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 TALKS 
 
 ON 
 
 TEMPERANCE 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. CANON FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 Ifational Temperance Society and Publication Hous^, 
 
 58 READE STREET. 
 1880. 
 
 J2.
 
 HV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Between the Living and the Dead, 
 
 Reasons for Being an Abstainer, 
 
 PACK. 
 
 3 
 
 24 
 
 Total Abstinence for the Sake of Ourselves 
 
 AND Others, 39 
 
 The Vow of the Nazarite, 
 
 The Vow of the Rechabites, 
 
 The Serpent and the Tiger, 
 
 Our Duty as a Nation, 
 
 Abstinence from Evil, 
 
 Address to Teachers, 
 
 Experience of a Total Abstainer, 
 
 . 6s 
 
 . 89 
 
 "3 
 
 . 127 
 
 . 135 
 
 . 149 
 
 • 155
 
 BETWEEN THE LIVING AND THE DEAD. 
 
 By the Rev. Canon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. 
 
 Numbers xvi. 48 : "And he stood between the dead and the living." 
 
 On previous Sundays, my brethren, I have en- 
 deavored, at the request of the Society for the Pro- 
 motion of Christian Evidence, to set before you 
 " the universe as a manifestation of God's eternal 
 power and godhead," by showing 3^ou, first, that its 
 beauty was a seal of the handiwork of its Creator ; 
 and then, that neither in its illimitable vastness, nor 
 in the steady uniformity of the laws which govern 
 it, is there anything to shake, but rather very much 
 to strengthen our faith in God. Such truths may 
 be deeply practical, if we will make them so ; if we 
 will remember that this is the God whose eye is 
 ever upon us ; that " this God is our God forevei 
 and ever, and shall be our guide unto our death.' 
 And such truths have also a deep bearing on the 
 subject of which I am bidden to speak to-day. For 
 if there be one thing which would stand out clearly 
 from such a contemplation of the awfulness of God, 
 and yet the love which could send His own Son to 
 die for us, it is the guilt involved in a willful de- 
 pravation of His work, the dreadful consequences
 
 4 Between the Living and the Dead. 
 
 which must follow— which, as a fact, arc daily fol. 
 lowing — from the flagrant violation of His laws. 
 Willful sin, a willful sacrifice of duty to self-indul 
 j-encc ; a willful choice of the lower and baser, in- 
 stead of the higher and nobler, is disastrous in the 
 individual; and pitiable indeed is the shipwreck 
 which it causes to the hope and the happiness of 
 life. But, in the case of a nation, still more dis- 
 astrous is the loss, still more overwhelming the 
 shipwreck. Take the history of any nation under 
 the sun; watch its rise and watch its ruin, and see 
 whether, in every instance, its ruin has not been the 
 retribution of its guilt. You may not be able to 
 see exactly why it was, but you arc forced to sec 
 that so it was; and the secular historian will tell 
 you, as emphatically as the theologian, that to every 
 nation in its turn sin has meant — first, weakness, 
 then decay, lastly, destruction. What ruined Ju- 
 dah? In its first stage. Idolatry; in its second 
 stage, Pharisaism. What sapped the strength of 
 Greece? Sensuality. What broke the iron arm 
 of Rome ? Again, Sensuality joined with Slavery. 
 What ruined Spain? Avarice. What ruined 
 Venice? Pride. What ruined the Papacy ? Am 
 bition. If ever England be ruined, what will be 
 her ruin ? Her national sin, whatever that national 
 sin may be. And what is the national sin of En- 
 gland ? Alas! there are many sins in England, but 
 ask the unbiased opinion of those who know; ask 
 the unsuspected testimony of the English judges; 
 ask the exceptional experience of the English 
 clergy ; ask the unguarded admissions of the En- 
 glish press; and their unanimous answer would be.
 
 Between the Living and the Dead. 5 
 
 [ think, as would be the unanimous answer of every 
 thoughtful man in this vast assembly — the national 
 sin of England is drunkenness ; the national curse 
 of England is drink. 
 
 2, My brethren, it has been my duty more than 
 once of late to speak of intemperance, and I am 
 willing to bear the penalty. On this subject it is 
 an imperative duty that the pulpit should not be 
 always silent ; but if I am not afraid to speak the 
 truth, I do earnestly desire to speak truth only, and 
 to speak that truth in love. Far from the sanctity 
 of this place be vulgar exaggeration. This Abbey 
 is sacred to Truth, sacred to Faith, sacred to Char- 
 ity. Were I to say from this place one word that 
 was unwarrantable, it would seem to me as though 
 the immortal spirits of the great men whose memo- 
 rials stand thick around us were frowning on me 
 in disdain. But they would have still more cause 
 to frown if I glossed over the truth with lies. To 
 exaggerate is one thing ; to be charged with ex- 
 aggeration is quite another. There are, alas ! as- 
 pects of this matter which it is impossible to exag- 
 gerate, and, though I shall touch only on facts 
 admitted and undeniable, the worst facts are far 
 too bad to be here spoken of at all. And if there 
 be any here who are concerned in the maintenance 
 of a trade from which flow such dangerous conse- 
 quences, while I ask them to think over their 
 responsibility, and of that strict and solemn ac- 
 count which they must one day give before the 
 judgment-seat of Christ, they may rest assured 
 that I speak of a system, not of individuals, and 
 that, as I never have, so neither now will I, say one
 
 6 Between the Living and the Dead. 
 
 word which is meant to reflect painfully on thcra 
 But, knowing- drunkenness to be a ruinous vice, and 
 seeing that the results which flow from it are of the 
 darkest and most appalling character, I therefore 
 desire to arrest— more and more to arrest— so far 
 as I can, the attention of the people of England to 
 this crying and wide-wasting evil. To the intem- 
 perate I am not speaking, though from my very 
 soul I pity them ; nor to abstainers, to whom I can 
 say nothing new ; but I do want every English 
 man and woman in this Abbey, and every English- 
 sjicaking man and woman whom, in any form, or by 
 any means, these words can reach, to face the stern 
 facts which I shall touch upon ; to ask themselves 
 how far they mean to be entang-led in responsibility 
 for them ; and how long they will, and why they 
 will, look on at such facts unmoved. How weak, 
 alas! are poor human words; how timid poor hu- 
 man hearts ! But, oh ! if that Great Angel of the 
 Apocalypse could speak, and if his voice were in 
 the thunder's mouth, he could not speak too loud 
 to warn England of the sin and misery which are in 
 the midst of her— to urge her to shake out of her 
 bosom this burning coal of fire. 
 
 3. " Woe," says Jeremiah, " woe to the drunkards 
 of Ephraim, whose glorious beauty is a fading 
 flower." The allusions to drunkenness in Script- 
 ure and in classical literature are not un frequent. 
 Yet drunkenness was not the prevalent sin of an- 
 cient times; and an ancient Spartan, an ancient 
 Roman, or an ancient Hebrew would have stared 
 with contemptuous disgust at the sights which in 
 Christian England are familiar as a jest. It was not
 
 Between the Living and the Dead. y 
 
 that they were less prone to sin, but they were less 
 petted with temptation. Southern and Eastern 
 nations have never been so drunken as Northern ; 
 and ancient nations were ignorant of that deadly 
 spirit [derived from the fermentation of saccharine 
 matters which, as a distinct compound, was first 
 discovered about 1300] which has wrought a havoc 
 so fi^ightful among us. The simple wines of an- 
 tiquity were incomparably less deadly than the 
 stupefying and ardent beverages on which ;^I50,- 
 000,000 are yearly spent in this suffering land. 
 The wines of antiquity were more like syrups ; 
 many of them were not intoxicant ; many more 
 intoxicant in but a small degree, and all of them, 
 as a rule, only taken when largely diluted with 
 water. The sale of these comparatively harm- 
 less vinous fluids did not bear the remotest re- 
 semblance to the drink trade among us, nor did 
 the same ghastly retinue of evils follow in its 
 train. They contained, even when undiluted, 
 but four or five per cent, of alcohol, whereas some 
 of our common wines contain seventeen percent., 
 and the maddening intoxicants of Scotch and En- 
 glish cities contain the horrible amount of fift}'- 
 four per cent, of alcohol. Take but one illustra- 
 tion of the difference of ancient and modern days. 
 Our blessed Lord, when He lived on earth, trav- 
 ersed Palestine from end to end. He saw many 
 a sinner and many a sufferer ; He saw the lepers 
 and healed them ; He saw weeping penitent women, 
 and restored them to honor and holiness again ; 
 there is not the slightest trace that He ever once 
 tvitnessed that spectacle of miserable degradation,
 
 8 Betivcen the Living and the Dead. 
 
 a drunken man, or that yet more pitiable spectacle 
 of yet deadlier def^radation, a drunken woman. He 
 who scattered the obstinate formalism of the Phari- 
 see ; He who flung' into the sea with a millstone 
 round his neck the corrupter of youthful innocence, 
 what would He have said, what would He have felt, 
 had He heard the shrieks of women beaten by 
 drunken husbands; had He seen little children car 
 ried into the hospital stricken down by their 
 drunken mothers' senseless or infuriated hands? Ah! 
 estimate these thins^s as He would have estimated 
 them, and then will you dare to sneer at those who 
 for very shame, for very pity, for the mere love 
 of their kind and country, can not let these things 
 be so? 
 
 4. And, alas! my brethren, but for these spirits 
 Ens^land need not be a drunken nation ; for the day 
 was when she was not a drunken nation. Listen, 
 my brethren, to a paj^e of vour own history. In 
 the reign of that great king, King Henry V., who 
 enlarged this Abbey, in his army of heroic victors, 
 the army of Agincourt, drunkenness was deemed 
 an utter disgrace; and King Henry was so im- 
 pressed with the curse of it that he wanted to cut 
 down all the vines in France. Not yet accus- 
 tomed, as one has said, " to pour oil of vitriol on 
 the roses of youth," not yet accustomed to apply 
 hot and rebellious liquors to the blood of her chil- 
 dren, England at that day might have said to one 
 or other of her then not numerous drunkards : 
 
 I know thee not, old man ; fall to thy prayers. 
 How ill white hairs become a fool and jester. 
 I long have dreamt of such a kind of man —
 
 Between the Living and ike Dead. 9 
 
 So surfeit-swell'd, so old, and so profane ; 
 But, being waked, I do despfee my dream, 
 
 And know the grave doth gape 
 
 For thee thrice wider than for other men. 
 
 Tlie great antiquary, Camden, who lies buried 
 Ihere, says, that in his day drunkenness was a recent 
 vice; and other writers say that " We brought the 
 foul vice of drunkenness from the wars in the 
 Netherlands, as we had brought back the foul dis- 
 ease of leprosy from the Crusades." In the bad 
 reaction which followed the restoration, when the 
 people broke loose from the stern, but noble bonds 
 of Puritan restriction to plunge into abominable 
 license, the evil habit was enormously increased, 
 and many a great statesman and great writer of 
 the subsequent epoch — a Pitt, an Addison, a Bo- 
 lingbroke,a Walpole, a Carteret, a Pulteney — shat- 
 tered his nerves and shortened his life by drink. 
 But it was about the year 1724, as we are told by 
 the last historian of the eighteenth century, that 
 " gin drinking " began to affect the masses, and it 
 spread with the rapidity and violence of an epi- 
 demic. " Small," he says, " as is the place which 
 this fact occupies in English history, it was proba- 
 bly — if we consider all the consequences that have 
 flowed from it — the most momentous in that eight- 
 eenth century," because from that time " the fatal 
 passion for drink was at once and irrevocably 
 planted in the nation." Yes, it was only some 153 
 years ago that there began the disastrous era of 
 the dram-shop and the gin-palace ; from that epoch 
 ardent spirits began to madden the brain, to poison
 
 fO Between the Living and the Dead. 
 
 the blood, to brutalize the habits of the lowest 
 classes. Distillation replaced the comparatively 
 harmless wines of our forefathers by those poison 
 ous drauj^htsof liquid fire which are at this moment 
 the scathing. bli<;htin^, and dei^radin^ curse of 
 myriads — the fellest and the foulest temptation with 
 which our workini^ classes have to strugi^le. The 
 Jewish rabbis have a legend that, when the tirst 
 vineyard was planted, Satan rejoiced, and said to 
 Noah that he should have his account in the re- 
 sults; and in truth the winecup, which poets so 
 extol, is the cause, as Solomon lias told us, of woes 
 enough; but if ever the spirits of evil hailed a 
 potent ally with shouts of triumph, it must have 
 been when that thing was discovered, which, re- 
 garded as a harmless luxury by the virtuous, acts 
 as a subtle and soul-destroying ruin of the un- 
 suspecting — that thing in the use of which " in- 
 temperance, the great murderer of millions, doth 
 creep for shelter into houses of moderation." 
 
 5. But to return to history. Ardent spirits had 
 not long been introduced when the Grand Jury of 
 Middlesex, in a powerful presentment, declared 
 that much the greatest part of the poverty, the 
 robberies, the murders of London might be traced 
 to this single cause. (Painted boards informed the 
 poor that for one pence they might purchase 
 drunken stupefaction, and as though the adjuncts 
 of the sty were necessary to complete the accesso- 
 ries of truly swinish degradation, the straw in the 
 cellars was gratuitously supplied). Even the morals 
 of the eighteenth century — bad as they were — did 
 uot so acquiesce in this public demoralization as we
 
 Between the Living and the Dead. II 
 
 with our consciences seared with the hot iron of cus- 
 toms, are content with acquiescing. In 1736 a 
 strenuous attempt was made to stem the rising tide 
 of shame and ruin. (By placing pr,)hibit:ive duties 
 on all spirituous liquors. In 1743 those duties were 
 enormously diminished — partly on the futile plea 
 of stopping ilHcit distillat < n, but mainly to re- 
 plenish the Exchequer for the German wars of 
 George II.) Against the Gin Act, as it was called, 
 Lord Chesterfield, the most polished and brilliant 
 peer of his day, flung his whole influence, alas, in 
 vain! When I quote his words to you, remember 
 that you are hstening to a professed man of the 
 world, perfectly cool-headed, the mirror of fashion, 
 the idol of society, yet speaking simply as a patriot 
 from ordinary observation of the notorious effect 
 of what he calls " the new liquor." Had he used 
 such language nov/, he would have been called an 
 intemperate Pharisee ; but he spoke to an age not 
 yet hardened by familiarity with the horrors of 
 dram-drinking. " Vice, ray lords," he said, *' is not 
 properly to be taxed, but to be suppressed ; and 
 heavy taxes are sometimes the only means by 
 which that suppression can be attained. Luxury, 
 my lords, may very properly be taxed. But the 
 use of these things which are simply hurtful — hurt- 
 ful in their own nature, and in every degree — is to 
 be prohibited. If their liquors are so delicious 
 that the people are tempted to their own destruc- 
 tion, let us at length, my lords, secure them from 
 these fatal draughts by bursting the vials that con- 
 tain them. Let us check these artists in human 
 slaughter, which have reconciled their country-
 
 12 Between the Living ami the Dead. 
 
 men to sickness and to ruin, and spread over the 
 pitfalls of debauchery such baits as can not be re- 
 sisted. When I consider, my lords, the tendency 
 of this bill, I find it calculated only for the propa- 
 gation of disease, the suppression of industry, and 
 the destruction of mankind. For the purpose, my 
 lords, what could have been invented more effica- 
 cious than shops at which poison may be vended 
 poison so prepared as to please the palate, while it 
 wastes the strength a.nd kills only bv intoxica- 
 tion ? " So spoke, so thought Lord Chesterfield, 
 about the ardent spirits which are now sold on 
 every day in the week at 140 licensed houses with- 
 in a small radius of the Abbey, into most of which 
 hundreds of men, of women, and of children will 
 enter this very day. And he did not stand alone. 
 If you would know what your fathers thought of 
 these things, look at Hogarth's ghastliest pictures 
 of Rum-lane and Gin-alley. If you doubt Art, 
 take the testimony of Science. In 1750 the Lon- 
 don physicians drew up a memorial to the effect 
 that there were then 14,000 cases of fatal illness at- 
 tributable to gin alone; and Benson, Bishop of 
 Gloucester, wrote: "Our people have become 
 what they never were before, cruel and inhuman. 
 These accursed liquors, which, to the shame of our 
 Government, are so easily to be had, have changed 
 their very nature ;" and about the same time the 
 entire bench of bishops protested against the Gin 
 Act, as founded on the indulgence of debauchery, 
 the encouragement of crime, and the destruction 
 of the human race. 
 6. It was amid these protests of men and these
 
