I might dwell further on these points. But I am now prepared to ask,
with emphasis, whether an employment that has been attended with so many
ills to the bodies and souls of men; with so much woe and crime; whose
results are evil, and only evil continually; an employment which cannot
be pursued without tending to destroy the very purposes of the
organization of society; without violating the rule which requires us to
render a valuable consideration in business; without violating the rule
which requires a man to promote the welfare of the whole of the
community; which promotes pauperism and crime, and imposes heavy burdens
on your fellow-citizens; which is opposed equally to the love of man and
the law of God--_whether this is a moral, or an immoral employment?_
The question is submitted. If moral, it should be driven on with all the
power of American energy; with all the aids of wealth, and all the might
of steam, and all the facilities of railroads and canals; for our
country and the church calls the man to the honorable employment. But if
it be immoral and wrong, it should be abandoned on the spot. Not another
gallon should ever pass from your store, if it be evil, only evil, and
that continually.
* * * * *
We are prepared now to examine a few of the OBJECTIONS to this doctrine.
1. The first is, that the traffic is not condemned in the Bible. To this
the answer is very obvious. The article was then unknown. Nor was it
known until 600 years after the Bible was completed. This mode of
extending and perpetuating depravity in the world was not suggested by
the father of evil, until it was too late to make a formal law against
it in the Bible, or to fortify the argument of human depravity from this
source. It is neither in the Bible, nor in any other code of laws, the
custom to specify crimes which do not exist. How remarkable in a code of
laws would have been such a declaration as the trafficker demands, "Thou
shalt not deal in ardent spirits," hundreds of years before the article
was known. The world would have stood in amazement, and would have been
perplexed and confounded by an unmeaning statute. But further, it is not
the practice in the Bible, or in any other book of laws, to specify each
shade and degree of wrong. Had it been, there could have been no end of
legislation, and no end to books of law. I ask the dealer in ardent
spirits, where is there a formal prohibition of piracy, or bigamy, or
kidnapping, or suicide, or duelling, or the sale of obscene books and
paintings? And yet does any man doubt that these are immoral? Does he
believe that the Bible will countenance them? Will he engage in them,
because they are not specified formally, and with technical precision,
in the Scriptures? The truth is, that the Bible has laid down great
principles of conduct, which on all these subjects can be easily
applied, which _are_ applied, and which, under the guidance of equal
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