Finally, I would entreat these men _as a Christian_. Some of them profess a personal and experimental knowledge of vital Christianity, and are members of the visible church. What, can it be that a real Christian should, at this day, be concerned in the manufacture of ardent spirits for general use? When I think of the light that now illuminates every man's path on this subject so clearly, and think how the horrors of intemperance must flash in his face at every step, I confess I feel disposed indignantly to reply, No; this man cannot be a Christian. But then I recollect David, the adulterer; Peter, the denier of his master, profanely cursing and swearing; and John Newton, a genuine convert to Christianity, yet for a long time violating every dictate of conscience and of right; and I check my hasty judgment, and leave the secret character of the manufacturer of ardent spirits to a higher and more impartial tribunal. But if such a man be really a Christian, that is, if he do really love God supremely and his neighbor as himself, in what a state of awful alienation and stupidity must he be living! Remaining in such a state, that is, while persevering in so unchristian an employment, can he have any evidence himself, or afford any evidence to others, of possessing a Christian character? I would not apply these remarks in their unqualified severity to every professor of religion who supplies the distillery with materials, or who vends or uses wine or ardent spirits; for we shall find some of this description who really suppose that, instead of being condemned for such conduct in the Bible, they are rather supported by some parts of it: they not only find Christ converting water into wine at a marriage, and Paul directing Timothy to use a little wine for his health, but that, in one case, the Jews had liberty to convert a certain tithe into money, and bring it to Jerusalem and bestow it for what their _soul lusted after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or strong drink_, and _they were to eat there before the Lord their God, and rejoice, they and their household_. Deut. 14:26. But before any one settles down into a conclusion that this passage warrants the use of wine and ardent spirits, in our age and country, let him consider that there may have been, as there doubtless were, peculiar reasons, under the Levitical dispensation, for permitting the Jews to partake of what their soul desired _before the Lord_, which would not apply to mankind generally; as was the case in respect to several other things. But not to urge this point, I would say, further, that the fact that _Judea was a wine country_, that is, a country where the grape for the manufacture of wine was easily and abundantly raised, puts a different aspect upon this permission. In our country, the apple takes the place of the grape, and our cider is nearer equivalent to the wine of Judea; because there the apple does not flourish, and here, the grape cannot be extensively cultivated.