^. ^J% "^^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) i 1.0 i 1.1 11.25 m w at lU S lU g la 120 -^ -^ '^^V ^^^ U/§, Photographic .Sciences Cdrporatioii ^W ^^ V 23 WKT MAIN STMIT WIBSTIR.N.Y. 14SM (716)S72-4903 '^ A ashes^it woufd be hurled by an indignant.people with execration l™m irpia^ yet It may permit the change of the same food to a death-dE,; sr^raSr"'""™""""' """^""' -^ -'«> <« The table of imports into Ireland during a period of scatoitv w en the distilleries were closed, show that there wasa^^ inereased consumption of excisable articles ; so we see that^yei uf fcmme, wuk prohMicn. is better than a year of plenty JZ Moreover, nothing so prevents the progress of religion in the wo.ld, and frustrates God's gracious purposes for the SlvatTon of the race, as the traffic in strong drink, and its inevitable" quence, intemperance. For this reason also that traflie is esneoT ally obnoxious in His sight. It leads men to waste uponTefr lusts the material w»»Uh of whi-h *^— ,- i. "."*"" "•«" • 1 J ,. . ' ■• ^'"'■" "i^oj- are but His stewarrfa mstead ot promoting therewith the great policy for which fte Son of Ood becfinie incartiato. It is asserted by Dr. John Camp- bell tliat Protestant nnd pious Britain annually spends thirty txmtH as much for strong drink as she spends for the world's salviition. Durin- the last year the expe.iditure of the British and Foreign Bible Society was £217,31)0 19s. lOd., and the num- ber of copies of the Scriptures circulated was 2/) 19,427. Even at this gigantic scale of operations it would take' over three hundred years to supply every poor heathen in the world with a copy of the Word of God. In the same year there was spent in Great Britain alone £100.000,000 on intoxicating drinks This money, thus worse than wasted, would give a copy of God's Word m his own mother tongue, to every son and daughter of Adam' on the face of the earth in less than one year ! Even in the Mission field itself the evil effects of the traffic and Its dread concomitants make themselves felt ; raarrin" the efforts and frustrating the toils of the agents of the Churches'' In consequence of the prevalence of drinking habits among European residents in India, we are told on the authority of a returned Missionary that the word drunkard and Cnristian have become synonymous terms among the native castes. When the pagan Hindoo wishes to represent the Christian Englishman he begins to stagger in his gait to counterfeit inebriation. " The very ships," says Mr. Thos. Begg,* " that bore the Mis- sionaries and messengers of salvation to heathen lands were often freighted with intoxicating liquors, which, like some of the plagues, unviaUed in the apocalypse, were let loose to drown in their burning deluge every grain of Christianity before it could germinate in the heart of the half-enlightened heathen They fired his nature with lusts foreign to the brute, and which never raged m his appetites, nor infuriated his passions before his con- tact with the vices of civilization. The spirit of intemperance malignant ghost of the bottomless pit, slew its tens of thousands • and one sweeping fiery curse followed in the wake of Christian commerce." The liquor traffic, too, was the chief support of the slave trade that foulest crime, in thft hiafnrv nf nti-^of tj>:«.»:„ ^i-_, . .. ' - '^j — •"•-«L villain, j,iiac trailed hei meteor flag, dishonoured, through the dust. English merchanta ♦ "Report of World's Tempenmce Convention. "—Introd. viii. 10 and English sailors, beneath the redcross banner of freedom tf r.ufl'T "^"^"S ^^ slave-stealers and slave-traders and made that badge of liberty the livery of disgrace. And rum fiery rum, was the instrument of barter for the bodies and the 2 J T .? T'" ""^" ^^- ^'^^' " ^' - premium ot': minted gold m the slave-factories of the African coast. It fired tiie fierce lusts of the natives with a craving which their own slow liquors could not kindle." Thank God, that blot, at least, is removed from the escuteheon sin J 7 T . f ' ""'"^"^ '' ''^ P^P^^'« ™*^ d«««e«ded. and smote this direful curse from British soil for ever. But stiU ite twin-cnme, the liquor traffic, continues to enslave the bodies 'and the souls of men in a bondage more galling than even African servitude. Oh that the people, in the ma^ of their mTg't would anse and banish it from the face of the earth forever t Hnf ?7 '"^ ««'^«terworks the evangeUstic agencies in opera- taon, at home as weU as abroad, a^ the vice of intemperance It hardens he heart, steels the conscience, and deadens the soul to eveiy religous feeling, and thus prevents tl>e due influence of gospel truth on the community. Not only does this evil beast Church of Christ; It also prowls around the fold, and snatches thousaiids yearly from its sheltering embrace. As "when the sons of God came together, Satan came also with them," so even among the ministrants at God's alter, ordained to the perpetual handling of holy things, this hideous vice appears, and the abomination of desolation is set up, even in the sacred places of the sanctuary. Universal testimony asserts