Transcript Slide 1

Religion and Reform in
Nineteenth Century America
An Online
Professional Development Seminar
Abolitionists
Wendell Phillips
William Lloyd Garrison
George Thompson
Robert Abzug
Oliver H. Radkey Regents Professor of History
Professor of American Studies
Director of the Schusterman Center for Jewish
Studies
University of Texas at Austin
Research Interests
The formation of social and moral consciousness in
American culture, social reform and religious life in
antebellum America, America and the Holocaust, and
the interpenetration of religion and psychology in
modern American culture.
America Views the Holocaust, 1933-1945: A Brief
Documentary History, 1999
Cosmos Crumbling: American Reform and the
Religious Imagination, 1994
Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the
Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps, 1985
Passionate Liberator: Theodore Dwight Weld and
the Dilemma of Reform, 1980
Religion and Reform in Nineteenth-Century America
 What is reform in the American context?
 How does the introduction of religion as a motivating factor
transform our understanding of reform?
 Why is one or another social, cultural, political, or
economic reality highlighted as crucial to change at certain
moments in history?
 What has the role of religion been in the creation and shaping of
American reform agendas?
 How can we best analyze that role in specific ways that don't lead to
unsupportable or misleading generalizations?
Key Terms
Republicanism
Millennialism (Millenarianism)
Physiology
Maria Weston
Chapman
1806-1885
Maria Weston Chapman, “What Can I Do to Abolish Slavery”
It [the antislavery cause] is “the bright consummate flower” of the Christianity of
the nineteenth century. Look at those who “have not resisted the heavenly vision” it
presented them of a nation overcoming its evil propensities, and doing right at all risks; ask
them whether it has not saved their souls alive; ask them if it has not made them
worshippers of the beauty and sublimity of high character, till they are ready to “know
nothing on earth but Jesus Christ and him crucified.” For this they give all — wealth, youth,
health, strength, life. Worldly success, obtained by slackening their labors against slavery,
(and it is easy to have it on those terms at any moment, so placable a monster is the
world.) strikes them like failure and disgrace. They have “scorned delights, and lived
laborious days,” till at length they feel it no sacrifice, but the highest joy. All this the
American Anti-Slavery Society demands of you. Do it! and be most grateful for the
opportunity of fulfilling a work which is its own exceeding great reward. Do it, and find
yourself the chosen of God, to keep alive in this nation, degraded and corrupted by slavery,
the noble flame of Christian faith, the sentiment of honor and fidelity, the instinct of highmindedness, the sense of absolute, immutable duty, the charm of chivalrous and poetic
feeling, which would make of the poorest Americans the Christian gentlemen of the world.
Discussion Question
What, according to Chapman, is at stake in the antislavery struggle? In addition to freedom for the
slave, what is the reward for the country and for those who take part in the crusade?
Maria Weston Chapman, “What Can I Do to Abolish Slavery,”
“Imagine how the case stood with those who perished by suffocation in the Black
Hole at Calcutta. Suppose that some of their number had felt the sublime impulse to place
their bodies in the door, and the high devoted hearts to stand the crushing till dawn awoke
the tyrant; the rest of that doomed band might have passed out alive. This is what the
American Anti-Slavery Society has been unflinchingly doing for you, and for the rest of the
nation, amid torture, insult, and curses, through a long night of terror and despair. The life
of the land, its precious moral sense, has been thus kept from suffocation. The free
agitating air of faithful speech has saved it. The soul of the United States is not dead,
thanks, under Providence, to that noble fellowship of resolute souls, to find whom the
nation has been winnowed. Do your duty by them, in the name of self-respect. Such
companionship is an honor accorded to but few, and of that worthy few I would fain count
you one. Strike, then, with them at the existence of slavery, and you will see individual
slaves made free, anti-slavery leaven introduced into parties and churches, instruction
diffused, the products of free labor multiplied, and fugitives protected, in exact proportion to
the energy of the grand onset against the civil system.”