 Between the Living and the Dead. 13 
 
 warnings of God, that in England the shameful and 
 miserable tale began. ■^'You know, or you may 
 jcnow, and you ought to know how it has gone on. 
 The extent, indeed, of the calamity you do not and 
 can not know. That can be fully known to Him 
 only who hears, and not in vain, the sighs and 
 moans that lade the air with their quivering misery ; 
 to Him alone who can estimate the area of wreck 
 and ruin, of human agony, and human degrada- 
 tion, which is represented by the fact that this 
 country spends ^150,000,000 a year on drink, and 
 that in this country there are, amongst the many 
 who drink, 600,000 drunkards. No, you can not 
 estimate it ; you have not even one fraction of such 
 knowledge about it as we have who have seen it ; 
 but need you ignore it ? Can you live in the very 
 midst of facts so ugly and yet not lift a finger to 
 make them better? Read for yourselves. Judge 
 for yourselves. Refute these facts if you can ; 
 would to God that you could, but, alas! you can 
 not. Convince yourselves first that alcohol, how- 
 ever much you may like it, is needless, seeing that 
 the lives of four million total abstainers who never 
 touch it are better in any insurance office than 
 those of other men ; and that among our 20,000 
 prisoners — most of them brought there by it — 
 there is, because they are not allowed to touch it, 
 a better average healthiness than among any other 
 class. Convince yourselves, then, that it is abso- 
 lutely needless, and then judge yourselves of its 
 effects. Do not take our testimony, but inquire. 
 Go and catch with your own eyes a glimpse here 
 and there of the black waves of this subterranean
 
 14 Betzvtcn the Living and the Dead. 
 
 stream. Health is the most priceless boon of life. 
 Go to our London hospitals, and ask how many are 
 brought there by the awful diseases, the appalling 
 accidents, the brutal violence of drink. Pauperism 
 
 15 the curse of cities. Ask Poor-Law guardians 
 how paupers are made ; ask any economist worth 
 the name how pauperism can possibly be avoided 
 when so much idleness is due to the ^^"37,000,000— 
 as much as all their rent — which, by the vcrv low- 
 est estimate, our poorest classes waste in drink. Lu- 
 nacy is one of the worst inflictions cf humanity ; ask 
 at any public asylum the percentage of it due to 
 drink. Idiocy is one of the saddest phenomena of 
 life. Ask any doctor how many idiots are born of 
 drunken parents. Visit our camps and barracks, 
 and there is not an officer who will not tell you 
 that drink is the deadliest curse of our army. Visit 
 our ships and sea-ports, and there is not a captain 
 who will not tell you that drink is the worst ruin 
 of our sailors. Go to an}' parish, or town, or coun- 
 try all over the United Kingdom, where there are 
 many public houses and many poor, any clergy- 
 man will tell you that drink is the most overwhelm- 
 ing curse of our working classes. Philanthropists 
 sigh for the dirt, the squalor, the misery of our 
 lowest classes. How can it be remedied so long 
 as there is the maximum of temptation, where 
 there is the minimum of wages to waste and the 
 minimum of power to resist? Here, almost under 
 the very shadows of the great towers of our 
 Houses of Legislature, and within bowshot of this 
 great Abbey, are streets in which house after house, 
 family after family, is ruined or rendered miserable
 
 Betivcen the Living and the Dead. 15 
 
 by this one cause ; and, oh ! how long will our 
 Legislature still refuse to interfere ? Oh that we 
 could show them the misery of the innocent, the 
 Imbruting of the guilty; women broken-hearted, 
 children degraded, men lowered beneath the level 
 of the beasts ; holidays changed into a bane, high 
 wages wasted into a curse, the day of God turned 
 intb a day of Satan, our jails filled, our criminal 
 classes recruited, our work-houses rendered in- 
 evitable. This it was which made the late Mr. C. 
 Buxton say that the struggle of the school, the 
 library, and the Church were united, and united 
 in vain, against the beer-shop and the gin-palace, 
 and that this struggle was " one development of 
 the war between heaven and hell." Have we not 
 a right to expect, have we not a right to demand, 
 that in this struggle the Legislature should take 
 their part ? 
 
 7. Look at the statue of that glorious statesman, 
 who there " with eagle face and outstretched hand, 
 still seems to bid England be of good cheer, and 
 hurl defiance at her foes." Speaking of the pro- 
 posal to use Indians against our American colonists 
 he burst into that memorable storm of words, which 
 you all have read : " I call upon that Right Rev 
 erend Bench. I conjure them to join in the holy 
 work and vindicate the religion of their God. 1 
 call upon the bishops," he said, " to interpose the 
 unsullied sanctity of their lawn ; upon the learned 
 judges to interpose the purity of ermine to save us 
 from this pollution. I call upon your lordships to 
 stamp upon it an indelible stigma of the public ab- 
 horrence. And I again implore those holy prelates
 
 1 6 Between the Living and the Dead. 
 
 of our rclie^ion to do away these iniquities from 
 nmonf^ us. Let them perform a lustration. Let 
 fhem purify tliis house and this country from this 
 sin." In his burnins^ wrath of moral indignation, 
 so stormed, so thundered the mighty Earl of Chat- 
 ham, when it was proposed to let loose on our re- 
 volted colonists " the hellhounds of savage war." 
 But against this hellhound of savage intoxication 
 the bishops did then and the judges do now their 
 very best to interpose. They, at least, can esti- 
 mate, if any can, the connection of drink and crime. 
 Have they failed to estimate it ? There is scarcely 
 a judge on the bench who has not spoken of it, till 
 it has become a commonplace of the Courts of Jus- 
 tice. " It is not from men that are drunk," said 
 one judge ; " but from men that have been drink- 
 ing, that most of the crime proceeds." " The worst 
 is," said another, " that men enter the public-house 
 sober, and leave it felons." But for drink, others 
 have said again and again, " not one of these cases 
 would have been brought before me." " Do away 
 with drink," say others, "and we may shut up two- 
 thirds of our prisons." So they have said — well- 
 nigh every one of them — and still the maddening 
 wave of alcohol flows on, and sweeps legislators 
 into Parliament upon its crest. And are these 
 judges fanatics? are they Pharisees? Or is it that 
 they are forced to see what every one of us migh« 
 see if we chose — a fearful and intolerable fact / 
 The New Year dawned upon us five m(Tnths ago 
 with all its cheerful prophecies and jubilant hopes, 
 and when it began I thought I would make a rec- 
 ord of a few out of the thousands of awful cr'raes
 
 Between the giving and the Dead. 17 
 
 with which drink would blight and desecrate its 
 history. Very soon I paused, sickened, horror- 
 stricken. The crimes were too awful, too inhuman, 
 sometimes too grotesque in their pitiable horror. 
 Other crimes are human crimes, but the crimes 
 done in drink are as the crimes of demoniacs, the 
 crimes of men who for the time have ceased to be 
 men, and have become fiends. Oh ! that these 
 walls should hear them. Oh ! that the angel of the 
 nation might blot them out of his record with such 
 tears as angels weep, to think that Christ daily re- 
 crucified in the midst of us should from His throne 
 
 in heaven — 
 
 See only this, 
 After the passion of a thousand years. 
 
 I have some of them written here, but they are too 
 black to tell you. Now it was a boy stabbing his 
 father in a cellar in Liverpool ; now a wife killing 
 her husband with one savage blow ; now a woman's 
 suicide ; now a little infant overlaid ; now a drunken 
 carman driving over a child, a woman, and a boy ; 
 now a man — I dare not go on. I dare not describe 
 the least bad, much less tell the worst. These 
 things — these daily incidents of the year of grace 
 1878 — Christian men and Christian women, are 
 they unfit for your fastidious ears ? Ah ! but things 
 are as they are, and it is not your fastidiousness 
 that can undo them. And is it not an hypocrisy 
 to shrink with delicate sensibility from hearing of 
 crimes which are going on about you from day to 
 day, and from week to week, and from year to year, 
 while you do not shrink from the fact that they 
 should be done, from the fact that they should be
 
 l8 Between the Living and the Dead. 
 
 borne, by Rnt^lishmcn like yourselves ; done anH 
 borne by EnfjHsh women who mij^ht once have 
 worn the rose of womanhood ; done and borne by 
 boys and cjirls who were once little brij^ht-eyed 
 children in our schools, and who but for drink 
 mio^ht have o^rown up as happy and as sweet as 
 yours. And if you are ashamed that these things 
 should be, why do many of you not lift one finp^er 
 to prevent this minified stream of crime and pau- 
 perism from pourin<; its delui^c through our streets? 
 For where are these things being done ? In savage 
 islands? Among Pacific cannibals? among ancient 
 pagans, such as St. Paul describes? No, I declare 
 to you that I find no records of such chronic hor- 
 rors among them as I find, normally, daily, as inci- 
 dents of ordinary life, as items of common news, 
 happening now ; happening to-day; happening in 
 the midst of the nineteenth century after Christ ; 
 happening in Christian England ; happening in 
 Liverpool, in Dublin, in Glasgow, in Manchester; 
 happening here under your minster towers. Here, 
 even in these streets hard by— oh, what a tale T 
 could tell — the husband imprisoned for assault 
 ing his wife ; the son in jail for striking his aged 
 miserable mother ; the father deserting his family 
 of little children; the son dishonoring his home; 
 the man once rich now ruined ; the woman barely 
 snatched from agonizing suicide. And, Christian 
 men and Christian women, you wonder that our 
 hearts are stirred within us when we see whole 
 classes of a city — whole classes which should have 
 been its marrow and its strength — thus given to 
 drink ! When will this indifference cease ? When
 
 Between the Living and the Dead. 19 
 
 will a nation, half ruined by her vice, demand what 
 the Legislature will not then withhold ? Sooner or 
 later it must be so, or England must perish. Weigh 
 the gain and loss — strike the balance. On the one 
 scale place whole tons of intoxicating and adulter- 
 ated liquor — put alcohol, at the very best a needless 
 luxury; on the other side put i^i 50,000,000 a year, 
 and grain enough to feed a nation, and grapes that 
 might have been the innocent delight of millions ; 
 and load the scale — for you must, if you would be 
 fair — load it with disease, and pauperism, and mur- 
 der, and madness, and horrors such as no heart can 
 conceive and no tongue tell ; and wet it with rivers 
 of widows' and orphans' tears ; and if you will not 
 strike the balance, God will one day strike it for 
 you. But will you, as Christian men and Christian 
 women — will you, as lovers of your country and 
 lovers of your kind — stand up before high God, and 
 say that the one is worth the other? Will you lay 
 your hand upon your heart, and say that these 
 things ought so to be ? 
 
 8. I stop at England. The half, alas ! is not told 
 you ! The awful guilt remains that throughout all 
 our colonies and dependencies, we, the proud race 
 whose flag dominates the seas, and on whose em- 
 pire the sun never sets — we " wherever winds blow 
 and waters roll, have girdled, are girdling, the 
 world with a zone of drunkenness;" until, as I 
 think of ii — as I think of the curses, not loud, but 
 deep, muttered against our name by races which 
 our fire-water has decimated, and our vice de- 
 graded ; I seem to shudder, as there sounds in my 
 ear the stern inquiry to our country, " These
 
 20 Bit'wecn tlu- Living and the Dead. 
 
 things hast thou done, and I held my peace ; and 
 thou thouj^htcst wickedly that I was such an one 
 as th^'self; but 1 will reprove thee, and set before 
 thee the things that thou hast done;" and the 
 menace of prophetic doom "Shall I not visit for 
 these things, saith the Lord? and shall not mv 
 soul be avenged on such a na'jon as this?" 
 
 9. But, oh ! will not some one interfere before it is 
 too late? Once in the camp of Israel there arose 
 a wail of horror and of agony : "There is wrath 
 gone out from the Lord; the plague is begun;" 
 and, quick as thought, the High-Priest, Aaron, 
 took a censer, and put fire thereon from off the 
 altar, and ran into the midst of the congregation, 
 and put on incense, and stood between the living 
 and the dead, and the plague was staved. Will no 
 one do it now ? We are encircled by the immortal 
 memorials of tlr)se who fought the slave-trade, 
 and shattered the biblical and other sophisms 
 of its defenders. In yonder aisle are the statues 
 of Wilberforce an I Raffles, and bv the western 
 door the liberated slave kneels, in immortal mar 
 ble, by the deathbed of Fox, whose errors are for- 
 gotten, whose genius is ennobled by the champion- 
 ship of that great cause : 
 
 Oh, God, for a man with head, heart, hand. 
 Like some of the simple great ones gone 
 
 For ever and ever by, 
 Some still strong man in a blatant land ! 
 
 Whatever they call him, what care I ? 
 
 Oh, for some man again with the eloquence ol 
 these, and the same burning e .thusiasm to redress
 
 Between the Living and the Dead. 21 
 
 the intolerable wrongs, to alleviate the needless 
 miseries of man ! Before the clear intellect, before 
 the fiery zeal of such an one, the flimsy sophisms 
 of a pseudo-liberty, and the perverted pleas of a 
 feeble literalism, would melt like tow at the breath 
 of flame. Were it not better thus than to plunge 
 into the heat of part^/ squabbles, and win the evan- 
 escent triumphs of an hour? Will no one save a 
 nation from multiplying, from legalizing for itself 
 a needless, an artificial, a self-created destruction? 
 Oh, what a crown would such a man deserve! He 
 would deserve a grander monument than Welling- 
 ton, a prouder statue than Chatham's self. The 
 name, the memory of such a man should live when 
 the names of many that are recorded here, and ot 
 most of the living statesmen who shall follow them, 
 are covered with oblivion's dust. God grant us 
 such an one to stand between the living and the 
 dead, for the plague has indeed begun. They have 
 been dying of it for two centuries; they are dying 
 now, dying of disease, dying by violence, dying by 
 suicide, dying in hospitals, dying in squalid garrets 
 everywhere ; strong men, miserable women, little 
 children dying so slowly that none call it murder. 
 But if the drinkers can not save themselves ; if with 
 their money they drink away their manliness, and 
 with their sense of shame their power of will ; 
 shall not the nation save them — save them from 
 themselves — save them from destroying tempta- 
 tion — save their wretched children, their wretcb.ed 
 wives? The Legislature will not help us, because, 
 they tell us, as yet public opinion is not strong 
 enough. Then in God's name let public opi .ion
 
 22 BetxL'cen the IJving and the Dead. 
 
 become strons^ enough. Let the working classes 
 who are mostly aflected, take up this question, 
 Let them snatch their order from this ruin. Let 
 them cleanse it from this stain. What the Senate 
 refuses now, it can not, it will not, it dare not re- 
 fuse when a nation, knocking at its door with right- 
 eous and imperious demand, tells them that they 
 are there to do its bidding. But as for us who are 
 not senators, whose power is small, let us at least 
 help to form this public opinion. Let us change 
 this national sin of drunkenness into the national 
 glory of self-control ; let us become the Nazarites, 
 as we have been the helots of the world. To hope 
 for this has been called extravagant; nevertheless 
 I do hope it. If there are in England 600,000 
 drunkards, there are also in England, thank God, 
 four million abstainers; and if without an iota ol 
 loss, and with an immensity of gain — if with 
 stronger health, and clearer intellect, and unwasted 
 means, to the great happiness of themselves, to the 
 clear example to others, there arc four millions of 
 every rank, and every position, and every degree 
 of intellectual power, I, for one — believing noble 
 things of man as I believe noble things of God — 
 I, for one, do not see why there should not be many 
 millions. But if we can not and will not save our- 
 selves, let us save our children. If the wealth and 
 peace of this generation are to be a holocaust to 
 drink, let the next be an offering to God. Let us 
 do what Wellington said at Waterloo; let us have 
 young soldiers. Let every young man in his 
 strength, every maiden in her innocence and beauty, 
 join the ranks of the absf^iners. Let the manliness
 
 Between the Living and the Dead. 23 
 
 of the nation spring to its own defense, so that by 
 a sense of shame and a love of virtue, if this evil 
 can not be suppressed by law, it may perish of in- 
 anition. If so, I see no end to the greatness ol 
 England, no limit to the prolongation of her power. 
 If not, in all history, as in all individual experience, 
 I see but this one lesson — no nation, no individual, 
 can thrive so long as it be under the dominion of a 
 besetting sin. It must conquer or be conquered. 
 It must destroy it or be destroyed by it. It must 
 strike at the sources of it, or be stricken down by 
 it into the dust.
 
 llEASOiNS FOR BEING AN ABSTAINER. 
 
