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this potent enemy, that it makes its approaches unsuspected and by slow degrees. We have known many drunkards. We have witnessed scenes of wretchedness that haunt our memory in shapes of terror still. We have seen a youth brought down by it from a place of honor and hopefulness, laid upon his bed uttering hideous groans, twisting himself, in mingled bodily and mental agony, like a live eel upon a hook. We have seen an old man, who knew that drink was making his life-springs fail fast away, yet, in spite of threats and persuasion, going drunk to bed every night. We have heard that man, when sober, say, "If there is one place of hell worse than another, it must be mine, for I know the right, and do the wrong;" and yet he drank himself to death. We have seen a female, with a gentle air and a tender frame, stand and tell that she had a batch of demons within her, uttering loud voices, and declaring that they had her surely bound over to hell. Reason had fled. Drink had brought madness on. And yet, whenever the delirium abated, she returned to the drink again. What need of cases? We have seen drunkenness in most of its stages, and forms, and effects; but we never yet met a drunkard who either became a drunkard all at once, or who designed to become one. In every case, without exception, the dreadful demon vice has crept over the faculties by slow degrees, and at last surprised the victim. The sinners with whom he kept company did not entice him to become a sot in a single night. They only invited him to go into cheerful company. They suggested that religion, when rightly understood, did not forbid a merry evening. He went, and the even. ing was merry. Strong drink contributed to its merriment. He was sober. He had no intention of becoming a drunkard, either then or on any subsequent occasion. A drunkard, however, he now is. He is in the pit, and who shall pull him out! May God have mercy on the lost immortal, for he is beyond all help of man!

Let young men, as they value their souls, beware of these Satan-invented customs prevalent in society, which multiply the occasions of tasting strong drink. These habits of sipping so frequently, on every occasion of joy or sorrow, of idle ease or excessive toil, in freezing cold or in scorching heat-these habits of a little now and a little then, seem to have been invented with fiendish ingenuity, to beget at last, in the greatest possible number, that fiery thirst which, when once awakened, will mercilessly drag its subject down through a dishonored life to an early grave.

Leaning on the bank of the majestic river a few miles above Niagara, a little boat was floating on a summer day. A mother plied her industry in a neighboring field. Her daughter, too young yet for useful labor, strolled from her side to the water's edge. The child leaped into the boat. It moved with her weight. The sensation was pleasant. Softly the boat glided down on the smooth bosom of the waters. More and more pleasant were the sensations of the child. The trees on the shore were moving past in rows. The sunbeams glittered on the water, scarcely broken by the ripple of the stream. Softly and silently, but with ever-growing speed, the tiny vessel shot down the river with its glad unconscious freight. The mother raised her bended back and looked. She saw her child carried quickly by the current toward the cataract. She screamed, and ran. She plunged into the water. She ventured far, but failed. The boat is caught in the foaming rapids-it is carried over the precipice! The mother's treasure is crushed to atoms, and mingles with the spray that curls above Niagara. This is not a fiction; it is a fact reported in the newspapers of the day. But, though itself a substantive event, it serves also as a mirror to see

the shadow of others in. The image that you see glancing in that glass is real. It is not single. It may be seen, thousand upon thousand, stretching away in reduplicating rows. Pleasant to the unconscious youth are the merry cup and the merry company. Lightly and happily he glides along. After a little the motion becomes uneasy. It is jolting, jumbling, sickly. He would fain escape now. Vain effort! He is rocked awhile in the rapids, and then sucked into the abyss.

If many thousands of our population were annually lost in Niagara, the people, young and old, would conceive and manifest an instinctive horror of the smooth deceitful stream above it, which drew so many to their doom. Why, oh, why do the young madly intrust themselves to a more deceitful current, that is drawing a greater number to a more fearful death ?

Alcoholic Medication.

ALCOHOL IN FEVER (Continued.)

I HAD intended to embody in this number the lengthened paper on the use of alcohol in fever by Dr. Gairdner, Professor of Medicine in the Glasgow University, which appeared in the Lancet of 12th March, 1864. Space will not allow of this in the present issue, and as I wish the readers of the Journal to have the benefit of perusing the valuable document in toto, I shall reserve it for a future ocassion, rather than give mere extracts from it at present. I would, however, ask special attention to the following important remarks on Dr. Gairdner's contribution by the Lancet itself:-" A very important clinical paper, by Dr. Gairdner, of Glasgow, appeared in the Lancet of the 12th inst. It treats of a question in practical medicine, which to all thoughtful minds in the profession, must seem one of the most urgent medical questions of the daynamely the use of alcoholic stimulants in disease.

