204 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



erage alcoholic liquors, not because I do not love them, but because I 

 always did love them, and therefore am, and ever have been, afraid of 

 them ; though I w-as never drunk in my life, and intend never to be. 



Beside, in this present age of the world, an age coiTupted and depraved 

 to its very bones by that free flow of distilled liquors that every\vhere 

 abounded when I was a boy; an age still interfused, interpenetrated, and 

 pen-erted by all the unnatural hereditary tastes of that unfortunate pre- 

 ceding age, I think the resolution offered by my friend on the left, 

 " that the introduction of pure native American wine to our people is 

 attended with danger," is true; great, imminent, and perilous danger; 

 while still I believe every word that I distinctly heard of the able essay of 

 my friend, Dr, Spalding, is also true, 



Mr. President: from Noah's day to our own, the human race has 

 been encompassed with dangers, great, appalling, and unavoidable dan- 

 gers, on this and on many other sides; and we can not avoid them if we 

 would, and ought not to if we could, except in that veiy way that God. 

 our Heavenly Father, has provided : by personally meeting them and per- 

 sonally resisting them. 



This is the necessary^ and inevitable, and I will also say the most ben- 

 eficial trial, or rather elaboration of our personal virtue ; and without 

 just such a school appointed by our Heavenly Father for our trial and our 

 good, all virtue would be a self-evident impossibility. 



By that voice of authority to which alone of all beings or asso- 

 ciations of beings that ever trod this earth of ours, I am, by the veiy con- 

 stitution of my mind accustomed to bow in devout deference, in spite of 

 all possible human opinions, laws, usages, customs, or resolutions, in 

 church or in state, we are taught to pray evermore, that we may not be 

 personally led into these temptations, and not that these temptations may 

 be annihilated by law or otherwise, so long as we are left personally free 

 to choose and to resist them. 



Freedom here, therefore, as everywhere else, is our grand, Amer- 

 ican remedy; free thought, free action, free choice, free discussion eveiy- 

 where. 



I am glad, therefore, that Dr. Spalding has expressed to us freely his 

 opinion. I am as glad, also, that those of a different opinion should give 

 us theirs. But I regret that either side should throw their opinions into 

 the form of a resolution requiring the vote and the decision of this 

 Society. It is unusual and unnecessaiy. This Society is not convened 

 to vote up or vote down questions of morals, or of religion, or of policy. 



Still, we do r?i\?A grapes^ and must decide what as good citizens we 

 may and what we may not do with them ; not by any vote of this So- 

 ciety, but by free discussion, and then allowing each man in the Society, 

 and all over this free land, in the light of this discussion, to decide for 

 himself. I am not responsible for what Dr. Spalding chooses to say in 

 this Society, nor is any other man ; neither is this Society — and I have no 

 doubt that Dr. Spalding is exceedingly thankful that he is not — responsi- 

 ble for all that I may say. But it is dangerous, it is said, to throw his 

 unendorsed opinion out to the world. 



