The Middlebury people's press. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1841-1843, 1842-02-15
CO NJ M UNIC ALTON S.
For the Peoples Press.

GENTLEMEN,
Ia the character of fellow citizen and friend
although my individual friendship, l admit,
since l count but one in this community, is of no
extraordinary impcrtance-yet in the cha racrer
of we'll wisher to you all, i have some things to
communicate which, if they are we'll founded,
demand your earnest attention. choose a pub
lie channel of communication, not for con-
venieDce merely, but also because the things
themselves relate 10 the public, as well as to you;
and it is proper that should speak openly, if
echo, as suppose, the voices of hundred cli-
Zens and the sentiments of ten hundred more Ia
this point of view the call could scarcely be
louder, though tempest were in my pen. The
deep-seated emotions of half the Community,
however feebly express them, will doubtless, in
the end, be regarded.
Gentlemen, you can hardly fail 10 know, land,
in most instances, presume. would not deny
that the traffic in spirituous drinks however
legally conducted, has an effect 10 embrace the
sinews of labor,-to burden productive capital
to tax enorm ously the prudent citizen fer the
vagrancy OF the drunkard,- convert robust
active men into feeble hemblers, diseased or
crazed, along our public walks,--and, as the
climax of these and other mischefs, TO hasten in
dividuals prematurely to the grave-not TO say
10 perdition. Your reason for continuing the
traffic, in the face of these and ther dissuasives
is, in every case that know. open and avowej
is, that you cannot, without 1t, drive business
so thriving as with il; it is nlonied reason.
No one, imagine, accuses you of desiring
the i'll results enumerated above, or any other
evil TO society. l certainly shall perpetrate no
such injustice. On the contrary am persuaded,
for many reasons, that the traffic would De in
s;anly and gladly abandoned if it could be
thought by you practicable to do il without loss
Of profits. You cannot be charmed with thai
kind of respectability which concourse of Gus.
toners who show drinking habits in their counte-
nances brings 10 your counters and bars. The
accusations, and the facts that sustain them, with
which the press teens respecting men of your
class, all over our land that they are helping to
fill the dungeons and the poor houses, the opin-
ions expressed concerning them by the great
mass | admit exceptions } of the ministers of
salvation, that they are prominent hlndrance
to The gospel, your Nvn consciousness that the
very sight of you, as YOU walk or sit, is associa-
ted in the minds OF so many with alcohol and IFS
mischiefs, these are some Of the reasons have
alluded TO, and good ones 100. To them
might have added the gloomy cases of sudden
death. of delirinm and OF unnatural cruelty which
spring directly from the use Of alcohol, and
which | should have supposed must Cypress
with grief any man who suspects himself to be
in any degree the instrument Of their occurrence.
even though innocent and accidental, were it mol
that you have the habit in mos. such cases of
protesting 10 be serene and quiet, as to any
agency of your own in them.
Now every man living is al service. Whose
servants then-it is frank, but not unfriendly to
ask-are We? What power is that, and where
are his dominions. whose spiritual influence is
friendly to the distribution and use of the drunk
ards cup-;ha cup which you do, in your traffic
unavoIdably disribute-and to all the effects that
flow from it? Is it Go ? Not many of you will
say ii is God. When that fatal drought was
given 10 our lately departed townsman--l need not
name him-which dissolved his long kept vow of
abstinence let in despair that settled in his very
features,-ended in delirium during which,
while life held out. that strong man shook in
every muse e,-fhere was work done which
bore, at least, no stamp of the Divinity. In every
case like this, however, you have a strong hold
in which to take shelter. Such mem you say,
will have their favorite indulgence, whether sup
piled by me or by some other man, and should
abandon the traffic the only change would be
that my profits would accrue 10 that other man
in my place
In matter, gentleman, that involves so much
it is clearly best to be wary. think that In per-
sistng to secure for yourselves the profits OF bad
agency which will, at all events, be performed,
you will have had noted predecessor
far your particular justifying consideration was
IN his mind cannot say. You will allow that
In the chain Of events certain TO take place for
the salvation of mem Certain by our Savior's own
declaration Christ was TO be BETRAYED Raise
what differences or what objections you may, that
is simple fact. You will allow that money
might be made, and was made, through the act
so certain TO IKE place,-that it was legally
made, under a licence to specific individual from
the constituted authorities, which was without
defect, and which was carried into operation with
the presence and aid of duly authorised magis-
trates What could your best friend do better