Dr. Gairdner is, by general consent, regarded as one of the most promising of the present generation of physicians in Scotland. He speaks from experience of vitality and disease in large cities, and on a large scale. Formerly connected with the Edinburgh Infirmary, and latterly with the Glasgow Infirmary, he is entitled to speak authoritatively. But there is another feature of Dr. Gairdner's writings which must always command respect, and that is, his great moderation and care, both of statement and inference; the anxious way in which he qualifies conclusions which seem favorable to his own views, or against the views and practices of others. There has been an unseemly extremeness in the doctrines of leading members of the profession of late years, represented by a lingering faith in bleeding on the one hand, and a newly-acquired belief in brandy on the other. Upon such gentlemen as Dr. Gairdner will devolve the duty of mediating between the extreme views of the past and the, perhaps, equally extreme views of the present. We are convinced that the truth lies in neither extreme, but somewhere in the middle, and the sooner it is discovered and applied the better for the credit of medical practice. The paper treats of the use of alcohol in typhus fever, the disease in which, of all others, it has been considered most important.

Three different degrees of stimulation may be considered as discussed by Dr. Gairdner. Firstly, that minimum degree of stimulation practised by himself, at least nine-tenths of the patients having no stimulants at all, the whole quantity consumed giving, as

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an average to each patient, during 20 days, the average period of residence, two ounces and a quarter of wine and two ounces of whisky. Under this treatment in 1861, and 1862, with a form of fever by no means unusually mild, the mortality was 10 per cent. It is important to notice that in all Dr. Gairdner's fatal cases a very considerable quantity of stimulants was given. Secondly, that degree of stimulation practised in the Glasgow Fever Hospital, which would give an average allowance to each patient with typhus of forty ounces of wine and seven ounces of spirit, and under which 17 per cent. of the patients died. Thirdly, the extreme stimulation practised by Dr. Todd. Particulars are not given by Dr. Gairdner, but it is matter of notoriety, that the cost for wine and spirits in the London hospitals reaches, or did reach its maximum in King's College Hospital, and that Dr. Todd, in particular, thought nothing of prescribing half an ounce, or even an ounce of brandy per hour in cases of fever. The mortality of Dr. Todd's cases of typhus, according to Dr. Murchison, is 25 per cent.

Dr.

Excluding adult patients, there is a frightful difference in favor of the non-alcoholic treatment. Amongst the young cases treated by Dr. Gairdner, the rate of mortality of 189 unselected cases was 'inappreciably small, but say one per cent.' The rate in the Glasgow Fever Hospital generally was about three per cent. In King's College Hospital under Dr. Todd, it was about 17-0 per cent. Gairdner thinks very strongly of the injuriousness of stimulants administered to fever patients of immature age; indeed, except in one such case, in which cancrum oris occurred, they were practically withheld. He calculates that if Dr. Todd's system had been prac tised in the treatment of 189 young cases instead of one death there would have been from 30 to 35!

We have long had a most disagreeable fear that the lavish prescription of alcoholic stimulants, in London practice especially, would one day be discovered to be a great medical error, only less than the opposite system which preceded it. It has been pushed among all classes of patients-rich and poor, women and children; in acute cases, in hospitals and private practice, money has been doubtfully squan. dered over bottles of wine that would have sent the patient once convalescent to the sea side, or that would have paid twice over many an unpaid bill. More serious still is the moral effect which this fashion of the faculty is calculated to have on the public. Still, considerations of mere cost or morals in a life-and-death question are essentially secondary. If there are any physiological or therapeutical facts which can be regarded as amounting to a proof that alcoholic stimulants in large quantities have a saving or curative effect in fever, not to be got in any other way, they must be administered at all hazards and at all cost. This, however, is just the rub. Dr. Gairdner seems to suspect that alcohol tends to poison the blood,' and there is certainly much both in recent physiology and pathology to make us doubt whether, the blood being already poisoned, as it is in fever, alcohol is likely to contribute anything to its purification.

