ther a direful view of your calling. The godly may not. come around you. It has been whispered to them from heaven, that they may not come into your secrets, nor join their honour to your tippling and drunken assemblies. You are employed, it seems, on the dark side of that line, that separates the children of light from the children of darkness. Your stand is at the tap, where you draw off, and deal out to the most ruined part of your race, poverty, and pain, and decrepitude, and blindness, and infamy, and despair, and shame, and death.

And all this is not all, for in addition to the present plagues which your trade inflicts upon men, it promises, assuredly, to undo them forever. It seals them over to the adversary, and confirms them the enemies of all righteousness, through all the future periods of their being. And what a horrid occupation must that be that so mars and spoils the works of God. What if the light of the last day should break in upon you with the cup of liquid fire in your hand, reaching it out to one who is at that instant hurried away to the judgment, to answer for the sin of making himself a beast at your bar, must you not follow on or go before him, and answer for the sin of vending the fire. Are you not the very man whom the Scriptures reprobate for putting the cup to your neighbour's mouth. If you will attend awhile, we will review the arguments by which you are sustained in the practice.

I. A vender of ardent spirits, on being asked why he continued in the traffic, responded, I am sustained by the public authorities. They have licensed the trade, and I pay over to them a certain part of the profits. I can show you their hand and seal.

But have they pledged themselves to answer for you

when God shall come and make inquisition for blood? and when the vagabond husband with his haggard wife and beggared offspring, shall cry to heaven for vengeance, on the man that pilfered them of bread, and clothed them with rags, and covered them with infamy?

I know they may have then gone out of office, and others may occupy their seats. Corporations, I know have their life time, and their office is temporary, and their account will be summed up in eternity. But do they incur any moral responsibility for the correctness of this enterprise? Will they stand between you and harm, in the great day of account? I know they have underwritten for your honesty and integrity, and for your good moral character, and have made oath to all these points, but as to the lawfulness of the enterprise in the sight of God have they underwritten here? Or have they left you to settle this matter with God.

And besides it is said corporate bodies have no souls. Of course they have no conscience, and will not come into the judgment, and will not be present to respond for you when you shall be charged with pouring a stream of death through the streets, and lanes of our beloved country. They will have sunk down into common men and will be judged not as public men, but as private citizens.

But to be serious, O what a day the last day will be, when every one must answer for the sins done in the body. But if the men who signed your papers shall be condemned with you, as guilty accomplices in your work of death, what then? Can you apply any remedy to the fatal and final mistake in that evil hour? I would certainly handle your conscience kindly, but I would do it honestly, because I shall be at the court on that day, and must be condemned with you, if I handle deceit

fully the word of the Lord, or cry peace and safety when sudden destruction comes upon you. I would rather become security for every demand and every claim that may come against you in these minor courts, than answer for the charge of making one drunkard, or one homeless and hopeless and vagabond child, or one broken-hearted mother. I had rather be your city scavenger than your mayor or your alderman on terms like these. If the license you have, will be current only in a human court, and heaven's King will despise it, I would go and throw it down on the table of the corporation, and would go out, and before I commenced the sale, would demand a new revelation from heaven, that should contain at least a clause like this Thus saith the Lord, They who license others to commit sin are answerable for the sin, and they alone, and let all the people say Amen.

II. Another, on being asked why he continued the trade, made answer, That it was profitable, and that he chose to reap the profits. Or as one might honestly interpret his language, he cared not whether it was right or wrong. He would have been willing if he might have been paid for his labour, to have manned the guillotine, or to have kindled the fires at the autode-fe. If he could make a good trade of it, would buy in the fagots, that were destined to be used in burning a world. But it is believed there are very few such men, so lost from reason, hope and heaven. And with this few we will not spend our time at present.

III. Another, on being asked, replied, The trade supports my family, and propped his argument by Scripture: "If any provide not for his own, and especially

for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." He faltered as he uttered the text, seeming to doubt whether God inspired it to foster the crime of drunkenness. A very simple comment would say, It surely must be of some consequence, how we provide. May a man steal his bread, and purloin the garment that warms his children? One may not provide for his family by gambling, nor by extortion, nor by robbery, nor by usury. By none of these means, is it believed that one could lawfully make the provision enjoined in the text. Thus the argument goes for nothing, if we are required to use Christian discretion as to the manner in which this provision shall be made. We may not do evil that good may come, unless we would have our damnation just. The end will not sanctify the means. That end which is not achieved by measures of righteousness, is not pursued with regard to the authority of God.

IV. Another trader replied, This is the business I was bred to. So King Alexander and the man of Elba, and Cesar and Sennacherib, were practised, if not bred to the art of blotting out nations, and pouring out human gore, and must be sustained in the trade of blood because they were bred to it. And Alexander the coppersmith, must oppose the gospel because else he should have no more shrines to make for Diana. Did he reason well, or did he probably loose his soul?

That you was bred to the business of making or vending ardent spirits, may involve your parents in guilt, but it cannot exonerate you from the guilt of doing what you know is wrong. It surely is your business to inquire whether your calling involes the good or the injury of the world, whether you promote its health, its character and

comfort, or its undoing. Whether you aid its population on to heaven or perdition. Are you exonerated from any such inquiry? You give us then the very answer that the highway-man will, I pursue the business I was bred to. And when you have answered his argument and persuaded him to be an honest man, I will use your reasons, and convince you that you ought immediately to attempt some other business.

V. Another retailer when inquired of why he continued in the trade made answer. There is no other business I can do. My trade in this article is my only path to competency. We may then surely ask you, whether you have tried, and settled the question beyond controversy, that you must sell rum or starve, that is, you must do what God forbids or die?

Here I would remark that one should not come to this conclusion till he has made an effort. It surely seldom happens under the government of God, that men can adopt no legitimate means of earning their bread. Should the gambler, and the actor, and the slave-dealer, and the privateers-man become convinced that their calling is mischievous, and ask God to direct them to an honest livelihood, would there be nothing they could do but die! Would he leave to beggary or starvation, the man who was devoutly praying,-"Give us in a lawful and proper manner, day by day our daily bread? Why, this question is answered in a moment. And were we obliged to answer in the negative, and duty was certainly associated with death, then we should say die. That man blesses the world and dies at a good old age who dies rather than sin. And as martyrdom has advanced many a cause it may possibly advance yet the cause of temperance.