An Address, delivered by Father Mathew
Lisgoold, 1847

"My dear friends, I know that most, nearly all, of those whom I now address, are teetotallers, and have for a long time enjoyed the blessings of sobriety; I know that you have availed yourselves of the facility which your neighborhood to Cork has afforded, and that many of you are true and faithful members of our society. But, so deep-rooted is my conviction of the importance- the individual good and national benefit of total abstinence- that I would readily come here, were I convinced that I could add even one individual to the many millions who already rejoice in the freedom and independence which a virtuous self-denial must always draw with it. Could I add but one man or woman- one father or mother- one daughter or one son- to the ranks of temperance, I would come here with a joyful heart, and consider that in that single adhesion I had earned a rich recompense. Nay, could I advance that cause which I love and revere, as the great instrument of good, I would journey to the uttermost bounds of the earth- I would fearlessly brave the perils of the deep- I would face any danger, or encounter any risk- so that I could extend the blessings of Temperance to the whole human family; for I consider that after Religion, nothing is so powerful in its influences as Temperance. From the first moment that I entered upon my mission, I saw the evil with which I had to contend, in its true shape. I knew, by sad experience, the dreadful ravages that it made in the peace, and honor, and happiness of individuals; I saw the vice and immorality that it had spread over communities; I observed that it had filled prisons and workhouses; that it had gorged the churchyard with countless victims; I saw it striking down the young and old, the proud and the lowly, the rich and the poor, the ignorant and the enlightened- that it spared neither sex nor age- that it was more ruthless that the sword, more terrible that the plague, more desolating that fire; I say, I saw all these results of intemperance, and I was determined to devote all my time and all my energy to the task of arousing the people of this country to oppose the monster evil of Ireland, and crush it before it had degraded the land and the people beyond cure or redemption. I promised good results and many blessings to the Irish people if they followed my advice. Millions believed me; and blessed be the day that they had faith in my word! Thousand upon thousands now pine in want and woe, because they did not take my advice: to them the horrors of famine and the evils of blight are aggravated, while tens of thousands of those who listened to me and adopted my advice are now safe from hunger and privation, because they had virtue to surrender a filthy sensual gratification, and the wisdom to store up for the coming of the evil day. Thousands are now perishing, who, if they had not the folly to spend their hard-earned money in drink, in riot, and in debauchery, would now be safe from danger, and enabled to assist, by their charity, creatures who are now without a friend to comfort or assist them. The prison and the poorhouse are opening wide their doors for many who have wilfully brought ruin on themselves and their families, and who, had they only sense, would now be among the wealthy of the land. I will not upbraid such victims for the past- I would rather cheer and console- I would rather tell them that it is not yet too late- that no one should despair- that there is still balm in Gilead, still a physician there. I would assure them that the oldest and most inveterate habit can be overcome by a simple effort of moral courage, by one virtuous resolution. Habit and custom tyrannize over men because they want courage to face or oppose their tyrants; but the strongest chain of passion that ever fettered he soul, and led man's senses captive, can be broken by a bold, a virtuous effort. The pledge which I ask you and others to take, does not enslave- it makes free- free from vice, free from passion, free from an enslaving habit. The fewer passions that rule us, the freer we are; and no man is so free as the man who places himself beyond and out of the reach of temptation; for as the Scripture says, those who court danger shall perish therein. The freedom which I advocate is one you can obtain without any sacrifice- of health, of pleasure, of money, or of comfort. On the contrary, it will add to your health, your wealth, your pleasure and your comfort. Temperance brings blessings in both hands- blessings for time, and blessings for eternity. Let the drinker of strong drink examine his past life, and he cannot fail to see that the darkest moments of his life have borrowed their murky hue from intemperance. I never knew a young man or a young woman to go astray, and walk in the ways of lewdness, whose departure from the path of virtue was not chiefly from the influence of strong drink. Parents, and mothers in particular, should be constantly on their guard against the evil effects of example upon their children, and should be determined, like the virtuous mothers mentioned in the Sacred Writings, to devote their children to temperance; for, by so doing, they will be devoting them to temporal and eternal good. There is no danger in such a course. There is no injury arising from temperance; nor any difficulty in taking the pledge.

