The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1872-03-26
Address Delivered Before the Addison
County Temperance Society.

Address Delivered Before the Addison
County Temperance Society.
at West Cornwall, March 1tth, by Rev. T. II.
Archibald. Published by request Of tho Socie-
ty.
The tenn perance enterprise has been the
subject of oft repeated, and well deserved
encomium. Its panegyrics have been
pronounced by many an eloquent orator,
and its praises rehearsed by many a sweet
singer Nor has this been an undeserv-
ed or unmcaning tribute. The need of
praise has been justly won by the bless
Jugs which it has conferred, and the lau-
rels, with which it has been crowned have
been richly earned, and worthily worn.
Its victories have not been the achieve
ments of grim and CORY monster, fresh
from fields made dismal with carnage and
red with blood. The wheels Of its char
lot have not been stained with human
gore, nor has the track that marked its
course been defiled by the mouldering re-
mains of slaughtered thousands. The
blessing of those who were ready to per-
sh has rested upon it, and it has made
the widows heart to leap for joy. Its
course has been marked by the rich gifts
that have fallen in profusion from its
hands, and have proved to many heart,
and many home, "like the dew on Her
mon, and the dew that rested on the
mountains of Zion, for these the Lord
commanded the blessing even life forever
more" This enterprise is one of those
noble efforts for the disenthrallment OF
our race, which must make the age in
which we live memorable in all the after
history of mankind. He must be blind
| to all the tokens of an overruling Provi-
dence who does not discern the hand of
God in its origin and progress. That
hand may be less visibly marked, but it
is no less clearly seen, than when God
made a way for the fleeing Israeites
through the parted waves oft the Red Sea,
and caused the pillar of cloud by day,
and the pillar of fire by night. to rest up
on their encampments, and guide their
onward journeyings. Looking back upon
the past, and surveying the good which
has been accomplished. in devout graft
tude we cry, "What hath God wrought
TIE Lord hath done great things for us
whereof we are glad"
The time is yet within the memory OF
some among us when the overfowing
scourge came in upon us like a food ;
when desolation and death waited upon
its progress, and when there seemed to
be no hand to roll back its poisoned wat
ers, and no voice to say to its accurscd
tide, "Hithertu hast thou come but thou
shalt proce d no farther and here shall
thy proud waves be stayed" You can
recall the time when the uselof intoxicat-
ing drinks was an universal and public
custom. When from every grade Of So
ciety, and from almost every hearth.
stone, intemperance gathered its wretched
victims when the worm of the still lay
coled in every house, ready to devour
his prey. You remember the names
which he assumed, and the garbs in which
he appeared, like wolves in sleeps cloth.
ing, or like Satan transforming hmsel!
into an angel of light We know how
| he came tn oi-,ast nvn~y l.";ly tho un-
ceremcnious manner in which he took up
his abode the seven spirits worse than
himself that entered in and dwelt with
him, and the cruel despotism, more terri
BILE than that of a Caligula, or Nero,
which he everywhere exercised over his
wretched victims. He scattered desola-
ton around him, he gorged the grave with
his prey he peopled the land of despair
with the millions he had ruined. The
prime minister OF death, he rode upon his
masters own pale horse, and hell follow
ed after him.
We record to-day, with devout graft
tude to God, that the scene is greatly
changed. We rejoice that in SO many
instances the malicious tyrant has been
com PEELED to surrender his ancient reign
that the sccptre of his long dominion has
been wrcsted from his grasp, or broken
in his hand; that so often the spoiler has
been spoiled, and the prey delivered out
of the hand of the mighty.
And yet it cannot be denied, nor is it
wise to conceal the fact, that much Of the
ground that has once been gained has
been lost, and that drinking habits are
more common aud less disreputable than
they were twenty years ago. Our re-
cent history, as temperance reiormers, has
been much like that of an invading army,
who advancing into an enemy's country,
and winning glorious victory on many a
well fought field of conflict, should enter
farther and farther into the very heart
of the hostile nation, utterly neglecting
to fortify the important posts which it
had already taken, and should suddenly
awaken to the fact that they had been re-
captured by the foe, and were being held
to cut off their supplies, and destroy their
strength. 1t seems to me that we have
been guilty of a similar imprudence. We
fought, and we fairly gained, the battle
on the duty of every man to abstain from
the use Of intoxicating drinks, If ever
question was settled, beyond all possbii-
ty of cavi or controversy, that point was
established by the early temperance re-
formers. We advanced, as We ought in
deed to have advanced, to grapple with
new questions and issues, connected with
the traffic in Intoxicating drinks, but we
neglected to hold, as we ought to have
held, the position we had already car
ried. We left that largely to take care
of ITSELF and the enemy have largely re-
possessed it.
A new generation has arisen, the vast
body of whom have never heard the
statement of those weighty and unanswer-
able arguments, which enforce total alb
stinence from the use of intoxicating
drinks and the traffic in them. Thought
lessly. and without any intent of wrong,
they have INDUCED in them, until very
many of them are on the verge of ruin
1t has become necessary, in my judgment
to reopen that question, and to reargue