 By the Rev. Canon Farrar D.D F.R.S. 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: — With that 
 careful consideration and eager love of truth which 
 characterizes a large portion of our provincial and 
 suburban press, I dare say many of you may have 
 noticed not very long ago a paragraph which went 
 the round of I know not how many scores of pa- 
 pers, and stated that, while I was in the habit of 
 preaching total abstinence to others, I was also in 
 the habit of drinking wine myself, and that even 
 my temperance friends in London were beginning 
 to complain of my intemperate Pharisaism. Every 
 morning, ladies and gentlemen, in the midst of very 
 trying \vork and very heavy anxieties, I received 
 numbers of letters enclosing to me that paragraph 
 in every sort of type and from every kind of paper 
 all over the United Kingdom, and frequently ac- 
 companied by agitated letters asking my permis- 
 sion to deny it. Well, that paragraph caused me 
 no surprise, and not much annoyance. It caused 
 
 (14)
 
 Reasons for Being an Abstainer. 25 
 
 me no surprise, because, unhappily, I know that in 
 this city, and perhaps every day, when there is the 
 slightest scent of scandal in the air, the atmosphere 
 is at once darkened with the gathering winds of I 
 know not how many slanders, and it caused me 
 very little annoyance, because I have ver\^ little 
 belief in the vitality of falsehood. There is a well- 
 known proverb, which is very greatly quoted by 
 the best controversialists, which says : " If only you 
 throw mud, some of it is sure to stick." Well, it 
 may stick, but there is one thing it can not do, and 
 that is, it can not stain. It is, however, for no pur- 
 pose or poor personal defense that I allude to these 
 miserable calumnies; but perhaps I may profitably 
 occupy a moment or two if I tell you how it was 
 that my attention was first called to the cause of 
 temperance, and when I joined the Total Abstinence 
 Section of the Church of England Temperance So- 
 ciety. During many years of my life I never once 
 had my attention called to it. When a youth I 
 was mainly a water-drinker. When I was an un- 
 dergraduate, although I had heard little or nothing 
 of the temperance movement, I never had once a 
 bottle of wine or spirits of any kind in my rooms.. 
 When I became a man, my thoughts and energies 
 were greatly turned in other directions, and if I 
 thought of total abstinence at all (wnich I scarcel}; 
 ever did), I regarded it as a somewhat harmless, 
 but perfectly amiable eccentricity. It was only 
 two years ago that my attention was first seriously 
 called to the enormous evil of drink, and to the im- 
 mense misery it is causing not only throughout the 
 length and breadth of this land, but almost even
 
 26 Reasons for Being an Abstainer. 
 
 the entire world. And when I came to London, 
 from tlif^ first moment when my attention was 
 called to it, I almost entirely ceased to touch any 
 fermented liquor; and seeing what I did see — for 
 I suppose none but a London clergyman in such a 
 parish as mine really knows the extent of the e\il — 
 I saw it would become inevitable for me very soon 
 to sign the j^ledge. But I did not wish to act has- 
 tdy in the matter, or to plunge into it in a sudden 
 fit of enthusiasm. There were certain facts about 
 which I wished to speak from my own knowledge, 
 and certain truths which I wished to resolve from 
 my own experience, and therefore, though I con- 
 tinued to drink water, I did not always refuse wine, 
 for reasons which were well known to my friends, 
 until about a year and a quarterage, when I signed 
 the pledge at the offices of the Church of England 
 Temperance Society, and I think I need hardly 
 stay to assure this meeting that since then I have 
 touched no sort of fermented liquor except at Holy 
 Communion, and that I hope never to do so again, 
 with that exception, until my death comes. Then, 
 ladies and gentlemen, as to this intemperate Phari- 
 saism, I will say only this, that in speaking of tem- 
 perance, which I would rather not do, and which I 
 have not done very frequently, but which is a duty 
 almost incumbent upon one, I have made two rules, 
 of which the first is never consciously to wound a 
 single legitimate susceptibility, and the second, al- 
 ways to speak as if 30U were not addressing an au- 
 dience of temperance reformers, but of licensed 
 victuallers. I know not how far it may be true 
 that I have disgusted my temperance friends by
 
 Reasons for Being an .Abstai)ier. 2 J 
 
 my "intemperate Pharisaism," but I have at least 
 this comfort, that having been brought by strong 
 pressure to pay a visit to Scotland, and to speak at 
 several meetings; after the third of those meetings 
 a very distinguished Scotch clergyman, who had 
 been present at them all, said to me, " I observe 
 this in your speeches, that you are exceedingly 
 careful and guarded in your statements, and never 
 say anything against which any real exception 
 could be taken by those acquainted with the sub- 
 ject." Well, ladies and gentlemen, I shall not 
 speok to you to-day about any of those horrors of 
 drinking and drunkenness which forced me, as they 
 had forced so many, to become total abstainers, and 
 if I spoke for a few moments I think I had better 
 tell you a few plain reasons why, having thought 
 it a duty to become a total abstainer, it was to me 
 a duty to become so. It never for a single mom.ent 
 occurred to me to condemn any one else, even in 
 the smallest degree, for not taking the same step. 
 To do that would be the very sin of all others, I 
 do think I detest most from my heart, viz., the sm of 
 Pharisaism. Nor has it ever for a moment occurred 
 to me to think that 1 was performing the smallest 
 act of virtue in having taken the pledge myself. 
 That would have been a vice which I hope I detest 
 as much as Pharisaism, viz., the vice of vanity. It 
 is always a merit to make an act of self-sacrifice, 
 but to me this was no self-sacrifice at all. What was 
 the loss? Simply nothing. I was not giving up 
 an element of food — because I have found, since I 
 became an abstainer, that I also take very much 
 less food, and that meat once a day is amply suffi-
 
 28 Reasons J or Being an Abstainer. 
 
 cient. I was not giving np any source of strength, 
 for I found my endurance was very much .greater 
 *han before. I was not a whit less inclined to be 
 happy and mirthful than those about me, and I 
 have always felt a certain amount of contempt lor 
 the poor kind f)f cheerfulness which requires a 
 chemical ingredient for its sustentation. Neither 
 was I giving uj) a cause of happiness, for since I 
 have taken the pledge, 1 have been at least as hap- 
 py and healthy as before. I thought that by doing 
 this I had lost nothing. Had one gained anything? 
 I think one had. In the first place, one had gained 
 something in an age like this, by a contribution, 
 however »m;dl, to simplicity of life. That is a point 
 on which I am not going to dwell, although I 
 think it an important one; but, secondly, I found 
 that by becoming a total abstainer, all my children 
 gladly became abstainers, my wife and also a large 
 number of my servants, so that from one very se- 
 rious source of anxiety all over the country, and 
 not least in London, my household was absolutely 
 free. Of all the sins there are in the world, drunk- 
 enness is perhaps the least curable when the habit 
 is once firmly formed, but the one most easily pre- 
 ventable before the habit is. And when I consider 
 how many young men there are in this day, peers* 
 sons, members of Parliament, and even sons of cler- 
 gymen, who have brought desolation and sorrow 
 unspeakable into the houses of those whom they 
 love by this sin, I at least am glad to have carried 
 out for my own sons the rule laid down by Plato, 
 that it was not good to let boys taste wine till 
 eighteen yecrs old. And I felt that 1 and my
 
 Reasons far Being an Abstainer. 29 
 
 household, by this simple remedy, were freed 
 from one serious source of anxiety. Tliere is a 
 greater gain still, viz., that we are doing something, 
 however little, to rid the country of a great evil. 
 The early Christians in their day did much, as we 
 all know. They sheltered womanhood from im. 
 moral degradation, childhood from immoral treat- 
 ment ; they put down the bloody games of the am- 
 phitheatre ; they uplifted the whole race in that 
 single direction; they did good as their Master 
 had done before them, and our own forefathers 
 were not unworthy also. They pitied the slave 
 and broke his fetters ; they pitied the prisoner and 
 made the dungeon more tolerable for him ; they 
 pitied the poor factory child and shortened his 
 grinding hours of labor ; they pitied the poor climb- 
 ing boys, and threw a shield of the law over those 
 wretched little outcasts; and even we, in our own 
 day and generation, have also done something. 
 We have tried to do something to enforce sanitary 
 law, to bring about a less painfully brutal (T had 
 almost said) penal code; we have rendered it im- 
 possible that any one should starve, and made 
 special efforts to carry education home to the very 
 lowest slums of the city ; but there is one work 
 which still remains, which, if we are to do effectu- 
 ally, must be done by Christians, and that is the 
 work of this Society, of liberating the country from 
 the tremendous tyranny of a dead thing, a thing 
 which is not in the least degree, as all total abstain- 
 ers believe, a necessity, and a thing of which one 
 scruple does not exist in the whole of nature. I 
 know our attempt to resist the evil has been called
 
 30 Reasons for Being an Abstainer. 
 
 Quixotic, and that wc have been charged with n 
 want of judgment. Be it so; like Mr. Grier, 1 am 
 not in the least degree afraid to be called Qui.xotic. 
 I have enough experience of hfe, and have read 
 enough of history to know that there has hardly 
 •^ver been any single man who has been in the least 
 degree more in earnest than his fellows, who has 
 not been called Quixotic. In these days of a some- 
 what arm-chair kind of Christianity — in these days, 
 when, as an historian has said of us, *' wc are some- 
 what drowsy candidates of amaranthine crowns," 
 to be called Quixotic, may be a testimony to which 
 some honor may attach when it takes the form of 
 an endeavor to do good to our fellow-men. I am 
 quite sure Luther would have been called Quix- 
 otic; Whitfield would have been called Q)uixotic, 
 and also Howard and W'ilberforce. To be called 
 Quixotic very often means no more than this, that 
 a man has been called into wakefulness of his peril, 
 while others are slumbering around liim through 
 the mist. It means often that he is fired with a 
 noble and necessary enthusiasm, having realized 
 the dimensions of an evil to which others are blind- 
 ed by familiarity. If all good men only knew what 
 the ravages of drink are (and I know there are 
 many in woful ignorance), if they could see as wc 
 do the vision of England struggling in the grasp 
 of a deadly serpent, then, I feel convinced, there is 
 scarcely a good man amongst us who would not 
 feel forced to take some part in the struggle. Now, 
 I dare say, you will ask, Why is it necessary that 
 any should become total abstainers? Well, this 
 Church of England Temperance Society claims the
 
 Reasons for Being an Abstainer. 31 
 
 aid of those who merely pledge themselves to tem- 
 perance. It asks your sympathy. It asks your 
 co-operation. It never dreams for a single mo- 
 ment of condemning any one for not taking the 
 pledge of temperance. All men are not alike, and 
 are not called upon to the same degree to take the 
 same part in the same reforms. It was said in the 
 days of the Reformation that four agents of the 
 Reformation might be characterized by four epi- 
 grams : Luther — Deeds, not words; Erasmus — ■ 
 Words, not deeds ; Melancthon — Both words and 
 deeds; and the fourth, neither words nor deeds. 
 We want in this Reformation our Luthers, our 
 Erasmuses, and our Melancthons, but we can well 
 dispense with the services of the fourth. I have 
 often been grievously misunderstood, and most 
 willfully misinterpreted, but I ask you not to mis- 
 understand what I shall say now, if I say that in 
 some positions and for some people temperance is 
 not enough in the struggle against drunkenness. 
 You have all heard the story of the clergyman in 
 Scotland, who was preaching the superior virtue 
 of moderation rather than totaJ abstinence. Imme- 
 diately he had done, from the center of the meeting 
 up got a miserable drunkard, and said, " Hoora, 
 minister, ye are on our side." The clergyman was 
 so struck by the remark that he said, " I will 
 be on your side no longer. I will be a teetotaler." 
 A similar occurrence happened not very long ago 
 at Derby. Every army needs its pioneers, its ad- 
 vanced squadrons, and its forlorn hopes. There 
 was an age when Jerusalem wanted its Nazarites, 
 when Christianity needed its hermits, when the
 
 32 Reasons for Being an Abstainer. 
 
 Cliurch of Rome wanted its Mendicant Orders, 
 when Catholicity needed its Reformers, when the 
 Church of England needed its Weslcvans; and 
 there is a day when the Church of England, and I 
 fear the Church throughout the world, too, needs 
 its despised total abstainers. Whether the battle 
 is to be won or not, I can not tell. Whether En- 
 gland is ever to be rescued from that position 
 which she now holds, of being glued to the chair 
 of tlic publican, like the lady in Milton's "Mask 
 of Comus," I can not tell. But I say if she is to be 
 raised, it must not only be by our rushing with a 
 sudden start, like the Elder Brother, and putting 
 to flight for the moment alcohol and all his mon- 
 strous crew, but it also must be by the spirit of 
 Total Abstinence coming in effectually afterward. 
 That seems to be the relation between the two 
 branches of this Society. Let us work together. 
 Do not let us dream of condemning those who do 
 not see eye to eye with us. On the other hand, do 
 not let the temperance people make a boast of how 
 much more dignified their line of practice is. Let 
 both work together, and in this way. I believe and 
 hope the work may ultimately be done. Even if 
 this total abstinence fails, I say that although all our 
 hopes in that direction might come to nothing, I 
 would still be a total abstainer. I sJiould still wish 
 to do something more than merely wash my hands 
 and declare myself innocent of the blood of any 
 who came to their end by this dreadful vice. I 
 should like to say, with the >Liccabees, " Let us die 
 in our simplicity." In the struggle against the 
 slave trade it is said that a great many English fami-
 
 Reasons for Being an Abstainer. 33 
 
 lies gave up entirel}' the use of slave-grown sugar. 
 I can imagine that there were many people who 
 would ridicule them for so doing. If I were living 
 in those days, and God had given me grace to take 
 part in that great struggle, I do hope that I myself 
 would have been one among the number to protest 
 against the slave trade by refusing to touch slave- 
 grown sugar. Let us suppose that you and I lived 
 in China. You know how China is degraded and 
 blighted by that opium, in the guilty traffic in which, 
 I grieve to say that this country is deeply impli- 
 cated. Well, if we were living in China, and sup- 
 posing people said to us that opium taken in moder- 
 ation was very harmless and recommended by 
 almost immemorial custom, and called us a great 
 number of names if we did not take it, I should 
 still point to those miserable, degraded, and blighted 
 victims of opium and should say — " Even granting 
 all that you have said in its favor, let the poppy 
 grow for me. I admire its beauty ; I know that it 
 contains a drug which may be precious as a medi- 
 cine, but with the sight of all those sufferers before 
 me, and with that low moan of human misery in 
 my ear, I, at any rate, will never touch opium while 
 I live in China." Many would say my argument 
 IS weak, because the use of alcohol is not so dele- 
 terious. There is something perhaps to be said on 
 the other side, but that is a purely physiological 
 question, and I leave it to the doctors to settle. 
 Still, I am sure you will admit that if the moderate 
 use of alcohol is not so deleterious as the moderate 
 use of opium, on the other hand, the excessive use of 
 iilcohol is ten times more ruinous than the excessive
 
 34 Reasons for Being an Abstainer. 
 
 use of opium. Alcohol fills our jails ; opium docs not. 
 Alcohol crowds our lunatic asylums; opium does 
 not. Alcohol makes men kick their wives to death . 
 opium does not. "Alcohol takes away a man" — 
 as Bishop Hall says — and puts a beast in his place ; 
 opium docs not; and, therefore, I say that, just as 
 if living in China, I should think it necessary to 
 make the protest and not touch opium, so, living in 
 England, I think it my duty, without for a moment 
 judging anybody, now that I know the facts, not to 
 touch alcohol either. But many will say, '* You 
 will do no sort of good by your total abstinence." 
 I say, be it so. Efforts are ours; results are God's. 
 Let us do our best, and if lie sees well — Me will 
 not, at any rate, despise our humble efforts, even il 
 He does not bless them with any immediate success. 
 But I am not so sure that total abstinence will not 
 do good. I have not only in the general press, 
 but also in the grave pages of the Guardian, been 
 called Quixotic for talking like this, and wanting in 
 calm judgment. Again I say, be it so. I don't 
 mind those hard things as applied to me ; but I re- 
 peat it that the Legislature is not helping us, and 
 will not help us, and I do not know of any way by 
 which reformation from drunkenness in England is 
 to be carried out, except by the wide — nay, the 
 almost universal — prevalence for a time of total ab- 
 stinence. I do not— I dare not, indeed — hope that 
 God will ever give to me the priceless, the inestima 
 ble privilege of having any great weight, of saying 
 anything which will much help forward this great 
 reformation. It is only to those who eminently 
 deserve it, it is only to those who can claim in-
 
 Reasofts for Being an Abstainer. 35 
 
 finitely more merit than I can claim that God gives 
 the priceless privilege of helping forward a great 
 national good, but I do live in the hope that some 
 day or other I may be enabled to say some word 
 which will affect perhaps some one single person in 
 the audience so that he xn^y be moved to turn his 
 thoughts to this great question, and that he may go 
 forth with the fear of God born in his heart, and 
 from him conviction may be flashed into thousands 
 of consciences and they may take fire with an en- 
 thusiasm before the overwhelming blast of indigna- 
 tion of which this huge gilded idol of iniquity and 
 misery may at last be destroyed. I do not, ladies 
 and gentlemen, despair. 
 