Discussion Question
What, according to Chapman, is at stake in the antislavery struggle? In addition to freedom for the
slave, what is the reward for the country and for those who take part in the crusade?
John Humphrey Noyes
1811-1886
Noyes and the Community
Allan Eastlake, The Oneida Community
After the lapse of another 1900 years it will be easier to understand the purpose
of primal Causation in the American nation of to-day, and recognising the spiritual
significance of events that now appear trivial, to place in appropriate niches her prominent
reformers of this period. In His own good time Christ came and sowed the seed, and many
have been, and still more will be, the messengers who from time to time will supplement
His work and share His experience. The truth must be presented at different epochs and in
different forms that are adapted to advancing civilization and to the demands of higher
developments of brain. Presentations of truth that were well calculated to impress the
animal man when he was entirely under the influence of the cerebellum would now be
ridiculous and puerile [simplistic], and the same principle holds at every stage of
consciousness, till the appeal to the cerebrum for recognition of truth must be as different
from anything that could impress the back brain as light is from darkness. Simply a token,
or an image that did not rise to the dignity of “graven," satisfied the soul of the savage, and
a materialistic form of worship still satisfies many minds in nineteenth century civilisation,
solely because they exercise no mind in the matter, but relegate thought on spiritual
subjects to a paid priesthood.
Discussion Questions
What did the Oneida Community represent to the history of Christianity?
To what degree did notions of evolution enter into Eastlake’s interpretation?
What do “salvation from sin” and the “kingdom of Heaven” mean in the context of Noyes and the
Oneida Community
Allan Eastlake, The Oneida Community
Progression proceeded along the line of animal life, developing physique [bodily growth],
thus providing the best and healthiest material for brain to feed upon. Under such fostering the first atom
of grey matter gradually evolved, hinting at mental potentialities that are only transcended by the infinite
possibilities of spiritual development. When men begin to realise their limitations in the line of mental
achievements, they will be preparing suitable conditions for the recognition of nature's demand for
regeneration, in other words, for the reception of Christ and of His messengers. OF THE LATTER,
JOHN H. NOYES WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT AND CENTRAL. His message was “Salvation from
sin” as the necessary and most logical test of regeneration. He heralded again the kingdom of heaven,
that had been declared nineteen hundred years before as being then near “at hand (in the invisible
world),” to be now a present possession on earth, wherein Christ is reigning with His people in this
sphere, requiring only their recognition to enable them to enter in and share with Him the joy of nature’s
higher evolution upon the spiritual plane. The Oneida Community marked an important era in the
evolution of the Christian Church. It was "an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace;"
an expression of the spiritual condition of each individual member. If each member realized “The
kingdom of heaven within," it can easily be seen that the consensus of their experiences constituted the
kingdom of heaven that Christ predicted. The objection that the Oneida Community ceased to exist, and
therefore could not have been the Christians' ideal kingdom, is not admissible, because the ideal
Heaven is neither a place nor an organisation but a spiritual condition.
Discussion Questions
What did the Oneida Community represent to the history of Christianity?
To what degree did notions of evolution enter into Eastlake’s interpretation?
What do “salvation from sin” and the “kingdom of Heaven” mean in the context of Noyes and the
Oneida Community?
Sarah Grimke
1792-1873
Sarah Grimke, Letters on the Equality of the Sexes
As I am unable to learn from sacred writ when woman was deprived by God of her equality
with man, I shall touch upon a few points in the Scriptures, which demonstrate that no supremacy was
granted to man. When God destroyed the world, except Noah and his family, by the deluge, he renewed
the grant formerly made to man, and again gave him dominion upon the earth, and over all the fishes of
the sea; into his hands they were delivered. But was woman, bearing the image of her God, placed
under the dominion of her fellow man? Never! Jehovah could not surrender his authority to govern his
own immortal creatures into the hands of a being, whom he knew, and whom his whole history proved,
to be unworthy of a trust so sacred and important. God could not do it, because it is a direct
contravention of his law, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve" [Mt. 4:10].
