Note.—A premium of fifty dollars, offered by a friend, was awarded to the author of this Tract.
PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY.
ALARM TO DISTILLERS.
BY REV. BAXTER DICKINSON, D. D.
The art of turning the products of the earth into a fiery spirit was discovered by an Arab, about nine hundred years ago. The effects of this abuse of nature’s gifts were soon viewed with alarm. Efforts were made, even by a heathen people, to arrest the evil; and it shows the mighty agency and cunning of Satan, that Christian nations should ever have been induced to adopt and encourage this deadliest of man’s inventions. In the guilt of encouraging the destructive art, our own free country has largely participated. In the year 1815, as appears from well-authenticated statistics, our number of distilleries had risen to nearly forty thousand; and, until within a few years past, the progress of intemperance threatened all that was fair and glorious in our prospects. The reformation recently commenced is one of the grandest movements of our world; and to secure its speedy triumph, the concurrence of distillers is obviously indispensable. They must cease to provide the destroying element. This they are urged to do by the following considerations:
1. The business of distilling confers no benefits on your fellow-men. Ardent spirit is not needed as an article of living. In the first ages of the world, when human life was protracted to hundreds of years, it was unknown. By the first settlers of this country it was not used. It was scarcely used for a whole century. And those temperate generations were remarkably robust, cheerful, and enterprising. To this we may add, that several hundred thousand persons, accustomed to use it, have given it up entirely within a few years past; and their united testimony is, that they have made no sacrifice either of health, or strength, or any real comfort. Indeed few, if any, except such as have the intemperate appetite, will now seriously contend that distilled liquor is necessary or useful. The little that may perhaps be desirable as medicine, might be made by the apothecary, or the physician.