We do not wish to go into details here, or to dogmatise, or too hastily condemn a practice which, intelligibly enough, has found so much favor; but if the propriety of it is doubtful, there is nothing so proper as the criticism of it in these columns. The origin of the practice must be mainly attributed to Dr. Todd; but the responsibility of continuing it must rest with the profession in London, which, it is understood, has adopted Dr. Todd's views. We do not go so far as to say that a case has been already made out for abandoning entirely the administration

of large quantities of stimulants in fever, but a most grave doubt is thrown upon the wisdom of the practice by Dr. Gairdner's statistics. We shall look most anxiously to the advocates of high stimulation for an explanation of the fact, that fever in Glasgow, under a very moderate allowance of wine and stimulants, kills only 10 per cent., while in London, under high stimulation, it kills 25 per cent. It will not avail to speak of the low physical condition of the people of London, for any difference in this respect between Glasgow and London must be in favor of the latter. It will not avail to speak of the typhoid type of disease, for it is in typhus itself that Dr. Gairdner has found the advantage of a moderate, or, to speak more accurately, an exceptional administration of stimulants; for, we repeat, it is only in exceptional cases that Dr. Gairdner gives stimulants at all. Indeed, a fanatical critic might find a striking correspondence between the percentage of deaths and the percentage of cases in which stimulants were administered; and a closer inspection of Dr. Gairdner's paper shows a more striking coincidence still, inasmnch as the 10 per cent. of his cases which got a good allowance of stimulants were the identical 10 per cent. which died We do not construct the syllogism at which we hint out of these tempting materials. We can easily understand it would be perfectly false, but we very seriously commend the whole subject to the attention of the profession, especially in London."

Well, there is no fanaticism but sober truth in say. ing that Dr. Gairdner is evolving if not retailing the stubborn facts regarding the use of alcohol in fever, and by consequence in most other diseases, which teetotalers have been zealously inculcating for nearly half-a-century. I have supplied proof of this in abundance in former papers. Seeing the importance of the doctrine, why was it not listened to long ere this? O, because the teachers were teetotalers and therefore prejudiced. They were teetotalers to be sure, but were they less worthy of attention because honest, conscientious, and courageous enough to practice what they had discovered to be right in the face of all kinds of opposition? And, besides, how superficial must the thinker be who does not see that the " prejudice" objection is a two-edged one, that cuts to the very heart of the drinker's position, while it barely penetrates the skin of the abstainer's? What a multitude of circumstances conspire to prejudice the moderate-drinking physician in favor of alcoholic medication? Many medical men have not the ability, and very few have the inclination to make a thorough and independent investigation of such a subject, and not a few, there is much reason to fear, want either the manhood or the conscience to break off from the stereotyped routine, which through education, custom, appetite, or self-interest they have been led to adopt, even though they have just cause to believe that routine to be erroneous. It is a fact, which I think well worthy of being noted, but from which I desire to draw no unjust or uncharitable inference, that total abstinence views and practices are in direct antagonism to the professional vested interests of the faculty, and they know it. The late eminent Dr. Cheyne stated the simple truth when he said "If an end were put to the drinking of port, punch, and porter, there would be an end to my worldly prosperity. Physicians, Surgeons, and Apothecaries would be ruined. The medical balls would be stripped of their splendor, and disease become comparatively rare, simple, and manageable.” Dr. Abernethy said-"If people will leave off drink. ing alcohol, live plainly, and take very little medicine, they will find that many disorders will be relieved by this treatment alone." A popular practitioner in

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THE SACRAMENTAL WINE QUESTION.

Belfast said to myself some months ago, "The truth is, if you teetotalers should succeed, we doctors might shut shop." It is perfectly certain, that if instead of perpetuating in the community the miserable and fatal delusion that alcoholic stimulation is the proper remedy for exhaustion, the faculty would teach and practice the exact truth upon this subject, its members would do more for the cure and prevention of disease in one year than they can do by the present system for the next century. While the above extract from our first medical journal, which has so often treated temperance truth with worse than contempt, ought to startle from their superstitious reverie that numerous class who receive, without question, all the doctor says on such a subject, it at the same time furnishes cheering evidence of the "good time coming." But why should it not come more speedily? We do not object to careful examination, on the contrary we wish it, but we earnestly demand that it,should be made quickly. Is there no cause for haste ? If Dr. Gairdner's investigations and statements be not a tissue of blunders and falsehoods, they demonstrate what the temperance society has so long been teaching, that alcoholic medication, apart from all other evil consequences, is destroying thousands of human lives every year; and if this consideration is not sufficient to draw the attention of the doctors and their victims to the subject, what would ?

