Page:Sinner's sobs, or, The way to Sion, a sermon.pdf/20

 Happy the man who shall live in those days in which the practice of excessive drinking shall be universally laid aside, and detested! At present, we can scarcely name a vice more common, or that is carried to a more alarming height. It prevails in the city, in the town, in the village, in the hamlet, among gentlemen, who ought to blush for its vulgarity, and among labourers, who can ill bear the expense. Are there not intemperate young men, intemperate old, men, intemperate parents, intemperate magistrates, intemperate professors of religion, intemperate preachers of the Gospel! Oh! could we view the scenes which intemperance creates in the ale-house, the tavern, and the festive parlour; what grief, what indignation, within us! There is woe, there is sorrow, there is contention, there is babbling, there is redness of eyes, there are wounds without cause.

To mark exactly the line which separates sobriety from excess, is not easy. While a man preserves his eye and his understanding clear, while he speaks without faultering, while his passions are undisturbed, and his step firm; who shall accuse him? Yet, with all these favourable appearances, he may be guilty.