But if all will do it, he is saved; and he who contributes but a mite in this work of God, deserves the everlasting gratitude of the republic. If the names of a Brainerd, of a Swartz, of a Buchanan, have been rendered immortal by their efforts to convert the heathen to Christianity, the names of those men who shall succeed in converting Christians to temperance and sobriety, should be written in letters of ever-during gold, and appended by angels in the temple of the living God. The sum of their benevolence would be exceeded only by His, who came down from heaven for man's redemption. Then banish it; this is the only way to save your children. As long as you keep ardent spirits in your houses, as long as you drink it yourselves, as long as it is polite and genteel to sip the intoxicating bowl, so long society will remain just what it is now, and so long drunkards will spring from your loins, and so long drunkards will wear your names to future generations. And there is no other way given under heaven, whereby man can be saved from the vice of intemperance, but that of _total abstinence_.
And, if ardent spirits are the parent of all the poverty, and disease, and crime, and madness, that I have named, and if they produce no good, what rational man will use them? If he loves himself, he will not; if he loves his children, he will not; and as Hamilcar brought Hannibal to the altar, at eight years of age, and made him swear eternal hatred to the Romans, so every parent should bring his children to the altar, and make them swear, if I may so speak, eternal hatred to ardent spirits. He should teach them by precept and example. He should instil into his children a hatred of ardent spirits, as much as he does of falsehood and of theft. He should no more suffer his children to drink a little, than he does to lie a little, and to steal a little.
And what other security have you for your children, or for yourselves? Yes, for yourselves. I knew a man who, a few years ago, was as temperate as any of you; was as respectable as any of you, as learned as any of you, and as useful in life as any of you; I have heard him from the sacred desk again and again; but by the same use of ardent spirits that most men justify and advocate, under the mistaken notion that they were beneficial to him, he has at last fallen the victim of intemperance. And this is not a solitary example. I had almost said, it is a common example. I could easily add to the number.