CHAPTER VIII. NON-CONFORMITY TO THE WORLD "Now shun, O shun the enchanting cup; And sadly mixed with blood and tears." ALL true Christians must also "not be conformed to this world" in the practice of any thing like drunkenness. Drunkenness, we need scarcely observe, is another of "the works of the flesh," or of corrupt human nature. For, the term "flesh" is frequently used in Scripture to express the corruption, or depravity, which exists, not so much in our bodies as in our souls; the soul being the superior part of our nature, and the body only its instrument in the commission of sin. We must not, therefore, speak of drunkenness, as some do, as being merely "a physical evil," nor suppose that it can be rightly cured "by physical means." It is, no doubt, a physical evil, inasmuch as it carries in its train an almost infinite amount of bodily wretchedness and woe. It is chiefly, however, a moral or spiritual evil, as it not only originates in our depraved hearts, but "rages most within ;" and is ruinous to soul and body, for time and for eternity; and the physical evil, as the effect, can only be truly removed by the removal of the spiritual evil, as the cause. In other words, drunkenness is one of the fruits of "sin dwelling in us," and one of the very worst. While it is, also, "exceeding sinful" in itself, it is likewise, far more frequently than any other sin, the occasion of almost every other kind of wickedness, and the source of the greatest misery. On this account, it may, comparatively speaking, be well designated, "the great ancestor of vice;" or said to be, more than any other secondary cause, the parent of all the evils that exist in the world. For example, is it not mentally, in too many cases, the means of injuring the brain, the seat of intellect; of weakening the mind; of disordering the memory; of impairing the judgment; of destroying the noblest talents; of wrecking genius; of dethroning reason; and of inflicting insanity? Is it not spiritually, in too many instances, the means of hardening the heart; of unnerving the will; of searing the conscience; of carnalizing the affections; of eradicating the finer feelings of humanity, whether in a state of nature or of grace; of causing the greatest anguish, and also utter ruin? Is it not bodily, too frequently, the means of disorganizing the whole constitution; of deranging the functions of the stomach; of im pairing strength, although it imparts stimulus; of spoiling beauty; of destroying health; of inducing almost every kind of disease, and sometimes the most loathsome-disease of the heart and enlargement of the liver; jaundice and dropsy; blood-shot eyes, or eyes sunk in their sockets, if not total blindness; wan cheeks and a bloated countenance; trembling hands and tiny fingers; or again, "a fat or flabby frame;" parched lips and swollen legs; tottering steps and a shattered nervous system; and likewise of entailing want and woe; want of food and want of clothing; poverty and pauperism; rags and wretchedness; sensuality and suicide; of inflaming the worst of passions; of predisposing to the ravages of the pestilence; and of committing yearly to the drunkard's grave about seventy thousand persons? Is it not educationally, too often, the means of producing, and of perpetuating, the greatest ignorance; of vitiating the taste of the most cultivated, and of barbarising the most refined; of sacrificing the greatest learning, and of bartering away the highest attainments; of reducing the most accomplished, in a literary and scientific E sense, to the level of the most besotted, and of leaving them a perfect ruin? Is it not morally, in too many cases, the means of banishing modesty; of corrupting innocence; of destroying chastity; of sapping virtue; of exciting to every species of vicecursing and swearing, dissimulation and lying, injustice and dishonesty, peculation and theft, robbery and house-breaking, dissoluteness and debauchery, lust and licentiousness, fornication and adultery, profligacy and profanity, blasphemy and infidelity; and also of causing not only "nine-tenths of all the crime" in the kingdom, but countless cases of sin not punishable by the law of man? Is it not religiously the occasion, in innumerable cases, of sinking piety, and of promoting ungodliness; of profaning the Sabbath, and of preventing attendance upon the sanctuary; of despising the Scriptures, and of neglecting the great salvation; of raising one of the strongest external barriers to the reception of the gospel, and of obstructing its progress; of scandalizing Christianity, and of dishonouring the name of Christ; of thinning churches, and of thwarting the efforts of Sabbath-schools; of causing the declension, and of consummating the ruin, of church-going people; of furnishing the chief cases of Church discipline, and of expelling office-bearers, as well as members, from Church communion; of denying, no less than rejecting, Christ, and of casting off the fear of God; of trampling upon divine grace, and of retarding the divine glory? Is it not domestically, too often, the means of ensnaring the young in common with the old, and of ruining families; of producing variance and strife, and of stirring up broils and brawls; of leading to revelry and riot, and of occasioning aching heads and broken hearts; of desolating hearths, and of breaking up "happy homes;" of converting houses into hovels, and of making them furnitureless as well as filthy; of rendering millions houseless as well as homeless, friendless, and forlorn; of leading parents to neglect and maltreat their children, as well as one another, and children to neglect and maltreat their parents; of causing parents to be ashamed of their children, and children to be ashamed of their parents; of alienating husbands from wives, and wives from husbands; of separating the one from the other, or of the one abandoning the other; and of rendering husbands widowers, and wives widows, parents childless, and children orphans ? Is it not socially, too often, the means of |