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DELIVERED BEFORE THE

MASSACHUSETTS TEMPERANCE SOCIETY,

MAY 29, 1336.

BY WALTER CHANNING, M.D.

WITH THE

ANNUAL REPORT

OF THE

COUNCIL OF THE SOCIETY,

FOR THE SAME YEAR.

Third Edition.

BOSTON:

PRINTED BY JOHN FORD,

AGENT OF THE MASSACHUSETTS TEMPERANCE SOCIETY,
Corner of State Street and Wilson's Lane.

673

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

FROM THE HEIRS OF
GEORGE C. DEMPSEY

ADDRESS.

WE E are assembled to commemorate the anniversary of the Massachusetts Temperance Society. Permit me to ask your attention to a brief sketch of the origin and progress of this Society, what led to its formation,-what were its objects,who were its founders,-to the means it has employed, and what it has done. In following out this plan, a brief history will be given of the temperance reform. I shall begin with the records of the society, and use them as occasion may require, in pursuing the subject of our present inquiry.

"The alarming state of the country in regard to the use of spirituous liquors having interested the attention of many respectable gentlemen in different parts of the Commonwealth, a meeting was held in the hall of the Union Bank, in Boston, to deliberate on the best means of checking the evil, on the fourth of February, 1813, at four o'clock, P. M. The meeting was opened with prayer, and a constitution read and discussed, amended and adopted."

These were the circumstances under which the Massachusetts Society for the Suppression of Intemperance, afterwards named the Massachusetts Temperance Society, was formed.

The second article in the constitution is as follows:

"The object of the Society shall be to discountenance and suppress the too free use of ardent spirits, and kindred vices." Such were the objects of the society, and of those who were associated for their accomplishment. It is proper now and then, and always most grateful on such occasions as this, to look back

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