If Jehovah had appointed man as the guardian, or teacher of woman, he would certainly have given
some intimation of this surrender of his own prerogative. But so far from it, we find the commands of
God invariably the same to man and woman; and not the slightest intimation is given in a single passage
of the Bible, that God designed to point woman to man as her instructor. The tenor of his language
always is, "Look unto ME, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none
else" [Isa. 45:22].
Discussion Questions
By what authority does Grimké revise what seemed to be the Biblically-based Christian doctrine of
sex inequality?
How does she draw an analogy with the state of the slave?
What does the Bible say about the sexes, in Grimké’s view?
Sarah Grimke, Letters on the Equality of the Sexes
The lust of dominion was probably the first effect of the fall; and as there was no other intelligent
being over whom to exercise it, woman was the first victim of this unhallowed passion. We afterwards
see it exhibited by Cain in the murder of his brother, by Nimrod in his becoming a mighty hunter of men,
and setting up a kingdom over which to reign. Here we see the origin of that Upas [poisonous or harmful
influence] of slavery, which sprang up immediately after the fall, and has spread its pestilential branches
over the whole face of the known world. All history attests that man has subjected woman to his will,
used her as a means to promote his selfish gratification, to minister to his sensual pleasures, to be
instrumental in promoting his comfort; but never has he desired to elevate her to that rank she was
created to fill. He has done all he could do to debase and enslave her mind; and now he looks
triumphantly on the ruin he has wrought, and says, the being he has thus deeply injured is his inferior.
Woman has been placed by John Quincy Adams, side by side with the slave, whilst he was
contending for the right side of petition. I thank him for ranking us with the oppressed; for I shall not find
it difficult to show, that in all ages and countries, not even excepting enlightened republican America,
woman has more or less been made a means to promote the welfare of man, without due regard to her
own happiness, and the glory of God as the end of her creation.
Discussion Questions
By what authority does Grimké revise what seemed to be the Biblically-based Christian doctrine of
sex inequality?
How does she draw an analogy with the state of the slave?
What does the Bible say about the sexes, in Grimké’s view?
Sarah Grimke, Letters on Equality of the Sexes
During the patriarchal ages, we find men and women engaged in the same
employments. Abraham and Sarah both assisted in preparing the food which was to be set
before the three men, who visited them in the plains of Mamre [Gen. 18]; but although their
occupations were similar, Sarah was not permitted to enjoy the society of the holy visitant;
and as we learn from Peter, that she "obeyed Abraham, calling his Lord" [1 Peter 3:6], we
may presume he exercised dominion over her. We shall pass on now to Rebecca [Gen.
24]. In her history, we find another striking illustration of the low estimation in which woman
was held. Eleazur is sent to seek a wife for Isaac. He finds Rebecca going down to the well
to fill her pitcher. He accosts her; and she replies with all humility, "Drink, my lord." How
does he endeavor to gain her favor and confidence? Does he approach her as a dignified
creature, whom he was about to invite to fill an important station in his master's family, as
the wife of his only son? No. He offered incense to her vanity, and "he took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels weight of gold,"
and gave them to Rebecca.
Discussion Questions
By what authority does Grimké revise what seemed to be the Biblically-based Christian doctrine of
sex inequality?
How does she draw an analogy with the state of the slave?
What does the Bible say about the sexes, in Grimké’s view?
William A. Alcott
1798-1859
William Andrus Alcott, Forty Years in the Wilderness
On the top of a considerable eminence, in the very midst of a mountain range,
one of the most delightful in all New England, only a few miles from the place of my
lodging, was a tower some sixty or seventy feet high, which commanded a view of the
surrounding country. I had often wished to enjoy the prospect which this tower afforded.
Was there now an opportunity? I had the leisure, had I the needful strength? Could I
possibly reach it? And by what means?
