I wonder if anyone can help me identify the following.  It was published
as:

New England Tract Society, tract number 68, "Reason's Plea for
Temperance." _ Tracts Published by the New England Tract Society _, vol. 3
(Andover: Flagg and Gould, 1815).

Many research libraries have NETS tracts in a 1982 Readex Microprint
edition.  But this edition only includes volumes 1 and 2, so I can't
determine the author of this tract from the online catalog entries
generated for this series.  I have been able to locate many of the other
tracts bound into this volume 3, as separate items, but I have not been
able to find this particular tract in a major American online
catalog (e.g., not in Hollis, Melvyl, or OhioLink).

So I ask, who is the author of this tract?  Anyone recognize the
author?  He was a "layman" of the eighteenth-century-not a clergyman.  At
the end, he councils "legislative action," and specifically curses the
drinking of "fermented liquors."  He also espouses a loathsome opinion of
"drunkards" and others whose "way of life" brings them to taverns.  And he
cants about delicacy.  The text seems to have been extracted from a longer
work.  All in all I would guess later eighteenth-century.

There a couple of memorable lines here.  Most are uncharitable.  For
example:

"A swine, wallowing in mire, is not so loathsome an object, as a
drunkard; for nature in her meanest dress is always nature; but a drunkard
is a monster, out of nature."

"The approbation of one of [the sober] is preferable to that of a thousand
drunkards."

And the truly hateful:

"To attempt to reform a confirmed drunkard is much the same, as preaching
to a madman or idiot."

Any ideas who wrote this, or where he wrote it?

Thanks,
Jon

========

No. 68.

Reason's plea for temperance.

By a layman of the last century.

As the sole design of the appetite of hunger is to oblige us mechanically,
by means of pain, to take that due care to support the body by proper
nourishment, which reason alone could not have done; it is obvious, that
the view, we ought to have an eating, is the support of life. That kind of
food, which is fittest for nourishing the body, is evidently the
best.  What is commonly called rich feeding, is in truth slow poison.  It
is therefore strange, that men have so little command of themselves, that,
for the present pleasure of tickling their appetites with a savory taste,
will venture to shorten their days.  Nothing is more evident, than that to
waste the bounties of Providence in so sordid a manner, as on the
materials of gluttony, is altogether unjustifiable.  Riches are a
stewardship, not to be squandered in pampering our vices, but to be
expended in such manner, as we shall be able to answer for to Him, who
entrusted us with them.--If we be really spirits, though at present
embodied; it seems plain, that feeding the body ought not to engross much
of our time.  If indeed we look on ourselves, as more body then spirit; we
ought to bestow our principal attention on the body.  But this is what few
will own in words; which makes their declaring it by their practice the
more absurd.--If it is certain, that in the future world of spirits, to
which we are hastening, there will be no occasion for this
appetite; nothing is more evident, than the absurdity of indulging it in
so licentious a manner, as to give it an absolute ascendant over us, and
so to work it into the very mind, that it will remain, when the body, for
whose sake it was given, has no farther occasion for it.  The design, our
maker had in placing us in this state of discipline, was to give us an
opportunity of cultivating in ourselves other habits, than those of
sensuality.

Of the many fatal contrivances, which our species, too fertile in
invention, have hit upon for corrupting themselves and perverting the end
of their creation; none would appear more unaccountable, if we were not
too well accustomed to see instances of it, than the savage vice of
drunkenness.  That it ever could become a practice for rational beings to
delight in overturning their reason; that men ever could voluntarily
choose, by swallowing a magical draught, to brutify themselves; nay, to
sink themselves below the brutes; must appear to other orders of being
wonderfully shocking.  No man can bear the least reflection upon his
understanding; whatever he may on his virtue.  Yet men will indulge a
practice, by which experience convinces them, they will effectually lose
their understanding, and become idiots.  Unthinking persons are wont to
look with great contempt on natural fools.  But in what light ought they
to view a fool of his own making? What can be conceived more unsuitable to
the dignity of human nature, than a drunkard, with his eyes staring, his
tongue stammering, his lips quivering, his legs tottering, and his stomach
heaving! Decency will not suffer me to proceed in so filthy a
description.  A swine, wallowing in mire, is not so loathsome an object,
as a drunkard; for nature in her meanest dress is always nature; but a
drunkard is a monster, out of nature.  The only rational being on earth,
reduced to absolute incapacity of reason or speech! A being, formed for
immortality, sunk into filth and sensuality! A creature, endued with
capacities for being a companion of angels, and for inhabiting the
ethereal regions, in a condition, not fit to come into a clean room among
his fellow creatures! The lord of this world, sunk below the vilest of the
brutes!

One would think all this bad enough; but much worse is to be said against
this most abominable and fatal vice.  For there is no other, that so
effectually and suddenly unhinges and overturns all virtues, and destroys
everything valuable in the mind, as drunkenness.  For it takes off every
restraint, and opens the mind to every temptation.  So that there is no
way so expeditious for a man to corrupt and debauch himself, to turn
himself from a man into a demon, as by intoxicating himself with strong
liquor.  Nor is there perhaps any other habit so bewitching, and which so
soon becomes unconquerable, as drunkenness.  The reason is plain.  No
other vice so effetually destroys reason; and, when the faculties of the
mind are overturned, what means can the unhappy person use, or what course
can another take with him, to set him right? To attempt to reform a
confirmed drunkard is much the same, as preaching to a madman or
idiot.  Reason, the helm of the mind, once destroyed, nothing remains,
wherewith to steer it.  It must then be left to run adrift.

The very apologies, made for this beastly vice, are deplorable.  One
excuses himself by is being obliged to keep company.  But it is notorious,
that nothing more effectually disqualifies a man for company, than to have
his tongue tied, and his brains stupefied with liquor. Another pretends
that he is drawn by his business, or way of life, to taverns and places of
entertainment.  But a man must never have seen a person drunk, to imagine
that strong liquor will help him in driving a bargain.  For one is never
so likely to be imposed on, as when he is in liquor.  Nor is the pretense
of drinking, to drive away care, or to cheer the spirits, more worthy of a
rational creature.

If, by the force of strong liquor, a man's cares may be mechanically
banished, and his conscience lulled asleep awhile; they will soon break
loose upon him with greater fury.  He, who artificially raises his spirits
by drinking, will find them sink in proportion.  Then they must be raised
again; and so on, till he has no spirits to raise.  For understanding, and
fortune, and virtue, and health, all fall before this fell destroyer.

Nor is the pretence of being odious or precise among neighbours, for
living temperately, any better, than the others.  Alas, we are not
hereafter to stand or fall by the opinion of our neighbours.  Beside, we
may be sure of the favorable opinion of the sober part of our
acquaintaince, by keeping on the right side; the approbation of one of
whom is preferable to that of a thousand drunkards.

Of all of the kinds of intemperance modern times have produced one of the
most fatal; which, like a plague, lays waste both town and country,
sweeping the lower part of the people, nor those only, by thousands to the
grave.  The unhappy invention, intended, and which by its mischievous
effects seems to claim satan himself for its author, is the drinking of
fermented spirituous liquors.  This is no place for setting forth the
destructive effects of this most shocking species of debauchery.  This, it
is hoped, will soon be the subject of legislative inquiry; and that the
accounts, tragical enough to melt a heart of rock, which will be laid
before that august body, will be the cause of producing an effectual
remedy for this ruinous national evil.