As I have said, my uncle was opposed to education, and as he grew older and drank deeper, his prejudice against it seemed to increase; and though I cannot easily account for the fact, still every drunkard in the place was an enemy to all improvements in the school. When a town-meeting took place, these persons were invaribly in opposition to every scheme, the design of which was to promote the cause of education, and this party was usually headed by my uncle. And it is not a little curious that the tavern party also had its influence in the church, for my uncle was a member of it, and many of his bar-room cronies also. They were so numerous as to cast a heavy vote, and therefore they exercised a good deal of power here. As in respect to the school, so in the house of worship, they were for spending as little money as possible, and for reducing its power and influence in society to the lowest possible scale. They even held the minister in check, and though he saw the evil tendency of intemperance in the village, he had not nerve enough to attack it, except in a very soft and mild way, which probably served to increase the vice at which he aimed; for vice always thrives when holy men condemn it gently. Now I have said that my uncle was a kind-hearted, generous man, by nature; how then could he be so narrow-minded in respect to education and religion? The answer to this question is easy. He was addicted to the free use of liquors, which not only tends to destroy the body, but to ruin all the nobler parts of the mind. As he came more and more under the influence of ardent spirits, he grew narrow-minded, sottish and selfish. And this is one of the great evils of taking ardent spirits. The use of them always tends to break down the mind; to take away from us those noble feelings and lofty thoughts, which are the glory of man; in short, to sink us lower and lower toward the brute creation. A determined drunkard is usually a great part of the time but little elevated above a beast.