Page:Sermon on malt.pdf/21

21 Oh! what misery does this poisonous cup inflict! What transformation of those creatures who were made to stand erect, and were originally formed in the image of God! 'To be now a sensible man, bye-and-by a fool, and presently a beast! O strange! Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil."

In the United States, there are 200,000 paupers supported at the annual expense of ten millions of dollars. The reports of hospitals, penitentiaries, and alms-houses, justify the statement that three-fourths, or 150,000 of these miserable beings, were reduced to pauperism by the single vice of intemperance; and these self-made beggars are supported by the nation at the annual expence of 7,500,000 dollars. In sixty years—the ordinary lifetime of a man of temperate habits and of a sound constitution—in sixty years, 450 millions of dollars would be expended, in these States, for the support of drunken beggars! And this tax must be paid by the temperate.

Another item must be considered in estimating the annual expense of intemperate drinking—I mean the time lost to the nation by premature disease and death. Thirty thousand are every year, sent to an untimely grave, in the country, by the excessive use of ardent spirit. There is probably, on an average, a loss of no less than ten years in these 30,000 drunkards which they might have lived, if they had been men of sober habits. Here, then, is an annual