The writer has stated this case in detail, to show the influence of the law of stimulation, or what in popular language is termed, “the appetite for spirituous liquors,” when once it is awakened.
Here we have the instance of an individual, of a fine and cultivated intellect, with every thing on earth to render him happy, that could be comprised in wealth, friends, honor, and bright prospects. Ay, indeed, too, he professed an interest in the blood of the Saviour, and had communed with Christians at his table; surrounded by those whom he tenderly loved, the wife of his bosom, and the dear pledges of her devotion. Yet, in spite of all these considerations, and the most sensible conviction of his fatal career, he continued to drink, and thus pressed downward to the gate of death and hell.
Now what was this? What giant’s arm dragged this fair victim to an untimely grave? Was it for the want of motives and obligations to pursue an opposite course? No. Was it for the want of intellect and talents to appreciate those obligations? No. Was it trouble, arising from disappointed hopes and blasted prospects? Certainly, by those who knew him best, he was accounted a man who might have been happy. What was it, then, that urged this individual, with his eyes open upon the consequences, and in the face of every thing most dear, thus to sacrifice his all upon the altar of intemperance? It was that law of which we have spoken, enkindled into action by his tippling, and which once developed, he could no more control, while persisting in his pernicious practice of drinking, than he could have hurled the Andes from their base, or have plucked the moon from her orbit.
We say, then, that all persons who drink ardent spirit habitually, bring themselves inevitably under the influence of a law peculiar to their natures, which leads on to ruin. Instances may indeed have occurred, in which individuals have used ardent spirit daily for a long course of years, and yet died without becoming drunkards; but it only proves that these have been constitutions that could resist the speedy development of the law in question. Where one individual is found with a constitution vigorous enough to resist the development of this law through a life of habitual drinking, thousands go down to a drunkard’s grave, and a drunkard’s retribution, from only a few years’ indulgence.
We have thus briefly shown the immense cost of the use of alcoholic liquors. We have shown that they contain no property that can impart substantial strength or nourishment to the body; and that they are actually a poison. We have shown that they destroy both body and soul; clouding the view of truth, and resisting the influences of the Holy Spirit. “No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God.” We have shown that the temperate use of these liquors tends inevitably to the intemperate use; since those who drink them habitually, throw themselves within the influence of a law of their natures, which leads on directly to ruin.
In view of such considerations and such facts, who is so degraded, so enslaved to appetite, or the love of gain, that he will not lend his aid to the Temperance Reform? Who will indulge in what he calls the temperate use, flattering himself that he can control his appetite, when thousands, who have boasted of self-control, have found themselves, ere they were aware, within the coil of a serpent whose touch is poison, and whose sting is death? O, who that regards his neighbor, his family, his own reputation, or his own soul, will in this day of light be found dallying with that which affords at best only sensual pleasure, and which at the last biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder?