steps in between the sea and the winds and us. _Formerly_, indeed, the
case was different; and, here I am about to give you, incidentally, a
piece of _historical knowledge_, which you will not have acquired from
HUME, GOLDSMITH, or any other of the romancers called historians. Before
that unfortunate event, the _Protestant Reformation_, as it is called,
took place, the price of RED WINE, in England, was _fourpence a gallon_,
Winchester measure; and of WHITE WINE, _sixpence a gallon_. At the same
time the pay of a labouring man per day, as fixed by law, was
_fourpence_. Now, when a labouring man could earn _four quarts of good
wine in a day_, it was, doubtless, allowable, even in England, for
people in the middle rank of life to drink wine _rather commonly_; and,
therefore, in those happy days of England, these passages of Scripture
were applicable enough. But, _now_, when we have got a _Protestant_
government, which by the taxes which it makes people pay to it, causes
the _eighth part of a gallon_ of wine to cost more than the pay of a
labouring man for a day; _now_, this passage of Scripture is not
applicable to us. There is no '_season_' in which we can take wine
without ruining ourselves, however '_measurably_' we may take it; and I
beg you to regard, as perverters of Scripture and as seducers of youth,
all those who cite passages like that above cited, in justification of,
or as an apology for, the practice of wine-drinking in England.

30. I beseech you to look again and again at, and to remember every word
of, the passage which I have just quoted from the book of
ECCLESIASTICUS. How completely have been, and are, its words verified by
my experience and in my person! How little of eating and drinking is
sufficient for me! How wholesome is my sleep! How early do I rise; and
how '_well at ease_' am I 'with myself!' I should not have deserved such
blessings, if I had withheld from my neighbours a knowledge of the means
by which they were obtained; and, therefore, this knowledge I have been