I rested for the remainder of the day and the night following, at the foot of the
eminence, in order to prepare myself for the excursion of the following morning. It was as
much as I could do that night to take care of my irritable and irritated lungs. At length,
however, I slept, and was refreshed. The only drawback upon my full renewal, was my
usual night--or rather as I ought to say morning--perspiration, which was quite drenching
and exhausting; though not much worse after all my fears than usual.
Discussion Questions
What religious narrative does Alcott seem to be reenacting?
How might be interpret his interweaving of the physical and spiritual?
How might we fit this narrative and the work of Alcott into an understanding of
Protestantism in America?
William Andrus Alcott, Forty Years in the Wilderness
God is good, I said to myself, when I saw from my chamber window the top of
the hills I wished to climb, and perceived that the first rays of the morning sun were already
falling upon them. By the middle of the forenoon I was at the foot of the mountain, and
prepared to ascend it. After a little rest, I wound my way to the tower, and finally to its top,
when I took a survey of what seemed to me like a new world. Here I renewed my
declaration of independence with regard to those earthly props on which I had so long
been wont [accustomed] to lean, and of dependence on God, and on his natural and moral
enactments……
Twelve miles in the distance still was my father's house, now grown from a few
patrimonial acres to full New England size; viz., a hundred acres or more, and well
cultivated. My wandering abroad had given me a little strength and very much courage.
Why should it not? Was it not truly encouraging that while I was making a long excursion,
chiefly on foot, in the heats of midsummer, my cough and hectic and night sweats should
become no worse, while my muscular strength had very much increased?
Discussion Questions
What religious narrative does Alcott seem to be reenacting?
How might be interpret his interweaving of the physical and spiritual?
How might we fit this narrative and the work of Alcott into an understanding of Protestantism in
America?
William Andrus Alcott, Forty Years in the Wilderness
My mind's eye turned towards my father's house as a place of refuge. In
a day or two I was in it; and in another day or two I was caparisoned [dressed] as
a laborer, and in the field. It is true that I did not at first accomplish a great deal; but I held
the implements of husbandry in my hands, and spent a certain number of hours every day
in attempting to work. Some of the workmen laughed about me, and spoke of the vast
benefits to be derived from having a ghost in the field with them; but I held on in spite of
their jokes. I had been accustomed of old to the labor of a farm, which greatly facilitated my
efforts.
Discussion Questions
What religious narrative does Alcott seem to be reenacting?
How might be interpret his interweaving of the physical and spiritual?
How might we fit this narrative and the work of Alcott into an understanding of Protestantism in
America?
From Sketch of the Rev. Justin Edwards
About this time, as the happy results of the introduction of the principle of total abstinence
from ardent spirits in a large farming establishment, (that of S. V. S. Wilder, Esq., at Bolton,
Massachusetts,) came to his knowledge, he encouraged the careful collection of the facts, and
embodied them in the valuable tract, "The Well-conducted Farm." In January and February, 1826, after
much consultation with the worthy friends around him, he united with the Rev. Dr. Woods and fourteen
others, ministers and laymen, in forming, in Boston, "The American Society for the Promotion of
Temperance" . . . At first it proceeded noiselessly, employing no agent till the succeeding year, printing
no report till December, 1829, and electing no corresponding secretary till May, 1831, when Dr. Edwards
was appointed to that office.
Mr. T,a respected merchant of Boston, states that when Dr. Edwards and Dr. Woods visited
Boston to propose this new organization, Mr. T replied, that "he had been laboring fifteen years to effect
a temperance reformation by the moderate use; but he did not see that it did any good, and he was tired
of 'the whole thing." "But," said the gentlemen who called on him, "we have a new idea. Our main object
is, not to reform inebriates, but to induce all temperate people to continue temperate by practising total
abstinence: the drunkards . . . will die, and the land be free." "I confess," said the merchant, "that is a
new view of the subject, and worth thinking of. If you see best to call a meeting, I will attend it." He did
so, and from that meeting proceeded the American Temperance Society.
