the Sabbath; he really presumes to say, that both minister and layman
should be "instant in season and out of season," and like their great
Master, going about continually doing good. He does not set up for a
preacher, nevertheless, but confines himself to his own proper sphere.
He applied to ministers to address his meetings, and though some few of
them refused, telling him significantly that they preach the Gospel,
even when Jamie did ask in his simplicity, if Paul forgot his resolution
to know nothing but Christ and him crucified, when he reasoned of
righteousness, _temperance_, and judgment to come; yet to the honor of
the ministry around him be it told, that whenever he got up a meeting, a
minister was at Jamie's service to address it.

Though, as a body, Jamie's Temperance Society was most steady, yet a
few, and only a few, fell. It would be harsh to say that some were glad
at their fall; at least many temptations were thrown in their way; and
when they fell, a shout of triumph was raised against the Temperance
Society. Such trials as these only urged Jamie on with fresh vigor.

Suppose, he used to say, that every drunkard should return again to
drunkenness and ruin; would not this be another proof that truth, and
honor, and principle, are all as nothing before the drunken appetite?
Would not this be a louder and a stronger call to save the young, to
stop young sons and daughters, now safe, from filling the place of
drunken parents when they are gone? What ruins these poor wretches? he
would ask. Is it the mere _abuse_ of a good and wholesome thing? No.
Distilled spirits are tempting, deceitful, and too violently
intoxicating to be at all habitually used with safety; and as four
hundred of the ablest doctors now living have established, and
unnumbered facts prove, they are unwholesome and injurious to body and
soul. Let every man, then, for his own sake abstain; and for the sake of
others too, especially such as are near and dear to him, O let him
abstain for ever.

Who, he would ask, give currency and influence to the absurd fooleries
which are circulated respecting the marvellous excellences of spirituous
liquors, while common-sense tells that they are of no more use to a man
than to a cow or horse? Not drunkards, surely; for, on such a subject at
least, they would not be believed. Who give support and respectability
to spirit-shops, and the whole spirit-trade? Drunkards surely could make
nothing respectable,