Select Temperance Tracts

by American Tract Society

Moreover, the habit of strict temperance, being allied to other virtues, will secure for you the respect and confidence of the best portions of the community, as well as the approbation of God, and thus lead to your more extensive usefulness. The youth who promptly comes up to the pledge and practice of total abstinence, and persuades others to do so, gives evidence of decision and moral courage—gives evidence of an intellect predominating over selfish indulgence, and superior to the laugh of fools; and such is the man whom an intelligent community will delight to honor.

But you are to live, not merely for self-advancement, or happiness: consider, then, that true patriotism and philanthropy rightfully demand your cordial support of the Temperance cause. A thick, fiery vapor, coming up from the pit, has been overspreading our whole land and blighting half its glory. Thousands, through the noxious influence of this vapor, have yearly sunk to that pit, to weep and lament for ever. Thousands more are groping their miserable way thither, who, but for this pestilence, might be among our happiest citizens. Still greater numbers, of near connections, are in consequence, covered with shame. Ah, who can say, he has had no relative infected by this plague? But Providence, in great mercy, has revealed the only effectual course for exterminating the plague—total abstinence from all that can intoxicate. And the adoption of this course, instead of involving any real sacrifice, might be an annual saving to the nation of many millions of dollars. What youth, then, who loves his country, will not cheerfully coöperate with the most respected of every profession in encouraging this course? Who does not see its certain efficacy, and the grandeur of the result?

Were a foreign despot, with his armies, now invading our country, every youthful bosom would swell with indignation. And will you not combine to arrest the more cruel despot, Intemperance, whose vessels are daily entering our ports, whose magazines of death are planted at the corners of our streets, and whose manufactories are like “the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched?”

Were all who have, in the compass of a year, been found drunk in the land, assembled in one place, they would make a greater army than ever Bonaparte commanded. And yet, unless patriot hearts and hands interpose, myriads more, from generation to generation, coming on in the same track, will go down like these to the drunkard’s grave.

Were all the thousands that annually descend to the drunkard’s grave, cast out at once into an open field, their loathsome carcases would cover many acres of ground. And yet the source of all this pollution and death is moderate drinking.

Were the thousands of distilleries and breweries, still at work day and night in the land, placed in one city or county, they would blacken all the surrounding heavens with their smoke. And could all the oaths, obscenities, and blasphemies they occasion every hour, be uttered in one voice, it would be more terrific than “seven thunders.”

And are those armies of drunkards, that liquid fire, those carcases of the slain, those ever-burning manufactories, and those blasphemies in the ear of Heaven, less appalling, less stirring to patriotism, because scattered throughout the land? Shall there be no burst of indignation against this monster of despotism and wickedness, because he has insidiously entered the country, instead of coming in by bold invasion? Shall he still deceive the nation, and pursue his ravages? Or shall he not, at once, be arrested, when it can be done without cost, and with infinite gain?

It must not be forgotten, that, in this country, every drunkard has equal power in the elective franchise with the most virtuous citizen. Nor must it be forgotten, that should the reform now cease, and intemperance again increase for the fifty years to come, in only the same ratio that it did for twenty years previous to the commencement of general reform in 1826, about one-third of our voters would be drunkards. What, then, would be the character of our beloved republic?

But should intemperance increase in that ratio for eighty years, a majority of our voters would be drunkards, and our population amount to several hundred millions. Who then could turn back the burning tide; or who could govern the maddening multitudes?