Next month I intend to ask the attention of the readers of the Journal to the erroneous teaching of the theological faculty instead of that of the medical, regarding the use of intoxicants. This has been called for by the appearance, in last month's Evangelical Witness, of a paper containing much false teaching, entitled "Wine in the Bible," by the Rev. Dr. Murphy, of Belfast. The document being from the pen of a learned, honest, and good man, is all the more dangerous, and consequently demands the more earnest attention. JOHN PYPER.

The Sacramental Wine Question.

By the Rev. Professor MOSES STUART, D.D. Mark xiv. 23-25: "And he took the cup, and, when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many. Verily, I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God,"

Is there not a sanction here of drinking ordinary wine ? Far from it. It is beyond all reasonable doubt, that orthodox Judaism has ever and always rejected alcoholic or fermented wine at sacred feasts. Even now, as you have shown, and as I have abundantly satisfied myself by investigation, the passover is celebrated with wine newly made from raisins, where unfermented wine cannot be had. This would seem to explain the difficult passages in Matt. xxvi. 29, "I will not drink of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father's kingdom." What "new" here means, you may look for in vain among expositors. Good old Schleusner says, it means "excellent." So I would say too, but not as he does, by giving the appellation "new" merely a figurative sense. "New" alludes to the wine then employed on that occasion. The meaning seems plainly to be this: "I shall no more celebrate with you a holy communion service on earth; in heaven we shall meet again round our Father's table, and there we will keep a feast with wine appropriate to the occasion, that is, new wine," Of course, we are to understand the language in a spiritual, and not in a literal sense. But the imagery is borrowed from the wine then before them. Scarcely a greater mistake in reasoning can be made, than to rest the

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use of alcoholic wine at the sacramental table, on the example of our Saviour and his disciples. The Passover, which excluded everything fermented, did, in the view of the Hebrews, of course exclude fermented wine. "But (say some) Paul's account of the Lord's Supper at Corinth (1 Cor. xi. 18-34), clearly shows that intoxicating wine was employedone is hungry, and another is drunken!" Truly it does, if our translators have hit the mark. But, allowing for a moment that they have, does Paul approve of the Corinthian practice? He says expressly that he condemns it. We might rest the case here, then, without further animadversion. But

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am not persuaded that our translation does justice here to the Corinthian church. Very strangepassing strange-it would be, if a church so gifted and so famous went to the sacramental table in order to celebrate the origies of Bacchus. The simple state of the case seems to be, that the Corinthians kept a love-feast on sacramental occasions. Thither some carried plenty of provision and drink, and ate and drank to the full; while the poor in the church could not do this, and were thus put to shame by the richer class. "One is hungry," that is, the poor man ; another methuei" drinks to the full," this is the richer man. That the word may mean gets drunk," I do not deny. That it must mean so, I do deny. Its etemology shows the real meaning. Methu means sweet wine, and most naturally, therefore unfermented wine. Methuo is a denominative verb, formed from it, and means to partake of methu and very naturally, in the second place, to partake freely of it. But, as to being drunken, that is another question. A free partaking of the sweet wine would make no man drunk. The indecorum complained of, lay in the feasting on the one hand, and the starvation, so to speak, on the other. Paul lays his hand upon the whole proceeding, and prohibits public love-feasts, as connected with the Lord's Supper. This now is one of those cases, in which a regard to the character of the parties concerned should exercise control over the interpretations of a word. In this case, such a control is altogether admissible; for it brings us back to the original and natural meaning of the verb methuei, that is, to drink, or drink freely, of methu. Why should we give to the word the worst sense of which it is capable? Wine, in the Bible, most surely never means such wines as we now commonly obtain and use. Some six to ten per cent. of alcohol is mixed with these in order to check the acetous fermentation, or, as the dealers commonly say, to make them keep well. There has been no other sort of wine in this country, or in England, until within a few years past. The possibility of safely importing any other was, not long since, generally disbelieved and denied. What the sacred writers would have said of brandied wines, is sufficiently clear from what they have said of fermented But what they would have said of the odious, horrible, poisonous mixtures so generally manufactured and sold for wine, is not recorded, nor does it need to be. Enough that they have established principles, which sweep over the whole ground. I should regard a dispute in any church, about the kind of wine to be employed as unfortunate, to say the least, and generally as costing more than it comes to. But this is no reason why the minds of Christians should not be enlightened in regard to the subject, and none why sober and judicious efforts should not be made to bring the churches back to the ancient practice. In particular may this now with propriety be said, since it is in the power of the ohurches to procure unfermented wine.-Letters to the Rev. Dr. Nott on the Bible Wine Question.

