In the preceding lectures, we have shown that a kind of wine has existed from great antiquity, which was injurious to health and subversive of morals; that these evils, since the introduction of distillation, have been greatly increased; that half the lunacy, three-fourths of the pauperism, and five-sixths of the crime with which the nation is visited, is owing to intemperance; that there are believed to be five hundred thousand drunkards in the republic, and that thousands die of drunkenness annually. We have also shown that drunkenness results from moderate drinking, and that drunkenness must continue, by a necessity of nature, as long as habitual temperate drunking is continued; that it is not the drinking of water or milk, or any other necessary or nutritive beverage, but of intoxicating liquors only, that produces drunkenness; that as the existing system of moderate drinking occasions all the drunkenness that exists, so that system must be abandoned, or its expense in muscle and sinew and mind, provided for by all this, and all future generations; that even moderate drinking is now more dangerous than formerly, because intoxicating drinks are more deadly- to the poison of alcohol, generated by fermentation, other poison having been added by drugging, and that alike to intoxicating liquors, whether fermented or distilled...
We have shown that the books of Nature and Revelation both proceeded from God, and both contain, though with unequal degrees of clearness, and expression of his will: that the import of the one is discovered by reading and meditation, of the other by observation and experiment; that in this latter oracle mankind are distinctly taught, that aliments restore the waste of the human organism, but that stimulants impair the sensibility on which they operate, and hence that the latter are not intended for habitual use, that they who so use intoxicating liquors violate an established law of nature, and that drunkenness, disease and death, which result from such use, are the penalty which follows, by the appointment of God, the violation of that law; that God wills the happiness of his creatures, and when the authority of the Bible, is plead in behalf of any usage that leads to misery, it may be known that the Bible is plead in error in behalf of such usage; that in the present instance, and so far as the wines of commerce are concerned, to appeal to the Bible as authority, is absurd; that the Bible knows nothing and teaches nothing directly, in relation to these wines of commerce- the same being either a brandied or drugged article, never in use in Palestine; that in relation to these spurious articles the book of nature must alone be consulted, and that being consulted, their condemnation will be found on many a page, inscribed in characters of wrath...

Fathers, mothers, heads of families, if not prepared at this late hour to change your mode of life, are you not prepared to encourage the young, particularly your children, to change theirs? Act as you may, yourselves, do you not desire that they should act the part of safety? Can you not tell them, and truly tell them, that our manner of life is attended with less peril than your own? Can you not tell them, and truly tell them, that however innocent the use even of pure wine may be, in the estimation of those who use it, that its use in health is never necessary; that excess is always injurious, and that in the habitual use of even such wine there is always danger of excess; that of the brandied and otherwise adulterated wines in use, it cannot be said, in whatever quantity that they are innocent; that the temptation to adulterate is very great, detection very difficult, and that entire safety is to be found only in total abstinence?

Ye children of moderate drinking parents; children of so many hopes, and solicitudes and prayers; the sin of drunkenness apart, the innocence of abstinence apart, here are two classes of men, and two plans of life, each proffered to your approbation, and submitted for your choice: The one class use intoxicating liquor, moderately indeed, still they use intoxicating liquor in some or many of its forms; the other class use it in none of them: The one class, in consequence of such use of intoxicating liquor, furnish all the drunkenness, three-fourths of all the pauperism and five-sixths of all the crime, under the accumulating and accumulated weight of which our country already groans.

The other class pays no such tribute; no, nor even a portion of it. The other burthens of community they share indeed, in common with their brethren; a portion of their earnings goes even to provide and furnish those abodes of woe and death, which intoxicating liquors crowd with inmates; but the inmates themselves are all, all trained in the society, instructed in the maxims, moulded by the customs, and finally delievered up from the ranks of the opposite party- the moderate drinking party.

Now, beloved youth, which of these two modes of life will you adopt? To which of these two classes will you attach yourselves? Which think you is the safest, which most noble, patriotic, Christian? In one word, which will insure the purest bliss on earth, and afford the fairest prospect of admission into heaven?

