697. Drunkenness is treated under the sixth precept because, as we have hinted, it tends greatly to abbreviate the duration, and to promote the wretchedness of human life. Its criminality partakes therefore of that which belongs to suicide by an act of violence.

698. There are other circumstances upon which its criminality depends.

(1.) It betrays to the practice of other sins. Exciting the passions, it leads to acts of theft, robbery, assaults and bodily injury upon others, often to murder, lewdness, and other acts of profligacy. It prepares for almost any crime.

(2.) It disqualifies men for the duties of their station, both by the temporary disorder of their faculties, and at length by a constant incapacity and stupefaction. Hence

(3.) There must be included a waste of property. This arises from impairing a man's powers of mind and body for profitable business; also from the consumption of time and of money in the process of drinking, and in the actendant circumstances.

(4.) The drunkard destroys his reputation, which according to Solomon, is worth more than "great riches."

(5.) He destroys his usefulness, so far as this depends upon business, reputation, money, intellectual and moral

energy.

(6.) He greatly injures his family, by depriving them of the benefit of a good example, and by setting before them the most virulent contagion of a bad example, inducing imitation: also by depriving his children of the benefits of a good scholastic and moral and religious education, which drunkenness unfits him to bestow; by subjecting his family to painful mortification in their feelings, to poverty in their condition, and not unfrequently to terror and danger from his personal violence and ferocity.

(7.) The drunkard not only (as medical men have shown) shortens and destroys the life of the body, but inflicts deadly wounds (as the Bible teaches us) upon the more valuable part of man, the soul. "Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." 1 Cor. vi.

9, 10. Thus is drunkenness prohibited by the most tre mendous of all sanctions-exclusion from eternal life.

(8.) Drunkenness is a social, festive vice; and is apt, beyond any vice that can be mentioned, to draw in others by the example. Whole neighborhoods are often infected by the contagion of a single example. Hence the guilt of this crime, when considered with reference to the individual himself and his family, is augmented by its necessary and easily foreseen consequences of wide-spread mischief to others.

699. An important question may here be discussed, as to how far drunkenness is an excuse for crimes committed.

(1.) We will suppose the drunken person to be altogether deprived of moral agency, that is to say, of all reflection and foresight. In this condition, it is evident that he is no more capable of guilt than a madman; although, like him, he may be extremely mischievous. The only guilt with which he is chargeable was incurred at the time when he voluntarily brought himself into this situation. And as every man is responsible for the consequences which he foresaw, or might have foreseen, and for no other, this guilt will be in proportion to the probability of such consequences ensuing. From which principle results the following rule, viz.: that the guilt of any action in a drunken man bears the same proportion to the guilt of the like action in a sober man, that the probability of its being the consequence of drunkenness bears to absolute certainty.

By virtue of this rule, those vices which are the known effects of drunkenness, either in general, or upon particular constitutions, are, in all, or in men of such constitutions, nearly as criminal as if committed with all the faculties and senses about them.

(2.) If the privation be only partial, the guilt will be of a mixed nature. For so much of his self-government as the drunkard retains, he is as responsible then as at any other time. He is entitled to no abatement beyond the strict proportion, in which his moral faculties are impaired. The guilt of the crime, if a sober man had committed it, may be called the whole guilt. A person in the condition we describe, incurs part of this at the instant of perpetration; and by bringing himself into such a condition, he incurred that fraction of the remaining part

which the danger of this consequence was of an integral certainty. [Paley.]

700. Both reason and experience show that total abstinence from all articles that can intoxicate, is such a remedy and such a safeguard; and hence should be universally adopted for the good of society, and of each of its members.

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701. The following narrative is from a recent little volume by the Rev. Thos. P. Hunt, and may serve as a representative of numberless similar cases that have occurred in our own, and in other countries; it may also serve to illustrate many of the positions assumed above. In the state of R- " a man was hung for murdering his wife. She had gone to the liquor-seller, and on her knees begged him not to let her husband have rum. But she was ordered out, and her request denied. In the evening, after her husband became somewhat excited, the liquor-seller began to taunt and tease him by calling him henpecked, and the like sneering epithets. After he had aroused the fiend in his heart, he told him that his wife had been there to stop his grog. Has she?' said he; 'sell me a knife, and I will cut her throat.' He bought the knife, and started for home, bent on vengeance. When he reached the door, as he afterward stated, his heart failed him. How could he injure his wife? She had known happy days before he married her, and amid all his neglect and cruelty had never complained, had never upbraided him. She was the mother of his children, and had ever toiled for their good and his, and always taught them to respect him, even when he knew he deserved not their love. How could he injure such a wife? His conscience would not let him do it. He fled from the house as though the angel with the flaming sword of justice were pursuing him. But he fled to the grog-shop. Another half-pint did the business. Now no reason restrained— -no conscience rebuked him. He ran to his house, seized his wife by the hair, and, drawing back her head, cut her throat. She, clapping her hand on the gash, ran over to the liquor-seller's, and exclaiming to him, 'See what you have done!' died on the stone steps at his door!

