Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1869-04-06
For the Staunton Spectator.
STAUNToN, March 9th, 1869.
MEssRs. MAUZY & Co.: =

MEssRs. MAUZY & Co. =
| Permit me through the
columns of your valuable paper, to say a few
words to the Distillers and Liquor-Dealers of
cur community y-these Commissaries and Quar-
termasters in King Alcohols army
Gentlemen-By the laws of our State, you
are permitted to engage in a traffic which fills
our land with beggars, widows, orphans and
crimes-the world Of wo, with victims of des-
pair, and our graveyards with premature NOR
tality--a traffic which is the immediate cause
of more crimes, suffering and distress than all
other causes combined-but can you do so
without violating the laws of humanity?
Love worketh no i'll to his neighbor Love
will not burn neighbor's barn, or poison his
food, or blast his reputation or destroy his
soul. | ask you, 10 all sincerity do you not by
your traffic often help to do all these? Does
not property, reputation, health, life and sal
walton fall before this fell-destroyer?
1t is no excuse for you to say that you do
not destroy maliciousy-for the certainty of
evil is as great, as if you should fire in the
dark upon mass of human beings, when it
was certain that death would be the conse
quence to some. The fact that they who pur-
chase your liquors are free agents, does not
make you guiltless. Would you sell arsenic to
your neighbor to destroy himself because he is
free agent and can, if you refuse, get it else
where? No! gentlemen, you would not, and
you are really as accountable as if you were
certain that he was not free agent and that
he could not obtain his poison elsewhere.
Your trade employs and sustains many FAM
lilies, and the profits in some instances are ap-
propriated to useful purposes. But cannot
these same families be supported in some oth=
er way? Cannot the capital be employed in
some useful avocation? Are the useful avoca-
tions SO overstocked that you cannot find any
other way to make a livelihood but by dealing
poison to your fellow -mortals? Because the
business is lucrative, must you destroy lmmor
tai souls? Beware how you act in this mat
ter-one soul is Of more value than all the cap
tai employed in your sinful trafhc-preserve
the former it, to do SO, it is necessary to destroy
the latter. Where is the good produced by
the traffic in ardent spirits to balance the enor
nous evil?
Every year, thousands of families are robbed
of fathers, brothers, husbands and friends
every year widows and orphans are multiplied
and gray hairs are brought with sorrow to the
grave No trade blasts so many hopes, de-
stroys so many lives and causes so many mourn
ers to go about the streets, because man has
gone to his long home. Is not the desperate
wickedness Of the heart sufficient without arti
fetal excitement?
IF your trade was inseparable from the great
and good ends of our social being, We might
endure the evil for the sake of the good, and
they only be accountable who abuse themselves
but the effects of your trade are evil only and
that continually, increasing ten-fold the ener
gies of human depravity. Everything needful
to perfect state Of society can exist without
it, and with it such state can never be at
tained What drop Of good does it pour into
the ocean of misery which it creates?
Who can estimate the hatred of God, OF his
word and worship and of his people, or num-
Der the oaths and blasphenies it causes to be
uttered? How many thousands does it detain
every Sabbath day from the house Of Cod
who are found so uniformly in the ranks of ir-
religion as the Incorporate? How broad the
road which intemperance alone opens to HE'LL
and how thronged with travellers? Are you
not hourly and daily increasing the numbers of
these travellers to the world of wo? Without
mocking God, can you pray while you are en-
gagged in this traffic ''Lead us not into tempta
tion p
Gentlemen, for the sake Of humanity, either
close your establishments, or post over your
doors in flaming capitals, THIS is THE
ROAD TO DEATH-tha they may warn off
and inspire with CONSERVATION and fear the
needless traveller to destruction.
Remember, that''to him who knoweth to do
good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. -
B.