No; these are trifles, compared with the merits which wise men concede to
me,--if not in my single self, yet as the representative of a class--of
being the grand reformer of the age. From my spout, and such spouts as
mine, must flow the stream that shall cleanse our earth of the vast
portion of its crime and anguish, which has gushed from the fiery
fountains of the still. In this mighty enterprise, the cow shall be my
great confederate. Milk and water! The TOWN Pump and the Cow! Such is
the glorious copartnership, that shall tear down the distilleries and
brewhouses, uproot the vineyards, shatter the cider-presses, ruin the tea
and coffee trade, and finally monopolize the whole business of quenching
thirst. Blessed consummation! Then Poverty shall pass away from the
land, finding no hovel so wretched, where her squalid form may shelter
itself. Then Disease, for lack of other victims, shall gnaw its own
heart, and die. Then Sin, if she do not die, shall lose half her
strength. Until now, the frenzy of hereditary fever has raged in the
human blood, transmitted from sire to son, and rekindled in every
generation, by fresh draughts of liquid flame. When that inward fire
shall be extinguished, the heat of passion cannot but grow cool, and war
--the drunkenness of nations--perhaps will cease. At least, there will
be no war of households. The husband and wife, drinking deep of peaceful
joy,--a calm bliss of temperate affections,--shall pass hand in hand
through life, and lie down, not reluctantly, at its protracted close.
To them, the past will be no turmoil of mad dreams, nor the future an
eternity of such moments as follow the delirium of the drunkard. Their
dead faces shall express what their spirits were, and are to be, by a
lingering smile of memory and hope.

Ahem! Dry work, this speechifying; especially to an unpractised orator.
I never conceived, till now, what toil the temperance lecturers undergo
for my sake. Hereafter, they shall have the business to themselves. Do,