that this is the most frequent cause of apostasy, both in the pulpit and the bew the foul stain upon the snowy robe of Christianity, the chiefest blight upon her bloom. This vice seizes the children of our Sunday- schools, effaces the holy lessons written on their hearts and changes them to a foul palimpsest, inscribed all over with the vile characters of sin. Many of them find their way to prison and figure in the annals of crime. Of 1,060 boys in the Salford TTnf f °''^' 977 had attended Sunday-school Of 10.361 in- mates of the principal prisons and penitentiaries of Great Britain 11 no fewer than 6,572 had previously received instruction in Sabbath-schools. " Give WW the little children, " Cries Crime, with a wolfish grin, " Let 7n« train up the children In the pleasant paths of sin 1" Many are thus prevented from entering the Sunday-school at aU. In forbidding the little children, the tender lambs of Christ, who are especially included in the covenant of grace, and for whom such careful provision is made in the Christian economy— to come to Christ, the traffic especially e- tes the indignation of the blessed Saviour who rebuked His own disciples for the same oflfence, saying, " Suffer the children to come unto me, and forbid them not." Yet it is estimated from the statistics of intemper- ance, that an average of one boy in eight grows up to be a drunk- ard. Think of it, parents, as you look upon your household darlings— the olive branches around your board. On which of your boys shall fall this fearful doom; or, more dreadful stiU, which of your girls will you resign to this death-in-life, far worse than death itself? Would you not rather see them in their graves? The noble phalanx of home missionaries, Bible-women, tract distributors, and other labourers for the evangelization of the masses, all bear testimony, in very bitterness of spirit, that the liquor traffic is the greatest barrier to the success of their eflforts. A hundred years ago, when that traffic had not nearly attained the gigantic magnitude it now possesses, John Wesley said, "We verily believe that the single sin of intemperance is destroying more souls than all the ministers in Britain are instrumental in saving." More recently. Lord Brougham said, " Into whatever path the philanthropist may strike, the drink demon starts up before him and blocks his way." The ignorant and irreligious masses of the people continue to multiply beyond every e£Fort of the Church to provide evangelistic agency. Underneath the decorous surface of society a great weltering mass of infidelity, drunkenness, profligacy, and vice, continues to seethe and struggle; ever and anon breaking i! 12 through the thin crust of repression in those volcanic outburats of appalhng wickedness, which are the reproach of our modem civilization. The Helots of Christian England, through the tyranny of the liquor traffic, are held in a more abject bondage than that of ancient Sparta.-a bondage not only of the body but of soul, heart, brain, and everything that makes the man. to the toul dommion of an animal passion, of a brutal lust Under the very shadows of the churches, and surrounded by Christian institutions, hundreds of thousands live in practical heathemsm, utterly ignoring God and everything pure, and holy and divme ; or using His sacred name only to blaspheme and to invoke His maledictions on their souls. In the city of London alone,-the great heart of Christendom, from which go forth pulsing tides of holy effort which are felt to the ends of the earth,-ure over a million of souls who never enter the house of God, nay, for most of whom there is no church accommodation even if they desired it. In Glasgow, the great industrial < entre of pious, Presbyterian Scotland, one-half, and in Edinburgh one- third of the population, attend no place of worship. Nor are other towns much better; and even throughout the rural districts the plague of irreligion and indifference has spread, till millions live and die heathens in the midst of Christendom In the words of Dr. Guthrie, that eloquent advocate of the outcast and the poor « They know no Sabbath, read no Bible, enter no place of worship, and care neither for God nor man; beUs might have been mute, and pulpits silent, and church doors shut for them So far as they cared or were concerned, the cross, with its blessed bleeding burden, might never b-^ve stood on Calvary" It has been truly said that many parts of heathen lands, to which missionaries have been sent, are a paradise compared with many places in the very heart of London. Such a scene is thus vividly described by Professor Kingsley that champion of the rights of England's poor: "Go. scented Belgravians, and see what London is. Look ! there is not a soul ' down that yard but is either beggar, drunkard, thief, or worse. Write anent that ! Say how ye saw the mouth of heU. and th& twa pillars thereof at the entry— the pawnbroker's shop o* one side, and the gin-palace at the other— twa monstrous deevils i '\ 18 eating up men and women and bairns, body and soul. Look at the jaws o' the monsters, how they open, and open and swallow in anither victim and anither. Write anent that ! . . . Are not they a mair damnable, man-devouring idol than any red-hot statue of Moloch, or wicker Magog, wherein the auld Britons burnt their prisoners ?"