It being wrong to use intoxicating drinks, it is wrong to furnish them to others, and to sell them to be so used. The license system is therefore wrong; as it legalizes an immorality and public curse; and giving and receiving licenses, under this system, are wrong, and ought to be entirely abandoned; and all men ought to unite in the temperance movement, and prosecute it by all reasonable means, till complete success is obtained.

Intoxicating liquors have many lawful uses in medicine and the arts, and considered with respect to these uses, are as lawful an article of manufacture and traffic as any other. It is right to manufacture and sell arsenic. But it is not right to sell this article to persons who are suspected, still less, known to design to make improper uses of it, in killing themselves or others. The same rule applies to intoxicating liquors. The recovery of men from habits of drunkenness is extremely difficult, but not impossible. The number reclaimed during the last few years is considerable. The reformation of this class of men requires, generally, the following conditions; 1. Argument and entreaty on the part of friends; 2. Entire withdrawment from the company of drinking men, and from all known circumstances of temptation; 3. Entire abstinence from all intoxicating drinks; and 4. Industrious employment of time in some useful business. In the absence of either of these conditions, the reformation of drunkards is usually impracticable; and when these concur, it is not only practicable, but easy and certain.

CHAPTER VIII.

NATURE AND OFFICE OF GRATITUDE.

§ 545. Gratitude is a disposition to repay intentional Denefits, and is founded on pleasurable emotions of the same name, experienced in view of them. The emotion of gratitude is the basis of the disposition to make returns for benefits, and is one of the most important exercises of the human mind. The capacity of experiencing these emotions, is one of our mental endowments, which in its original state we derive directly from our Creator. God confers it upon us by the same power by which he confers the senses, and the other mental susceptibilities. The capacity of experiencing gratitude is common to all men; and belongs in some degree to the most intelligent classes of animals. It belongs to animals as an accomplishment, to men as a virtue.

Gratitude begins to be exercised in the earliest periods of life. Children experience it towards their parents, in view of the innumerable favors which they confer. The parent gives the child its customary food; the child is grateful; the parent addresses the child with words of kindness; the child is grateful; the parent looks at the child with the smiling countenance of affection; the child is grateful. A great part of the discipline of later infancy and early childhood, is a discipline of the heart in respect to this class of exercises. As we advance in life, occasions for the exercise of gratitude continually arise. Our relations, our neighbors, our fellow-men, are continually conferring favors upon us, and doing us good. What is the effect of these constant appeals to the heart? The more the emotions are exercised, the greater our susceptibility of them becomes. The exercise of gratitude is analogous to that of other emotions, and follows the same laws; and the more we exercise these emotions, in view of their appropriate objects, the greater our susceptibility of them becomes.

§ 546. The actual exercise of gratitude is experienced to a much greater extent by some than by others. It does not depend merely on the occasions for its exercise, or objects

adapted to excite it, but on the voluntary efforts of the mind. In this respect, it is analogous to sight. Vision does not depend merely on having a perfect organ of sight, and illuminated objects. There must be added to these, voluntary attention; a voluntary effort to see; otherwise, vision will not be attained, or be attained imperfectly. Persons with equally good organs, and the same objects, see very differently, and some to much better purpose than others. This diversity in the exercise of gratitude, dependent on attention and voluntary effort, commences very early in life. No sooner do children become capable of emotions, than they begin to experience them to a greater or less extent, according to the attention which they bestow upon objects adapted to excite them. Visible objects may be present and visible, without being seen; and favors may be received without gratitude, or with inferior and imperfect degrees of it. To have gratitude for favors, we must think of them, and think of them as favors, and must think of the persons conferring them. Besides this, we must carefully estimate the magnitude and value of favors, and the friendly sentiments from which they proceed. We must do this to some extent, to have any gratitude, and to have this emotion in its greatest intensity and vigor, we must do it to the great

est extent.

