Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/129

Rh baneful to mankind which the world has ever known. The poison of the Borgias was celebrated once; cold-hearted courtiers shivered at its name. It never killed many; those with merciful swiftness. The poison of rum is yet worse; it early murders thousands; Kills them by inches, body and soul. Here are respectable and wealthy men, men who this day sit down in a Christian church, and thank God for His goodness, with contrite hearts praise Him xor that Sou of mm who gave His life for mankind, and -would gladly give it to mankind; yet these men have ships on the sea to bring the poor man's poison here, or bear it hence to other men as poor; have distilleries on the land to make still yet more for the ruin of their fellow-Christians; have warehouses full of this plague, which "outvenoms all the worms of Nile;" have shops which they rent for the illegal and murderous sale of this terrible scourge. Do they not know the nun which they work; are they the only men in the land who have not heard of the effects of intemperance? I judge them not, great God! I only judge myself. I wish I could say, "They know not what they do;" but at this day who does not know the effect of intemperance in Boston?

I speak not of the sale of ardent spirits to be used in the area to be used for medicine, but of the needless use thereof; of their use to damage the body and injure the soul of man. The chief of your police informs me there are twelve hundred places in Boston where this article is sold to be drunk on the spot; illegally sold. The Charitable Association of Mechanics, in this city, have taken the accumulated savings o£ more than fifty years, and there-with built a costly establishment, where intoxicating drink is needlessly but abundantly sold! Low as the moral standard of Boston is, low as are the morals of cite press and trade, I had hoped better things of these men, who live in the midst of hardworking labourers, and see the miseries of intemperance all about them. But the dollar was too powerful for their temperance.

Here are splendid houses, where the rich man or the thrifty needlessly drinks. Let me leave them; the evil demon of intemperance appears not there; he is there, but under well-made garments, amongst educated men, who are respected and still reaped themselves. Amid