his question has already
been asked and answered more than a million of times. Let it be answered
once more. For the man suddenly or in any other way to break off from
the use of drams, who has indulged in them for a long course of years
and until his appetite for them has grown ten or a hundredfold stronger
and more craving than any natural appetite can be, requires a most
powerful moral effort. In such an undertaking he needs every moral
support and influence that can possibly be brought to his aid and thrown
around him. And not only so, but every moral prop should be taken from
whatever argument might rise in his mind to lure him to his backsliding.
When he casts his eyes around him, he should be able to see all that he
respects, all that he admires, all that he loves, kindly and anxiously
pointing him onward, and none beckoning him back to his former miserable
"wallowing in the mire."

But it is said by some that men will think and act for themselves; that
none will disuse spirits or anything else because his neighbors do; and
that moral influence is not that powerful engine contended for. Let us
examine this. Let me ask the man who could maintain this position most
stiffly, what compensation he will accept to go to church some Sunday
and sit during the sermon with his wife's bonnet upon his head? Not a
trifle, I'll venture. And why not? There would be nothing irreligious
in it, nothing immoral, nothing uncomfortable--then why not? Is it not
because there would be something egregiously unfashionable in it? Then
it is the influence of fashion; and what is the influence of fashion
but the influence that other people's actions have on our actions--the
strong inclination each of us feels to do as we see all our neighbors
do? Nor is the influence of fashion confined to any particular thing or
class of things; it is just as strong on one subject as another. Let us
make it as unfashionable to withhold our names from the temperance cause
as for husbands to wear their wives' bonnets to church, and instances
will be just as rare in the one case as the other.

"But," say some, "we are no drunkards, and we shall not acknowledge
ourselves such by joining a reformed drunkard's society, whatever our
influence might be." Surely no Christian will adhere to this objection.
If they believe as they profess, that Omnipotence condescended to take
on himself the form of sinful man, and as such to die an ignominious
death for their sakes,