 " Tho' the mills of God grind slowly, 
 Yet they grind exceeding small ; 
 Tho' with patience long he waiteth, 
 Yet exactly grinds he all." 
 
 The reasons which have influenced one person to be 
 a total abstainer may influence others. After all, I 
 believe there are 4,000,000 of teetotalers in England 
 at this time. Are they all Quixotic ? Are they all 
 idiots and fools ? If they are, I say again that many 
 of the greatest revolutions ever wrought in historv 
 have been wrought by those whom the world 
 counted its idiots and its fools. Is the Bishop of 
 Exeter a Philogian ? Is the Bishop of Gloucester 
 a Manichean ? Is Canon Lightfoot a crackbrained 
 enthusiast ? Is Sir Henry Thompson a man totally 
 devoid of all science? Has Dr. Richardson no 
 knowledge whatever of the most elementary facts 
 of physiology ? Is Professor Acland an intemper- 
 ate Pharisee ? If all these men, and hundreds more.
 
 36 Reasons for Bein^ an Abstainer. 
 
 peers, and magistrates, and judges, and ministers 
 of all denominations, eminent Nonconformists, men 
 of literature, men of science, and hundreds of 
 working-men, if they have become total abstain- 
 ers from these reasons, why should it be so very 
 Quixotic to believe that what has inlluenced a 
 certain number of average men ukiv influence 
 a certain number more? Wliy, they have become 
 total abstainers mainly because they thought it 
 was better for themselves personally, and also be- 
 cause they wish to set a safe and wise example. 
 All I ask is. if you join in this particular branch 
 work of this Society, or if you do not, do as 
 seems 3'ou best; do not sneer at those who are 
 abstainers; do not oppose them. I know that our 
 task is discouraging enough, but of this I am sure, 
 that when our years begin to draw to an end like a 
 talc that is told ; when the enchantments of life 
 have ended one after another ; and when the shad- 
 ows of life's evening are beginning to draw around 
 us, oh ! then it is not our wealth, it is not our suc- 
 cesses, it is not our prosperity, it is not our fame, 
 which will give us the smallest amount of comfort or 
 of happiness, but it will be the small modicum of self 
 denial which God may have enabled us to practice, 
 and the small modicum of good which God may have 
 enabled us to do, and that if we have had none of these 
 things, which people count as earthly blessings, no 
 wealth, or prosperity, or successes, or fame, if oui 
 lives have been passed unceasingly amid the strife 
 of tono^ues, if we have felt it to be our dutv to make 
 enemies — as many a good man has been compelled 
 to make enemies even of the good, for the sake of
 
 Reasons for Being an Abstainer. 37 
 
 such truth as God enabled him to see — even suppos- 
 ing- that our life seems in all other respects to have 
 been a failure, then, at any rate, we should have 
 held it to be an inestimable privilege to have made 
 an effort, however slight or futile, to rescue myriads 
 of Englishmen and Englishwomen from a frightful 
 degradation, and to expel a cause of inexpressible 
 misery from myriads of English homes.
 
 TOTAL ABSTINENCE 
 
 FOR THE SAKE OF OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 
 
 By THE Rev. Canon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. 
 
 The Rev. Canon Farrar said : — My Lords, 
 Ladies, and Gentlemen : — It ought to be, and it is, 
 with some trepidation that I rise to address so 
 highly distinguished an audience on a greatly dis- 
 paraged cause. The secular press tells us that the 
 advocates of total abstinence are impracticable fa- 
 natics and wrong-headed Pharisees; the religious 
 press tells us that abstinence is a much poorer stage 
 of virtue than moderation, and that, by declining 
 wine and beer, we fall far below the attainment of 
 those moral athletes who, to their hearts' content 
 indulge themselves in both ; even clergymen in 
 their sermons and at the Church Congresses have 
 argued that we are despising a good creature of 
 God, setting ourselves against a precept of St. Paul 
 and cherishing a heresy which is dangerously akin 
 to that of the ancient Manichees. Well, gentlemen, 
 if a cause had no opponents, I for one should think 
 it a grievous waste of time to be among its advo- 
 cates ; and the only thing which reconciles me to 
 the uncongenial task of speaking on the subject is 
 the knowledge that it is unpopular and decried.
 
 40 Total A bs tint nee 
 
 And as for these arguments \vc hnvc had ihcm ad 
 Jrcsscd to us again and again; and you must par- 
 don mc if the ullcr intcllfctual disdain with which 
 I regard them, prevents mc from doing more than 
 alhide to them lo-day. When the world in general 
 had abandoned the defense of protectionfthe forty 
 members of Parhament who still staunchly con- 
 tinued to vote for it were popularlv known as the 
 forty cannon-balls ; not many vears earlier these 
 forty cannon-balls would have been four hundred 
 cannon-balls, and precisely the same arguments 
 were reiterated by the forty as had once con- 
 vinced the four hundred. And it is my own 
 firm conviction that these arguments of the anti- 
 abstinence majority will soon become those of the 
 minority. Tlicv remind me of nothing so much as 
 the victims of Mr. Punch, in the now rare street 
 show w hich used to delight our childish days. It 
 is perfectly useless for that hero to knock them on 
 the head and bang them on the floor. They show 
 a wooden vitality which is perfectly inexhaustible. 
 No matter how violently thev have been dashed 
 down, and finished off by a final rap, they are sure 
 to start up a moment afterward, wagging their 
 futile heads and shaking their minatory arms; and 
 even, long after they have been finally disposed of, 
 their ghosts reappear with an exasperating perti- 
 nacity. Now as to these objections, if any one 
 likes to call me Manichean because I have become 
 an abstainer, I can only assure him with a smile 
 that I should like him, to the same extent, to adopt 
 the same beneficent heresy. If, in spite of argu 
 ments which daily gain in overwhelming cogency
 
 For the Sake of Ourselves and Others. 41 
 
 he tells me that alcohol in moderation is harmless, 
 it is still no more a special duty of mine to drink it 
 than it is a special duty of mine to feed, for instance, 
 on Revalenta Arabica. If I prove to him that tf) 
 millions of human beings it is not only deleterious, 
 but deadly, I say that to them, and to those who 
 wish to help and save them, it is no more a good 
 creature of God than laudanum or strychnine. 
 And as to the so-called Scriptural arguments in 
 favor of drunkenness — I beg pardon, I mean in 
 favor of moderate drinking ; which is, however, ulti- 
 mately W\Q fons et origo of drunkenness — I shall say 
 this only, that wine means primarily the juice, and 
 often as I believe the unfermented juice of the 
 grape; and that the drugged beers, and stupefying 
 porters, and fortified ports, and plaistered sherries, 
 and abominable draughts of liquid fire which are 
 called spirits in England, are no more the pure 
 fruit of the vine than the mariner's compass is in. 
 tended when we are told that St. Paul fetched a 
 compass and came to Rhcgium. Into that Script- 
 ural matter I have no time at present to enter, and 
 indeed to do so would be certainly superfluous to 
 an audience intelligent enough and educated 
 enough to distinguish between the dead letter and 
 the living spirit. Texts have been quoted for cen- 
 turies in the cause of ignorance and sin. They 
 have been quoted to countenance every absurdity, 
 and check every science, and denounce every moral 
 reformation. They were quoted against Columbus, 
 against Copernicus, against Galileo, against the 
 geologists. They were quoted against St. Peter, 
 against St. Paul, against Christ Himself. They
 
 43 Total Al/slimnce 
 
 were quoted against Wyclifl'c, against Luther 
 against VVilbcrforce They have been quoted — 
 quite as often as they now arc against the cause of 
 temperance — in defense of polygamy, in defense of 
 oppression, in defense of persecution, in defense 
 of inl(jlerance. But those wlio oppose us on false 
 deductions from Scripture do not stand alone in 
 resuscitating thttse slain objections. There is your 
 senator, intrenched in his impregnable aphorism 
 that " you can not make people sober by Act of Pap 
 liament ;" who is best met, {)artly, by the direct 
 denial that to a very great extent you can make 
 peo|)le sober by Act of Parliament ; and, partly, by 
 the entreaty that senates, if they can not make 
 people sober, should at least not continue the very 
 effectual means which prove that you do by Acts 
 of Parliament make them drunken. There is your 
 Man of the World who angrily asks you " What all 
 the noise is about, and why you can not leave him 
 alone?" and who is indeed best left alone, since our 
 arguments are only intelligible to the unselfish and 
 the earnest. There is your defender of the British 
 Constitution, who asks *' How you can interfere 
 with the liberty of the subject ? " to whom I answer, 
 with J. S. Mill, that the libei-ty of one man ends 
 where — however profitable to himself — it becomes 
 fatal and ruinous to another; and with Archbishop 
 Whatcly, that I will gladly curtail my libertv, if 
 thereby I can restrain another's license. And then 
 lastly, there is a very important person indeed, 
 your Political Economist. You tell him that we 
 are squandering ;{J^ 1 50,000,000 a year directly (and 
 how awful a sum indirectly, is known to God
 
 For the Sake of Ourselves and Others. 43 
 
 alone), in that which he may regard as a harmless 
 luxury, but which we see to be a frightful curse 
 to millions, and which we believe to be in a greater 
 or less degree injurious to all — and what does he 
 do? First he nibbles at the figures; talks about 
 exaggeration ; and without saying one word about 
 the indirect cost to the nation of alcohol, says that 
 its direct cost is, after all, ''only" ;^ 1 3 1 ,000,000 ; 
 and that of this the working classes spend "only" 
 ;^36,ooo,ooo, and that this is " only " equivalent to 
 what they spend in rent; and that ^87,000,000 of 
 the whole sum spent are not lost because they go 
 in duty to the Exchequer and in profits to the 
 liquor trade. Well, gentlemen, I am not a Profes- 
 sor, and perhaps it may only be my ignorance, but 
 i confess that this is a political economy which 
 fairly astounds me. It reminds me of nothing so 
 much as the answer gi ven, it is said, but let us hope 
 not, by an Oxford undergraduate, to the question, 
 " What are the chief sources of revenue to the Shet- 
 land Isles?" and who answered that "the inhabit- 
 ants earned an honest, but somewhat precarious, 
 subsistence by washing one another's clothes ! " 
 But seriously, gentlemen, supposing that this 
 ;^i 3 1, 000,000 — for in this amazing bill we will not 
 quarrel about a million or two, more or less — were 
 spent not in alcohol, but in fireworks ? Would it be 
 an argument to any one who complained that this 
 was a fearful waste, to say that the working classes 
 *'only" spent ;^36,ooo,ooo of it; that fireworks 
 amused them ; and that ;^87,ooo,ooo of it was not 
 lost because it went in duty to the revenue and in 
 profits to the pyrotechnists? It is surely an
 
 44 Total Abstinence 
 
 amnzinp;^ conception of national advantapfc which 
 makes it consist in the mere circulation of money 
 spent in unproductive labor; and any one who 
 knows anything whatever about the Temperance 
 question, knows that the grounds on which we 
 brand as waste this vast consumption of our re- 
 sources, are grounds for which we at least offer a 
 daily increasing mass of proof; namely, that alco- 
 hol is not a food ; that it is not a source of warmth ; 
 that it is not a source of strength ; that it can not 
 even conceivably be a necessity, seeing that our 
 thousands of prisoners gain in health and strength, 
 instead of losing, by its total withdrawal ; that there 
 are whole races of men who never touch it; and 
 that the Total Abstainers of England, who now 
 number 4,000.000, arc among the healthiest of men ; 
 and that, while it is thus absolutely needless, the 
 abuse of it is confessedly and demonstrably the 
 curse and shame of England both at home and' 
 abroad, the most fertile and the most potent of all 
 existing causes of degradation and ruin. Well, 
 gentlemen, if these things be so— and whether they 
 are so you can not judge at all till you have at least 
 faced the evidence — then I say deliberately and 
 distinctly that England would be a licher country, 
 a better country, a happier country, a country in 
 all respects more blessed, if alcoholic drink v/ere 
 non-existent, and if ;^i 50,000,000 were spent annu- 
 ally on fireworks instead ; — for this among other 
 reasons, because the putting away that magnificent 
 revenue in smoke and flame would not only do us 
 less direct harm, but would also save us from the 
 rast loss caused indirectly to the nation by the
 
 For the Sake of Ourselves and Others. 45 
 
 occupation, for hops, of 69,000 acres of our soil ; by 
 the destruction, for beer and spirits, of 12,000,000 
 of bushels of grain ; and by the crushing expense 
 of all the pauperism, the lunacy, the crime, the 
 accidents — the burnt houses, the wrecked ships, 
 the exploded collieries, the shattered railway 
 trains — which can be traced directly to drink alone. 
 Now, gentlemen, I will tell you why I speak of 
 Total Abstinence. I am bidden to-day to point out 
 the claims of the Temperance movement on the 
 Pubhc Schools and Universities, and if by the Tem- 
 perance movement be merely meant the discoun- 
 tenancing of drunkenness, surely to speak about it 
 would be needless. 1 suppose that no one here will 
 be likely to act, as I once saw a gentleman act, who 
 sat at a meeting and did not blush to applaud the 
 disgraceful facts and alarming statistics of intem- 
 perance. To such an one we could only say, — 
 
 " Well spoken advocate of sin and shame, 
 Known by thy bleating, Ignorance thy name." 
 
 But I need hardly say that no man would have any 
 shadow of a right to the titles of a Christian and a 
 gentleman — nay, he would brand himself as an en- 
 emy to his race — if he did not join, heart and soul, 
 in the wish to check intemperance. If that were 
 all, it would be an insult to your understandings to 
 argue with you that the Temperance movement has 
 claims upon you. Of course it has claims upon 
 you ; of course it has claims upon every living man 
 in whose breast beats a human heart. But I shall 
 take the unpopular. Quixotic side, and ask you to 
 consider whether tctal abstinence has no claims
 
 4^ Tolul Abstiiunce 
 
 upon you. I shall not say — I have never said— 
 that it is your duty — or any man's duty — to take so 
 far upon you the vow of the Nazaritc; but 1 shall 
 humbly ask for your unprejudiced consideration, 
 md I shall leave to yourselves the manly decision, 
 while I be^ you, for a few moments, to glance at 
 the question with me — first, in its personal, and then 
 in one only of its social aspects. 
 
