Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/42

 42 Southern Historical Society Papers.

strength, nor stretch out the arm, free and unparalyzed by its might, to aid in rending its links asunder. You (Mr. M. here looked stead- fastly at Mr. Wise, of Virginia) you incur no risk; you make no sacrifice; you brave no painful notoriety; your lives are as yet un- stained; your good name unscathed. Not a shade darkens the fair field of your unsullied escutcheon. There is no room for shame. Nothing but honor to yourselves, and blessings to others can follow your union with us. Ashamed of pure and perfect temperance ! Oh, no ; true dignity surrounds her; the diadem of honor sparkles on her brow ; and the flowing robes of virtue encircle and adorn her elastic and graceful form.

" Sir, if there be within this hall an individual man who thinks that his vast dignity and importance would be lowered, the laurels which he has heretofore won be tarnished, his glowing and all-conquering popularity at home be lessened, by an act designed to redeem any portion of his colleagues or fellow men from ruin and shame, all I can say is that he and I put a very different estimate upon the matter. I should say, sir, that the act was not only the most benevo- lent, but, in the present state of opinion, the most politic, the most popular (looking down at Mr. Wise, Mr. M. added, with a smile), the very wisest thing he ever did in his life. Think not, sir, that I feel myself in a ridiculous situation, and, like the fox in the fable, wish to divide it with others, by converting deformity into fashion. Not so; by my honor as a gentlemen, not so. I was not what I was represented to be. I had, and I have shown that I had full power over myself. But the pledge I have taken renders me secure forever from a fate inevitably following habits like mine a fate more terrible than death. That pledge, though confined to myself alone, and with reference to its only effect upon me, my mind, my heart, my body, I would not exchange for all earth holds of brighest and of best. No, no, sir; let the banner of this temperance cause go forward or go backward let the world be rescued from its degrading and ruinous bondage to alcohol or not I for one shall never, never repent what I have done. I have often said this, and I feel it every moment of my existence, waking or sleeping. Sir, I would not exchange the physical sensations the mere sense of animal being which belongs to a man who totally refrains from all that can intoxicate his brain or derange his nervous structure ; the elasticity with which he bounds from his couch in the morning ; the sweet repose it yields him at night; the feeling with which he drinks in, through his clear eyes, the beauty and the grandeur of surrounding nature I say, sir, I