Address to the Danvers Auxiliary Society, for Suppressing Intemperance and Other Vices; And Promoting Temperance and General Morality (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1822. Excerpt: ... ADDRESS. TO ameliorate the condition of man, to (earn the causes of human misery with a view to avoid them, is the end for which our Society was instituted; the design for which we have this day assembled. Our task is an unpopular one;--to inform others of their faults is ever unpopular. For the reward of our labours, we must look, not to the applause of the world, but to the approbation of our own consciences. And while we have this, though we may err in judgment, for M to err is human," there will be no cause of alarm. The tendency to decline of every good institution cannot have escaped the observation of any, even the most inattentive. Constant and continued exertions are necessary to support, even the best of causes. This we see daily exemplified, in the founding of hospitals; erecting alms-houses, instituting moral or peace societies, and in every effort to which the benevolence of man is directed. When the ardour of first impressions has ceased to glow, it requires the hand of a master, to keep alive the fading embers. While roused by the novelty of the object, recruits are readily enlisted; but the story twice told soon ceases to influence. The present is an age peculiarly distinguished for benevolent exertion. Societies almost innumerable have been formed, and arc now forming, wherever opportunity offers, for alleviating human misery, or correcting vice. Among the vices most extensively diffused, most alarming in their nature, and pernicious in their consequences, both here and hereafter, the intemperate use of ardent spirits holds the first place. This is emphatically styled the crying come proverbial. Already have we far outstripped all our European competitors in this downward road to ruin. Already it tarnishes the rising glory of our country, ...