Neither may we gain by hurting our neighbor in his body. Therefore we may not sell anything which tends to impair his health. Such is eminently all that liquid fire called drams of spirituous liquors. It is true they may have a place in medicine--may be used in some bodily disorders--although there would rarely be occasion for them were it not for the unskillfulness of the practitioner. Therefore such as prepare and sell them only for this end may keep their conscience clean. But who are they who prepare and sell them only for this end? Do you know ten distillers in England? Then excuse these. But all who sell them in the common way, to any that will buy, are poisoners in general. They murder his majesty's subjects by wholesale; neither do their eyes pity or spare. They drive them to hell like sheep. And what is their gain? Is it not the blood of these men? Who, then, would enjoy their large estate and sumptuous palaces? A curse is in the midst of them. A curse cleaves to the stones, the timbers, the furniture of them. The curse of God is in their gardens, their walks, their groves; a fire that burns to the nethermost hell! Blood, blood, is there! The foundation, the walls, the roof, are stained with blood! And canst thou hope, O man of blood, though thou art "clothed in scarlet and fine linen, and farest sumptuously every day"--canst thou hope to deliver thy fields of blood to the third generation? Not so! There is a God in heaven; therefore thy name shall be blotted out. Like as those whom thou hast destroyed, body and soul, thy memory shall perish with thee.[M] He introduced into his Discipline a rule prohibiting the "buying or selling of spirituous liquors, or drinking them, unless in cases of extreme necessity." He went for "prohibiting forever, making a full end of that bane of health, that destroyer of strength, of life, and virtue--distilling." These are his own words. He was a prohibitionist in principle, and in this respect was in advance of many would-be temperance men of these times. To one of his preachers he says: "Touch no dram. It is a liquid fire. It is a sure, though slow, poison. It saps the very spring of life." TOBACCO. Mr. Wesley sought a reformation on the tobacco question. He believed that the use of the weed was unchristian. He exhorts his people: "Use no tobacco. It is an uncleanly and unwholesome self-indulgence; and the more customary it is the more resolutely should you break off from every degree of that evil custom. Let Christians be in this bondage no longer. Assert your liberty, and that all at once; nothing will be done by degrees."[N] Such were the teachings of John Wesley on these subjects--teachings which we regard as very remarkable for those times, and fully up to the present. JOHN WESLEY AND JOHN HOWARD MEET.