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II. The causes of this sin; (by which I intend, not the immediate, and properly efficient causes, such as those already mentioned; but those which, although more remote, are yet deeply concerned in the production of it) are principally the following:

1. Example.

By this I intend, that we gradually acquire a habit of drunkenness, by seeing others drink; and, if I may be allowed the expression, catching the practice merely from the fact, that we often witness it in others. Wherever the character of those who set the example is the object of particular affection, esteem, or reverence, the influence of the example becomes proportionally great and dangerous. Parents in this manner become peculiarly, and other relations and friends generally, powerful means of seduction and ruin to their children, and other relatives. In this case I suppose nothing but the example, and the veneration and endearment by which it is accompanied, to produce the corruption of those to whom it is exhibited.

2. Frequenting those places where strong drink is conveniently obtained.

A tavern, especially a vulgar one, or a dram-shop, or an ale-house, newly opened, usually exhibits strongly, as well as clearly, the efficacy of this cause. Each of them soon begins to attract its train of drinking customers; and within a moderate period becomes surrounded by its circle of drunkards. There is scarcely a greater nuisance to society than houses of this nature; in which spirituous liquors are sold in small quantities to the neighbouring inhabitants. Millions of the human race have in these baleful haunts taken the first fatal step towards perdition.

3. Evil companions.

These usually combine all the efficacy of the former causes, with many additional temptations. They present the example, they provide the retreat, and the convenience. At the same time, they add to these the force of direct and powerful solicitations, the sprightliness of wit, the gaiety of sports and songs, the pungency of ridicule, the influence of good nature and affection; and the power of that sympathy which is always found in social festivity. Such a combination is too powerful to be resisted by common minds; perhaps by any mind which is voluntarily, for any length of time, within its reach. He who frequents the society of jovial companions in an habitual manner, may fairly consider himself as destined in the end to become a sot.

4. Customary and regular drinking.

Multitudes of persons accustom themselves to take a moderate quantity of strong drink, day by day, at regular periods; in the morning, immediately before dinner, or in the evening. Labouring men in this country are, to a great extent, accustomed to use ardent spirits at certain given times of the day; considering them as necessary to recruit their strength, which is supposed to be wasted by their toil. Some of them, less attentive to particular times of drinking, demand stated quantities of strong drink, which they regard as indispensable to enable them to pursue their daily labour. Men of wealth and fashion, with nearly the same regularity, consume large quantities of wine at and after dinner. In these, and in all other, cases of regular drinking, an habitual attachment to strong drink is insensibly begun, strengthened, and confirmed. The man who drinks spirits regularly, ought to consider himself as having already entered the path of habitual intoxication.

5. Affliction also is, not unfrequently, a cause of drunk

enness.

The affliction here referred to is both bodily and mental. Certain diseases of the body, it is well known, bring with them lowness of spirits, discouragement, and melancholy. The patient oftentimes resorts to the use of strong drink, as a remedy for these evils, and finds in it a temporary relief from the pressure. Oftentimes the physician prescribes this remedy in form, and thus adds the sanction of his skill and character to the patient's inclination. In every case of this nature a degree of pain is usually experienced in that part of the stomach which is sometimes called the second sensory. This is commonly relieved, at least in some degree, by the use of strong drink, taken at first in moderate quantities. The remedy, however, leaves the disease worse than it found it. To produce the desired effect a greater quantity is soon ne. cessary, and then a greater still. In this manner multitudes of persons become drunkards.

The mental evils which give birth to this unhappy habit are numerous. Most or all of them, however, are such as, instead of exciting, waste or destroy the energy of the mind. Of this nature are a strong sense of irretrievable disgrace, a painful consciousness of perplexed or desperate circumstances, merited loss of esteem and affection highly valued by ourselves, long-continued suspense concerning some important interest, final discouragement of ardent wishes or favourite pursuits, together with several other very anxious and hopeless situations of the mind. From the distress suffered in these and the like cases, it often betakes itself for relief to spirituous liquors. The relief is necessarily transient; and, in order to be enjoyed to any great extent, must therefore be often repeated. By this repetition the sufferer soon becomes of course habitually intemperate.

6. A small number of persons find a cause of drunkenness in an original, native appetite for strong drink.

The number of these is so small, and the cause itself so little needs explanation, that it is unnecessary to dwell on this part of the subject.