No man performs his duty better than a teetotaler; no man is better able to brave the vicissitudes of the season. I am now in the habit of travelling constantly during the last nine years, in heat and cold, in rain and snow, by day and night; and I have never suffered any inconvenience from it, because I was a teetotaler; and now, thank God, I am as active and as full of energy as ever, and as determined now as I was nine years ago to devote myself to the great cause of reformation, and moral as well as social advancement. I never knew what true happiness was until I became a teetotaler; for until I became so, I could never feel that I was free or out of danger, or could say to myself with confidence that I would not at one time or another be that most degraded thing- a drunkard. Let no one tell me that he is safe enough- that he has no occasion to take the pledge- that he is above temptation. There is no one strong enough or firm enough to resist temptation; no one so strong or firm that he may not fall. I have seen the stars of heaven fall, and the cedars of Lebanon laid low. I have seen the proudest boasters humbled to the dust, steeped to the very lips in poverty, and sunk in dishonored graves. It is not uncharitable for me to proclaim, from this altar, the doom of the drunkard; for has not the Apostle Paul said that the drunkard shall never enter the kingdom of Heaven? And for what does the wretched drunkard risk his prospect of heaven? For nothing! There is no happiness in drinking, but much in abstaining; the abstainer is the only man who can say, "I never will become a drunkard." No man ever became a drunkard at once. Whence, then, come the drunkards? From the good, the pious, the firm, the boastful, the moderate; it is from this class that many a confirmed drunkard has come, who has fallen little by little, until he has been plunged forever and ever in ruin and misery."

(Father Mathew then impressively narrated a melancholy case, which occurred in Cork, of a wretched man who had fallen into the river while laboring under the influence of drink, and who, on being taken out and carried to the Bridewell, shortly after expired. He then continued.)

"I have no hostility to spirit dealers: I am sorry that they are in the traffic, because they cannot make fortunes but by the ruin of thousands, for it is the poor and famishing people who are the chief consumers of what they sell, and their principal customers. Manufacturers and sellers of strong drink may with safety to themselves quit their unholy traffic- let them become millers, grinders of corn, and sellers of provisions- then they will injure no man. While I have no hostility to those who produce or sell strong drink, it is my duty, as a Minister of the Gospel, to warn you to fly from the public-house as you would from a plague, or your worst enemy. I deeply regret to say that persons who are fond of talking of patriotism and liberality and humanity, are using every exertion to multiply those houses, by procuring and granting licenses. It is a sad and dreadful thing to see them grow up, in such awful times as the present, when the cry of a stricken people is for food- for the means of keeping famine and death from their doors. No sooner is a railway started, even a viaduct commenced, than instantly the publican and the distiller will procure a license for a seller of whiskey and porter; and the consequence is that the men are plundered and demoralized, while their families pine in wretchedness. I was horrified the other day to see two timber houses erected for the sale of drink near the viaduct on the Cork and Bandon line of railway. To give an idea of the perseverance with which licenses are sought for, and the efforts made to procure them for dependents of Brewers and Distillers, I will tell you one case- that of a certain person in Cork who wished to get a license for a new establishment a little outside the city, who was refused a license in Cork, and at several other sessions, but who eventually went down to Midleton and there obtained it, although some gentlemen from Cork, backed by a strong memorial against the grant, went down to oppose it! I wonder that persons connected with the trade would sit on the Bench, and interfere in granting licenses; for how can that magistrate who grants a license for a certain house, afterwards have the face to fine a wretched man for getting drunk in that house! Brewers and Distillers ought to have more taste than to adjudicate in such cases. But, my dear friends, if every house in Lisgoold was a public-house, that would be no reason you should go into them. I am here in the name of the Lord- I am here for your good. This is a time to try men's souls; and that man or that woman must be a monster who would drink while a fellow-creature was dying for want of food. I don't blame the Brewers or the Distillers- I blame those who make them so. If they could make more money in any other way , they would; but so long as the people are mad enough to buy and drink their odious manufacture, they will continue in the trade. Is it not a terrible thing to think that so much wholesome grain, that God intended for the support of human life, should be converted into maddening poison, for the destruction of man's body and soul? By a calculation recently made, it is clearly proved that if all the grain now converted into poison were devoted to its natural and legitimate use, it would afford a meal to every man, woman and child in the land. The man or woman who drinks, drinks the food of the starving! And is not that man or woman a monster who drinks the food of the starving?"