Gratitude does not arise from the contemplation of benefits considered absolutely without respect to the agent from whom they are received; nor from the contemplation of them as proceeding from merely physical agents, but as proceeding from voluntary agents, and as being performed from a desire to promote our happiness and welfare. Acts may be in the highest degree beneficial, but if they are performed from selfish motives, and not from a desire to promote our happiness, we feel no gratitude, but instead of it indignation and contempt. The actions, therefore, which excite gratitude, are virtuous actions, and those of a benevolent character. Such actions are as truly adapted to excite our gratitude, as selfish actions are to excite our displeasure, or as beautiful objects are to afford us delight.

§ 547. Doing good to our fellow-men for the purpose of promoting their happiness, is the proper occasion of gratitude. Gratitude is not confined to the beneficiary. Parents are often as grateful for goodness exercised towards their children, as towards themselves; friends are grateful for

goodness exercised towards their friends; and in proportion as all men love one another, goodness exercised towards others will be viewed with similar emotions of gratitude to those which have respect to favors conferred on themselves. The proper object of gratitude, therefore, is goodness, not as exercised towards ourselves, but towards ourselves and all others who are the objects of our love. These views are in accordance with the general experience of mankind, and are incorporated into all languages. I thank you, and am truly grateful, says the father, for your goodness to my child; I thank you, says the friend, for your goodness to my friend; I thank you, says the philanthropist, for your goodness to my fellow-men. In these, and thousands of analogous cases, men profess to feel gratitude in view of benefits conferred upon others, no less than as if those benefits had been conferred upon themselves. These professions are made with the utmost sincerity, and with great frequency, and cannot be false.

Gratitude for benefits conferred upon others is essentially the same as that which is experienced in view of benefits conferred on ourselves. Any one has only to examine his own experience to be satisfied of this. We are conscious of certain emotions which we denominate gratitude in view of goodness exercised towards ourselves; and of perfectly similar emotions in view of goodness exercised towards our friends. So far as this class of emotions is concerned, our friends and we are one. The emotion knows no difference between us and them. This is confirmed by the fact that those who are characteristically most grateful for personal favors, are proportionably most affected by goodness exercised towards others; and those most affected by goodness to others, are proportionably most grateful for personal favors. We conclude on the whole, therefore, that the human constitution is formed by the Creator to view goodness with delight and satisfaction; that the capacity of being delighted with goodness is analogous to that of being delighted with beauty, and is an original and universal faculty of moral beings; that by means of this faculty all men are rendered capable of gratitude towards their own personal benefactors, and towards the benefactors of others, and that the universal delight which men feel in the contemplation of virtue, another name for goodness, is essentially the same as gratitude for personal favors.

§ 548. If we examine our constitution still farther, we shall find that we are susceptible of displeasurable emotions in view of evil doing which are the perfect opposite of gratitude, and these emotions respect evil, whether directed against ourselves, against our friends, or against any portion of the human race. These emotions are called by the general names of displeasure and indignation, according to the nature of the evil doing which is the occasion of their exercise. Indignation against men for evil doing is as natural and general as gratitude for well doing. Gratitude is pleasurable; displeasure against evil doing, displeasurable. The pleasure which we experience in contemplating the well doing of others gives us a deep personal interest in it, and makes it one of the means of our happiness; the pain which we feel in contemplating the evil doing of others gives us a deep personal interest in preventing evil doing, and makes it a means of unhappiness to us. We conclude, therefore, that we are formed for well doing; that our constitution is adapted to this, and is not adapted to the opposite. Delight in well doing is not only a demand of our moral constitution, but a demand of the word of God. The capacity of exercising it is one of the most valuable of all our capacities, and ought to be exercised and cultivated with the greatest care.

All our natural faculties are subject to cultivation; and we may improve or impair them by exercise, to any assignable extent. Our duty does not require of us impossibilities, it only requires us to exercise what faculties we possess to the best advantage possible, and to originate such additional ones as we have the power of producing, and as will subserve our happiness and that of others.

§ 549. Gratitude is a duty of great dignity and importance, and is frequently inculcated in the Scriptures, which requires us to exercise it towards God and to express it to him in our praises and prayers.

Ps. 100: 4, 5. "Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, into his courts with praise; be thankful to him, bless his name, for the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth to all generations." I. Chron. 16: 8. "Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people." Ps. 50: 14. Offer to God thanksgiving, and pay thy vows to the Most High." Ps. 147: 7. 66 Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving, sing praises upon the