Legal prohibition the only remedy for drunkenness : being the substance of two discourses, delivered in the Chestnut Street Church, Louisville, on the first Sabbaths of April and July, 1955 / by L.J. Halsey.

  • Halsey, Leroy J. (Leroy Jones), 1812-1896.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Legal prohibition the only remedy for drunkenness : being the substance of two discourses, delivered in the Chestnut Street Church, Louisville, on the first Sabbaths of April and July, 1955 / by L.J. Halsey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    strong drink, as upon the drunkard himself. Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that putteth his bottle to him, and maketh him drunken. The Devil, who ad- ministered the first fatal poison in Eden, was more guilty than his too easily deluded victims ; and it is easy to see, that the man who mingles the intoxicating bowl with all the refinements of art and luxury, and presses it to his neighbor's lips, is a greater criminal in the sight of God, than the poor, weak-minded victim who swallows the poison and dies. He is so for two reasons. The first, because what he does, he does deliberately and coolly, with his senses wide awake, his reasoning powers in full play, and knowing the consequences as well as the tempter did in Eden : whereas, his victim is stupefied or excited, impelled by lust and passion, often wholly unconscious of what he is doing, and seldom less than half a fool when he drinks. Second, because what he does is for reward, the paltry and sordid love of gain. For money, he gives his neighbor what he knows to be killing him, breaking the heart of his lovely wife, and taking the last morsel of bread out of the mouths of his starving children. And when he can get no more money, he turns him out to perish in the street on a winter's night, or consigns him over to dram-shops of a lower grade to finish the wreck. Where then does the liquor seller stand ? He stands before God and man, covered with the guilt of a brother's blood. And it will be in vain for him to shake off the responsibility, and wash his hands of that guilt by the indignant protestation of Cain—Am I my brother's keeper V' Iniquity is not so easily washed away as Pilate thought. The voice of a brother's blood will still cry to heaven from the ground. For the base and selfish love of money, he has destroyed a fellow-man, whom he was bound' by every law of God and nature to have protected and saved. He stands before the bar of conscience now, and he will at last stand before the tribunal of an angry God, as one who, like Judas, for thirty pieces of silver, has betrayed innocent blood. From all these considerations, it must be plain, even to the commonest understanding, that the sale of intoxicating drinks is the great source of temp- tation—the perpetual and universal feeder of drunkenness ; and that any remedy which may be proposed, as an ade- quate cure for its evils, must be one which shall break up the dram-shop and suppress the liquor traffic.