 Let me begin with the very lowest ground of all. 
 I look around me, and I am everv day more deep- 
 ly impressed with the increasing seventy of the 
 struggle for life, and the immense dilliculty of earn- 
 ing a livelihood by thousands of boys and youths 
 of the upper and professional classes ; and I ask 
 whether, under such circumstances, it is not worth 
 a young man's while to make his conditions of life 
 as simple as possible, and to save himself, by a very 
 trivial sell-denial, from a very needless and burden- 
 some expense? I tell my poor people that one 
 single pint of beer a day means £i a year, that 
 three pints a day, which is in most of these families 
 a very moderate allowance, means ;{i^ga year ou'. of 
 their wages, and that would in 20 years with inter- 
 est become no less than .^257, which would buy 
 them a freehold house and garden. I surely may 
 say to many of you who hereafter will not find it 
 so easy to keep the wolf from the door — taking 
 now this very lowest, yet not imimportant ground 
 — that even four glasses of sherry a day in a house- 
 hold (and how many families are there who, if they 
 use it at all, confine themselves to that?) means 
 some ten dozen bottles a year, and that even in a 
 small and struggling clergyman's family of a few
 
 For the Sake of Ourselves and Others. 47 
 
 people some twenty pounds can very ill indeed be 
 spared. The day may come when you will not 
 think this a very trivial sum ;, but trivial or not, it 
 is undesirable if it be a waste, and it is foolish if 
 people are better without it. Now this at least is 
 certain, which is, that to a young man and a healthy 
 man alcohol in an)'^ form is needless, even if it be 
 not injurious. I find that even those medical men 
 who write against abstinence are constantly making 
 admissions which tell dead against them. Dr. 
 Burney Yco wrote strongly against abstinence, yet 
 he says, speaking of precisely the most popular 
 wine of the day, " Dry sherries do an incalculable 
 imount of harm." Dr. Brunton and Dr. Burdon 
 Sanderson, and Sir W. Gull are none of them total 
 abstainers, and the first two are distinctly unfavor- 
 able to total abstinence, yet Dr. Brunton says be- 
 fore the Lords' Committee, " If a man eats well 
 and sleeps well, he, does not want it, and is better 
 without it." Dr. Burdon Sanderson says, " It is 
 not at all required in health ;'' and Sir W. Gull, 
 among much more which coming from such a man 
 is of the most immense general and scientific im- 
 portance, says that the constant use of alcohol, even 
 in moderation, injures the nervous tissue, and is 
 deleterious to health ; that a man may very materi- 
 ally injure his constitution short of drunkenness ; 
 and that a great deal of injury is done to health by 
 the habitual use of wines in their various kinds, and 
 alcohol in its various shapes, even in so-called mod- 
 erate quantities, by people of both sexes who are 
 supposed to be fairly well, and who are not in the 
 least intemperate." I could quote to you on the
 
 48 Total Abstinence 
 
 same side the distinct evidence of Sir H. Thompson, 
 of Dr. Norman Kerr, of Dr. B. \V. Richardson, oi 
 more than 2,000 physicians in 1846, and of an ever- 
 increasing number of eminent medical men ; but I 
 greatly prefer, and I am quite content to rest it on 
 the spontaneous, the unbiased, often the most un- 
 willing testimony of those who are in no way 
 pledged to total abstinence, and are even in some 
 cases distinctly hostile to it. 
 
 So much on the score of health ; and what about 
 strength? You desire to be athletes, gentlemen ; 
 well, I venture to say to you that you will be all 
 the better and stronger if you are total abstainers. 
 When the workmen in our foundries, are doing 
 their heaviest tasks, they drink nothing but oat- 
 meal-water. When Captain Webb swam the Chan, 
 nel, and Weston walked his thousand miles, and 
 Adam Ayles, the Arctic explorer, got nearest to 
 the Pole, they did it without a ckop of stimulants ; 
 and I dare say that you have already found out for 
 yourselves that, as Dr. Burdon Sanderson says, 
 " Alcohol is especially injurious in continuous mus 
 cular exertion." 
 
 And then as to mental work, many of you desire 
 to be students and scholars. Will alcohol help 
 you ? Sir Henry Thompson says that " of all peo- 
 ple I know who can not stand alcohol, the brain- 
 workers can do so least." Sir W. Gull tells us that 
 alcohol "c'egenerates the tissue, and spoils the in- 
 tellect." Many a man has ruined a Hne intellect, 
 as Macaulay tells us that Lord Byron did, by ar- 
 dent spirits and Rhenish wine; many a man has 
 polluted with the strange fires of alcohol the vestal
 
 For the Sake of Ourselves and Others. 49 
 
 flame on the altar of genius; but in spite of all 
 devil's proverbs to the contrary, no man has ever 
 yet improved it; and the 
 
 " Vino forma j>erit, vino consumitur aetas," 
 
 IS as true now as it was in the days of Propertius 
 nearly 2,000 years ago. Gentlemen, I could go on 
 heaping proof on proof that even if alcohol be not 
 positively harmful — even if it do not tend to weak- 
 en and degrade the physical organization — it is, at 
 the very best, a needless and a questionable luxury ; 
 and therefore one which a young man might, I 
 think, very reasonably despise. But I have some- 
 thing more serious to say. In speaking of the 
 purely personal aspect of the question, I have ovXy 
 glanced at its physical, and have not so much as 
 touched on its moral and spiritual aspects. Now7' 
 as regards these, my own belief is that alcohol does 
 tend (if taken very moderately it may be only in an 
 infinitesimal degree, but still does tend) to excite 
 the lower, and to neutralize the spiritual elements 
 in our nature, and that, in myriads who stop far 
 short of being drunkards, it blunts the moral sensi- 
 bilities, and enslaves the enervated will And al- 
 though millions never succumb to these influences, 
 yet millions also do. Do you suppose that there 
 was ever a drunkard since the world began who 
 dreamed, when he first began to quaff 
 
 " The foaming vintage of Champagne 
 
 In silver goblets tossed," * 
 
 or to do any of the other fine things which our 
 Bacchanalian sons so fatally belaud, that he, too,
 
 50 Total Abstinence 
 
 vvotild Hill into the shame and misery of the drunk* 
 ard? From the day when Noah planted a vineyard 
 and ate of the fruit thereof — nay. it may be even 
 from the days of Eden if, as the Rabbis say, the 
 vine was the tree of the knowledge of good and 
 evil — from the clays when the two sons of Aaron 
 perished at the altar in their intoxication ; number- 
 less of the miserable have experienced the fatal 
 physical fact that as long as a drop of alcohol re- 
 mains in the system, it creates a desire for more; 
 the fatal moral fact that'evil habit first allures, then 
 masters, finallv maddens and enslaves. At the 
 entrance of one of our college chapels, lies a name- 
 less grave ; that grave covers the mortal remains 
 of one of its most promising fellows — ruined 
 tnrough drink. I received, not long ago, a letter 
 from an old schoolfellow, a clergyman, who after 
 long labors was in want of clothes and almost of food. 
 I inquired the cause; it was drink. A few weeks 
 ago a wretched clergyman came to me in dcploro- 
 ble misery, who had dragged down his family with 
 hira into ruin. What had ruined him ? Drink! When 
 >y I was at Cambridge, one of the most prom sing 
 scholars was a youth who, years ago, died in a 
 London hospital penniless, of delirium tremens, 
 through d.ink. When I was at King's College, I 
 used to sit next to a handsome youth, who grew 
 up to be a brilliant writer; he died in the prime of 
 I'fe, a victim of drink. I once knew an eloquent 
 philanthropist who was a very miserable man. 
 I'he world never knew the curse which was on 
 him; but his friends knew that it was drink. And 
 why is it that these tragedies are daily happening?
 
 For the Sake of Ourselves and Other y. 51 
 
 It is through the fatal fascination, the seductive 
 sorcery of drink, against which Scripture so often 
 warns. It is because drink is one of the surest of 
 " the devil's ways to man, and of nnan's ways to the 
 devil." It is because the old Greek imagination 
 hit upon a frightful truth, when it surrounded the 
 car of Bacchus with half-human satyrs and raving 
 meanads. " I must take care," wrote a great and 
 good man the other day, "for I find myself get. 
 ting an ugly craving for alcohol ; " and what is such 
 a remark but an unconscious comment on Milton s 
 noble lines: 
 
 " Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape 
 Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine. 
 After the Tuscan mariners transformed 
 Skirting the Tyrrhene shore as the wind listed 
 On Circe's island fell. Who knows not Circe, 
 The daughter of the sun, whose charmed cup 
 Whoever tasted lost his upright shape, 
 And downward fell into a grovelling swine ? " 
 
 Which things are simply this allegory, that he who 
 loves wine is driven as the wind lists, into a realm 
 of sorcery, and that this sorcery culminates in utter 
 degradation. But you, it may be, are quite sure 
 that you will never fall on Circe's island, or \\n~ 
 mould reason's mintage. But wliy are you so 
 sure? Is your nature so much stronger and nobler 
 than that of Burns', or than that of Hartlc)' Cole- 
 ridge, or than that of Charles Lamb, with his sad 
 cry, "The waters have gone over me, but out of 
 the depths, could I be heard, I would cry out to all 
 those who have but set a foot in the perilous 
 flood?" Or why are you safer than these 600,000
 
 Si Tutal Al'stirtfnce 
 
 drunkards in these unhappy islands, many of them 
 men of keen intellect, many of them men of noble 
 instincts, many of them men of most amiable char- 
 acter? How did these men become drunkards? 
 Do you think that they were born drunkards? Do 
 you think that they became drunkards the moment 
 they tasted alcohol? Why, 'gentlemen, you know 
 that there is only one way bv which any man ever 
 became a drunkard, and that is by growing fond of 
 alcohol, at first in moderate drinkinj:^ — citherby the 
 glass or by the dram — day by day a little increased 
 — year by year a little multiplied — by the solitary 
 becommg the frequent, and the frequent the habit- 
 ual, and the habitual the all-but-incvitable trans- 
 gression ; till at last, some fine morning, as they 
 awoke, perhaps in the shame of some inevitable 
 fall, it came upon them with a flash that they are 
 drunkards. This perhaps is the commonest method 
 of ruin. 
 
 " We are not worse at once : the course of evil 
 Begins so slowly and from such slight source. 
 An infant's hand might stem the breach with clay: 
 But let the stream grow wider, and philosophy, 
 Aye and religion too, may strive in vain 
 To stem the headlong current." 
 
 But it is not always in this slow and gradual 
 manner that men have become drunkards. Some- 
 times they have been moderate for years, and then 
 at last — when they thought themselves perfectly 
 secure — the temptation has come upon them, "ter- 
 rible and with a tiger's leaps" — in the delight of 
 some boon companionship — in the exhilaration of 
 some sudden good fortune, in the agony of some
 
 For the Sake of Ourselves and Others. 53 
 
 unexpected bereavement. Gentlemen, if every one 
 of you think yourselves so absolutely and perma- 
 nently safe from a temptation to which so many 
 millions have succumbed ; or if you think that, 
 being absolutely safe yourself, no single person 
 toward whom you have duties and whom you 
 \ove, no wife, or child, and friend, or servant, or 
 parishioner — can by any possibihty be ever tempted 
 by your example, all that I can say is that, while I 
 can not share your confidence, I most earnestly 
 trust that no bitter irremediable experience may 
 ever give you cause to repent of it in dust and 
 ashes. 
 
 But now, gentlemen, T will pass entirely from the 
 personal to the social aspect of the question. It 
 has been said that if you are fond of wine you 
 ought to abstain for your own sake, and if you 
 are not fond of wine, you ought to abstain for 
 the sake of others. That may be only an epi- 
 gram ; but yet I do say, gentlemen, that if you 
 could disprove all that I have as yet said to you, 
 I should still try to be a total abstainer. It is 
 as I have said my conviction, deepened by an 
 ever-increasing mass of evidence, that the tendency 
 of alcohol is bad for every one morally, intellectu- 
 ally, and spiritually, and that no one can tell whom 
 his example may not injuriously affect: — but even 
 were it otherwise, I should still think it right to 
 abstain. For that alcohol is a necessity, except in 
 the verj' rarest cases, you can not prove. And there, 
 fore I should still be a total abstainer /^r the sake of 
 others. For even the very idiot must admit that 
 one evil at least comes from drink — one evil colos-
 
 54 Total Abstinenar 
 
 sal and rum )i:<5 — one evil immediately and direct, 
 ly, and therefore in some cases necessarily; — and 
 that is drunkenness — the national drunkenness ol 
 this country. It makes niy cheeks blush lor shame, 
 it makes my heart beat fast with indij^^nalion, when 
 I think that this precious, this glorious, this immor- 
 tal Mni^land of ours, is itself one of the most 
 drunken nations, and perhaps the greatest cause of 
 drunkenness in other nations, of all under God's 
 sun. Gentlemen, drunkenness, I grieve to say — 
 for it is a masterstroke of the powers of evil — is 
 too often treated as laughable. Continually it is 
 made a subject of jest in our comic newspapers, 
 and no one can live in London without noticing 
 that it is the favorite jocosity of those wretched 
 comic songs, those deplorably abysmal degrada- 
 tions of all verse and all music, which flow like a 
 stream of vitriol from detestable music halls over 
 the morals of the boys and girls, whom, in our 
 schools and classes, we have striven to win to God. 
 Well, gentlemen. I can not laugh at these jests; I 
 can but look with disgust and abhorrence on these 
 songs. Gentlemen, have you ever seen — if not may 
 you never see ! — a young man suflfcring from delir- 
 ium tremens? From attempting to describe its 
 horrors I shrink appalled ; but you arc probably all 
 aware that one of the features of delirium tremens 
 is all kinds of illusions and phantoms. A friend ol 
 mine told me the other day, that, finding himself in 
 London, he turned into a tavern lor some lunch. 
 As he sat there a dog suddenly ran across the 
 room, and my friend started. " Oh, don't be afraid, 
 gir," said the waiter, coming up to him, " it xvas a
 
 For the Sake of Ourselves and Others. 55 
 
 dog, it was a real dog, I assure you." At first he 
 could not understand what the man meant; but 
 then it flashed on him with a thrill of horror, that 
 this man in his own person, and in the person of his 
 "ustomers, was familiar with the ghastly illusions 
 of that most terrible of all diseases, which is God's 
 Nemesis upon excess. Well, gentlemen, this being 
 but one of the horrors of that drunkenness, which 
 has its direct and sole origin in drink — are you a 
 Christian — are you a man — can you have a heart 
 in your breast which selfishness has not quite eaten 
 away — if you can, hear without shame and sorrow 
 that, to say nothing of the grocers' licenses, there 
 are 98,955 public houses in England, and that there 
 is scarcely one of these which is not to some a 
 direct inevitable source of terrible temptation • 
 that there are 38,845 beer-shops in England. o{ which 
 there is scarcely one which is not a direct source 
 of temptation in the neighborhood ; that in the 
 year 1875 there were in England alone 203,989 ar- 
 rests for drunkenness, and 122,913 arrests for as- 
 saults, many of these of the loathiest and most 
 diabolically brutal character, connected with 
 drunkenness; making the ghastly total of 326,902 
 offenses on the score of this sin alone — which yet 
 does not represent one-tenth part of the shame, the 
 ruin, the misery, the loss, the burden, which are 
 directly due to this awful sin ? The drunkard, as I 
 have said, is often in his sober moments a high- 
 minded and honorable man, and no amount of phys- 
 ical torture can equal the anguish of moral degra- 
 dation, in which he knows what he is, and loathes 
 what he is, and yet is what he is by a deadly spell
 