ones.

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CONCERNING THE OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

Concerning the Opinions of the Press.

BY THOMAS WALLACE RUSSELL, DUBLIN.

No. II.

IN the British Museum a curious but crumpled sheet may be seen. It is entitled The English Mercurie, and purports to be the first newspaper published in this country. A glowing account of the review at Tilbury-a detailed notice of the scattering of the Spanish Armada-with a few Gazette appointments, make up the sum total of its contents; it being essentially and literally a newsletter. The mustard seed has grown, however, to be a mighty tree, and in that suggestive sheet lies the germ of a great fact and institution of the present age. It were a curious and interesting study to trace its rise and progress, but more especially to trace how it became not only a medium for the dissemination of intelligence-but the recognised exponent of public opinion-to find out how men gradually ceased to think upon certain subjects, actually the while paying others to think for them; how the thoughts of one man sitting pale by the midnight lamp became the ideas, nay, the chartered principles of hundreds on the morrow; how, in short, men, aye and thinking men too, came under the tyranny of our editorial "We."

All this, and more too, is bound up with the history of the Press. The curious in this respect cannot be better employed than in the perusal of the History of the Invasion of the Crimea, by Kinglake. They will there find the mystery solved; they will discover who's who; and cannot fail to relish the singularly graphic description of that group of English Widows who owned the Times in its early and palmy days. They will find the influence of the Press fairly stated; they will discover how England, with a deeprooted love of peace, and guided by a peaceful ministry "drifted" into war, solely through the martial inspiration of public writers. A question all important at once meets us, and may be thus'stated:-Are the writers who shape the whisper of the people always sincere. Do they invariably write from conviction, or like intellectual gladiators, do they fight simply because fighting is popular; in plain Saxon, do they trim? do they follow public opinion? Let the sequel show. It has been the lot of Temperance Reformers to receive a tolerable share of abuse at the hands of clever essayists and smart reviewers. They have been called fools and fanatics without any reserve. Their object a good natured but ill-advised hobby, and their prospects, of course, utopian. The Times has thundered. The Saturday Review has snarled. The Morning Advertiser has contained its usual quantum of Gospel and Gin. The Daily News, the Morning Star, aye, and the Evening one too, have all had their say. They have "piped but men have not danced." The Temperance Movement still progresses. The United Kingdom Alliance seems in excellent health, and Mr. Lawson is yet alive! When some men see a leader hostile to the cause they give up in despair. They cannot see how the thing can be managed in the teeth of such able opposition. The clouds are lowering, the rain drops patter. A new hat would not be soiled by the shower, but imagining themselves drenched they retire, and in a quiet kind of way administer globules of sympathy where pounds (neither Troy nor Avoirdupois), of support are wanting. Let these men study the History of the Press.

In the year 1825 a Bill was introduced into the House of Commons, called "The Liverpool and Manchester Railway Bill." In fact some simple minded men, and among them was George Stephenson,

thought that steam was superior to animal locomotion, and they proposed to lay down a railway. The battle was fought-it continued two months-and the opponents triumphed for a season; but let us discern the statements of the newspapers and the reviews.

