“It may be said,” he observed, “that sober men have no necessity for taking the pledge; and if one were certain that every sober man was to remain sober during his whole life, there would not, indeed, be a necessity for sober men to take it; but, alas! my friends, you know how subject we are to those snares, and pitfalls, and temptations of life by which our paths are continually beset.  Who can say to-day that he may not transgress the bounds of temperance before this day week?  Your condition in life is surrounded by inducements to drink.  You scarcely buy or sell a domestic animal in fair or market, that you are not tempted to drink; you cannot attend a neighbor’s funeral that you are not tempted to drink—­’tis the same at the wedding and the christening, and in almost all the transactions of your lives.  How then can you answer for yourselves, especially when your spirits may happen to be elevated, and your hearts glad?  Oh! it is then, my friends, that the tempter approaches you, and probably implants in your unguarded hearts the germ of that accursed habit which has destroyed millions.  How often have you heard it said of many men, even within the range of your own knowledge, ’Ah, he was an industrious, well-conducted, and respectable man—­until he took to drink!’ Does not the prevalence of such a vile habit, and the fact that so many sober men fall away from that virtue, render the words that I have just uttered a melancholy proverb in the country?  Ah, there he is—­in rags and misery; yet he was an industrious, well-conducted, and respectable man once, that is—­before he took to drink!  Prevention, my dear friends, is always better than cure, and in binding yourselves by this most salutary obligation, you know not how much calamity and suffering—­how much general misery—­how much disgrace and crime you may avoid.  And, besides, are we not to look beyond this world?  Is a crime which so greatly depraves the heart, and deadens its power of receiving the wholesome impressions of religion and truth, not one which involves our future happiness or misery?  Ah, my dear brethren, it is indeed a great and a cross popular error to say that sober men should not take this pledge.  I hope I have satisfied you that it is a duty they owe themselves to take it, so long as they feel that they are frail creatures, and liable to sin and error; and not only themselves, but their children, their friends, and all who might be affected, either for better or worse, by their example.

“There is another argument, however, which I cannot overlook, while dwelling upon this important subject.  We know that the drunkard, if God should, through the instrumentality of this great and glorious movement, put the wish for amendment into his heart, still feels checked and deterred by a sense of shame; because, the truth is, if none attended these meetings but such men, that very fact alone would prove a great obstruction in the way of their reformation.  Many,