 $6 Total Abstinence 
 
 which he can not break. Drunkards have been 
 known to describe the horror and intensity of this 
 spell, by saying that if a glass of brandy were set 
 before them, and between them and it yawned the 
 very abyss of hell, thcv still must stretch fortli their 
 hands and take it. And the worst of all is the 
 knowledge that these unhappy sinners and victims 
 transmit to their children an hereditary craving, of 
 which those unacquainted with it can not conceive 
 the terrible intensity. Imagine, gentlemen, the case 
 • — alas ! in the lower classes the very common case ! 
 ■ — of the poor unhappy youth, born with this awful 
 tendency, conscious \^i it, afraid of it, yet not suffi- 
 cient! v b'aced in moral self-discipline to prevent it 
 from becoming first an allurement, then a mastery, 
 then the tyranny of a remorseless demon. Imagine 
 a m.'m — and such cases are — a man so unhappily 
 constituted by the sins of his fathers, that, for long, 
 long years, from boyhood to the very verge of old 
 age, the soul within him has "to stand and watch 
 like an unsleeping sentinel," lest at any moment the 
 burning congenital appetite for strong drink should 
 clutch him with hands of fire, and drag him down 
 to the unspeakable horror of the drunkard's grave ! 
 Well, gentlemen, it is on behalf of these drunk- 
 ards that I appeal to you ; and not for their sakes 
 only, but for the sakes of their little sons and their 
 little daughters, and for the sake of the myriads of 
 those white young souls, which are being at this 
 moment trained in our national schools, and of 
 which nearly all will have to wrestle with this as 
 one of their sorest temptations, and of which many 
 a thousand, if not saved and shielded, will most in*
 
 For the Sake of Ourselves and Others. $7 
 
 evitably fall. Remember, gentlemen, I entreat 3'ou, 
 that the drunkards of to-day arc not the drunkards 
 of to-morrow ; that this ignoble and inglorious 
 army of drunkards, as its ranks are thinned by 
 death, is being daily recruited by those who as yet 
 are not drunkards, but who only drink. For my- 
 self, supposing that considerations like these had 
 not already induced me to take the pledge, I ven- 
 ture to say that if I were in this hall hearing these 
 facts, and if I knew that, in this hall, there were 
 but one youth or man who would fall hereafter into 
 this horrible abyss, then I should feel it would be 
 well worth the sacrifice of every one of us taking 
 the pledge, if by so doing we could but save that 
 one ; it might be a personal blessing to every one 
 of us, but even if not, yet how small would be cur 
 loss, how great his gain ! and I should think that 
 we were but acting in the spirit of that great apos- 
 tle who said that he would neither eat meat, nor 
 drink wine, nor anything whereby his brother was 
 made to offend. I have not said, I never shall say, 
 a word against the publicans ; I have not said, I 
 never shall say, that it is the duty of any man, not 
 being a drunkard, to take the pledge ; but I do say 
 that this is a plain fact, namel}^ that drunkenness 
 comes of moderate drinking, and that if, as a na- 
 tion, we would make the vow of abstinence all but 
 universal among us, then drunkenness at any rate, 
 with all its fearful consequences, would be erased 
 from its horrible prominence in the list of our na- 
 tional sins. I have but touched, )'ou will observe, 
 on the mere surface of the subject. I could show 
 you, if time allowed — show you by proofs the most
 
 58 Total Abstinence 
 
 startling:, flic most irrefragable — that the liquor 
 traffic stands in the very fore'Vont of responsibility 
 for the alarming amount of hmacy, of pauperism, 
 of crime, and that without this liquor traffic England 
 would be unspeakably different froni what now it is 
 — unspeakably more prosperous at home — unspeak- 
 ably more honored abroad — than it ever has been, 
 or ever can be, while the liquor traffic maintains its 
 present immense and truly deplorable ascendency. 
 To me it seems, gentlemen, that there is only one 
 remedy which can indefinitely prolong the national 
 glory of Englantl ; there is but one resource which 
 can counteract the dangers which threaten us from 
 the pressure of life, the depression of trade, the 
 growth of a deeply-seated discontent ; that there 
 is but one way to diminish the ghastly total of 
 crime, to close two-thirds of our prisons, two- 
 thirds of our asylums, two-thirds of our work- 
 houses ; and that remedy, that resource, that way 
 is, that instead of continuing to be a drunken, we 
 should become a sober and temperate nation; and 
 in the present distress, amid the present perils, 
 with the present repeated refusals of the Legisla- 
 ture to interfere with the scandalous multiplication 
 of temptations, there is but one way by which we 
 can ever become a sober and temperate nation, and 
 that is by the immense, the voluntary, the all but 
 universal spread of total abstinence. The day may 
 return — God grant it, and it is very far Cfif as yet 
 —when the present peril and the present distress 
 are over, and England, shamed into decency and 
 startled into repentance, may indulge, if it be an 
 indulgence, and if she must indulge in the fer-
 
 For the Sake of Ourselves and Others. 59 
 
 merited juice of the grape, without one word of 
 warning; but that day is not yet, and, meanwhile, 
 do not be deceived into easy self-satisfaction, by a 
 mere talking about rose-water remedies which be- 
 come practically an excuse for simply doing no- 
 thing. People solemnly tell us that we must not 
 iij^ht drunkenness, but must give the poor higher 
 amusements, better houses, more education, and so 
 make them sober. Gentlemen, I have seen some- 
 thing of the poor, and I tell you emphatically that 
 n our present state of things, these remedies vvill 
 not diminish drunkenness. No one can desire more 
 ardently than I do, that all this should be done ; no 
 one feels more indignantly than I do the selfish 
 apathy of rich men, who draw rents from filthy 
 houses where the poor are huddled together like 
 swine ; no one can believe more entirely than I do 
 that in general, more education means less vice. 
 But I say, first diminish drunkenness and then try 
 these remedies, or you will be utterly defeated : 
 
 " What, have ye let the fond enchanter 'scape ? 
 Oh, ye mistook ! ye should have snatch'd his wand 
 And bound him fast. Without his rod reversed. 
 And backward mutters of dissevering power, 
 We can not free the lady, who sits here 
 In stony fetters fixed and motionless ! " 
 
 And this, gentlemen, — total abstinence — this is the 
 snatched wand, the rod reversed, the backward 
 mutters of dissevering power. Without this, all 
 the boons you give to the poorer class will be 
 turned gradually into banes ; with it the boons will 
 come, and come far more effectually of themselves. 
 As drunkenness has already turned into a bane the
 
 6o Total Abstinence 
 
 boon of better wages and more frequent holidays, 
 BO it would soon turn your better houses into 
 Kcenes of degradation, and fill your places of amuse- 
 ment with reeling sots. Make the working-classes 
 sober, as our Legislature, and our upper classes if 
 they were utterly in earnest might do; induce 
 tlicm to give up the horrible waste of drink and 
 drunkenness; and you may depend upon it that 
 the other boons would come spontaneously — that 
 the working-classes would very soon provide the 
 better houses, and higher amusements, and more 
 education for themselves. And this is emphatically 
 the work, emphatically the reform which this age 
 has to achieve ; and, for those at any rate who work 
 among the poor, total abstinence is the only way to 
 do it. If the clergyman takes his glass of sherry, 
 on pica of fatigue or exhaustion, you may depend 
 upon it that the working-man will go on the same 
 pretext to the publican tor i)is glass of gin ; and if 
 he reads his Shakespeare, he will say to the clergy- 
 man, who wants to win him from drukenness: 
 
 " But, good my brother, 
 Do not as some ungracious pastors do, 
 Point me the steep and stormy path to heaven ; 
 While, like a puffed and reckless libertine. 
 Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, 
 And recks not his own rede." 
 
 Gentlemen, our fathers had to go to the stake foi 
 freedom of conscience, and to shed their blood for 
 civil liberty, and to bear obloquy in founding -mis- 
 sions, and reforming prisons, and furthering educa- 
 tion, and purging England from the infamies of the 
 slave trade. What we have to do, what this ago
 
 For the Sake of Ourselves and Others. 6 1 
 
 has to do, what every brave and true and good 
 man in this generation has to do, is to save 
 England from the stain and shame, from the 
 curse and ruin of drunkenness, a curse far 
 deadlier than that of neglected prisons, far 
 deadlier than that of injured slaves. Will you 
 do it? or will you make the great refusal? If you 
 have to bear a httle blatant ridicule in doing it, so 
 much the better. If the people who extol the 
 cheap and easy virtues of imbibing beer and wine, 
 pity you from the heights of their serene supe- 
 riority — tell them that this sort of virtue, which con- 
 sists in doing what we like, because we like it, is 
 one which can never mount to the height of your 
 disdain. Gentlemen, no reform worth having was 
 ever carried except in the teeth of clenched antag- 
 onists ; and most reformers, though we build statues 
 to them now, have had to 
 
 " Stand pilloried on infamy's high stage, 
 And bear the pelting scorn of half an age. " 
 
 And those who carry, or who help to carry, this re 
 form — they too, will live in the grateful recollectior 
 of posterity. The name of Sir Wilfrid Lawson 
 will be honored, when those of half our little poli- 
 ticians sleep in the dust of Hansard. The names of 
 Canon Ellison and Canon Hopkins will be remem- 
 bered when half the fuglemen of our petty schisms 
 are consigned to fortunate oblivion. The name of 
 Dr. Richardson will be honored when the place of 
 a hundred fashionable physicians knows them 
 no more. Not for one moment do I — I, a late con- 
 vert, whose attention was lately aroused to this
 
 62 Total Abstinence 
 
 question by a short experience of work nmoti;^ the 
 London poor — prcsutnc to pluck the most withiitci 
 leaf of that civic pjarland which ob cives sent%toi 
 these gentlemen have so richly deserved; but will 
 not some of you, who are young, arrav yourselves 
 in this great cause — continue this great battle — 
 take the places of us who already "think with a 
 diminished lire, and speak with a diminished 
 force?" 
 
 " Exoriarc aliquis nostris ex os-ibus ultor." 
 
 It may be the fate of some of you to die before 
 you have ever really, or in any high sense lived ; 
 some of you may become cynics in thought, and 
 pessimists in morals, and spend pernicious lives in 
 trying — though you might as well try (o throw 
 dust at heaven and stain it — in trying to ridicule 
 the faith and the aims of the saints of God ; some 
 of you may sell your souls for vulgar successes, 
 and pitch your tents on the dead levels of selfish 
 respectability, or the sluggish flats of base content ; 
 but, oh, will none of you. sweeping aside the 
 wretched sophisms which infest this question, see 
 that sacrifice, born not for self, but for others, is al- 
 ways sacred ; and will you not, for the sake of the so- 
 lidarity of man, give yourselves to that high task 
 of social ameli.)ration of which this is the most 
 pressing and the most important element? "////," 
 says the linitatio Christi, '* ///; si4nt vcre fidelcs tut 
 qui totas vitas suns ad emendationcm disponunt^' and 
 surely the ancndatio of God's noblest nation is a 
 work even more sacred than the cvundatio of our- 
 selves. And at present there is no other way so
 
 For the Sake of Ourselves and Others 6"^ 
 
 brief, so essential, so emphatic, as to show what 
 you think by example as well as by precept, and 
 by giving up what is at the very best an infinitesi- 
 mal advantage to take your part against an infinite 
 calamity. Your doing so may cause a laugh ; it 
 may bring on you a sneer at a dinner-party ; but, 
 if you be still young, it may save you, personally, 
 from a degrading peril ; and it will pledge you per- 
 sonally to a glorious cause. Many will tell you 
 that the plan is Quixotic, Utopian, hopeless. These, 
 gentlemen, are missiles of commonplace launched 
 from the catapults of selfishness, and I have gener- 
 ally observed that the cause at which they are 
 leveled is generally a good cause, and almost al- 
 ways a cause which at last has won. But, at any 
 rate, this I do say from the very deepest convic- 
 tion, that if this be a hopeless cause, then the cause 
 of England is hopeless; and if this be a losing bat- 
 tle, then the battle of England too is lost. But I 
 prophesy that, on the contrary, it is a cause which 
 will triumph, and a battle which shall be won. 
 Give us the impetuosity of your youth ; give us 
 the glow of your enthusiasm; give us the fresh- 
 ness of your lives. Remember that the heroes and 
 the demigods were they who rid the earth of mon- 
 sters ; think of the monsters against which you 
 nave to fight; the miseries from which you have 
 to deliver; the multitudes which you have to con- 
 vince; the banded interests which you must help 
 to overthrow. There, in your sight, lies the dark 
 tower of vice and prejudice which you have to 
 storm, " the round squat turret blind as the fool's 
 heart." God give some of you grace to help in
 
 64 Total Abstinence. 
 
 the storm of it, were it ten times as imprcc^nnblc as 
 it is! Many have died in the apparently forlorn 
 hope of its assault; but I will trust that there may 
 even now be siltin*:^, listenin*^, among^ you, one who 
 Avill yet live to do it, and will, in a far less danger- 
 ous cause, make his vow in the spirit of the young 
 knight in the great poem, surrounded by the phaii. 
 loms of the lost adventurers, his peers: 
 
 " There they stood, ranged along the hill-side — set. 
 To see the last of me — a living tiame 
 For one more picture. In a sheet of flame 
 I saw them, and I knew them all ; and yet 
 Dauntless the slughorn to my lips I set. 
 And blew ' Childc Kuland to the dark tower came.'
 
 
 THE VOW OF THE NAZARITE. 
 
 By the Rev, Canon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. 
 
 ' And I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young 
 men for Nazarites. Is it not even thus, O ye children of Is- 
 rael ? saith the Lord. But ye gave the Nazarites wine to 
 drink ; and commanded the prophets, saying. Prophesy not." 
 — Ajhos 2:11, 12. 
 
 Amos was called from very lowly toils to preach 
 God's word to the kingdom of Israel at a time 
 when, in spite of one last gleam of delusive splen- 
 dor under Jeroboam II., it was fast sinking into 
 that condition of degradation and decrepitude 
 which ended — as end the crimes of all impenitent 
 nations — in its total and irremediable extinction 
 Poor he was, and ignorant, agrammatos kai iaiotes, 
 as were the Apostles after him ; and, as a cure for 
 false scorn and fastidious intellectualism, it is well 
 for us to remember that such have many of God's 
 grandest champions been. But though Amos was 
 neither a prophet nor a prophet's son, but a rough 
 herdsnan and unlettered gatherer of sycamore 
 leaves, he was one of those masculine, indignant
 
 66 The Vow of tfu Nazarite. 
 
 natures, which burst, like imprisoned flame 
 throuf^h the white ashes of social hypocrisy. Pre 
 pared like the Maccabees of old to die in his sim 
 plicity, he was not afraid to roll God's message of 
 nninder over apostate nations, and hurl the flash 
 Df his threateninj^s aji^ainst guilty kings. Like 
 Samuel before Saul, like Iilijah before Ahab, like 
 John the Baptist before Herod, like Paul before 
 lelix, like John Huss before Sigismund, like Lu- 
 llur before Charles V., like John Knox before 
 Mary Stuart, like the saints of (iod in all ages, 
 whose characteristic has ever been the battle-brunt, 
 which — 
 
 Though a cloud. 
 Not of war only, but detractions rude, 
 Guided by faith and matchless fortitude 
 To peace and truth its glorious way hath flowed ; 
 And, on the ncck of crowned fortune proud, 
 Tl.ith reared God's trophies, and his work pursued — 
 
 SO Amos testified undaunted before the idolatry of 
 courts and priests. Now, one crime of that bad 
 period — the crime of all bad periods, and the type 
 of a hundred other crimes t(j which, alike in its 
 origin and its develo|)ments, it is allied — was lux- 
 ury and intemperance. And in this verse the 
 prophet confronts Israel with the high appeal of 
 God, whether he had not put the fire of his Spirit 
 into the hearts of some of their sons, and they had 
 quenched that fire by their blandishments and con- 
 ventionalities ; and whether he had not inspired 
 some of their youths to take the vow of absti- 
 nence, and they, with the deliberate cynicism of 
 worldlings, had tempted them to scorn and break 
 that vow ? Translated into strictly modern Ian.
 