The

Mr. Smiles in his Lives of the Engineers, vol. 3. chap 10, p. 195, says "Newspapers were hired to revile the Railway. Its formation would prevent cows from grazing and hens from laying. poisoned air from the locomotives would kill birds as they flew over them, and render the preservation of foxes and pheasants no longer possible. Householders adjoining the line were told that their houses would be burnt up by the fire thrown from the enginechimneys, while the air around would be polluted by clouds of smoke. There would no longer be any use for horses; and if railways extended the species would become extinguished, and oats and hay be rendered unsaleable commodities. Travelling by rail would be highly dangerous, and country inns would be ruined. Boilers would burst and blow passengers to atoms." But there was always this consolation to wind up with, that the weight of the locomotive would completely prevent its moving, and that railways, even if made, could never be worked by steam-power.

Well, the rails are laid-and, moreover, extensively too. Horses are still in existence, and, if we may judge by appearances, have a surplus of work. Hay and oats are still valuable. The cow grazes peacefully on the meadow; and in Ireland we have a superfluity of eggs. Houses are not burned, nor do boilers burst as a rule, and, above all, the locomotive is not too heavy. The dreams were all delusive-and with the Permissive Bill the case is precisely similar. It, too, like the Railway Bill, will ruin country inns ; it will rob a man of his freedom, it will demolish the powers of the senate, subvert the constitution, introduce a dangerous precedent, but, like the locomotive, it never can work by any possibility.

The

It strikes me this last objection is fatal. captain who stated that he had thirteen reasons for not firing a salute in honor of the admiral-the first of which was, that he had no powder-was very properly prevented from proceeding farther. It was enough. So with this Bill; if like the locomotive it be too heavy; if it never can work; if it be so utopian, the publicans need not get in a frenzy, nor need the Press rage. The fact is, they have George Stephenson and his engine before their eyes. It had what the Times calls "go" in it. They fear to mount Mr. Lawson on this new locomotive; they refuse it a fair trial.

The Quarterly Review of April, 1825, remarked that it was "palpably ridiculous and absurd to suppose that locomotives ever could or would travel twice as fast as stage-coaches." Science crushed these writers, and so it ever must be. Sophistry and fiction cannot stand the ringing blows of the sledgehammer of truth.

But a still more recent case of perverse blindness, coupled with some less honorable appellation, is ready to hand. Two years since and the smartest writers of the day declared that the idea of reconstructing the United States was a delusion only entertained by a few old women and "aiblins" some anti-slavery preachers. Now, however, the tables are turned. "The night spent swimmer has been borne in on top of flood.""The hisses have given way to cheers.”. "the taunts to tribute," and not a few of these literary Titans foresaw it all. "The Southern canse was one of those things that never could go on; we said so from the firing of the first shot. Things have just turned out as we predicted; and then comes all about the heroic valor and the brute force." The English of all this is, Mr. Editor, you ought to be down on your marrow bones weeping for literary sins;

CONCERNING THE OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

you wrote up the South whilst Lee was victorious, when disaster overtook him you cried "Hit him hard, he's got no friends."

One honorable exception to this rule remains to be noticed. Nothing one half so honorable to Punch has appeared as the cartoon in which Britannia is represented as strewing a joint wreath with Columbia on the bier of Abraham Lincoln. The verses that accompany it, evidently from the same pen as supplied the odes to Lord Clyde and Richard Cobden, are superior to either. Yes, " scurrill jester," there is a place for you by that bier. The rail splitter had disarmed you-he had proved himself a king of men, and in your honest confession one dimly sees the light of other days-days when Jerrold was king, when Thackeray and Leech met at the weekly dinner.

With this exception-and of course those who do not give in yet-the vast majority have either assumed the result as the consummation of their predictions, or practised the eloquence of silence.

"The best laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft a'glee."

But it would be well if some writers would kindly take a hint from Paley, and, whilst being less dogmatic, remember that there are worse things in an argument than a margin; something to fall back upon in case of mishap-something in the way of a

reserve.

