w you would not that they should do thus to you, and yet
your manufacture of spirits causes the premature death of five hundred
of your fellow-citizens every week; in other words, about that number
die every week through the intemperance produced by your distilleries.

Again, I ask the men whom I am addressing, how they reconcile their
manufacture and sale of spirits with another command of the Bible? _Woe
unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest thy bottle to him,
and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness._
True, this applies most emphatically to the retailer of spirits: but
what could the retailer do if there were no distillery; and what could
the distiller do if the farmer withheld the materials? All these men are
engaged, directly or indirectly, in giving their neighbors drink; and
though it may pass through many hands before it reaches all their
mouths, yet where must the burden of the guilt rest, if not upon those
who stand at the head of the series, and first convert the articles
which God has given to nourish and sustain life into active poison for
its destruction; and then, for the sake of a paltry pecuniary profit,
send it round amongst their neighbors, accompanied with all the plagues
that issued from the fabled Pandora's box?

Finally, let me ask these men how the business of preparing ardent
spirits for the community appears to them when they think most seriously
of another world? In the hours of sober reflection, on the Sabbath,
during seasons of devotion, when sickness overtakes you, and death seems
near, or you stand by the dying-bed of some one of your family or
neighbors; at such seasons can you look back upon this pursuit with
pleasure? If conscience then tells you that this business ought to be
given up, Oh remember, that conscience is an honest and faithful friend
at such times, and that, as this pursuit then appears to you, so will it
appear when you come actually to die. Test this business, I beseech you,
by bringing it in imagination to the scrutiny of your dying hour.
Whether it be lawful or unlawful, certain it is that it sends five
hundred drunkards into eternity every week; and you have the express
testimony of the Bible, that no drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of
God. As the Bible is true, then, are not the manufacturers of ardent
spirits in our land the means of sending five hundred souls to hell
every week? Tell me, my friends, how will this awfu