can keep one man clear; you can wash your
own hands of this wretched business. And if you are not willing to do
that, very little reliance can be placed on your good wishes. He that is
unjust in the least, is unjust also in much. I can hardly conceive any
thing more inconsistent with every generous feeling, every noble
principle, than the traffic in intoxicating liquor at the present day.
The days of ignorance on this subject have passed by; every man acts
with his eyes open.

Look at the shop and company of the retailer. There he stands in the
midst of dissipation, surrounded by the most degraded and filthy of
human beings, in the last stages of earthly wretchedness. His business
is to kindle strife, to encourage profanity, to excite every evil
passion, to destroy all salutary fears, to remove every restraint, and
to produce a recklessness that regards neither God nor man. And how
often in the providence of God is he given over to drink his own poison,
and to become the most wretched of this wretched company. Who can behold
an instance of this kind without feeling that God is just. "He sunk down
into the pit which he made; in the net which he hid is his own foot
taken."

Another will say, "I neither make nor traffic in it." But you drink it
occasionally, and your example goes to support the use of it. You see
its tremendous effects, and yet you receive it into your house and bid
it God speed. As far as your influence supports it and gives it
currency, so far are you a partaker of its evil deeds. If you lend your
influence to make the path of ruin respectable, or will not help to
affix disgrace to that path, God will not hold you guiltless. You cannot
innocently stand aside and do nothing.

A deadly poison is circulating over the land, carrying disease and
desolation and death in its course. The alarm has been given. Its deadly
effects have been described, seen, and felt. Its victims are of every
class; and however wide the difference in fortune, education, intellect,
it brings them to the same dead level. An effort has been made to stay
the plague, and a success surpassing all expectation has crowned the
effort. Still, the plague rages to an immense extent. What will every
good citizen do? Will he not clear his house, his shop, his premises of
it? Will he not take every precaution to defend himself against it, and
use his influence and his exertions to diminish its circulation and thus
diminish human misery? If he