Page:Sermon on malt.pdf/7

 the name of common sense, is there any thing in the disposition or constitution of Englishmen to prevent their following the noble example of heir sons and brethren across the Atlantic, in shaking off the vilest slavery that ever degraded body and soul ? I was in company not long since with a gentleman who, a few weeks previous, had dined on board an American steamboat with eighty passengers (a fit representation of an American population,) and not an individual of all these used one drop of spirituous liquors. Why should it not be so in England too? What ought to be done can be done in England as well as in America.

Distilled spirits have been proved, not only by the judgement of the best authorities living and dead, but by the experience of tens of thousands on both sides the Atlantic, to be for all common purposes completely useless. More work can be done, more hardship and fatigue of body and mind endured for a week, or month, or year, in all climates and under all circumstances, without any assistance from spirituous liquors. A man in health has no more need of ardent spirits than of prussic acid or laudanum. No man in health who enters on a conscientious enquiry can find any other apology for the ordinary use of distilled spirits than the momentary gratification of appetite, without any permanent advantage either to body or mind; and therefore every temperate man is shut up to this enquiry with his conscience before his God; will