spiritual death, comes on. His resolution fails, and his mental energy, and his vigorous enterprise; and nervous irritation and depression ensue. The social affections lose their fulness and tenderness, and conscience loses its power, and the heart its sensibility, until all that was once lovely and of good report, retires and leaves the wretch abandoned to the appetites of a ruined animal. In this deplorable condition, reputation expires, business falters and becomes perplexed, and temptations to drink multiply as inclination to do so increases, and the power of resistance declines. And now the vortex roars, and the struggling victim buffets the fiery wave with feebler stroke, and warning supplication, until despair flashes upon his soul, and with an outcry that pierces the heavens, he ceases to strive, and disappears.

A sin so terrific, should be detected in its origin and strangled in the cradle; but ordinarily, instead of this, the habit is fixed, and the hope of reformation is gone, before the subject has the least suspicion of danger. It is of vast importance, therefore, that the various occasions of intemperance should be clearly described, that those whose condition is not irretrievable, may perceive their danger and escape, and that all who are free, may be warned off from these places of temptation and ruin. For the benefit of the young, especially, I propose to lay down a map of the way to destruction, and to rear a monument of warning upon every spot

where a wayfaring man has been ensnared and destroyed.

The first occasion of intemperance which I shall mention, is found in the free and frequent use of ardent spirits in the family, as an incentive to appetite, an alleviation of lassitude, or an excitement to cheerfulness. In these reiterated indulgences, children are allowed to partake, and the tender organs of their stomachs are early perverted, and predisposed to habits of intemperance. No family, it is believed, accustomed to the daily use of ardent spirits, ever failed to plant the seeds of that dreadful disease, which sooner or later produced a harvest of wo. The material of so much temptation and mischief, ought not to be allowed a place in the family, except only as a medicine, and even then it would be safer in the hands of the apothecary, to be sent for like other medicine, when prescribed.

Ardent spirits, given as a matter of hospitality, is not unfrequently the occasion of intemperance. In this case the temptation is a stated inmate of the family. The utensils are present, and the occasions for their use are not unfrequent. And when there is no guest, the sight of the liquor, the state of the health, or even lassitude of spirits, may indicate the propriety of the "prudent use," until the prudent use becomes, by repetition, habitual use-and habitual use becomes irreclaimable intemperance. In this manner, doubt

less, has many a father, and mother, and son, and daughter, been ruined forever.

Of the guests, also, who partake in this family hospitality, the number is not small, who become ensnared; especially among those whose profession calls them to visit families often, and many on the same day. Instead of being regarded, therefore, as an act of hospitality, and a token of friendship, to invite our friends to drink, it ought to be regarded as an act of incivility, to place ourselves and them in circumstances of such high temptation.

Days of public convocation are extensively the occasions of excess which eventuate in intemperance. The means and temptations are ostentatiously multiplied, and multitudes go forth prepared and resolved to yield to temptation, while example and exhilarated feeling secure the ample fulfilment of their purpose.But when the habit is once acquired of drinking even prudently," as it will be called, on all the days of public convocation which occur in a year, a desire will be soon formed of drinking at other times, until the healthful appetite of nature is superseded by the artificial thirst produced by ardent spirits.

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Evening resorts for conversation, enlivened by the cheering bowl, have proved fatal to thousands. Though nothing should be boisterous, and all should seem only the "feast of reason and the flow of soul," yet at the latter end it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an

adder many a wretched man has shaken his chains and cried out in the anguish of his spirit, oh! that accursed resort of social drinking, there my hands were bound and my feet put in fetters; there I went a freeman and became a slave, a temperate man and became a drunkard.

In the same class of high temptation are to be ranked all convivial associations for the purpose of drinking, with or without gambling, and late hours. There is nothing which young men of spirit fear less, than the exhilaration of drinking on such occasions; nor any thing which they are less able to resist, than the charge of cowardice when challenged to drink. But there is no one form of temptation before which more young men of promise have fallen into irretrievable ruin. The connexion between such beginnings and a fatal end is so manifest, and the presumptuous daring of heaven is so great, that God in his righteous displeasure is accustomed to withdraw his protection and abandon the sinner to his own way.

Feeble health and mental depression are to be numbered among the occasions of intemperance. The vital sinking, and muscular debility, and mental dark-ness are for a short time alleviated by the application of stimulants. But the cause of this momentary alleviation is applied and repeated, until the habit of excessive drinking is formed and has become irresistible.

Medical prescriptions have no doubt contributed to

increase the number of the intemperate.

Ardent spirits administered in the form of bitters, or as the medium of other medicine have let in the destroyer; and while the patient was seeking health at the hand of the physician, HE was dealing out debility and death. The distillation of ardent spirits fails not to raise up around the establishment a generation of drunkards. The cheapness of the article, and the ease with which families can provide themselves with large quantities, the product of their own labour, eventuate in frequent drinking, and wide spread intemperance.

The vending of ardent spirits, in places licensed or unlicensed, is a tremendous evil. Here, those who have no stated employment loiter away the day for a few potations of rum, and here, those who have finished the toils of the day meet to spend a vacant hour; none content to be lookers on all drink, and none for any length of time drink temperately. Here too the children of a neighbourhood, drawn in by enticements, associate for social drinking, and the exhibition of courage and premature manhood. And here the iron hand of the monster is fastened upon them, at a period when they ought not to have been beyond the reach of maternal observation.

The continued habit of dealing out ardent spirits, in various forms and mixtures, leads also to frequent tasting, and tasting to drinking, and drinking to tippling, and tippling to drunkenness.