selves are concerned, were they to practise on the principle of total abstinence? How then can you reconcile it to your consciences to furnish that to your hired men which does them no good, and which may do them great, irretrievable injury? Again, are those hired men who use ardent spirits really the best workmen? I would ask our farmers if they usually find them more moral, more upright, more industrious, than those who do not use them? Would you deem a bottle of rum in your meadow, a good security that your hay would be well made, well secured, and without waste? I believe the experience of our farmers is the reverse of this supposition. Then you gain nothing by furnishing your hired men with ardent spirit; they gain nothing, and why furnish it? From my observation, it is an injury to the employer, and I know it is an injury to those employed, and I know not how a good Christian man can reconcile himself to the practice. But I am told, 66 we cannot get help, unless we furnish ardent spirit." With your leave, my friends, I do not believe this, and even if true, have you a right, for the sake of money, to do that which shall corrupt, or be the occasion of corrupting the morals of your fellow beings? I have heard many a man make this objection, before, but, although I have conversed with hundreds of wealthy farmers, I never knew one to make the objection, after he had fairly tried the experiment. Just try it, try it faithfully, one year, and if you cannot get along without rum, go back to your old practice, if conscience will allow. Í put it to the good sense, and to the good feelings of our farmers, if they should not make the trial, and I have too high an opinion of their love of temperance, and of their regard for the well being of their hired men, to believe that they will not. I put it to their patriotism, I put it, if need be, to their generosity. Some will still object to total abstinence. On this I have little to say. We know intemperance is a horrid monster; we know that a large number have no power to govern themselves, and it really seems to me it is due from us, who call ourselves temperate, to abstain entirely for the benefit of those who cannot control their appetite. The temperate drinker is the germ of the drunkard, for no one commences with being a drunkard at first. He who drinks no ardent spirit is safe; therefore, let us "taste not, touch not, handle not." What, permit me in conclusion to ask, remains for us, but to act? And why do we hesitate? Are we called to undertake some hazardous enterprise, to expose our lives, our characters, or our property? Nothing of this. We are required only to abstain from that which can do us no good, and may do us immense injury. We are called upon barely to write our names, and to write them where it can do us no harm, but where it may be of immense good to us and to our fellow-beings, for time and for eternity. Fathers! Look on your sons. Do your hearts beat proudly as you see yourselves living anew in them, and do you raise your prayers to heaven for their prosperity? Do then all in your power to remove the temptations they have to become drunkards. Mothers! Look on your daughters. Would you that they become wedded to drunken husbands, be compelled to pine in secret, to wither, and die, unfriended and unwept, while they who should shield them from every blast, by an affection never failing, quaff ruin and death in the tavern or grocery? O, lend us then your influence. I appeal to the Christian, whose first duty is self-denial; I ask him while he prays that he may not be "led into temptation," to beware how he places a temptation to sin before his brother. I appeal to the patriot, to him who loves his country, and who knows that without virtue liberty is but a dream; I entreat him to give his name and his influence to arrest the vice which corrupts even the body politic. I appeal to the philanthropist. I appeal to you all, I entreat you by all that is sacred in religion; by all that is binding in human duty; by all your love for your children; by all your desires for human happiness; by all your regard for your country; by your hopes of heaven and by your fears of hell, that you engage in this great cause with earnestness, and that you give to it your names, your influence, and your whole hearts. |