 The Voiv of the Nazarite. 6"/ 
 
 guage, the verse would run : " To protest againgt 
 the effeminacies of self-indulgence I gave you 
 preachers ; to rouse you from the surfeit of intem- 
 perance, I enrolled your sons as abstainers. My 
 preachers you silenced by your godless sophisms, 
 my young abstainers you seduced by your ensnar- 
 ing wiles." 
 
 That this is a strict paraphrase you may judge 
 for yourselves by reading in the sixth chapter of 
 Numbers the vow of the Nazarite. You will see 
 theie that the very essence of it was self-dedica- 
 tion. The young Nazarite consecrated himself to 
 God; he offered himself — his soul and body — a rea- 
 sonable, holy, and living sacrifice. His long hair, 
 on which razor never passed, was a symbol of his 
 royal service. In sign of spotless purity he was 
 never to touch a dead body, were it even his fa- 
 ther's corpse. As a mark of the tranquil sovereignty 
 of his will over the lower appetites and passions 
 of his nature, he was to separate himself so abso- 
 lutely from all wine or strong drink, nay, from all 
 semblt nee of fermented liquor (which, though men 
 are specially fond of calling it a good creature of 
 God, is a product not of life, but of death, not of 
 nature, but of corruption, not of composition, but 
 of decomposition) that he was to taste nothing 
 made fi^om the vine tree, from the kernels even to 
 the husks. And from this passage of Amos, as 
 well as from the taunt of the Pharisees against 
 John the Baptist that " he had a devil," we see that 
 the Nazarite was a marked man ; and that, because 
 his vow was regarded as a tacit condemnation of 
 the popular self-indulgence, he was exposed to the 
 jineeis of the worldly and the temptations of the
 
 68 The Vow of the Nazarite. 
 
 base. Nevertheless, Wisdom was justified of her 
 children. 
 
 Let him who will, spread and shift the silken sail 
 Df cowardice to woo every veering breeze of ap- 
 plause and popularity ; but may every younp^ man 
 anions^ you who hears me — every youth who 
 wishes to be worth his salt — make up his mind 
 that insolent detraction is very often in this world 
 the noblest testimonial of worth, and the coarse 
 dispraise of corrupted worldlinj^s and professional 
 slanderers is the very loftiest of eulojjics. The 
 best men, the bravest men, and the least conven- 
 tional men in the world have been ever the most 
 loudly and the most scornfully abused ; and, while 
 the workl gives to its pestilent and trailing bram- 
 bles the sovereignty over its forest trees, gladly 
 and proudly may the braver souls leave the bespat- 
 tcrment of profuse approval to the shrinking cau- 
 tion that loves to trudge on the sunny side, along 
 the beaten track of selfishness, over the dull, dead 
 levels of conventionality and comfort. Little 
 recked the true Nazarite of muttered sarcasm, of 
 bitter hate — little, as recks the sea of the foolish 
 wild birds that scream above it. Health, strength, 
 physical beauty, wholesomeness of life, tranquillity 
 of soul, serene dominion over evil passions, fol- 
 lowed in the path of early and life-long abstinence. 
 Not theirs to wail, Vino forma perit, vino consitmitur 
 aetas, as wailed the young Roman poet, who, like 
 better men than he, have degraded thenisclves into 
 premature decrepitude; but, as Jeremiah sang 
 about the days of Zion in her glory, " Her Naza- 
 rites were purer than snow; they were whiter than 
 Qiilk ; they were inorc ruddy iri body than rubies;
 
 The Vow of the Nazarite. 69 
 
 their polishing was of sapphires." Not theirs the 
 tottering gait of the drunkard, or the shaking hand 
 of the debauchee ; not theirs the brazen impudence 
 of the shameless, or the hangdog misery of the re- 
 morseful ; but theirs the strength which is the child 
 of temperance, and the beauty which is the sacra- 
 ment of goodness. Such was Joseph, twice in the 
 Hebrew called a Nazarite, who, to strengthen for- 
 ever the high purpose of the young and tempted, 
 uttered the glowing protest of youthful innocence : 
 " How can I do this great wickedness and sin 
 against God?" Such was Samuel, for a nation's 
 deliverance consecrated from childhood to hal- 
 lowed service. Such was Elijah, the "lord of 
 hair," the wild Bedav»^y prophet, who made Jeze- 
 bel quail before him, for all her painted face and 
 bloody hands. Such was John the Baptist, emerg- 
 ing from the wilderness, where his soul had caught 
 a touch of flame, to make the Pharisee blush 
 under his broad phylactery, and shake the pulses 
 of the tyrant on his throne. Such was James, the 
 first bishop of Jerusalem, with his robe of fine 
 white linen, and knees hard with kneeling, and 
 prayers which seemed to the people to open and 
 shut the. doors of heaven. Such, in varying de- 
 grees, was Antony, Boniface, Bernard, Francis of 
 Assisi, Milton, Wesley, Lacordaire. There seems 
 to be a special strength, a special blessing, above 
 all a special power of swaying the souls of others 
 or their good, which is imparted to wise and vol- 
 untary abstinence. The hands of invisible conse- 
 cration overshadow, the fire of a spiritual unction 
 crowns the head of him — and, above all, the head 
 of him who in early youth has learned to sav with
 
 70 The Vmv of the Nazarile. 
 
 his whole heart: "In stronf]^ warfare, in holy sclt 
 denial, I dedicate my youth to God." And such 
 we want; wc want them amongst the youth of En- 
 gland ; and, in proportion as wc get them, will En- 
 gland sink or rise. Wc want, very specially just 
 now, this almost scornful rejection of self-indidg- 
 ence ; this deliberate determination to plain living 
 and higli thinkinij^ in the young. We do not want 
 those whom thcv call the ""gilded youth" — the 
 fluttering butterflies of the season — the dandies, 
 and the gcssipers, and the pleasure-seekers, who 
 niake their lives deservedly wretched because they 
 make them dcliberatclv base, and to whom wc 
 might say, in the words of the poet: 
 
 " Ah, what avails to understand 
 
 The merits of a spotless shirt, 
 A dapper boot, a Uttle hand. 
 
 If half the little soul l>e dirt ? " 
 
 Nor do we want those beardless atheists who, with 
 the crude smattering of a second-hand skepticism, 
 can not only demolish with one flash of their splen- 
 difl intellect, and set aside with one wave of their 
 contemptuous hands the truths which, till yester- 
 day, a Faraday and a Whewcll preached, but who, 
 wiser than the aged in their own conceit, even 
 re\el in the airs of disdain with which they can in- 
 sult as dupes or hypocrites the saints of God, the 
 very latchet of whose shoes they are not worthy to 
 stoop down and unloose. Nor, again, do we want 
 the youths of coarse fiber and vacant heart who, in 
 the first treasons of a spurious liberty, court the 
 temptations which they should shun like the pesti- 
 lence, and, knowing well God's doom on drunken- 
 ness and lust, yet go as an ox to the slaughter, and
 
 The Vow of the Nazarite. 7 1 
 
 as a fool to the correction of the stocks. Nor do 
 we want an}^ be they men or be they women, who 
 do but take their license to the fields of time, heed- 
 less of the degradation that follows them, heedless 
 that they are but adding blackness to earth's dark- 
 ness by their wasted livcSv But we do want — the 
 world wants, this age wants, England wants, the 
 Church of Christ wants, God wants — those who. 
 self-dedicated like the ideal Nazarite to noble ends, 
 have not lost the natural grace and bloom of youth- 
 ful modesty. We do want natures strong, and 
 sweet, and simple, to whom life is no poor collec- 
 tion of fragments, its first volume an obscene and 
 noisy jest-book, its last a grim tragedy or a des- 
 picable farce, but those to whom, however small the 
 stage, life is a regal drama, played out before the eyes 
 of God and men. We do want souls, fresh and vir- 
 ginal, dowered with the hate of hate and scorn of 
 scorn against oppression and selfishness, and the love 
 of love for all that is pure, and generous, and true ; 
 souls that shall say— seeing that life is short, and the 
 fame of virtue immortal — 1 choose, God helping me, 
 the narrow, the uphillward path, up which before 
 me my Saviour bore the cross ; and not wishing to 
 exchange for one of earth's cankered roses its hal- 
 lowed thorns, let false friends discountenance, let 
 the worldly persecute, let fools deride, but mutare 
 aut timere sperno — I scorn either to change or 
 fear. 
 
 2. Well, then, in one word, we want the spirit of 
 willing Nazarites ; and since total abstinence was 
 the central conception o the vow of the Nazarite 
 — whije I am not at all astonished that selfish Sad- 
 ducees or corrupted Hellenists shou'id hate and
 
 72 The Vorv of the Nazarite. 
 
 scoff at it — it is to me amazing and portentous that 
 even some good and true men should represent 
 such self-denial (ii it can be called a self-denial) as 
 Manich;\}an, as unscriptural, as a mark of inferiority, 
 as I know not what. I have no time, and in this 
 pulpit it should be surely needless to shatter each 
 of these sophisms to atoms, and dash it indignantly 
 aside as one more instance in which — as in order 
 to defend polygamy, and the Inquisition, and pau- 
 ]>erism, and the siaye-trade, and the suppression of 
 science, ami the obstacles to discovery, and the 
 deification of ignorance and "the right divine of 
 kings to govern wrong" — the devil, substituting 
 the fetish worship of the dead letter for the fire of 
 the living spirit — has, as though a man should use 
 a medicine as a poison, and the light of the I'haraohs 
 for a wrecker's reef, quoted Scripture for his pur- 
 pose, and made it the cloak of superstition and the 
 shield of wrong. Vet, let me say at once, that I 
 am not going to be guilty of the dictatorial Phari- 
 saism which says to any man, Vou are committing 
 a sin if ycu do not take to total abstinence. That 
 I do not say; even in this age of bronze lacquer 
 and impudent personalities in which nothing is 
 more common than willful calumny, let no one at- 
 tribute to me that language; but what I do say to 
 every one of you — and if the subject be entirely 
 new to this pulpit I say it all the more, and most of 
 nil, I say it if it shall shock in any that epicurean 
 self-satisfaction which is utterly fatal to all noble 
 life— I do say to every one of you, and I say it 
 fearlessly and downrightly in God's name, that 
 you are bound in the best way you can — bound in 
 the sight of God — bound as a Christian — bound as
 
 The Vo'M of the Nazarite. 73 
 
 a p£(triot — bound as an ordinarily good man — to 
 go up, every one of you, before the tribunal of 
 your own consciences, and, whether you be famil- 
 iar with tliem or unfamiliar, to lay very solemnly 
 to heart the stern facts which I shall try to brand 
 upon your memories to-day. The Universities, 
 thank God, have awaked from the dead, sensual 
 sleep of the eighteenth century ; the old type of 
 College Fellows, vegetating for life in vapid and 
 useless luxury, is utterly extinct; even from among 
 Undergraduates, though there be perhaps among 
 them less of the modesty and respect for the elders, 
 and gratitude for kindness, which were virtues 
 which still existed in the days of their fathers, 
 there has yet, I hope, utterly vanished the old 
 coaree type of ignorant and dissolute idlers. It was 
 but the other day (a thing which even ten years 
 ago would have been utterly impossible), that, at 
 Oxford, the Sheldonian Theater was used, and the 
 Vice-Chancellor presided at a thing once deemed 
 so vulgar and plebeian as a temperance meeting, at 
 ■which some of the leading professors spoke ; and 
 Cambridge is taking her part, and taking it right 
 nobly, in the great battle between Ebal and Ger- 
 izim, light and darkness, heaven and hell ; and 
 hundreds, I hope and I believe, of her manly 
 youths are daily learning more and more in the 
 light of shining examples, to scorn delights and 
 love labors, in the high endeavor " to make earth 
 like heaven and every man like God." And if there 
 be but one here who cares only to sleep and feed, 
 and steep himself in the gross mud-honey of a sen- 
 sual life; if there be but one who does not care to 
 do God'? work, or to help His children, or to make
 
 74 The Vow of the Nazarite. 
 
 belter His sin-devastated world— to him I speak not; 
 but to all you the rest I say that, acknowledging as 
 you do the law of charity, it is not charity merely 
 to toss to human suffering the crumbs of your 
 superfluity, but to probe its causes, to anticipate, to 
 avert them. 
 
 It is a characteristic — a very fine and redeeming 
 characteristic — of this age, that all who dare to 
 call themselves Christians are thoroughly in car- 
 nest ; thoroughly, and more wisely, and more sys- 
 tematically, and less despairingly in earnest than 
 of old. in the work of social amelioration ; but yet, 
 mainly because there is here, there is at our doors, 
 there is in the very midst of us, an evil colossal 
 and horrible — an evil with which, to its utter shame, 
 the State has not yet dared to grapple — the evil, I 
 mean, of universal drinking and imiversal drunken- 
 ness — not only has much of all this vast charitable 
 effort been wholly insignificant for good, but some 
 of it has been absolutely powerful for harm, increas- 
 ing the evils which it wished to alleviate, and per- 
 petuating the miseries which it desired to relieve. 
 And, in the hearing of some of you in whose 
 hands shall be the future of England, who will live 
 to fill her pulpits, to write her literature, to make 
 her laws, and who will, I hope, be eager in helping 
 to tear away this poisoned robe which has been 
 maddening the blood of her country — I say, with 
 all the emphasis of a conviction not hastily or 
 rashly formed, that not only are our best agencies 
 of mercy neutralized by this one vice of intcmper 
 ance, but that all these agencies, concentrated into 
 their most effective vigor, would do less — infinitely 
 le^s— good than could be done by the expuls'on o(
 
 The Vow of the Nazarite. "Ji 
 
 this one preventable cause of vice and misciy. 
 Called by the providence of God from the brightness 
 of a life spent at one of our great public schools to 
 face the repellant squalor of London pauperism, 
 that has been brought home to me b_y vivid per- 
 sonal experience. But I do not ask you — you, in 
 your learned culture and cloistered calm — T, who 
 am but a London clerg)mian, with no leisure what- 
 ever to be a student, do not ask you for one mo- 
 ment to accept on my poor authority a dictum, for 
 which, if time permitted, I could simply overwhelm 
 you with irresistible evidence — evidence which, in 
 spite of disdain, and in spite of struggle, should 
 arrest ^omv attention, and fetter and rivet to the 
 rock of conviction even him among you to whom 
 this topic Js most distasteful. ''Every day's ex- 
 perience tends more and more to confirm me in the 
 opinion that the temperance cause hes at the foun- 
 dation of all social and political reform." Those are 
 not mine, but the weighty words of the calm, wise 
 statesman, Richard Cobden. " Every benevolent 
 institution utters the same complaint. A monster 
 obstacle is in our way. Strong drink— by what- 
 ever name the demon is styled, in whatsoever way 
 it presents itself— this, this prevents our success. 
 Remove this one obstacle and our cause will be 
 onward, and our labors will be blessed." Those 
 words are not mine, they are the massive eloquence 
 of Mr. John Bright. " We are convinced that, if a 
 statesman who desired to do the utmost for his 
 country were thoughtfully to inquire which of the 
 topics of the day deserves the most intense lorce 
 of his attention, the true reply— the reply which 
 would be exacted by due deliberation— would be
 
 76 The Voxv of the Nasarite. 
 
 that he should study the means by which this worst 
 of j)ln'^ucs should be stayed." Those arc the 
 words of the late thoughtful and lamented Charles 
 Buxton. " Profligacy, vice, and immorality are 
 not thundering at our gates like a besieging army, 
 but they are undermining the very ground on 
 which we stand." Those words, so deep in their 
 pathos, arc yet the utterance of the genial and be- 
 loved Lord Palmerston. " Let us crush these 
 artists in human slaughter, who have reconciled 
 their country to sickness and ruin, and spread over 
 the pitfalls of debauchery such a bait as can not be 
 resisted." In such stern words spoke, more than 
 one hundred years ago, the worldly and polished 
 Chestei field. Arc not such statements from such 
 men — undeniable, uncontradicted, nay, even un- 
 challenired as thev are — at least enough to waken 
 the deep slumber of a decided opinion, even if they 
 be not enough to break down the clenched antag- 
 onism of ail iii\ incible prejudice, or to dispel the 
 stupid selfishness of an incurable frivolity .'' They 
 are not the words of men at whom you can sneer 
 as crochcty politicians or tetnperance fanatics, or 
 whom the very best of you all in his own estima- 
 tion can set aside with a disparagement or demolish 
 with a gibe. The very cleverest of youthful grad- 
 uates, or even of undergraduates, can ncjt quite stab 
 these men with an epigram, or refute them — as 
 fops refuted Berkeley — with a grin. To sneer at 
 these would be to condemn yourselves as incapable ; 
 these not to know would argue yourselves unknown 
 And yet these are but a few of many such warn 
 ings uttered by some of the best, greatest, wisest 
 in the land ; and you ought not, you must not, you 
 Burcly dare not, to ignore them.
 
