A low, half-repressed groan answered the speaker.

“Ten years ago, you, sir,” pointing to a sad-looking old man, and calling him by name, “had two sons—­generous, promising, manly-hearted boys.  What are they now?  You need not answer the question.  Too well is their history and your sorrow known.  Ten years ago, I had a son,—­amiable, kind, loving, but weak.  Heaven knows how I sought to guard and protect him!  But he fell also.  The arrows of destruction darkened the very air of our once secure and happy village.  And who is safe?  Not mine, nor yours!

“Shall I go on?  Shall I call up and pass in review before you, one after another, all the wretched victims who have fallen in Cedarville during the last ten years?  Time does not permit.  It would take hours for the enumeration!  No; I will not throw additional darkness into the picture.  Heaven knows it is black enough already!  But what is the root of this great evil?  Where lies the fearful secret?  Who understands the disease?  A direful pestilence is in the air—­it walketh in darkness, and wasteth at noonday.  It is slaying the first-born in our houses, and the cry of anguish is swelling on every gale.  Is there no remedy?”

“Yes! yes!  There is a remedy!” was the spontaneous answer from many voices.

“Be it our task, then, to find and apply it this night,” answered the chairman, as he took his seat.

“And there is but one remedy,” said Morgan, as Mr. Hargrove sat down.  “The accursed traffic must cease among us.  You must cut off the fountain, if you would dry up the stream.  If you would save the young, the weak, and the innocent—­on you God has laid the solemn duty of their protection—­you must cover them from the tempter.  Evil is strong, wily, fierce, and active in the pursuit of its ends.  The young, the weak, and the innocent can no more resist its assaults, than the lamb can resist the wolf.  They are helpless, if you abandon them to the powers of evil.  Men and brethren! as one who has himself been well-nigh lost—­as one who, daily, feels and trembles at the dangers that beset his path—­I do conjure you to stay the fiery stream that is bearing every thing good and beautiful among you to destruction.  Fathers! for the sake of your young children, be up now and doing.  Think of Willy Hammond, Frank Slade, and a dozen more whose names I could repeat, and hesitate no longer!  Let us resolve, this night, that from henceforth the traffic shall cease in Cedarville.  Is there not a large majority of citizens in favor of such a measure?  And whose rights or interests can be affected by such a restriction?  Who, in fact, has any right to sow disease and death in our community?  The liberty, under sufferance, to do so, wrongs the individual who uses it, as well as those who become his victims.  Do you want proof of this?  Look at Simon Slade, the happy, kind-hearted miller; and at Simon Slade, the tavern-keeper.  Was he benefited by the liberty to work harm to his neighbor?  No! no!  In heaven’s name, then, let the traffic cease!  To this end, I offer these resolutions:—­