njured us.

But, if this be discarded, what plan of reformation remains? If nothing
is to be expected from endeavoring to promote a _moderate_ use of ardent
spirits, and still less from an _immoderate_ use, what can be done?
There is but one possible answer. _Persuade people to use none at all._
_Total abstinence_ is the only plan on which reformation can be hoped
for. We are shut up to this. We have tried the consequences of
encouraging people to venture but moderately into the atmosphere of
infection; and we are now convinced that it was the very plan to feed
its strength and extend its ravages. We are forced to the conclusion,
that, to arrest the pestilence, we must starve it. All the healthy must
abstain from its neighborhood. All those who are now temperate must give
up the use of the means of intemperance. The deliverance of this land
from its present degradation, and from the increasing woes attendant on
this vice, depends altogether upon the extent to which the principle of
total abstinence shall be adopted by our citizens.

But suppose this principle universally adopted, would it clear the
country of intemperance? Evidently it is the only, but is it the
effectual remedy? Most certainly, if all temperate persons would disuse
ardent spirits, they could not cease to be temperate. Many a drunkard,
under the powerful check of their omnipresent reproof, would be sobered.
His companions would totter, one after another, to their graves. A few
years would see them buried, and the land relinquished to the temperate.
Then what would be the security against a new inroad of the exterminated
vice? Why, public opinion would stand guard at every avenue by which it
could come in.

Consider the operation of this influence. Why is it now so easy to
entice a young man into the haunts of drunkenness? Because public
opinion favors the use of the very means of his ruin. He may drink
habitually, and fasten upon himself the appetite of drink, till he
becomes enchained and feels himself a slave; but if he has never fallen
into manifest intoxication, he has forfeited no character in public
opinion. All this is a direct result of the fact, that those considered
as temperate people set the example, and patronize the snare of moderate
drinking. But suppose them to take the ground proposed, and bear down
with the whole force of their example and influence on the side of
entire abstinence, would they not create an immense force of public
o