To

The Executive Committee of the

AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION.

GENTLEMEN,

During my third quarter, which ends tomorrow, the services of my lecture room have been continued on Sunday evenings, and have been well attended. I have reason to believe that these services have been productive of good; and that some at least of those who have joined in them, have been made wiser and better, in regard to the things both of their present, and their eternal peace.

"The pleasant hour" of Thursday afternoon has been given to a course of lectures upon natural history. These lectures have been attended by about a hundred children, the greater part of whom are boys from 10 to 14 years of age. I have only to say of this service, that I have been repeatedly requested by the children who come to it, to give a lecture also on the afternoons of Saturday.

Much of my time, for the last three months, has been devoted to the work of curing intemperance; and as I wish to address to you a few remarks upon this subject, which I should be glad to have published, I will omit other topics in this report.

I need not say that there has recently been, and that there still is, a very extraordinary excitement of the public mind on the subject of intemperance. Very much has lately been said, and written, of the evils which in

temperance brings to the individual who is guilty of it, to his family, and to society; and, to deter from it as many as is possible, almost every conceivable means has been adopted of enlightening the understanding in regard to its causes, its effects, and its prevention. The poet has left the fair and beautiful regions of fancy, where he had no other association with appetite than of the fruits of the Hesperides, the fountains of Helicon and the nectar of the gods, that he might speak plainly of drunkenness ; and dissuade men from reducing themselves as much below the irrational creation, as it was the design of God, in their intellectual and moral powers, to exalt our nature above that of the brutes. The speculating politician has laid aside his theories, that he might reason of the alarming facts, which are threatening our most important institutions; and the plodding scholar pauses in his researches, that he may look to the extent of this enormous abuse, and contribute his share to the work of its correction. The physician, in the public assembly, as well as from house to house, raises his admonitory voice, and is importunate in his persuasions to all who will hear him, to abstain from the first step in this downward way to destruction; and the divine avails himself again, and again, and again, of that most favourable hour in the life of man to receive convictions of sin, to exercise contrition before God, and to arm the soul with holy purposes for the time to come,—the hour consecrated to public prayer and religious instruction,-that he may awaken the sleeping, or soften the obdurate conscience of the intemperate; that he may give an impression of the guilt and danger of this evil, never to be lost from the mind; and by his warnings, his entreaties, his encouragements, and his appeals to the highest hopes and the strongest fears of the

soul, if it be possible, by any or all of these means, to save some. And all these means have, I trust, conduced to good, and are still doing good. But the confirmed drunkard is not so to be recovered. The inordinate desire for ardent spirits, though in certain aspects of it a moral evil, and the fruitful parent of many sins, is yet to be traced back as well to physical, as to moral causes; and, while it produces disease, it is itself strengthened, and continually more and more established, by the very disease which it has occasioned. It is therefore to be treated as a physical, as well as a moral evil; and, till it is so considered and treated, I do not believe that much will be done in the work of arresting intemperance.

The free use of ardent spirits produces a diseased state of the stomach, accompanied by a morbid thirst; and, I believe that this diseased state of the stomach is as curable as is that which is called dyspepsia. It is for a time often so cured in the intemperate, by powerful medicinal agents, without any purpose of indisposing them to resort again to the poison, by which the disease was occasioned. In these cases, the cure is effected by combining medicine with other substances than alcohol, and therefore without producing aversion from alcohol. Now the object in giving medicated ardent spirits to the intemperate is, at once to restore health, and to produce a disgust of ardent spirits; and a disgust of them may be produced, by combining them with powerful medicinal agents, as a disgust of any other liquor may be produced, by mixing it with a medicine, which is itself very disgusting to the taste. There is therefore neither mystery nor quackery in this business. I have known a gentleman who could not for ten years bring himself to drink milk, from having taken with

it a very disgusting medicine. If, then, the intemperate may be so recovered, should not public sympathy be awakened in the cause of their recovery? An individual, or a few individuals, cannot do what should be done in this work. The whole moral sentiment of the community should be united in it. I have a few cases to state, which I think are interesting. I cannot however publish names. But if any one wishes for further information concerning them, either that he may himself be cured, or that he may attempt to cure others, I will go with him to either, or to all the persons referred to, that he may receive their testimony from their own lips.

A. B.-I became acquainted with the family of Mr. B. in the last winter. His wife was then confined to her bed by sickness, and was receiving aid from the Howard Benevolent Society. Mr. B. is a mechanic. But when I first knew him, he was not only without employment, but without tools to work with. Near the end of last May I persuaded him to go through with a course of medicated spirits. He took them, I think, for about ten days; and since that time, I know that he has drank no ardent spirits. Through the kindness of some friends, which he obtained in consequence of having taken this medicine, he was supplied with a set of tools; and he has since been, and now is, working at his trade in a neighbouring town; and returns to a happy home on Saturday night, which he leaves on Monday morning to resume his work. His wife was also enabled, by one or two benevolent individuals, to stock a small milliner's shop, and is now doing very well as a milliner and mantua maker. They are now paying off the small debts which were contracted during the time of their poverty; and, should they continue to be blessed with health, instead of being depend

ent on charity, they will probably, in the next winter, have something to spare for those, who may be as poor as they were three months ago.-A friend of this man a short time since said to him, "B. if you were now as fond of ardent spirits as you were three months ago, and had $10,000, and could be brought to be as you now are only by the payment of a good round sum, how much would you give?" Immediately, and with great earnestness of feeling he answered, "The whole!"

B. C. is a mechanic; very capable in his business, and a very amiable man. But his love of ardent spirits seemed to be inveterate. He was fully conscious of the sin and misery of his manner of living; and, unsolicited by any one, he applied to me for the means of being cured. This was about the middle of June. He now drinks only water and small beer, and is happier than he has been at any former period of his life. I asked him, very lately, if he felt any disposition to take ardent spirits? He answered, "None. I would not drink a glass for twenty dollars."

C. D. is also a mechanic.

course.

He went through a course

A disgust of them was

of medicated spirits in June. not produced, and he readily consented to begin a second. This was in a short time effectual, and he is cured. At the time of beginning to take the medicine, his health was very much reduced by his previous habits. He has since recovered his strength; and no one who should now see him at his work, would suspect that he had been intemperate.

He

D. E. began to take the medicated liquor on the same day with C. D. He was cured by the first course. is a young man, and is unmarried. him, his hands trembled so much,

When I first knew

that I should have