If they believe, as they profess, that Omnipotence condescended to take on himself the form of sinful man, and, as such, to die an ignominious death for their sakes, surely they will not refuse submission to the infinitely lesser condescension for the temporal and perhaps eternal salvation of a large, erring, and unfortunate class of their fellow-creatures; nor is the condescension very great.  In my judgment, such of us as have never fallen victims have been spared more from the absence of appetite, than from any mental or moral superiority over those who have.  Indeed I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class.  There seems ever to have been a proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice.  The demon of intemperance ever seems to have delighted in sucking the blood of genius and generosity.  What one of us but can call to mind some relative more promising in youth than all his fellows, who has fallen a sacrifice to his rapacity?  He ever seems to have gone forth like the Egyptian angel of death, commissioned to slay, if not the first, the fairest born of every family.  Shall he now be arrested in his desolating career?  In that arrest all can give aid that will; and who shall be excused that can and will not?  Far around as human breath has ever blown, he keeps our fathers, our brothers, our sons, and our friends prostrate in the chains of moral death....

When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted.  It is an old and a true maxim “that a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.”  So with men.  If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.  Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what you will, is the great high-road to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause really be a just one.  On the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart; and though your cause be naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel, and sharper than steel can be made, and though you throw it with more than herculean force and precision, you shall be no more able to pierce him than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw.  Such is man, and so must he be understood by those who would lead him, even to his own best interests....