Speeches, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings

WA WARNINGS, similar to that uttered in the song to which we have just listened, have been, for the last thirty years at least, continually falling upon our ears and the ears of our fellowmen. Good men, widowed and wretched women, neglected, abused, and suffering children, ah! and even the drunkard himself, have unitedly warned us against the terrible influences of intoxicating poisons; and yet they are vended and drank in our midst, as though they were perfectly harmless. Those very influences and instrumentalities which have filled the earth with crime and misery, are permitted still to operate here at your very doors, and that under the sanction of the laws of Connecticut. The fruits of God's earth are, in this very town, converted into poison for man, and thoughtless and wicked men are busily engaged in transporting it to and fro, and presenting it to the lips of their neighbors and fellowcitizens. The columns of our public journals are filled with the most heart-rending details of this terrible system, with which, as friends of temperance, we are warring; and yet it does not deter men from a vigorous and active support of that system. The press, the pulpit, and injured and suffering

thousands, cry out against this modern Moloch; and yet our sons and our daughters are, by thousands, being immolated upon its bloody altars.

Why is this evil perpetuated in our midst? Why, in the face of such damning results, is the system producing them tolerated?

All men affect to deplore the evil of drunkenness, and its attendant miseries. There is now no doubt but community might safely and profitably dispense with the whole system which has proved so destructive to our interests and happiness in times past. Why, then, I ask again, is the state made to groan under its influence? The question would be variously answered by different individuals, and no doubt very many potent causes are operating together to perpetuate this curse among us. Among them all, however, few are more potent than the one to which I propose, this evening, to call your attention, viz., the loose and unsound notions entertained, by the mass of our fellow-men, relative to the nature, philosophy, and inevitable tendencies of unnatural or artificial appetites.

There are many well marked distinctions between appetites which are natural to our race and those artificial ones which may be formed by the continued use of substances in themselves poisonous, and always injurious in a state of health.

The law of artificial appetites is a law of increase. Their demand is for more, more; give, give, until we drop into our graves. It is this law which, when a man has heedlessly formed an appetite for intoxicating stimulants, drags him on and down, through a course of indescribable sufferings, to a grave of infamy. Now, there is no such tendency in natural. appetites for food or drink, though indulged to perfect satiety, and through the period of a long life. They are, almost without exception, as strong when first developed as they can be rendered, in a state of health, at any subsequent period of the life of the individual. Let me illustrate this in a familiar way. I see before me, in the congregation, a number of very young

persons.

Now, suppose you take one of these children of four years of age, and, in the season when that fruit may be had, give him a plate of strawberries and cream. The child will eat them with a keen relish, as keen as he will ever do at any subsequent period, though he were fed on that delicious fruit for life. Give to one of these lads of six years a fine apple, and observe with what evident gusto he will dispose of it. Now, you may place at his elbow a basket of choice apples during every day of his future life, and the appetite for apples will not increase. He will not eat one to-day, two to-morrow, three the next day, and so on, consuming larger and still larger quantities of the fruit daily, until he shall gorge himself with apples, and, oppressed with the load, lie down, like a brute, and wallow in the street.

Such results do not follow the use of those delicious fruits with which we may, with proper effort, supply ourselves so abundantly in this favored land. The same is true in relation to every proper article of food or drink. Water is to the thirsty a great luxury. Few articles ever pass the lips of men, whose appetites are not depraved by improper indulgence, which afford more pleasure than water, when that article is really demanded. With what eagerness did you and I, Mr. President, in our boyhood, run to the well, when wearied with childish sports and athirst; and when " the old oaken bucket ” was, in the language of the poet," poised on the curb, and inclined to our lips," and we felt the cool water splashing on our naked feet, O, then we could have testified to the excellence of that blessed gift of God, the emblem of purity, and type of that fountain of joy which shall forever spring up in the souls of the blessed. Yet, great as is the pleasure with which, when athirst, we receive pure cold water, the desire for it is not increased by continued indulgence from infancy to threescore years and ten. We do not find men drinking a pint today, a quart to-morrow, and so on, increasing, until, urged on by insatiable thirst, they suck on to the spout of the pump, and there remain till, like a gorged leech, they can swallow no

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