ead, and in every glass. He exempts no
man from danger that uses it; and is always secure of prostrating the
most vigorous frame, of clouding the most splendid intellect, of
benumbing the most delicate moral feelings, of palsying the most
eloquent tongue, of teaching those on whose lips listening senates hung,
to mutter and babble with the drunkard, and of entombing the most
brilliant talents and hopes of youth, wherever man can be induced to
drink. The establishment of every distillery, and every dram-shop, and
every grocery where it is sold, secures the certainty that many a man
will thereby become a drunkard, and be a curse to himself and to the
world. The traffic is not only occasionally and incidentally injurious,
but it is like the generation before the flood in its effects, evil, and
only evil continually.

Now the question is, whether this is an employment in which a moral man
and a Christian man _ought_ to be engaged. Is it such a business as his
countrymen ought to approve? Is it such as his conscience and sober
judgment approve? Is it such as his God and Judge will approve?

* * * * *

In examining this, let it be remembered, that the _reason_ why this
occupation is engaged in, and the sole reason, is, _to make money_. It
is not because it is supposed that it will benefit mankind; nor is it
because the man supposes that duty to his Creator requires it; nor is it
because it is presumed that it will promote public health, or morals,
or happiness; but it is engaged in and pursued solely as a means of
livelihood or of wealth. And the question then is reduced to a very
narrow compass: Is it _right_ for a man, for the sake of gain, to be
engaged in the sale of a poison--a poison attended with destruction to
the property, health, happiness, peace, and salvation of his neighbors;
producing mania, and poverty, and curses, and death, and woes
innumerable to the land, and to the church of God? A question this, one
would think, that might be very soon answered. In answering it, I invite
attention to a few very obvious, but undeniable positions.

1. It is an employment which tends to _counteract the very design of the
organization of society_. Society is organized on a benevolent
principle. The structure of that organization is one of the best adapted
instances of design, and of benevolence, anywhere to be found. It is on
this principle that a lawful employment--an employment fitted to pr