Select Temperance Tracts

by American Tract Society

Again, alcohol is not only innutritious, but is poisonous. Taken into the stomach in an undiluted and concentrated state, in quantities of two or three teaspoonfulls, it destroys life, as clearly shown in Accum’s experiments. Combined with different proportions of water, sugar, etc., it is modified in its effects. Most of the vegetable and mineral poisons may be so diluted and modified as to be capable of application to the bodies of men internally, without producing immediate fatal consequences; which, nevertheless, cannot be used any length of time, even thus disarmed, without producing pernicious effects. So it is with alcohol: like other poisons, it cannot be used any length of time, even diluted and modified, without proving pernicious to health, and if persevered in, in considerable quantities, inevitably destructive to life. This last sentiment, however, we will consider more particularly under the

Third reason for the disuse of alcohol: It destroys both body and soul. It is estimated that thirty or forty thousand died annually in the United States from the intemperate use of ardent spirit before the Temperance reformation began. Thirty or forty thousand! a sacrifice seldom matched by war or pestilence. The blood which flowed from the veins of our martyred countrymen, in the cause of freedom, never reached this annual sacrifice. And the pestilential cholera, ruthless as it is, which has marked its desolating track through many of our towns and cities, numbers not an amount of victims like this plague, much as its virulence has been enhanced by ardent spirit. The destructive influence of immoderate drinking upon the bodily powers of men, is painfully apparent, sometimes long before the fatal catastrophe. The face, the speech, the eyes, the walk, the sleep, the breath, all proclaim the drying up of the springs of life. And although abused nature will often struggle, and struggle, and struggle, to maintain the balance of her powers, and restore her wasted energies, she is compelled to yield at length to suicidal violence.

The effect of the habitual use of ardent spirit upon the health, is much greater than is generally supposed. An individual who is in the habit of drinking spirits daily, although he may not fall under the character of a drunkard, is undermining his constitution gradually, but certainly; as a noble building, standing by the side of a small, unnoticed rivulet, whose current steals along under its foundation, and carries away from its support sand after sand, has its security certainly though imperceptibly impaired, and finally falls into utter ruin. A large proportion of the inmates of our madhouses are the victims of ardent spirit. Our hospitals and poor-houses speak volumes of the ruin that awaits the bodily powers of those who indulge in even moderate tippling. It exposes the system to much greater ravages when disease attacks it. The powers of nature are weakened, and less able to resist disease; and medicines will never act so promptly and kindly upon those who are accustomed to strong drink as upon those who are not.

But where is the soul, the disembodied spirit of a deceased drunkard? “No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God,” is the plain declaration of sacred writ; and were there no such scriptural denunciation of the wretched inebriate, the very nature of his case would render his prospect dark and dismal. In the intervals of his cups, when his animal powers are not goaded by artificial excitement, his distressed spirit partakes of the horrible collapse of its polluted tenement, and can contemplate no motive, however weighty, nor entertain any other thought, be it ever so interesting, than how to relieve its present wretchedness. When, then, can the unhappy man find peace with God amid this tumult of his unbalanced faculties, this perturbation of his unholy passions? How utterly unfitted to perform those duties which are requisite to secure a blessed immortality?

Our fourth reason for the disuse of alcoholic liquors is, that any thing short of entire abstinence exposes to all the dread consequences just named. Here is the grand hope of our cause. Total abstinence defies all danger and mocks at consequences. With it, we are safe; without it, in peril.

No man was ever born a drunkard; nor are we born with a natural taste or thirst for alcoholic drinks, any more than we are born with an appetite for aloes, assafœtida, or any other drug or medicine. And the child when first taught to take it, is induced to do so only by sweetening it, and thus rendering it palatable, as is the case with other medicines. Neither is it, at any time, the taste or flavor of alcohol, exclusively, that presents such charms for the use of it; but in the effect upon the stomach and nerves lie all the magic and witchery of this destructive agent. In proof of this, watch the trembling victim of strong drink while he pours down his morning or mid-day dram, and see him retch and strangle like a sickened child at a nauseous medicine. Ask him, too, and he will confess it is not the taste for which he drinks. Intemperate drinking is ever the result of what has been misnamed temperate drinking. “Taking a little” when we are too cold, or too hot, or wet, or fatigued, or low-spirited, or have a pain in the stomach, or to keep off fevers, or from politeness to a friend, or not to appear singular in company, etc., etc., or as is sometimes churlishly said, “when we have a mind to.”