To Reverend Wm. A. Hallock, Secretary, New York.
"ANDOVER, February 10, 1826.
Discussion Questions
Does the strategy propounded by Edwards line up with your own vision of the temperance
movement?
Does it work on the same principle as the later Prohibition movement?
From Sketch of the Rev. Justin Edwards
“My DEAR BROTHER-
We are at present fast hold of a project for making all people in this country, and
in all other countries, temperate; or rather, a plan to induce those that are now temperate
to continue so. Then, as all who are intemperate will soon be dead, the earth will be eased
of an amazing evil. This, you will see at once, is a great plan, and to execute it thoroughly
will require great wisdom and strength. And though we are so destitute, the Lord has
enough of both. 'Of his fullness’ may we all receive.
Discussion Questions
Does the strategy propounded by Edwards line up with your own vision of the temperance
movement?
Does it work on the same principle as the later Prohibition movement?
Parallel between Intemperance and the
Slave-Trade (1828)
Herman Humphrey
Parallel between Intemperance and the Slave-Trade (1828)
Herman Humphrey
….The bare mention of the slave-trade is enough to excite indignation and horror in every breast that is not twice dead to
humanity. The wretch who should be accessory to a foreign traffic in human flesh, and sinews, and torment, would be
branded with eternal infamy, if not hunted as a monster from the face of civilized society. And yet, I repeat it, intemperance
is worse than the slave-trade — is heavier with woe, and guilt, and death — both being " laid in the balances together."
The principal ingredients of suffering and crime in the slave-trade, are, the infernal ambush — the midnight attack and
conflagration of peaceful villages — the massacre of helpless age and imploring infancy — the stripes, and manacles, and
thousand unutterable cruelties inflicted between the place of capture and embarkation — the horrors of the middle passage
— the shambles prepared for the famine- stricken survivors on a foreign shore — the separation of husbands and wives,
mothers and children, under the hammer and branding-iron — the mortality of seasoning, amid stripes, and hunger, and
malaria : — to which must be added, the dreadful accumulation of heart-breaking remembrances and forebodings,
incident to a state of hopeless bondage of themselves and their posterity, in a strange and hated land.
And can any thing be worse? Can any guilt, or misery, or peril, surpass that of the
slave-trade? Yes, I answer, intemperance in the United States is worse, is a more blighting and
deadly scourge to humanity, than that traffic, all dripping with gore, which it makes every muscle
shudder to think of.
First; look at the comparative aggregate of misery, occasioned by the slave-trade on
one hand, and intemperate drinking on the other. The result of this comparison will obviously
depend upon the number of victims to each, the variety, intensity, and duration of their
sufferings, bodily and mental ; together with the degree and extent to which their friends and
relations are made to suffer on their ac- count. I am aware that the parallel does not admit of
mathematical precision; neither does the nature of the argument require it. To begin, then, with
the number of victims on both sides, as nearly as it can be ascertained. According to Mr.
Clarkson, and other good authorities, not far from 100,000 slaves have been shipped from the
coast of Africa in a single year.
Parallel between Intemperance and the Slave-Trade (1828)
Herman Humphrey
This was the estimate for 1786; and of these, about 42,000 were transported in British vessels. The period in
question, however, was one of the most afflictive and disgraceful activity; when the English, French, Dutch, Portuguese, and
Danes, seemed most eagerly to vie with each other in driving the infernal traffic. Probably, the average shipment of slaves for
twenty years, immediately preceding the act of abolition by the British Parliament, may have ranged from seventy to seventy-five
thousand. What proportion fell to our share it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to determine. But when it is considered how many
other great markets were then open, we can hardly suppose that more than 25,000 were consigned to the United States. My
own belief is, that the average did not exceed 20,000; but, to make the case as strong as it will bear against the slave-trade, let
the number be raised (to 30,000; making an aggregate of 150,000 in five years, or 300,000 in ten years. What a multitude of
men, women, and children, to go into captivity, and wear the yoke of slavery forever! But we must follow these miserable beings
a step further, and inquire for them in the bills of mortality. According to the most authentic estimates which I have been able to
find, the number of deaths, during the middle passage, varies from six to fifteen per cent. In some extraordinary cases it has
gone up to thirty, or even higher. But the average, taking one year with another, may be put down at ten, or twelve deaths in a
hundred, before the slaves reach the great shambles, to which, like beasts of burden, they are consigned. Suppose, then, that
our share in the infamous traffick cost from three to four thousand lives annually in the middle passage, and from eight to ten
thousand more in the two first years of servitude.
