I had determined never to lecture on temperance in any place, without having previously inquired, from the most reliable sources, about:
1st. The number of deaths and accidents caused by drunkenness the last fifteen or twenty years.
2d. The number of orphans and widows made by drunkenness.
3d. The number of rich families ruined, and the number of poor families made poorer by the same cause.
4th. The approximate sum of money expended by the people during the last twenty years.
As the result of my inquiries, I learned that during that short period, that 32 men had lost their lives when drunk; and through their drunkenness 25 widows and 37 orphans had been left in the lowest degree of poverty; 72 rich families had been entirely ruined and turned out of their once happy homes by the demon of intemperance, and 90 kept poor. More than three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000) had been paid in cash, without counting the loss of time, for the intoxicating beverages drank by the people of Longueuil during the last twenty years.
For three days, I spoke twice a day to crowded houses. My first text was: “Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup: when it moveth itself aright. At last, it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder” (Prov. 33: 31-32).
The first day I showed how alcoholic beverages were biting like a serpent and stinging like an adder, by destroying the lungs, the brains, and the liver; the nerves and the muscles; the blood and the very life of man.
The second day I proved that intoxicating drinks were the most implacable and cruel enemies of the fathers, the mothers, the children; of the young and the old; of the rich and the poor; of the farmers, the merchants and the mechanics; the parish and the country.
The third day I proved, clearly, that those intoxicating liquors were the enemy of intelligence, and the soul of man; the gospel of Christ and of His holy church; the enemy of all the rights of man and the laws of God.