Her dying exclamation is adapted to awaken the conscience of the sellers of intoxicating drink, and to hold up

to them the guilt of their sordid and pernicious occupa

tion."

This affecting narrative teaches us that he who abhors the crimes committed by deranged men, should never venture on the formation of a habit, which may deprive him of any restraint or power to resist and to escape the temptations of a wicked heart. The drunkard was more to blame for moderate drinking, for that which made him a drunkard, than for deeds which resulted from a state of insanity. Every moderate drinker is exposed to such a dreadful result.

The civil law justly holds a drunken man responsible for criminal acts.

IX. Duties involved in the Sixth Precept.

pre

702. (1.) We ought to use all proper means of serving our own life, for our own sakes, and for the good of those who are dependent upon us, and to whom we may be useful in temporal and religious matters.

(2.) We are bound also to endeavor to preserve the lives of others by warning them of dangers to morals, health, and life; by rescuing them from perilous circumstances, especially from such destructive vices as intemperance in eating or drinking, and debauchery; by ministering to the supply of their necessities; by doing what will contribute to render life desirable and comfortable to them.

(3.) As there is a life of far greater importance than that of the body, the precept may be understood to comprehend the duties which relate to the welfare or salvation of our own souls, and those of our fellow-men.

[Professor Dick's Lectures.]

X. Consequences of a Universal Violation of the Sixth Precept.

703. It is obvious on the slightest reflection, that were this precept to be universally violated, human society would soon cease to exist.

.. In accomplishing such a horrid result, every peaceful pursuit and employment would be abandoned; the voice of wailing, and the yells of fury and despair would be heard in every family, in every village, city, field, kingdom, and clime. The work of destruction would go on with dreadful rapidity, till the whole race of man were

CONSEQUENCES IF VIOLATED.

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extirpated from the earth, leaving this vast globe a scene of solitude and desolation; an immense open sepulchre : the natural result, too, of the principle of hatred, were it left to its native energies; and were it not controlled, in the course of providence, by Him who sets restraining bounds to the wrath of man.

704. By way of counteracting the tendencies of this evil principle, it is of the utmost consequence that youth be trained up in habits of kindness, tenderness, and compassion, both toward human beings, and toward the inferior animals; that an abhorrence should be excited in their minds, of quarreling, fighting, and all mischievous tricks and actions; that they be restrained from the indulgence of malicious and resentful passions; that the principle of active beneficence be cultivated with the most sedulous care. For, in youth, the foundation has generally been laid of those malevolent dispositions which have led to robbery, assassination, and other deeds of violence, which have filled the earth with blood and carnage.

[Dick's Philosophy of Religion.]

675. What is the prominent design of this precept?

676. Does God make any distinction between human life and the life of the lower animals?

677. Why should this precept be considered as thus limited in its prohibition? Why is it not to be understood as guarding the life of every animal?

678. Has the divine law given us authority to kill animals in other cases, or for other and minor purposes?

679. Does the sixth precept forbid capital punishment, or the taking away of life for crime?

680. What is the moral influence of the penalty of death compared with other penalties?

681. What is it that renders murder eminently worthy of such a penalty?

682. How has God, in his providence, discouraged the crime of murder?

683. By whom must the punishment of death be inflicted, that it may be lawful, and not involve the crime of murder?

684. Does this precept forbid the taking away of life in self-defense? 685. How far are wars, in the course of which there must be the loss of many lives, consistent with this precept?

686. How may it be shown that defensive war cannot entirely be dispensed with?

687. What are the prominent causes of aggressive and unjust wars? 688. Since wars are eminently destructive of human life, without just reason, and proceed from causes like those mentioned, what duty have we to perform in relation to this matter?

689. What consequences of war may be mentioned to show the reasonableness and value of the sixth precept, "Thou shalt not kill?" 690. Illustrate the subject by the story of the Nithsdale boys? 691. Does the sixth precept forbid suicide, or self-murder?