These two cases, and with them may be coupled nearly every struggle for a great boon-the struggle for Catholic and Negro emancipation-for a Reform Bill and for Free Trade, go conclusively to show, that the Press follow the popular cry-they represent the current opinion; when it changes they change. Little by little the process goes on, and, when the thing seems hopeful, the newspapers leap in and lead that which they take the credit of forming. The position of the Temperance Movement as it stands related to the Press is now an important one. It is no longer contemptible. A fly is not now broken on the wheel; but yet how lamentable the ignorance displayed by public writers on this question. For instance, in that latest candidate for popular favor entitled The Day of Rest, a writer, in an article full of nonsense as a November Guy Fawkes is full of fire-works, is stupid enough to give currency to the old exploded idea, that abstinence is injurious to mental and physical exertion. I do not stay to refute this. It is palpably absurd. The greatest thinker that ever lived, John Locke, was an abstainer. Christopher North, during the brightest years of his life-those years in which he made his name and fame on Blackwood-was a rigid abstainer. And coming to still more recent days we survey giants in intellect, who have lived and died practising our principles. Looking across the Atlantic, we discover the martyred President bearing such a load as never pressed down a man's shoulders before, and bearing it without recourse to stimulants. In our own country we find two names brushed from the bead roll of life on the same day, the one battling for free trade during a life time, the other doing noble service to the working man's home by the diffusion of cheap and genuine literature-both of them men of iron nerve and great powers-but neither Richard Cobden or John Cassell partook of aught intoxicating. The list might be prolonged. I might ask, who are the most faithful among our ministers? From city to city, from town to town, the test might be carried, and the abstaining clergy would hold more than their own. I might ask, who are the safest, the surest, and the best workmen? The same test would produce a like result. No. If the Day of Rest can find no better employment than retailing a bad rehash of old and absurd fancies, the sooner it finds a Resting

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Place in the Balaam-box of literature the better for itself and the country.

But a more serious error is made by a more important writer. In a leading article on the Alliance Easter Banquet, the Daily News says-in arguing against the suppression of the Liquor Traffic, by Permissive legislation-"Supposing a majority of ratepayers in any given district, held theatre-going to be injurious, would it be right to put down the theatre or leave its maintenance to the hazardous chance of a majority in its favour ?" This is admirably put. It is as soon swallowed; but it is precisely this system of deliberate and wilful blindness we protest against. The parallel is not fair-the logic

is not sound. If the theatre be an evil it is a private one, merely affecting the morals of the people. If you are not a theatre-goer you are not injured. Here lies the difference between it and the public-house. Were the public-houses of these lands only to affect those who entered them, were drunkenness only a private evil, then all moral means, and these only, should be brought to the rescue. Drunkenness is more than a private vice, however, it is a PUBLIC evil and a crying grievance. The man, the sober man, who would be ashamed to cross the publican's door, has to pay for the effects of these causes, and it is because of the public evil we demand the public remedy. A man may have a right to get drunk. That is a question for his own consideration, and that of the nearest policeman; but the moment his drunkenness becomes a public grievance, by producing effects for which the ratepayer is taxed, that moment a paternal goverment is bound to concede protection. Drunkenness then is more than a private vice. The Daily News knows it to be so, but it quibbles and raises a cloud of dust to blind.

Another fallacy is most complacently set adrift through the columns of the Pall Mall Gazette, "The Permissive Bill," this writer says, "would punish the innocent because of the evil deeds of the guilty; the minority would suffer at the hands of the majority." This is again very cleverly put, only the blade cuts either way. Supposing there is a district now as things stand. The majority of the ratepayers are in favor of the Permissive Bill. They do not want publichouses. Here a dozen of these drunkard makers may be planted under their very noses, at the whim or caprice of any magistrate. In this case the matter stands thus-the majority suffer and pay at the hands of the minority-in the other the minority would suffer (?) but they would not have to pay. majority suffering and paying-the minority suffering and not paying! Which of these blades cut the sharpest, Mr. Editor.

The

Then comes the Saturday Review with its weekly snarl. The clever writers in that sheet do not profess to follow after that which is lovely or of good report. Composed chiefly of semi-infidels, they take a pride in picking holes in and nibbling at everything with a good object in view. Save us, therefore, from the friendship of these men. and so long as the Temperance movement can elicit the hatred of the Saturday Review-the opposition of wicked men, and the love of God,-so long will we hold that it is right. The moment it ceases to occupy this indissoluble position, something "must be rotten in the state."

Lastly, the course pursued by the Times is worthy of all attention. Of late it has been led to make great admissions. Devoting a leader to the erection of the Mathew testimonial at Cork, it eulogised the Apostle of Temperance and denounced his work. This was too much for even a writer in the Times; it was nearly fatal to all logical writing. A storm was raised, and very shortly Samson appeared once more on the stage; this time, however, shorn of his

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