ng, by the impulse of terror,
induced a holy man to consent to commit _some_ crime, allowed him to
choose, whether he would get drunk, or be guilty of either of two of the
most horrible enormities he could conceive. The poor victim chose
drunkenness, as being the least offence, but in the state to which he
had thus brought himself, was guilty of all three.

And even if you are kept back from any additional guilt, yet you well
know, that by throwing away your reason, you become capable of being
guilty of all sorts of absurdities,--that you are liable to say and do a
hundred foolish things, of which, when you return to your senses, you
will be heartily ashamed,--that you expose yourself to the ridicule and
contempt of those, who witness the degraded state to which you have
reduced yourself.

A drunken _Christian_ is almost a contradiction in terms; and something
the same may be said of a drunken _gentleman_. Among many in the middle
and the industrious classes of society, there is much intelligence, much
quick perception of what is morally right, and of general propriety of
behaviour. As such men are not backward in shewing respect, where
respect is really due, so they are keen-sighted in detecting gross
inconsistencies of conduct, and ready to bestow the full measure of
contempt upon those, who, while placed above them by the advantages of
birth, and fortune, and education, yet meanly condescend, by their vices
and their excesses, to degrade themselves below them.

The inconsistency of any excess in drinking, with the main purpose for
which you were sent to Oxford, is palpable. You go to Oxford professedly
for study. Independently of the time actually occupied by a wine-party,
any excess will, probably, indispose you for study the morning after;

Corpus onustum
Hesternis vitiis animum quoque praegravat una,
Atque affigit humo divinae particulam aurae.

You will rise from your bed heavy and languid, probably with some
disposition to headache; and will be far more inclined to lounge in an
easy-chair, or to saunter about in listless idleness, than to sit down
to active mental exertion.

I must add, that the habit of drinking much wine during your continuance
at Oxford, is not unlikely materially to injure your health in the
succeeding periods of your life. Such habit has a tendency permanently
to derange and weaken the digestive powers, and to injure and harden the
internal coats and the