Spirit of the age. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1849-1865, 1851-08-08
THE Duty On NAN.

Thatit is the duty of all men who wish to inn
prove and elevate society-to rid it of the many
Wees which c~ontaminnte and degrade the social
compaet-to labor for its accomplishment, is a
fact, we believe, admitted by all rational and
philanthropie minds. To effect any thing tend
ing towards this consummation, has, in all ages
OF the world, required a sacrifice of habits, COM
forts, time and money. No man has the moral
right to do that which, though it may not injure
him, personally, is yet daily proving destructive
to scores and hundreds Of bis neighbors and fel-
low-men. If he sees that his course of conducts is
so injurious and ruinous to others, IT is his duty,
as a good citizen and a Christian, to refrain, for
their sake.
How demonstrably true are these facts when
brought to bear upon the Use of Alcoholic bev-
eragesl The mar who has the strength of mind
to indulge in their use without injury to himself,
is morally bound to abstain, if he sees that, by
his example, others with less fortitude, are lured
on to destruction. We heard this illustrated in
a conversational argument, a few days since
A gentleman was contending that there was safe
ty in moderation, and the Sons of Temperance
were asking too much of those who could use
the article in moderation, when they required
that they should forego it altogether, for the
sake of those who could motor would not thus
moderately make use of it. He was completely
forestalled from further argument, however, by
having the following forcibIe illustration submit.
ted TO him:
Suppose, said our Temperance friend, there
were two bridges over a dangerous, rapid stream
one of them is a rickety, unsafe concern, from
which eight out of every ten who attempt to pass
over If, fall, and are ~engulphed in the boiling
waters below. The other is a substantial, firm
structure, erected and guarded in such q way as
that by no possible contingency, any of the
accidents so common to those who attempt to
pass the other bridge, can befal them-would it
not be the height of madness for all passengers
to insist upon passing on the dangerous bridge.
urging as a reason that two out Of every ten are
not lostl And suppose, further, that two men
have crossed and recrossed, time and again, with
out accident, and by their example they daily
induce eight others to risk the experiment, and
they become victims to their folly-are not these
two men morally guilty of the death of the 9TH
er eighth
The illustration struck US as irresistible and
peculiarly appropriate. The bridge "modera-
ton over the dark gulf of Intemperance, is in
deed a rickety, unsafe affair. Ninetenths of
those who attempt a passage over it. are swal
lowed up in the billowy surges below while
the bridge of Total Abstinence . is built high,
and strong, from which the passenger may laugh
TO scorn the angry elements beneath. Not one
soul has ever slipped from its firm foundations,
and a light ever illumines the pathway of the
traveller while he remains upon this sturdy struc-
ture. But the man who has Travelled, however
often, the other dangerous passage-way, is not
only liable every day to the dark fate ofthe less
successful, but the blood of those who, by his
example, have been lost through intemperance,
will be required at his hands, by that God whose
stern inquiry of the first murderer was-'Cain,
whereas thy Observation-Disclosures dFiRker, where
is thy byothera