Contemplate, again, the world of wealth, fashion, and pleasure. Behold the pomp, the luxury, and the numerous sensual enjoyments which make up so largely its sum of life. Follow the votaries of pleasure in their daily and nightly rounds, sit at their epicurean tables, accompany them to routs, balls, play-houses, and innumerable other places of resort, which temptingly beckon them on every hand. Be with them also in their sleeping, and at their early morning hours, when the inevitable reactions manifest themselves; when pains, lassitude, and nervous and mental depression overtake them. Read their interior convictions, thoughts and regrets for ill-spent time, and for perversions of the higher faculties. Consult the epicure, who "lives to eat" and to stimulate his artificial appetite daily with highly seasoned dishes. He will discourse eloquently upon the pleasures of the table; but he can depict also the horrors of indigestion, hypochondria, and not unfrequently of paralysis, apoplexy, and kindred ailments. Consult the wine-bibber and the whiskey-drinker. They can point to the enormous revenues which the government derives from their patronage; to the innumerable drinking-saloons which cover the land, and which are sustained and enriched by them; to the numerous dens, above-ground and under-ground, where the poor congregate to imbibe fiery poisons that steal away their brains and the bread of their wives and children; to the untold millions which are expended in their traffic by men of all classes and conditions. These men can portray the temporary delights and excitements of such exhilarating beverages. They can tell you how the brain glows, how the pulse rises, and how all the organs and faculties are roused to preternatural energy under the influence of these potent agents. But alas! what multitudes have experienced the dreadful reactions which always follow their habitual use! What multitudes have gone down to the grave prematurely with Bright's disease, liver-complaint, softening of the brain, dropsy, insanity, paralysis, delirium tremens, etc., victims of these insidious poisons! In the United States especially, the prevalence and the evils of whiskey-drinking are truly monstrous. It is the dominant curse, the crying evil of the day. It pervades all of the ramifications of social life. {121} It numbers its victims by millions of all ages, sexes, and conditions. It corrupts and undermines the very foundation of health, perverts and degrades the intellectual and moral faculties, and depresses men deep, deep into the lower strata of humanity.