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Denoted to literature, Science, anti tlje Sons of temperance, ifclloiosl)ip, itlasonrn, anb (General intelligence.
VOLUME I
ADDRESS.
nfitcred bcfort *he Grand Division of the S. of T.
‘ n f the State oj Georgia, at their Annual Session in
Macon, Get. 1840, by the Rev. Brothel A .
Means, A. M. 31. D. Prof . Phys. Sc. Emory Col
l <re, Oxford. Prof. Chem. und Pharm . Medical
College of Georgia.
( Concluded.)
He who expects an express “ scriptural prohi
bition ” therefore, against cards, billiards, horsc-ra
, cock-fighting and dram-drinking , before he can
cease to advocate and defend them, will be left
{’orever to the intellectual companionship of brag
carts, and black-legs, and topers, who glory in the
length of his conscience, for such an edict he will
never find.
But mark the summary mode by which the
Holy Book disposes of all such contemptible quib
bles". By the solemn enunciation of one broad
principle, the whole are “ swept by the board.”—
Hear it, “Come out from among them, and be ye
separate, saith the Lord.” “Be not conformed to
this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing
of your mind, &c.” “To be carnally minded is
death.” “ Abstain from all appearance of evil,
Ac., &c.” Yet, against certain definite evils,
express cautions arc frequently given and what
unjaundiced ey r e has failed to discover them, im
pressively recorded against the formidable vice
which wc oppose *? How else are we to construe
such grave and pertinent dicta, as the following,
viz: “Look not thou upon the wine when it is
red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when it
movctli itself aright; at the last it biteth like a
serpent and stingeth like an adder.” “Wine is a
mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is
deceived thereby is not wise.” “Wo unto him
that giveth his neighbor drink, that puttestthy bot
tle to him and makest him drunken.* * * the
cup of the Lords right hand shall be turned unto
thee, and shameful spuing shall be upon thy
<dorv.’’ “ Nor thieves, nor covetors, nor drunk
ards\ * * shall inherit the kingdom of God.” —
Who then can unfalteringly assert, with these aw
ful warnings before him, that God has no contro
versv with habits which from their very incipicncy
natural and easy gradations to the doom
of the damned ? For each moderate drinker has as
suredly taken that position from which every ruined
sot. first set out upon his returnless career—the slip
pery summit of an inclined plane, down whose
steep and fearful declivity millions have plunged
into the bottomless depths below. But our pre
scribed limits will not allow us to indulge farther
upon this important topic. To be brief then, we
oppose with Christian zeal the use of spirituous
liquors, because they have a direct tendency to
stifle conscience, deaden the moral scnsibilitcs, and open
the flood-gates for the introduction of other vices ; be
cause they disturb the peace of individuals a ud communi
ties, injure the reputation , blast the intellect, ruin the
fortunes, and damn the souls of men. Indeed, when
the fatal habit of inebriation has thoroughly es
tablished its wild dominion—
Lust and riot reign—
And reekin'* Passion stooping o’er tlio mane,
With sounding lash and rowels dipped in blood,
Still plies liis smoking steed and braves hi3 doom ;
While gory Murder, fiercest of his train,
Snufis the infected air and madly waves
His crimson poigniard as he posts to hell.
The scriptures have recorded many instances
of the ruinous curses entailed by the use of al
coholic beverages; among these may be enumer
ated Nabals wine-maddened feast; Ammon's drun
ken murder; Bcnhadad's bestial inebriation; Uri
ah's stupid sottishness on the night before he fell,
and Belshazzar's bacchanalian revelry. Nay, the
very favorites of heaven who have stooped to the
sensualizing cup, have had their fault exposed to
the world’s eye, and the world’s censure. Even
the venerable patriarch whose righteousness bore
himself and family upon the bosom of the deluge
which buried the last of his race below ; and
Abraham’s favorite nephew whose piety opened
the gates of guilty Sodom, and saved him from
the storm of fire that swept its doomed population,
these, even these when wine pollutes their purity,
are reported to after generations ; for Noah’s na
kedness and Lot’s incestuous debauch have been
preserved upon Revelation’s page, as if to inspire
the disgust of posterity against the loathsome and
damning evils of Intemperance, and to signalize trie
righteous retributions ol Heaven against its ini
quity, whether found in a patriarch, a king, or a
dependent. r .