III. The principal evils of Drunkenness are the following:

1. It exhibits the subject of it in the light of extreme odiousness and degradation.

Drunkenness always deprives a man, either partially or wholly, of his reason, and very often of his bodily faculties. A man without reason is either a maniac, or a brute; and, for the time, presents the eye with a spectacle more sunk than the brute, and more painful than the maniac. The loss of reason is to man the loss of all which renders him either comfortable, respectable, or useful. How painful, how humiliating is the sight of an idiot! How excruciating the appearance of a lunatic! How lowering to human pride and independence, to sober contemplation and real dignity, a respectable man, transformed by age or sickness into a Driveller! Such a transformation the drunkard accomplishes for himself, during every period of his intoxication; and adds to all the other circumstances of degradation, the peculiarly humbling and hateful one, that he has voluntarily degraded himself.

In this situation the drunkard becomes, in the literal and most emphatical sense, a fool. His conversation is that of a tongue, vibrating without a mind; moving, because it has been accustomed to move; lisping and babbling an imperfect, cluttered, and dragging articulation; a kind of instinctive effort, resembling that of the idiot, who, having learned to count the strokes of a clock, continued to count after the clock had ceased to go.

In the mean time, many drunkards, who partially lose their reason, set their passions on fire. All restraints in this case vanish with their reason. The mind becomes a furnace of frenzy; and the bodily powers, stimulated to more than ordinary vigour, are employed only as the instruments of rage and violence. In the former case, the man sunk down to the level of a swine. In this, he converts himself into a tiger. In the former case, he became loathsome and despicable. In this, he becomes equally the object of hatred and terror.

There is, however, a stage in the progress of both, at which they lose alike, and absolutely, the powers of both body and mind. Each then becomes absolutely stupid; a mass of flesh, in which a soul once lived, thought, animated, and controlled ; but from which it has fled, indignant at the brutal abuse which it has suffered. It has become palsied, lifeless, and, for the period, extinet, under a shock which it was unable to sustain.

2. Drunkenness exposes the subject of it to many, and those often extreme, dangers.

The drunkard is always exposed to be overreached and defrauded during the seasons of his partial insanity. At these seasons, many persons, devoted to the use of strong drink, are peculiarly inclined to manage business, and make bargains. The weakness, the want of self-control, and the incapacity of forming just estimates of men and things, always visible at these seasons in such men, mark them out as prey for the cheat and the sharper. Accordingly, they often take such measures to produce in them such a degree of intoxication, as they well know will effectually answer their own purposes. Without any such pre-concertion, there are however always sharpers enough, ready to arrest the drunkard in his intoxication, and drunkards enough to furnish them with victims. At almost all such periods the losses incurred are material, frequently they are great, and sometimes they are fatal.

At other seasons, when the intoxication is complete, the

subject of it is exposed to extreme personal dangers. Few men in this situation are aware, so long as they retain a partial use of their limbs, and some faint glimmerings of understanding, how incompetent they have become to direct their own conduct with safety. Of course, they venture without apprehension into such situations as demand the full exercise of their bodily and mental powers. Hence one of them has fallen from his horse, and broken his limbs or his neck. Another has fallen into the fire, and either terminated his life, or made himself through the remainder of it a miserable cripple. A third has lost himself in a wintry storm, and perished, because he could not find the way to his own house. A fourth has fallen overboard, and been drowned. A fifth has killed himself by swallowing a larger quantity of ardent spirits than he was aware, or than his nature could sustain. By these and many other accidents, to some or other of which the drunkard is almost always exposed, multitudes have come to an untimely end.

Nor is the danger much less to the intoxicated person of doing, without any design, and even in contradiction to his prevailing wishes, serious injuries to those around him. Not a small number of dwelling houses have been consumed by these undesigning incendiaries. In the conflagration, the inhabitants, whoever they may have been, most frequently his family, and perhaps as frequently the drunkard himself, have perished. Who, that has the least share of sober reflection or common sense left, would not tremble at the first approach towards this terrible catastrophe ?

3. The drunkard exposes himself to many temptations, and many sins.

Of this nature indeed are all those things which have been mentioned under the preceding heads. But, beside these evils, the use of spirituous liquors produces many others. It excites to a high degree of intenseness most of the vehement passions of man, particularly anger and lust. As the government of reason is lost, and the power of conscience laid asleep, the passions, at all times sufficiently strong, assume, with increased strength, the absolute control of the man, and spur and goad him on to every crime within his reach. In this situation, it is to be remembered, he is rarely alone. Other drunkards are usually around him, whose reason is equally

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