And here I shall step aside a little from the main argument, and attempt to explain the effects which temperate drinking has upon the animal system; and how it leads to ruinous drunkenness, by a law of our natures, certain and invariable. The nervous system, as I have said, is that department of our bodies which suffers most from stimulants and narcotics. Although the circulation of the blood is increased, and all the animal spirits roused by alcoholic drink; still, the nerves are the organs that must finally bear the brunt and evil of this undue excitement. Thus we see in the man who has been overexcited by these stimulants, a trembling hand, an infirm step, and impaired mental vigor. The excitability of our system—and by this term we mean that property of our natures which distinguishes all living from dead matter—is acted upon by stimuli, either external or internal; and it is by various stimuli, applied properly, and in due proportion, that the various functions of life are kept up. Thus a proper portion of food, and drink, and heat, and exercise, serves to maintain that balance of action among all the organs, which secures health to the individual. But if an agent is applied to the system, exerting stimulant powers exceeding those that are necessary for carrying on the vital functions steadily, an excitement ensues which is always followed by a corresponding collapse. This principle is clearly illustrated by the stimulus of alcohol. If a person unaccustomed to its use receives into his stomach a given quantity of distilled spirits, it will soon produce symptoms of universal excitement. The pulse increases in frequency; the action of all the animal functions is quickened; and even the soul, partaking of the impulse of its fleshly tabernacle, is unduly aroused. But this is of short duration, and a sinking, or collapse, proportioned to the excitement, soon takes place, with a derangement, more or less, of all the organs of the body. The stimulus repeated, the same effect ensues. We must, however, notice that the same quantity of any unnatural stimulus, such as opium, spirit, etc., frequently repeated, fails to produce its specific effect. Hence, in order to secure the same effect, it is necessary to increase its quantity. Thus, to a person indulging in the frequent or stated practice of drinking, before he is aware, the repetition becomes pleasant. As the accustomed hour returns for his dram, he regularly remembers it; again and again he drinks; the desire increases; he makes himself believe it is necessary from the very fact that he desires it; the principle, or law, of which we have been speaking, developes itself; an increased quantity becomes necessary to insure a feeling of gratification; more, and still more becomes necessary, and oftener repeated, until without it he is miserable; his overexcited system is wretched, soul and body, without the constant strain which the stimulus affords.

Here is a solution of the fact that has astonished thousands; how the unhappy drunkard, with all the certain consequences of his course staring him in the face, and amid the entreaties and arguments of distressed friends, and the solemn denunciations of holy writ sounding in his ears, and the sure prospect of an untimely grave, will still press on, and hold the destroyer still firmer to his lips. It is because nature shrieks at every pore, if I may be allowed the expression. Every nerve, every vein, every fibre pines, and groans, and aches for its accustomed stimulus. No substitute will do; no ransom can purchase relief; insatiate as the grave, every fibre cries, Give, give! The dictates of reason are drowned in the clamor of the senses. Thus the temperate drinker, by persisting in the practice, throws himself within the influence of a law of his system, of which he can no more control the development, nor resist the urgency, than he can that law which circulates the blood through his heart, or any other law peculiar to animal life. That law is the law of stimulation, which is never unduly aroused, except by sinful indulgences; but when aroused, is dreadfully urgent. We will state a case strikingly exemplifying the influence of this law.

A gentleman, an acquaintance and friend of the writer, contracted the habit of drinking during his college course. He settled in the practice of the law in one of the villages of his native state. He soon became invested with offices of honor and profit, and although young, gave promise of shining brilliantly in the profession he had chosen. He was the pride of a large and respectable family, who witnessed his growing prospects with that satisfaction and delight which the prosperity of a beloved son and brother cannot fail to impart. In the midst of these circumstances the physician was one day called in haste to see him. He had fallen into a fit. His manly form lay stretched upon the carpet, while his features were distorted and purpled from the agony of the convulsions. After some days, however, he recovered, without having sustained any permanent injury. Being in company with his physician alone, soon after, he said to him, “I suspect, sir, you do not know the cause of my fit; and as I may have a return of it, when you will probably be called, I think it proper that you should be made acquainted with my habits of life.” He then informed his physician, that for a number of years previous he had been in the daily use of ardent spirit, that the practice had grown upon him ever since he left college, and that he was conscious it injured him. However, it was not known even to his own family what quantity he used. His physician did not hesitate to inform him of the extreme danger to his life in persisting in the use of intoxicating drinks. He acknowledged his perfect conviction of the truth of all that was said, and resolved to abandon his wicked course.

Not many weeks after, he was seized with another fit; but owing to the absence of the family physician, he did not see him until some time after he had come out of it. The physician, however, who attended, informed him it was violent. After repeated assurances of his increasing danger, and the remonstrances of friends, who had now begun to learn the real cause of his fits, he renewed his promises and determination to reform, and entered upon a course of total abstinence, which he maintained for several months, and inspired many of his friends with pleasing hopes of his entire reform and the reëstablishment of his health. But, alas, in an unguarded moment, he dared to taste again the forbidden cup, and with this fled all his resolutions and restraints. From that time he drank more openly and freely. His fits returned with painful violence; friends remonstrated, entreated, pleaded, but all in vain. He thus continued his course of intemperance, with intervals of fits and sickness, about eight or ten months, and at length died drunk in his bed, where he had lain for two or three weeks in a continual state of intoxication.