, do
they allow themselves to shorten it, or diminish its happiness while it
lasts?

Here the question recurs again: _Does_ solitary gratification actually
shorten life, or diminish its happiness?

The very fact that the laws of God forbid it, is an affirmative answer
to this question. For nothing is more obvious than that all other vices
which that law condemns, stand in the way of our pre