period, carrying an influence of great weight, as the testimony of one who stood at the head of the medical profession in this country. But it is not to be supposed that his views come up to our present standard, although he was in advance of his age. His efforts were directed against ardent or distilled spirits exclusively, still allowing the use of wine and cider. The tract was of no tame or doubtful character, but positive, very decided, and ardent.

The following extract will show its spirit. He says:

Were it possible for me to speak with a voice so loud as to be heard from the river St. Croix to the remotest shores of the Mississippi, which bound the territory of the United States, I would say, "Friends and fellow citizens! avoid the habitual use of those seducing liquors."

Ministers of the Gospel of every denomination in the United States! aid me with all the weight and usefulness of your sacred office, to save our fellow-men from being destroyed by the great destroyer of their lives and souls.

*

The loss of 4,000 American citizens by yellow fever, in a single year, awakened general sympathy and terror, and called forth all the strength and ingenuity of laws to prevent its recurrence. Why is not the same zeal manifested in protecting our citizens from the more general and consuming ravages of distilled spirits ?

He deplores the possibility that

our country may be governed by men chosen by intemperate and corrupted voters. From such legislators the republic would soon be in

danger.

To avert this evil, let good men of every class unite and besiege the General and State governments with petitions to limit the number of taverns to impose heavy duties upon ardent spirits-to inflict a mark of disgrace or temporary abridgment of some civil right upon every man convicted of drunkenness; and finally to secure the property of habitual drunkards, for the benefit of their families, by placing it in the hands of trustees appointed for that purpose by a court of justice.

To aid the operation of these laws would it not be extremely useful for the rulers of the different denominations of Christian Churches to unite, and render the sale and consumption of ardent spirits a subject of ecclesiastical jurisdiction? The Methodists and Society of Friends have,

for some time past, viewed them as contraband articles to the pure laws of the Gospel, and have borne many public and private testimonies against making them the objects of commerce. Their success in this benevolent enterprise affords ample encouragement for all other religious societies to follow their example.

This essay also contained the following:

MORAL AND PHYSICAL THERMOMETER OF INTEMPERANCE. Scale from Zero, showing the progress downward.

20

Idleness,
Gaming.

Toddy and Egg Peevishness. Tremors of the hands Jail.
Rum.
in morning, puking.

Such was the first seed-sowing in the great temperance enterprise. Much of it fell into good ground, and, nurtured by Christian influence, sprung up and produced an abundant

harvest of good. We shall observe its growth-the germ, the blade, the ear, and the full corn in the ear.

The relation of Dr. Rush toward the later laborers in this department of benevolent effort was similar to that sustained by John Wickliffe to Luther, Flavel, and Zwingle in the reformation of the sixteenth century. His efforts were well adapted to influence the more intelligent minds of every community; and, during the twenty-five years following the first publication of his tracts in all the leading papers of America, there were manifested, in localities widely separated, developments of a temperance sentiment more or less vague, indefinite and imperfect, it is true, but each of them looking toward organization for systematic and combined action against the prevalent evil of intemperance.

CHAPTER III.

OTHER EARLY AGITATORS.

Γ

LYMAN BEECHER.

the list of noble men who have labored in the cause of

temperance, none deservedly stand more prominent than Rev. Lyman Beecher, D.D. His six discourses on intemperance, delivered in Litchfield, Conn., in 1825, have had a wide circulation, not only in our own land, but also in many other countries. But this was by no means the beginning of his efforts in this reform. About seventeen years before, in 1808, while he was settled at East Hampton, Long Island, his spirit was powerfully stirred by the twofold influence of his own observations and the reading of Dr. Rush's essay on the "Effects of Ardent Spirits," etc. In his Autobiography1 he. relates his first mental awakenings on this subject in the following words:

There were some Indians in my parish, of the Montauk tribe, though not belonging to my congregation. They had missionaries among them, who were supplied from New England. I used to go, however, twice a year at least, and preach to them. I was acquainted with a number of pious ones, chiefly women, about a dozen at first. They made baskets, brooms, and such things. But they were a wretched set, on the whole, just like other tribes, running out by being cheated and abused. My spirit was greatly stirred by the treatment of these Indians by some unprincipled persons, especially their selling them rum. There was a grog-seller in our neighborhood who drank himself and corrupted others. He always kept his jug under the bed, to drink in the night, till he was choked off by death. He would go down with his barrel of whisky in a wagon to the Indians and get them tipsy, and bring them in debt; he would get all their corn, and bring it back in his wagon; in fact, he stripped them. Then, in winter, they must come up twenty miles, buy

Autobiography, vol. i, p. 176.

their own corn, and pack it home on their shoulders, or starve. O, it was horrible, horrible! It burned and burned in my mind; and I swore a deep oath to God that it shouldn't be so.

H. B. S. "Father, you began to be a reformer in those days."

I didn't set up for a reformer any more than this: when I saw a rattlesnake in my path I would smite it. I talked to my deacons about it, and with my people, and roused public feeling. I had read Rush on Intemperance, and the "Christian Observer" contained accounts of efforts in London to repress immorality, drunkenness, and Sabbath-breaking. All these fermented in my mind; and, while I was at East Hampton, I blocked out and preached a sermon, that I afterward re-wrote and published, on a reformation of morals. That is the way that sermon came to be written.

What further efforts Mr. Beecher put forth in East Hampton, and what effects followed, is not now known. Very soon after, in the spring of 1810, he removed and settled in Litchfield, Conn., where, in his intercourse with his brethren in the ministry at ordinations and other gatherings, his mind was still more powerfully stirred upon this subject. We have already noticed that the use of alcoholic liquors was as common in those days with the clergy as with the people.

Such were the convicting processes through which this great and energetic mind passed, in its preparation for the bold and resolute part which it was about to take, in one of the most difficult and important departments of Christian philanthropy in modern times. We shall soon hear from him again, and in a way that will stir the hearts of men to action.

CO-LABORERS.

In the year 1810, Rev. Heman Humphrey, D.D., then pastor of a Church in Fairfield, Conn., afterward for twenty-two years President of Amherst College, preached a series of six sermons on intemperance. This was probably the first series of temperance sermons ever preached. Mr. Humphrey became a prominent temperance reformer.

In the year 1810, the first year of his editorship of the