And now we beg leave to reply to some ot the
most formidable objections urged against our Tern
perance Organizaiions, and especially against the
Order whose claims we advocate to-day. #
Ist. “ It is likely to endanger the political well being
of the country.” To this objection which has been
nnblushingly intruded upon public notice by a late
plausible essayist in the columns of a widely cir
culated New York journal, we rep’)
(Ist.) Each Divisioh solemnly pledges to every
applicant, before he receives full admission into
the rights and privileges of the Order, that noth
ing required of him shall interfere with his religous
or political opinions, be they what they may, and
the character of the membership for integrity and
truth, sustained by the past history of the Order
to the present hour, is a sufficient guarantee to an
enlightened and unprejudiced community for the
inviolability of the pledge. Indeed, an attempt
at such interference would be a suicidal blow,
levelled against one of the vital elements of its be
ing and threatening its immediate extinction.
(2d.) The success of such a Quixotic adventure
would be utterly impossible. Os whom are their
ranks composed ? I answer: of honorable rep
resentatives from every denomination —every po
litical sect —every avocation and profession in the
land. Merchants, doctors, and lawyers, profes
sors, studedts, and farmers, mechanics, engineers,
and printers, judges, generals, and State legisla
tors, congressmen, ministers, soldiers, and sailors,
the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the
titled and the untitled, all hail by the same “ pass
word,” and are voluntarily united for the suppress
sion of the same vice. Now who docs not per
ceive that with such an endless diversity of feeling
and of interests upon all other subjects, no revolu
tionary project could remotely hope to harmonize
the discordant elements, and hold out bribes to re
bellion which would operate upon all ! No verily,
each position in life is jealous of its own claims,
and vigilant of its own rights, and is careful to
prevent encroachments from other quarters. —
Hence among such a heterogenious assemblage no
sinister combination could be formed which would
remain unchecked and unarrested by the activity
of similar interests. It is only when certain
classes, identified bv common condition or common
wants become restless and insurrectionary that the
integrity of government is periled. It was when
England’s colliers, her weavers, and her day-la
borers, felt a common oppression, from which her
landlords, her gentry, and her literati were ex
empt, that a coalition was attempted against the au
thority of the throne.
(3d.) Sober men are unsuitable matcrcals out of
which to obtain mobs and cliques for the purpose
of effecting political disturbances. Such scenes
of riot are supplied with appropriate actors from
among the idle, reckless, frenziod swarm© that in
fect the bar rooms and gin shops of the country,
and who only require the sound ot a favorite dem
agogues whistle to rush unbridled into acts of law
less violence. If they meant evil they should re
ject good men from their communion. These thous
ands of the honorable, the aged, thegrave, and the
virtuous are not available elements for the spirit of
misrule and anarchy. It was the wild, the liot
bloodod, the polluted and abandoned that met in the
midnight levees of the great libertine conspirator of
Rome, when he plotted the conflagration ot his na
tive city, and the indiscriminate massacre of her
senatorial worthies.
(4th.) No, sirs, no ; this grave allegation is un
sustained by fact or philosophy. On the contra
ry, we are authorized to regard this organization
as forming one of the strongest moral ties which
unites the diversified population of our great coun
try. Ist, because it strikes a death-blow to Aris
tocracy, the bane of all Republics; its whole
economy recognizes the doctrine of a social equi
librium ; the arrogant pretensions of no privileged
order , are neither sanctioned or tolerated; unosten
tatious wealth takes the common level, to which
virtuous poverty has been elevated ; “ integrity ”
is with them “of more value than silver or gold.”
Hence the high and low —the rich and poor —the
Congress-man and Cobler —the nabob and the
serf, all wear the common badge of discipleship,
and mingle weekly in the cordial intercourse of
the Division Room, where mutual forbearance
and brotherly love are constantly inculcated.
2nd. Every variety of interest is here repre
sented. The different conditions of life, whether
the result of habits, feelings, religion, politics or
educational training, are all found here in close af
filiation. New friendships are created, and the in
terchange of new sympathies established, all tend
ing to unite and harmonize the elements ol society.
This beautiful system of checks and balances, op
erates effectively upon the widely diffused masses,
like the sun of Heaven upon the planetaiy woilds
in his train :—should a distant orb casually swei ve
from its pathway, under the transient influence of
foreign attraction, soon the grand compensating
forces of the system restore the equilibrium, and
the temporary wanderer resumes its bright career
around the steady centre. Our maxim is, theie
forc, that the more cross tics wc have by which to bind
different minds and different pursuits to one common in
terest, the stronger the government of our choice. In
deed the strong fabric of our Order, like the check
ered trestle-work of our Rail-Road Bridges, intei
locks at every angle, stands ready for the pressure
of superincumbent tons, and only tightens la
ces, as the governmental locomotive,and its s\\ etp
SAVANNAH, GA., SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 1850.
ing train of ponderous states roll over the stately
structure.