It has not been usual for the speaker, as it has for some other, to bespeak the influence of those who constitute the most numerous, as well as most efficient part of almost every assembly, where self-denials are called for, or questions of practical duty discussed. And yet, no one is more indebted than myself to the kind of influence in question.

Under God, I owe my early education, nay, all that I have been, or am, to the counsel and tutelage of a pious mother. It was, peace to her sainted spirit, it was her monitory voice that first taught my young heart to feel that there was danger in the intoxicating cup, and that safety lay in abstinence.

And as no one is more indebted than myself to the kind of influence in question, so no one more fully realizes how deciseively it bears upon the destinies of others.

Full well I know, that by woman came the apostacy of Adam, and by woman the recovery through Jesus. It was a woman that imbued the mind and formed the character of Moses, Israel's deliverer- it was a woman that led the choir, and gave back the response of that triumphal procession, which went forth to celebrate with timbrels, on the banks of the Red Sea, the overthrow of Pharoah- it was a woman that put Sisera to flight, that composed the song of Deborah and Barak, the son of Abinoam, and judged in righteousness, for years, the tribes of Israel- it was a woman that defeated the wicked counsels of Haman, delivered righteous Mordecai, and saved a whole people fom utter desolation.

The sceptre of empire is not the sceptre that best befits the hand of woman; nor is the field of carnage her field of glory. Home, sweet home, is her theatre of action, her pedestal of beauty, and throne of power. Or if seen abroad, she is seen to the best advantage, when on errands of love, and wearing her robe of mercy.

Now, as formerly, she is most ready to enter, and most reluctant to leave, the abode of misery. Now, as formerly, it is her office, and well it has been sustained, to stay the fainting head, wipe from the dim eye the tear of anguish, and from the cold forehead the dew of death.

It is the influence of their declared approbation; of their open, willing, visible example, enforced by that soft, persuasive, colloquial eloquence, which, in some hallowed retirement and chosen moments, exerts such controlling influence over the hard, cold heart of man, especially over a husband's, a son's, or a brother's heart; it is this influence which we need;-an influence chiefly known by the gradual, kindly transformation of character it produces, and which, in its benign effects, may be compared to the noiseless, balmy influence of Spring, shedding, as it silently advances, renovation over every hill, and dale, and glen, and islet, and changing, throughout the whole region of animated nature, Winter's rugged and unsightly forms, into the forms of vernal lovliness and beauty.

This, indeed, were a mighty triumph, and this, at least, you can achieve. Why then, should less than this be achieved? To purify the conscience, to bind up the broken-hearted, to remove temptation from the young, to minister consolation to the aged, and kindle joy in every bosom throughout her appointed theatre of action, befits alike a woman's and a mother's agency, -and since God has put it in your power to do so much, are you willing to be responsible for the consequences of leaving it undone?

O! No, you are not, I am sure you are not; and if not, then, ere you leave these altars, lift up your heart to God, and in his strength, form the high resolve to purify from drunkenness this city. And, however elsewhere others may hesitate, and waver, and defer, and temporize, take you the open, noble stand of ABSTINENCE; and, having taken it, cause it by your words, and by your deeds, to be known on earth and told in Heaven, that mothers here have dared to do their duty, their whole duty, and that, within the precincts of that consecrated spot over which their balmy, ahllowed influence extends, the doom of drunkenness is sealed.

Ye young, might the speaker be permitted to address you, as well as your honored parents...

O! Could we gain the young, -the young who have no inveterate prejudices to conbat, no established habits to overcome; could we gain the young, we might, after a single generation had passed away, shut up the dram shop, the bar-room and the rum selling grocery, and, by shutting these up, shut up also the poor-house, the prison-house, and one of the broadest and most frequented avenues to the charnel house.

This, the gaining of the young to abstinence, would constitute the mighty fulcrum on which to plant that moral lever of power, to raise a world from degradation.
O! How the clouds would scatter, the prospect brighten, and the firmament of hope clear up, could the young be gained, intoxicating liquors be banished, and abstinence with its train of blessings intoducted throughout the earth.