This, indeed, must have been, considering the cause of it, a most horrible mortality. But let
us inquire whether at least as many thousands are not now enslaved and destroyed by a more
ruthless enemy of happiness and of life. According to the recent calculations of Mr. Palfrey and others,
which I believe an exact census would more than verify, thirty-six thousand new victims are yearly
snared, and taken, and enslaved by strong drink. Thirty-six thousand perish by the hand of this fell
destroyer, and of course it requires an equal number of fresh recruits to keep the drunkard's knell still
sounding through the land. The parallel, then, as nearly as it can be ascertained, stands thus.
Shipment of slaves, say in 1786, from twenty-five to thirty thousand. Brought into a worse bondage, by
intemperance, in 1828, thirty-six thousand. Deaths by the slave trade, from ten to fifteen thousand —
by ardent spirits, thirty-six thousand! Thus, where the slave trade opened one grave, hard drinking
opens three. Again; as intemperance holds this " bad pre-eminence” over the slave trade in point of
numbers, so I am persuaded it does in the aggregate of human misery, which it inflicts.
Parallel between Intemperance and the Slave-Trade (1828)
Herman Humphrey
Go, then, with me to that long-abused constituent, where the first act of this infernal tragedy is acted over every
month, and you will gain some faint idea of the atrocities, which it unfolds. In that thicket crouches a human tiger; and just
beyond it you hear the joyous voices of children at their sports. The next moment he springs upon his terrified prey — nor sister
nor mother shall ever see them more. On the right hand you hear the moans of the captive, as he goes bleeding to his doom;
and on the left, a peaceful village flashes horror upon the face of midnight; and as you approach the scene of conflagration, you
behold the sick, the aged, and the infant, either writhing in the fire where they lay peacefully down; or, attempting to escape, you
see them forced back into the flames, as not worth the trouble of driving to market.… Shall I attempt to describe the
horrors of the middle passage — the miseries which await these wretched beings in crossing the
ocean? I have no pencil, nor colors for such a picture. But see them literally packed alive, by
hundreds, in a floating and pestilential dungeon — manacled to the very bone, under a treble-ironed
hatchway — tormented with thirst, and devoured by hunger — suffocated! in their own breath —
chained to corpses, and maddened by despair to the rending of all their heart-strings. See mothers
and young girls, and even little children, seeking refuge in the caverns of the deep, from the power of
their tormentors ; and not to be diverted from their purpose by the hanging and shooting of such as
have failed in similar attempts.
The foregoing is a mere extract from the blood-stained records of the slave-trade. Who then
will undertake to sum up the amount of human misery which is wafted by the reluctant and wailing
winds upon the complaining waters, to be chained and scourged, to pine and die in the great western
house of bondage? But while intemperance mixes ingredients equally bitter in the cup of trembling
and woe which it fills up to the brim, it casts in others, which the slave-trade never mingled — for it
fetters the immortal mind as well as the body. It not only blisters the skin, but scorches the vitals.
While it scourges the flesh, it tortures the conscience. While it cripples the wretch in every limb, and
boils away his blood, and ossifies its channels, and throws every nerve into a dying tremor, it also
goes down into the unsounded depths of human depravity, and not only excites all the passions to
fierce insurrection against God and man, but kindles a deadly civil war in the very heart of their own
empire.