But “the country is in danger,” cries the rum
burnt toady, as he leers at the tapster and whee
dles for another “horn.” — “Aye, the country is in
danger; —these water-ites arc a upsettin aeration , and
a blowin our liberties to Gib-ber-altar.” O! wonder
ful discovery ! and from so enlightened and relia
ble a source. Is it then true, —
“Sweet clime of my kindred, blest land of my birth!
The fairest, the dearest, the brighest on earth ! ”
that freedom from the drunkard’s cup, and the
drunkard’s revelry, dooms thee to ruin? Meet,
then, the merited rebuke of your countrymen, ye
feeble, or faithless sentinels of liberty, Webster,
Clay, and Calhoun—Benton,Berrien, and Buchati
nan. Your minds were too obtuse to penetrate
the dreadful conspiracy against your tottering
country, or your hearts too base to disclose the dam
ningtreachery of these sons of night. It remained
for a nobler soul —blazing with brandy, and brim
ming with patriotism, to make the horrifying dis
closure. Cicero exposed the murderous schemes
of Cataline, and Rome was saved. But “ behold,
a greater than Cicero is here .” A car-buncled rum
sucker has circumvented the rebel host oftheseTern
perance Sons, and snores the loud midnight alarum
over gaping punch-bowls,and trembling ticklers, —
and surely America is safe! It is said of Sir Isaac
Newton, that when on the verge of his great discov
ery of the law of gravitation, he so trembled with
excitement, as to require a nephew who was pres
ent, to complete the thrilling calculation, which
confirmed his views and gave immortality to his
name. No wonder, then, that one tankard philos
opher, pregnant with a disclosure so overwhelm
ing, should stagger under his load, and speechless
with emotion, sink unconscious upon the friendly
floor—stretch his limber length beside the Grocer's
dog, and leave the periled nation to its fate ! “O,
temporal — O , mores ! ” surely this enlightened au
dience need scarcely require me to to make the
application of the old Latin Proverb to this bluster
ing stop-coclc patriotism: Montes pasturiunt —nascilur
ridiculus mus! 2nd, “It is uniting with the world,”
say some scrupulous professors of religion, “and
the Bible requires that we should come out from
among them.” We bow to the authority, but we
demur to the perverted application of the text. —
Come out from among whom ? from among sober,
bcwsvohmt. virtuous, citizens, who are nobly pledged
to cultivation of “ Purity, Fidelity and Lovr nr
from among wine-bibbers and drunkards, pot-com
panions and debauchers ? Surely the latter expo
sition approaches more nearly the spirit of the text
which was originally levelled against Idolatry. —
Hear the context: —“What agreement hath the
temple of God with idols V’ “Be ye separate,
saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing,
and I will receive you, &c.”
Members of the Christian church ! suffer a kind
but earnest appeal v—“ Ye are the light of the
world,” “a city set upon a hill cannot be hid.”
The world looks to you for its present examples
in morals. It never rises shove the standard \\ liich
vou set but rather falls below it. O ! see to it then
that you take no ambiguous position upon these
great questions, for assuredly the characters arid
fortunes and fates of hundreds are periled upon
your action in the premises :—“ I ouch not—taste
no t —handle not” then the tainted cup, “ye sons
and daughters of the Lord Almighty,” if you
would save yourselves and be “free from the blood
of all men.
Ministers of the most high God ! ye are the lead
ers of the hosts of Israel, the consecrated prophets
of the “latter day” dispensation, beware there
fore of the influence which you exert. The hour
for decision has come. The issue must be met. —
The temperance question presses upon the public
mind, and all eyes are turned to behold the indi
cation from the Sanctuary. Alas! alas! then
when the frantic throng are gashed and bleeding
from their pagan devotion to this Alcoholic God,
shall Elijah himself turn appostatc and defend the
bloody claims of his Household Divinity ! In this
eventful crisis will the Christian pastor deliberately
consent to refuse us the benefit ol bis example,
and still determine to sip his wine, and hazard the
results upon the souls ol men. No, maivel then,
when the minister at the altar wears the model
shrine and image of the Godess, that the lusting
multitude shout the louder, “ Great is Dianna of
the Epheseans.” O l for the magnanimous and
philanthropic spirit of the great Appostle of the
Gentiles, which led him to exclaim :—“ It is good
neither to eat flesh nor to drink wine, noi any thing
whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or
is made weak,” Rom. 14 th, 2 1st. And again—“ If
meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no more
flesh while the world standeth.” Noble minded
man ! liadst thou lived in our age, thy name would
have been enrolled upon our Division lists pledged
to renounce, “ while the world standeth,” spiritu
ous liquors which are now the bane of our race.