* Upon God's holy day, with the sacred sound of the Sabbath bells calling to the place of prayer, the vile orgies of drunkenness are celebrated, like a carnival of fiends ; and British bacchanals and moenads wanton in revels, more like those of Gomorrah, than scenes in a Christian land. With heaven-defying impiety, multitudes trample God's commands beneath their feet, profane His day and blaspheme His name. It would seem sometimes as if the seven deadly sins were let loose, the seven last plagues poured out, and pandemonium set up on earth. This British idolatry is more loathsome and degrading than that of Jugger- naut. If St. Paul walled the streets of London his soul would be moved with deeper indignation at these Christian vices than even at the superstitions of the Athenians. In the intelligent city of Manchester, every beer, wine, or spirit shop was visited by the Committee of the Manchester and Salford Temperance Society on the Sabbath-day. and the number of those who entered during legal hours accurately counted. For though food may not be sold on Sunday, this pernicious drink is vended under the sanction and protection of the law. The number of houses was 1,437 ; the number of visitors, men, 120,124 ; women, 71,609; children, 23,585 ; total, 215,318; about half of the entire population of Manchester, although many may have made several visits. We shall not pollute these pages with an account of the scenes that were witnessed in that Christian city on the Lord's Day. One district is described as a " perfect hell upon earth." One house, the "Swan Inn," was visited by 1,732 persons during the day. Many of the visitors were of very tender years. What fearful Sabbath desecration is tKus caused ! Besides this, it is said that there are 40,000 malsters in Great Britain employed all day iorg every Sunday in the •••Alton Locke." 14 manufacture of the liquor, to say nothing of those who are engaged in its sale. The clerical testimony as to the effects of the traffic on the work of the Churches reported by the Committee of the Lower House of Convocation of the Province of Canterbury confirms the truth of th-e statements above made. The foUowing are specimens of their evidence : — " No drunkard attends the ordinances of religion." "Sabbath-breaking, sw. iring and drunkenness are vices that go together." " Many dare not face the pulpit." "Those who drink most woroliip least." " Produces practical atheism." " Causes prodigious immorality." " The violent and painful deaths of drunkards are no warning One was roasted to death on a lime-kiln, and thf, same day his two sons consoled themselves by a drunken debauch." " Men elect to give up Christ rather than the ale-house " Archdeacon Garbitt says, "No organization, no zeal, no piety however devoted, no personal labours however apostolic wiU avad to effect any soUd amelioration in the presence of the traflfic. Rev. Canon Stowell, M.A., says, "That dark and damnable traffic has turned the day of God almost into a day of Satan and has made it questionable whether, for the mass of the people, It would not be better to have no Sunday at aU " The debauch begins on Saturday night, and frequently lasts aU through the Sabbath and far into the week. It is said that 30,000 people go to bed drunk in Glasgow every Saturday night The ale-house IS their church, drinking their worship and liquor r . u-J """'^ *'''"' ^^' '""^ ^^ ^""^^° ^'i^dness into the gall of bitterness and hate ; and converts the love of wife and child into a demoniac frensy, impelling the human fiend to their destruction. This is the cause, of that brutal wife- beating, which on the continent is considered Ihe national characteristics of an Englishman, and not that he is in any- wise devoid of the natural affcctfons. Besides those flagrant crimes, of which intemperance is the 16 fruitful cause, every form of vice and evil is fostered, and stimulated, and often created by the liquor traffic. Especially is this true of that great sin and sorrow of large cities, which is known as pre-eminently the " social evil," — that hideous vice, which blasts the fairest bloom of beauty, which tramples beneath satyr feet upon the cruel streets those blighted flowdrs that might have flourished fair in dear home gardens but for the lusts of sinful men ; " That blurs the blush and grace of modesty. Makes virtue hypocrite ; takes off the rose From the fair forehead of an innocent love And sets a blister there ; makes marriage vowb As false as dicers oaths." These sad waifs of humanity, — of whom there are ten thousand in the awful vortex of London alone, — blasted forever for the sins of the people, at once the victims and the Nemesis oi society, are invariably sustained in their death-in-life, and enabled to ply their loathely trade by the stimulation of liquor ; and among the devotees of the bowl are their