his bed, where he had lain for two or three weeks in a
continual state of intoxication.

The writer has stated this case in detail, to show the influence of _the
law of stimulation_, or what in popular language is termed, "the
appetite for spirituous liquors," when once it is awakened.

Here we have the instance of an individual, of a fine and cultivated
intellect, with every thing on earth to render him happy, that could be
comprised in wealth, friends, honor, and bright prospects. Ay, indeed,
too, he professed an interest in the blood of the Saviour, and had
communed with Christians at his table; surrounded by those whom he
tenderly loved, the wife of his bosom, and the dear pledges of her
devotion. Yet, in spite of all these considerations, and the most
sensible conviction of his fatal career, he continued to drink, and thus
pressed downward to the gate of death and hell.

Now what was this? What giant's arm dragged this fair victim to an
untimely grave? Was it for the want of motives and obligations to pursue
an opposite course? No. Was it for the want of intellect and talents to
appreciate those obligations? No. Was it trouble, arising from
disappointed hopes and blasted prospects? Certainly, by those who knew
him best, he was accounted a man who might have been happy. What was it,
then, that urged this individual, with his eyes open upon the
consequences, and in the face of every thing most dear, thus to
sacrifice his _all_ upon the altar of intemperance? It _was that law_ of
which we have spoken, enkindled into action by his tippling, and which
once developed, he could no more control, _while persisting in his
pernicious practice of drinking_, than he could have hurled the Andes
from their base, or have plucked the moon from her orbit.

We say, then, that all persons who drink ardent spirit habitually, bring
themselves inevitably under the influence of a law _peculiar to their
natures_, which leads on to ruin. Instances may indeed have occurred,
in which individuals have used ardent spirit daily for a long course of
years, and yet died without becoming drunkards; but it only proves that
these have been constitutions that could _resist_ the _speedy
development_ of the law in question. Where one individual is found with
a constitution vigorous enough to resist the development of this law
through a life of habitual drinking, thousands go down to a drunkard's
grave, and a drunkard's retribution, from only a few y