But even if we suppose the worst, that the distiller and some farmers should be reduced to absolute beggary by the cessation of this manufacture; no reasonable, or patriotic, or Christian man can for a moment regard this as a reason why he should continue in any business that is productive of immense mischief to his country. Is it not better that he and his family should come to want, than that hundreds of thousands should be ruined, soul and body, for time and eternity? If he has a right to derive his subsistence from the ruin of others, then others, as the thief, the swindler, and the robber, have a right to obtain their subsistence from his ruin. In the fourth place, I appeal to these men _as a neighbor and a parent, and in behalf of the drunkard's wife and children_. When Providence cast our lot in the same neighborhood, I considered, and doubtless you thought the same, that a regard to our mutual welfare bound us to do every thing in our power to make the community in which we lived intelligent, virtuous, and happy; and to avoid every thing that would mar its peace, degrade its character, or stain its purity. My complaint is, that by the manufacture of ardent spirits you have violated these obligations. The facilities for obtaining spirits, and the temptations to their use and abuse, have been thus so multiplied, and brought so near, that very many who were once kind neighbors and valuable members of society are ruined, or in different stages of the path to ruin. One has got as far as an occasional visit to the grog-shop and the bar-room: another is rarely seen there; but the wretched condition of his house, barn, and farm, his impatience of confinement at home, and his many foolish bargains, tell me, in language not to be mistaken, that the worm which is preying upon the root of his prosperity is the worm of the still. The frequent visits of the sheriff to the house of another neighbor, whose family is healthy and industrious; his bitter complaints of the hardness of the times; his constant efforts to borrow money to prevent executions from being levied; the mortgaging of his farm to the bank; his pimpled face, and bloated body, and dry hacking cough, are painful testimonies of his familiarity with the products of the distillery. It is distressing to look around upon our once happy neighborhood--did you ever do it?--and to see what havoc your manufactory of spirits has made upon the peace, property, reputation, intelligence, morality, and good order of the community. No wasting sickness, no foreign or domestic war, no premature frost; no drought, blasting, or mildew; nor any other visitation of God; no, not all of them combined have been the tenth part as fatal to our prosperity and happiness, as this one self-inflicted curse. And this curse we should never have felt, had not some of you put into operation your distilleries, and others fed them with the products of your farms: I