guilty partners in debauchery chiefly found. The almost universal testimony of these unhappy daughters of sin and shame is, that they were betrayed to endless infamy when their passions were inflamed, their reason dethroned, and the upbraidings of conscience drowned, through the influence of strong drink. The most frequent known incentive to the heaven-defying crime of suicide is intemperance ; either as the cause of domestic misery, mental depression, or libertine life; or, as inflaming the mind and nerving the hand to the immediate commission of the fatal deed. We have also seen that it otherwise destroys the lives of 60,000 persons every year, one hundred and sixty every day, or seven every hour. In view of these appalling facts every lover of his race must share the feeling expressed by the prophet : " that mine head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people !" This national vice produces also national degeneracy and degradation, debauches the public conscience, is the facile instru- ment of bribery and political corruption, and leads British 16 electors to betray their country into the hands of demagogues and social pirates, and to barter their birthright as freemen for a vile mess of pottage. Instances are known where as much as £20,000 have been expended at a single election in thus corrupting the morals of the people, sapping the foundations of the Constitution and destroying the palladium of the public liberty. Every criminal or economical statistician bears witness that the amount of crime and pauperism is in a direct ratio to the extent of the liquor trade. By some of the highest authorities the proportion of these evils directly attributable to intemperance is placed as high as nine-tenths, or even as ninety-nine hundreths. Irrefutable evidence of the truth of this stupendous assertion will hereafter be adduced. It will not be denied that intemperance is the mother of ignorance, that fruitful cause of social debasement and crime. Horace Mann asserts, " Intemperance is a upas tree planted in the field of education, and before education can flourish this tree must be cut down." This is also strikingly confirmed by the statistics of Ragged Schools, as given by Dr. Guthrie. Fully ninety-nine hundreths of the scholars in those schools, he assarts, are the children of drunkards. With pathetic eloquence he exclaims : " With respect to them I may put into the mouth of our country the complaint, 'My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.' Ignorance is their sole, sad inheritance. They are punished for it, impoverished for it, imprisoned for it, banished for it, hanged for it. The 'voice heard in Eamah, lamentation and bitter weeping ' falls on our ears. Rachel is weeping for her children. Herod is dead, yet the innocents are slaughtered. Subjects in the time past only thought of punishment, I call on. Justice to sheathe the sword, and lift up her shield, and throw it over uhe heads of these unhappy children. And next, I call on Religion to leave her temples, and, like a mother seeking a lost child, to go forth to the streets, and gather in those infants for Jesus' arms— save those gems for a Saviour's crown." Wc have thus endeavoured to show the sinfulness and im- morality of the conversion of the people's food into a liquid aagogues Qen for a IS much in thus ndations le public less that io to the ithorities nperance undreths. assertion other of id crime. lanted in this tree f Kagged lundreths children : "With antry the lowledge.' ished for t, hanged iid bitter children, ibjects in Fustice to 7 it over [ call on seeking a 36 infants and im- a liquid 17 poison, which naturaUy destroys not only their bodies but their souls. In view of the accumulated wickedness and misery caused by that traffic, small wonder that the indignation of that Christian phUanthropist just quoted finds expression in this solemn indictment: "Before God and man, before the Church and the world, I impeach Intemperance. I charge it with the murder of innumerable souls. I chaT^e it as the cause of almost aU the poverty, and crime, and misery, and ignorance, and irreligion, that disgrace and afflict the land. I do in my con- science believe that these intoxicating stimulants have sunk into perdition more men and women than found a grave in that deluge, which swept over the highest hill-tops, engulfing a world of which but eight were saved." Of other vices, as compared with this, it might be said, " They have slain their thousands, but Intemperance its tens of thousands." The whole system is accursed. It scorches, scars, and brands all who come nigh it, or havt aught to do with it. There is con- tamination and pollution in its very contact. The drunkard himself is guilty of moral suicide. " This vice," said St. Augus- tine, fourteen hundred years ago, " is a flattering devil, a sweet poison, a pleasant sin, which, whosoever doth commit, committeth not a single sin, but becomes the slave of all manner of sin." But the most solemn and awful responsibility rests upon the manufacturib and dealers connected with this vile