is equally unquestionable. _The time has come when a
great effort must be made to exterminate this unequalled destroyer._ It
was high time this was done when the first drunkard entered eternity to
receive the award of Him who has declared that no drunkard shall enter
the kingdom of God. The demand for this effort has been growing in the
peremptory tone of its call, as "the overflowing scourge" has passed
with constantly extending sweep through the land. But a strange apathy
has prevailed among us. As if the whole nation had been drinking the cup
of delusion, we saw the enemy coming in like a flood, and we lifted up
scarcely a straw against him. As if the magicians of Egypt had
prevailed over us by their enchantments, we beheld our waters of
refreshment turned into blood, and a destroying sword passing through
till "there was a great cry" in the land, for there was scarcely "a
house where there was not one dead;" and still our hearts were hardened,
and we would not let go the great sin for which these plagues were
brought upon us. It seems as if some foul demon had taken his seat upon
the breast of the nation, and was holding us down with the dead weight
of a horrid nightmare, while he laughed at our calamity and mocked at
our fear--when our fear came as desolation, and our destruction as a
whirlwind.

Shall this state continue? Is not the desolation advancing? Have not
facilities of intemperance, temptations to intemperance, examples to
sanction intemperance, been fast increasing ever since this plague
began? Without some effectual effort, is it not certain they will
continue to increase, till intemperate men and their abettors will form
the public opinion and consequently the public conscience and the public
law of this land--till intemperance shall become, like leviathan of old,
"king over all the children of pride," whose breath kindleth coals, and
a "flame goeth out of his mouth?" Then what will effort of man avail?
"Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook? His heart is as firm as a
stone; yea, as hard as a piece of the nether millstone. He drinketh up a
river, and hasteth not. When he raiseth up himself, the mighty are
afraid."

It is too late to put off any longer the effort for deliverance. It is
granted by the common sense, and urged by the common interest; every
feeling of humanity and every consideration of religion enforces the
belief that the time has come when a great onset is imperiously demanded
to d