Parallel between Intemperance and the Slave-Trade (1828)
Herman Humphrey
Who can enumerate the diseases which intemperance generates in the brain, liver,
stomach, lungs, bones, muscles, nerves, fluids, and whatever else is susceptible of disease, or pain,
in the human system? How rudely does it shut up, one after another, all the doors of sensation; or, in
the caprice of its wrath, throw them all wide open to every hateful intruder! How, with a refinement of
cruelty almost peculiar to itself, does it fly in the face of its victims, and hold their quivering eye-balls
in its fangs, till they abhor the light and swim in blood! Mark that carbuncled, slavering, doubtful
remnant of a man, retching and picking tansy before sunrise — loathing his breakfast — getting his
ear bored to the door of a dram-shop an hour after — disguised before ten — quarrelling by- dinner
time, and snoring drunk before supper. See him next morning at his retching, and his tansy again and,
as the day advances, becoming noisy, cross, drivelling, and intoxicated. Think of his thus dragging out
months and years of torture, till the earth refuses any longer to bear such a wretch upon its surface,
and then tell me, if any Barbadian slave was ever so miserable… Was ever a kidnapped African more
wretched in his Atlantic dungeon ?
Parallel between Intemperance and the Slave-Trade (1828)
Herman Humphrey
But how much more terrible are the effects of intemperate drinking, upon the character and destiny of men, born
and educated in a Christian land! If there is any evil which hardens the heart faster, or fills the mouth with a cursing and
bitterness" sooner, or quickens hatred to God and man into-a more rapid and frightful maturity, I know not what it is.… Look at
him as he was, and as he is. Once the law of kindness dwelt upon his tongue, and the social affections had their home in his
bosom. He kept the Sabbath, read his Bible, instructed his children, went regularly to the sanctuary, and was, at times, "almost
persuaded to be a Christian." But the fell destroyer came, disguised, at first, in cordials and sparkling holiday pledges, and sideboard hospitality. Yes, the destroyer came, and dried up the fountain that diffused gladness around him, and kindled every
malignant and wrathful element of depravity into a raging conflagration, and converted his throat into an open sepulchre, and
banished the Scriptures from his sight, if not from his dwelling, and estranged him from God's house, and incased his heart in
adamant, and launched him upon that headlong torrent which thunders down into the bottomless abyss. " Be not deceived.
Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor drunkards, shall inherit the kingdom of God." Fourthly; our free institutions
are more endangered by the love of ardent spirits, than they ever were by the slave-trade, or than they now are by the existing
slavery of the south. No true and enlightened patriot can think, without deep solicitude, of the jeopardy which originated in
stealing, buying and selling, and consuming, human merchandise. Even the quiet servitude of two millions of people is a
sleeping volcano, within the reach of whose smothered fires nothing can be entirely safe.
But how much more is to be feared from two hundred thousand veterans in the army of intemperance — not
confined to any particular section or district of the United States, but quartered upon every town, and village, and settlement, in
the nation! We encounter these mercenaries, in their uniform, wherever we go: and the power which they wield over the
destinies of the country is tremendous. They are always found at the polls, and often stand as centinels over the ballot-boxes.
They choose our rulers, and are chosen themselves to govern us. They find their way not only into the inferior legislative
assemblies, but into the grand council of the nation. We meet them at the bar, in the jury-box, and even on the bench. They
steal into the church of the living God; and, how shall it be spoken! The sacred desk itself cannot be effectually closed against
them. Is religion any thing more than a name? Do our institutions rest upon the virtue and intelligence of the people? Does
every thing depend upon the purity of the elective franchise? Is almost every drunkard an elector? What, then, must the end of
these things be ? This question may be promptly answered without a prophet's ken. If intemperance should increase as it has
done, and go on to corrupt the public morals, and set the laws at defiance, our government cannot stand. Its death-warrant is
only waiting for the proper signature, and may shortly be read on the fourth of July. A sober people may possibly be enslaved;
but an intemperate people cannot long remain free.
Final slide.
Thank You.