nisters; one a governor of a State; several were sent to
Congress. Hartford reported six hundred reformed drunkards; Norwich,
seventy-two; Fairfield, fifty; Sheffield, seventy-five. All over the
land reformed men were received back into the churches that they had
before disgraced; and households were re-established. All up and
down the land there were gratulations, and praise to God. The pledge
signed, to thousands has been the proclamation of emancipation.

I think that we are coming at last to treat inebriation as it ought to
be treated, namely, as an awful disease, self-inflicted, to be sure,
but nevertheless a disease. Once fastened upon a man, sermons will not
cure him; temperance lectures will not eradicate the taste; religious
tracts will not remove it; the Gospel of Christ will not arrest it.
Once under the power of this awful thirst, the man is bound to go on;
and if the foaming glass were on the other side of perdition, he would
wade through the fires of hell to get it. A young man in prison had
such a strong thirst for intoxicating liquors, that he cut off his
hand at the wrist, called for a bowl of brandy in order to stop the
bleeding, thrust his wrist into the bowl, and then drank the contents.

Stand not, when the thirst is on him, between a man and his cups!
Clear the track for him! Away with the children: he would tread their
life out! Away with the wife: he would dash her to death! Away with
the Cross: he would run it down! Away with the Bible: he would tear
it up for the winds! Away with heaven: he considers it worthless as a
straw! "Give me the drink! Give it to me! Though hands of blood pass
up the bowl, and the soul trembles over the pit,--the drink! give it
to me! Though it be pale with tears; though the froth of everlasting
anguish float in the foam--give it to me! I drink to my wife's woe; to
my children's rags; to my eternal banishment from God, and hope, and
heaven! Give it to me! the drink!"

Again: we will contend against these evils by trying to persuade
the respectable classes of society to the banishment of alcoholic
beverages. You who move in elegant and refined associations; you
who drink the best liquors; you who never drink until you lose
your balance: consider that you have, under God, in your power the
redemption of this land from drunkenness. Empty your cellars and
wine-closets of the beverage, and then come out and give us your hand,
your vote, your prayers, your sympathies. Do t