traffic " I would rather," says John B. Gough, "be what I have been as a drunkard, than I would be the man to stand behind the counter and give him the drink that made him drunk." The purest moralists of every age agree in the denunciation of this traffic in blood. "I never see the sign 'licensed to seU spirits' "says McCheyne, " without thinking it f license to ruin souls Wretchea men, do you not know that every penny that rings on your counter shaU eat your flesh as if it were fire ; that every drop of liquid poison swallowed in your gas-Ut palaces, wUl only serve to kindle up the flame of the fire that is not quenched." Lord Viscount Lonsdale, in the debate on the Gin BiU, in 1743, said : " I must look upon every man who takes out a license as a sort of devil set up to tempt men to get drunk." The Eev, Albert Barnes writes: "The great principles of the 18 Bible, the spirit of the Bible and a thousand texts of the Bible, are pointed against it ; and every step the trafiicer takes he in- fringes on the spirit and bearing of some declaration of God." We have over and over again seen the stern vehemence with which John Wesley denounces this godless traffic. Even the publicans themselves have not the approval of their conscience in the wretched trade. " There is no hope for me," said one in a dying hour, " for I have been making a living at the mouth of hell." Another who had spent years in the traffic remarked, " It is the most damnable business in which a man ever engaged." Another, who had abandoned the traffic, was asked why he gave up such a lucrative business, and replied as follows : — " In looking over my account book one day I counted up the names of forty-four men who had been regular customers of mine, most of them for years. Thirty-two of these men, to my certain knowledge, had gone down to a drunkard's grave, and ten of the remaining twelve were then living, confirmed sots ! I was appalled and horrified. To remain in such a dreadful, degrading, and murderous trade, I could not ; hence I abandoned it." It is not merely the retail dealer, or low tavern-keeper on whom the responsibility of the traffic, and the curse that ever accom- panies it, shall rest. The great manufacturers, the wholesale dealers, the respectable wine and spirit merchants, Me men of vast wealth, gotten by wrong, the great landlords and owners of vast estates, the membei*s of parliament and great capitalists who are regarded as the bulwarks of the country, these are equally guilty with the vulgar publican, who is their mere factor for the performance of the ignoble work, of which they are ashamed. Nay, as the prime agents and chief supporters of the ungodly traffic are they not much vwre guilty than he ? " It is the capital of the rich," wrote Rev. W. E. Channing, "which surrounds men with temptation to self-murder. The retailer takes shelter under the wholesale dealer, from whom he purchases the pernicious draught, and has he not a right to do so ? Can we expect him to be sensitive, when he treads in the steps of men of reputation V* No morbid sympathy with the agents of the traffic should ( ii V t] e^ tl fc hi Wi 19 ■ prevent our arriving at just conclusions as to its enomutv W„ od^ur ^'fh! w "*"" ^"""''S '•''•""'^ f««d with the om:ttfr.errii%r^hoi r-""" '"™"- hV ffrirfe^' '"""'' f.""^' «'«y'»"e'non the CdTd ortiZis tit; It t't the. n '""■"*.' "^'^ '^^ ^^"'- hrmr, f>,o ,7^/^®^*- -^et them get some honest caUing : nor thXma; k1 "! r' '""f-^ "' *•"'' ™'8hbo„r-s door Z fW r '^ """^- ^' '*«°' l»tl>ink them of the fact ttat they are every year sending down sixty thous»d hTpl^ victims-fathers, husbands, brothers, wiveZ-to a X« grave and to a drunkard's hea anmltards A hundred yeai's ago, that stem iconoclast of wrong John I^IM ^' 1 '"' "'"''"y '"""^ ^ " The men whf 'ta^c fa?e Li W r "r'"'"^ "' ^"^ ^^'^'y'' ^'"■J""'' by whole- s^e neither does the.r eye pity or spare. And what is their ^m Is It not the blood of these men ? Who would enw ~ a fi^m ^°^ ^ "" *^*'' ^^'^' '^0^ ^0^. their ^v.8, a fire that bums to the nethermost heU. Blood blood aouart.t.^ T' *^"" ''"P^' "^ »f Wood, though hou art clothed m scarlet, and fine linen, and farest sumptuouX evey day, canst thou hope to deliver down the field olh^Z h».des^yed,hoth ^.;:t^::i,t5rmiorirsts"'p:^h v\ so of L"a "^ ^'^'°'' ^ ^^^*^ *^" ^''^^^"^y «^ ^« ^^' the license nghttoiasueorto receive such a Ucenee as that. "Licensed t« scatter fin^brands, arrows, and death ; •• Licens^'.> t. t^m n's souls on fire with fire of hell ; " Licensed to nuke the strong man we»k, Licensed to Uy the brave map low • Licensed, the wife's fond heart to br^ And make the orphan's tears to flow. " Licensed to do thy neighbonr harm, Licensed to kindle hate and strife ; Licensed to nerve the robber's arm, Licensed to whet the murderer's knife. " Licensed, where peace and qniet dwell,' To bring disease, and want, and woe j Licensed to make this world a heU, And lit man for a hell below." W what avail wUI be such a "license" as that when! the Eight»on» Judge shaU make inquisition for blood J '"""l'"" h » TORONTO : GUARDIAN Omo« PRINX.