3rd. “I am already temperate.” Then, my
dear sir* you arc the man \ve want; such only as
are “ temperate” we incorporate into our ranks and
retain in our fellowship. You have no sacrifice to
make —no restraints to incur; you are rightfully
ours, and it behooves you to take the position
which accords with your habits, and from which
your iufluence will be felt. Swans should not con
gregate with crows , jior doves with vultures
4th. “lamina Temperance Society .” So was
y our speaker when he recorded his name among
the Sons of Temperance. Nay, more :—so was
John W. and Isaac J. Oliver; James Ball and
George McKibber, the original four , who in the
month of September 1842, first set on foot this stu
pendous enterprise. Washingtonians all , and of
the right stamp. But this was not enough—a
stronger, closer tie was needed, and then wisdom,
under Heaven’s guidance, succeeded in supply
ing it. But are you a member of a Christian com
munion? and does that communion require absti
nanee from strong drink? then why refuse to du
plicate the pledge when it opens for you a larger
field for benevolent action ? For here the circle of
your influence would sweep beyond the limits of
church-membership, and give you access to hun
dreds who might never be otherwise reached and
controlled. Our order fixes the eye of its com
passion upon the drunkard in the very scene of
his debauch ; takes him from the soil and filth of
the gutter ; sobers, moralizes, and fits him for a
higher sphere, and brings him within the range of
religious appliances. Until “ clothed and in his
right mind, and ready for her purer companion
ship, the church receives him into her fold and
trains him for Heaven.”
sth. “It will amount to an open confession that I
ivas not temperate before .” I answer, —it you have
not been , community has probably long since
known it and now is the time to arrest the evil
and change public opinion. A sound reputation
however, is not the acquisition of an hour, but the
slow and silent accumulation of successive years,
and if sober habits have heretofore characterized
your life, rest assured } r our good name will never
be jeoparded in that regard, by a prompt enrol
ment with men of kindred stamp. Who dares
insinuate that the venerable signers of the Decla
ration of American Independance, gave evidence
of previous Toryism by affixing their signatures to
that immortal instrumunt? the idea is little less
than sacrilgious. No, verily,—they designed it,
and the world felt it , to be but an open and fear
less avowal of a pre-existing and invincible patri
otism, which by lli ia vory nrt of high rcsolvo
stood but the more firmly pledged to break the
yoke of political bondage or die in the struggle.—
Heaven inspire onr halting friends with the spirit
of their forefathers in rallying to our standard in
this moral revolution.
Gth. “ The very idea of restraint would but in
crease my desire to drink” Strange philosophy 1
arc you a grand juror, sir? then forbear to take
an oath to report crime, or you will be the more
tempted to connive at and encourage it. Are you
a witness? then decline that solemn judicial ap
peal to Heaven, that your testimony “ shall be the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,”
or lo! you will incur the probability ol commit
ting the horridle crime of perjury before court and
jury. Truly if this reasoning be orthodox, our
simple ancestors, both English and American,
; have been but relaxing the bonds of virtue by
every oblagation imposed to secure it. But if it
must prevail, we hope that our fair young audi
tors on the right, who have not yet appeared at
the altar, will, for their own sakes , move an altera
tion of the matrimonial ceremony to accommo
date the sensitive consciences of suitors of this creed.
For should they solemnly pledge before priest and
people, in the language of the marital vow, “to
love , comfort , honor and keep,” the lady of their
choice, a fearful temptation is generated, de ipso
facto , to hate, torture , disgrace and reject her. “O !
Shame, where is thy blush,” when sophistry such
as this, is held for argument?
7th. “ Your enterpi'ize will soon die.” To this
we reply in the pertinent language of a friend,
“Jf Gabriel’s trump shall soon sound, this pseuda
prophetic announcement shall be realized, but it
not, it is destined for a long and a glorious career.”
The virtue it inculcates is a part and parcel of
Christianity itself, a vigorous shoot from the heav
enly vine, and promising the longevity of its thri
ving parentage. But, secondly, Masonry, another
institution of purely moral import, already dates
an antiquity of more than 2SOO years, and why
may not our flourishing Order, under the moie
powerful stimulus of every day appeals to their
sympathy and zeal, hope for a perpetuity of exis
tence ?
A the history of the past justifies us in be
lieving that should the third dispensation ot tem
perance truth—the fullest which the world has
yet known, be in future years brought to a close,
another will arise like the Phoenix, from its ashes,
of nobler proportions and more commanding
form, suited to the progress of the age and the
wants of’ mankind. But lastly, should oui organi-
NUMBER 47.