 The Vow of the Nazarite. 77 
 
 3. But, if these be not enough, I will add some- 
 thing- more. Taking alcohol as a convenient ge- 
 neric name for the specific element in all kinds of in- 
 toxicating drink, I will ask you to look with me for 
 a moment at what it is not, and at what it is, and at 
 what it costs. It used to be believed that alcohol 
 was a food. It is now conclusively demonstrated 
 (and when I say " conclusively demonstrated," I 
 ask you to believe that I mean, in the most literal 
 sense, conclusively demonstrated) that it is not 
 food ; that it contains not one single element — 
 whether nitrogenous or hydro-carbonic — of food , 
 and that, is one of the first of modern chemists has 
 said, there is, in nine quarts of alcohol, less food 
 than can be spread on the end of a table knife. 
 Nor is it a source of strength. For, alike in Africa 
 and India, in the Arctic and Antarctic, and by 
 /reat labor employers in the temperate zones, ana 
 by distinct experiments with navvies in gangs and 
 soldiers on the march, it is matter of proof that 
 those can labor best, both ph)^sicall3'- and mentally, 
 in Vv'hom the cold is not intensified by the weaken- 
 ing reaction from artificial stimulant, and in whom 
 the sun's fierceness has " no alcoholic ally within 
 the brain." Nor is it a source of JicaltJi ; for the 
 lives of total abstainers are now known to be more 
 valuable in an insurance than other lives, and not a 
 few very eminent living physicians have testified 
 that the daily use of it, even in quantities convene 
 tionally deemed moderate, not onl}^ " causes some 
 of the most fearful and dangerous maladies," but 
 even " injures the body and diminishes the mental 
 powers, to an extent of which few people are 
 aware." Least of all, then, is it a necessity, seeing
 
 78 The V<nv of the Niizarite. 
 
 that it has been happily unknown to whole races, 
 and prohibited by immense religions, and, in En- 
 gland alone, 3,000.000 of total abstainers, of whom 
 not one has ever repented, can testify that since 
 they abandoned it, they, like the Nazarites of old, 
 have been clearer of brain and more strong ot 
 limb, more vigorous in health, and more calm in 
 happiness. I miij^ht go on to any extent with such 
 evidence ; and on the faith of it, and on the yet 
 stronger faith of daily experience, I again assert, 
 not as a dubious theory, but as an established fact, 
 that to men in ordinary health alcohol is not a food, 
 nor a necessity, nor a source of health, nor of 
 warmth, nor of physical strength, least of all of 
 mental power, but that, when it is not a potent 
 medicine, it is a mere luxury — a luxury which is at 
 the best harmless, but which is frequently danger- 
 ous ; sometimes fatal; always quite su[)crfluous; 
 never particularly noble. 
 
 4. Let us understand, then, well, my brethren, al 
 cohol is a luxury, and nothing but a luxury ; and 
 if, being healthy, we indulge in it at all, it is not be- 
 cause we need it, but because we like it. Well, and 
 this being so, what does this luxury cost ? At what 
 expense does the nation, as a nation, gratify its lik- 
 ing? I will tell you. It costs us in tillage the waste 
 of millions of acres of soil; in food, the destruction 
 of millions of tons of grain ; in hard casli, the dele- 
 terious absorption of millions of pounds of money. 
 It is, beyond all question, the one main, if not the 
 sole cause of the squalid, degrading, and danger- 
 ous pauperism against which some of you will 
 hav3 to struggle hereafter in the streets of London 
 and other great cities ; and in the middle classes
 
 772!^ Vozv of the Nazarite 
 
 79 
 
 who have often to strive so hard, you would be 
 surprised if I could show you how much they 
 might yearlv save by this abstinence alone. And 
 though that is something — though it is a consid- 
 eration not to be despised by youths who will soon 
 have to make their way, with dail}^ increasing diffi- 
 culty, amid the hard competitions of an over- 
 crowded population — and though it will help them 
 very materially in the stern battle of life to have 
 acquired simple and self-denying habits, yet all 
 this saving to individuals, all this saving to the na- 
 tion of yearly increasing millions of pounds, which 
 would make it not only more wealthy, but also 
 more prosperous by incalculable advantages, is the 
 least important point. " Tanto opere, tanto labore et 
 impcndio constat quod Jiominis meiitcm viiitet ac fo- 
 rorem gignat, niillibns huic sceleri deditis," said the 
 elder Pliny, nearly two thousand years ago ; and it 
 is now more true a thousand times. In any other 
 connection you would think this vast expenditure, 
 this colossal waste, a consideration of overwhelm- 
 ing importance, yet in this it is the ver}- smallest 
 element in the question. Of far deeper, of far 
 more awful significance, is what it costs in disease, 
 what it costs in crime, what it costs in misery, what 
 it costs to the glory of England now, and the hopes 
 of England's generations for years to come. I have 
 no time, I have no heart to tell you all that could 
 be told under this head. I entreat you not to turn 
 impatiently from it; nay, I tell you plainly, you 
 have no right to turn impatiently from it. For the 
 drinking of some means inevitably, as things are, 
 the drunkenness of many ; and these who sin, these 
 who suffer, these who die, are our own flesh and
 
 So The Vow of the Nazarite. 
 
 blood. I believe that there is scarcely one family 
 in EnL;land which has not siiflfcred from this hide- 
 ous plague ; scarce a house in Enjj^land where there 
 is not one dead. And. oh ! " is it nothing^ to you, 
 all ye that pass by?" You have heard what drink 
 costs to this nation in money ; what does it cost in 
 disease and accident? Ask the dreary pap^cs of 
 statistics, and you will read that in so-called acci- 
 dent, but accident perfectly preventable, it cost us 
 broken limbs and shipwrecked vessels, and burned 
 houses, and shattered railwav trains, and the deaths 
 of children overlaid by drunken mothers or beaten 
 savaj^ely by drunken lathers; and to tell you what 
 it costs in disease, I should have to take you, not in 
 fancy, but in hard fact, to what the poet saw as the 
 result of intemperance in meats and drinks: 
 
 " A lazarhouse it seemed, wherein were laid 
 Numbers of all diseases — all maladies, 
 Of ghastly spasm and racking torture : qualms 
 Of heartsick agony ; all feverous kinds — 
 Dropsies, and asthmas, and heart-racking rheum. 
 Dire was the tossing, deep the groans ; despair 
 Tended the sick busiest from couch to couch. 
 And over them, triumphant. Death his dart 
 Shook — but delayed to strike." 
 
 This is what those who claim to speak with authority 
 tell us it costs in sheer disease; and which of you 
 is so ie^norant of English history, of English litera- 
 ture. of English life, as not to know further of no- 
 blest reputations stained, of glorious intellects 
 ruined, of great souls embittered, of invaluable 
 lives cut short? And what does it cost in cri.nef 
 I will tell you, not as a surmise of my own, but on 
 Uie recorded testimony, on the emphatic evidence
 
 The Vow of the Nazarite. 8 1 
 
 of almost every judge and magistrate and recorder 
 on the English bench. Remember that those ar- 
 resited for drunkenness do not furnish one tithe of 
 the drunkards, and then shudder to hear that, in a 
 single year, 203,989 were arrested for crimes in 
 which drunkenness was entered as a part of the 
 charge; and that last year 5,131 women — only 
 think of that, and of all the hideous degradation, 
 all the unspeakable horror which it implies! — were 
 arrested for drunkenness in Middlesex alone. In 
 every province, in every count}', in every great city 
 of the United Kingdom, it has been stated from the 
 seat of justice ^gain and again that, but for drunk- 
 enness, there would not be in England one-tenth of 
 the existing crime. It is getting a hideous com- 
 monplace of judges. Only ten days ago Lord Col- 
 eridge said at Durham that, but for drink, we might 
 shut up nine-tenths of our gaols. Last week was 
 brought up before Mr. Justice Manisty, at Man- 
 chester, a wretched creature in man's semblance, 
 who, as though he were worse than a natural brute 
 beast made to be taken and destroyed, had brutally 
 kicked to death a wife far advanced in pregnancy ; 
 and the judge in sentencing him to the gallows 
 said : " You have been found guilty of the crime ol 
 willful murder, your victim being your own wife. 
 You are a sad, sad instance of the consequences of 
 indulging in drink, which has brought you to this 
 fearful condition. It is only owing to God's mercy 
 that this has not brought many, many more into a 
 similar case. I am afraid that if this vice continues 
 to be indulged in as it now is, many more will 
 stand in a like position to you. Oh that we could, 
 by administering the law, put an end to it! " Ah,
 
 $2 The Vow of the Nasarite. 
 
 he might well say that ! But dare you blink at 
 such testimony ? Do you think that they say such 
 things rashly ? And if you will not listen lo the 
 reiterated warnings of the judges in their ermine, 
 will you listen to the noble-hearted missionaries 
 who tell us what drink costs to the glory of En 
 gland in the execration of her name over whole con- 
 tinents, and the ruin of her elTorts among whole 
 populations? Could I summon the Maorics ot 
 New Zealand, once so healthy that you might smite 
 a man with a broad-axe and in a few days he would 
 be well, now, in the language of a high govern- 
 ment official, "almost as bad as the Knglish, pollu- 
 ted and contaminated by thicr drink" — what would 
 they say? If I could summon the Indians of North 
 America, once not unhappy, now degraded, mad- 
 dened, exterminated by our accursed fire-water, 
 what would they say? They have said that be 
 cause of it they spit at the name of Christian. It 
 we ask the Mohammedans, what do they say? Is 
 there a Christian in England with conscience so 
 dead, with heart so rough, with cheek so brazen, 
 as not to blush when he hears that, if they see one 
 of their number drunk they have been heard to 
 say, " He has left Mohamet and gone to Jesus." If 
 we ask the Hindoos, what do they say ? They have 
 said by the lips of their eloquent representative, 
 Kcshub Chunder Sen, that all the splendid benefits 
 of our English rule in India have been nullified and 
 counterbalanced by our teaching them the use of 
 beer and brandy ; that the wailing of widows rends 
 the air of India with curses against the British Gov- 
 ernment for having introduced this thing. And 
 again, from the Southern Sea, the voice of yet an-
 
 The Vow of the Nazarite. 83 
 
 other missionary says to us: " If you love missions, 
 work, help — help to dethrone this demon of intem- 
 perance, our reproof before the heathen, the blight 
 of our infant churches." And oh, sirs, when )^ou 
 hear such things, are we not — we, the sons of free, 
 proud, glorious England — are we not, to our burn- 
 *ng infamy, what one has called us, the drunken 
 Helots of the world ? 
 
 So much, then, for money and disease and crime 
 and colonization ; and what does drink cost in hu- 
 man misery? Have you hearts? if you have, 1 
 might say — 
 
 " Sit you clown, 
 And I will wring your heart, for so I shall 
 If it be made of penetrable stuff: 
 If damned custom hath not brazed it so, 
 That it is proof and bulwark against sense." 
 
 But, ah! I have no tongue to utter, no imaginati'?n 
 to conceive, no calculus to measure the immensity 
 of this national curse, this national calamity. It 
 would require the vision of the Angels of Record, 
 if they can gaze on it with eyes unblinded by such 
 tears as angels weep, to tell of those miseries of 
 millions for centuries; "to pass as it were from 
 chamber to chamber of the prophet's vision of 
 abomination, and to mark the crime in every form 
 the vice in every shape, the disease in every aspect 
 that can make disease horrible," that ha'j been 
 caused by the corrupted fruit of this Tree of the 
 Knowledge of Evil. He alone whose ears are open 
 to the lion's roar and the raven's cry, can catch the 
 numberless accents of that wail of incurable an- 
 guish and uncontrollable despair which has stream- 
 ed upwards for generations, till the vault of heaven
 
 84 T}u Vow of the Nazarite. 
 
 has become " one vast whispering gallery to pro- 
 long and reverberate the groans of those who have 
 slain their own peace by this voluntary empoison- 
 ment." He alone, by whom the hairs of our head 
 arc all numbered, can count the widows who arc 
 ividows beacause of drink; the matlmcn who are 
 /nad because of it ; the gray heads that it has made 
 gray ; the sad hearts that it has crushed with sad- 
 ness ; the ruined families that it ha» ruined; the 
 brilliant minds which it has quenched; the unfold- 
 ing promise which it has cankered ; the bright and 
 happy boys and girls whom it has blasted into 
 shame and misery ; the young and the gifted which 
 it has hurried along into dishonored and nameless 
 graves. 
 
 Is it not Shakespeare himself who says by the 
 mouth of his disgraced and ruined Cassio, '* O thou 
 invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be 
 known by. let us call thee Devil I " What does 
 drink cost in human misery? Ah! how can I tell 
 you? Can I count the leaves of the forest or the 
 sands upon the shore? And the sounds of this 
 misery are like the sighing of the leaves of illimit- 
 able forests, and the plashing on the shores of un- 
 fathomable seas. He alone whose ear is ever open 
 to the cry of the poor and destitute can hear the 
 wailing of that multitude of miserable, miserable 
 women who, taking in despair to the drink which 
 their husbands have taught them, get degradingly 
 content with the starving squalor which they call 
 their homes — can hear the poor wretch who has 
 vainly followed her drunken tyrant to the public- 
 house moan in agonies of entreaty, "Come home! 
 come home!" or see her watching and waiting in
 
 Tiie Voxv of the Nazarite. 85 
 
 that foul mocker}- of a home, -till the sot rolls back 
 at midnight, and with his brains all en fire with 
 that vitriol madness, lifts ag-ainst her unprotected 
 womanhood his cowardly and brutal hand, "till 
 the filthy b3--lane rings to the yell of the trampled 
 wife" — ah ! I can not go on, and you — you can not 
 bear to hear of these things ; 3'et these things are, 
 and worse — if there be wor:e — than these ; and 
 Ihough you may, if you please, lay a flattering unc- 
 tion to 3'our consciences, and call this rhetoric or 
 call it exaggeration, it is just the plain, barj. hide- 
 ous truth ; and while you shrink from thes3 things 
 in words, are 3'our sympathies so slothful that you 
 do not shrink from them in realit}*? Oh that I 
 could harrow up into a little manliness those deli- 
 cate sensibilities! Oh that I could \.\\ \]\ that hor- 
 ror into action, those tastes which, like those of an 
 insect, " feel the shaking of the table and do not 
 feel the thunder I " For it is the horrible fact that 
 the drink which we as a nation are drinking, not 
 from the necessities of thirst, but from the mere 
 luxuries of appetite, drink often adulterated with 
 the vilest and most maddening ingredients — yes, 
 this rubied and Circean cup which we sip and 
 smile while it is converting thousands of our 
 brethren into swine — this subtle, serpentine, insidi- 
 ous thing which we cherish in our bosoms, and 
 laugh and play with its brightness while it is sting- 
 ing thousands of our brothers into raging madness 
 — costs us, as I have shown, millions of money, 
 mynads of criminals, thousands of paupers, thou- 
 sr.nds of ruined women, hundreds of thousands of 
 men and women goaded by misery info suicide or 
 madness, with every blossom in what might have
 
 i6 The Voiv of the Nazarite. 
 
 been the p^arland of their lives blighted as by a 
 Fury's breath. And aj^^ain I soy: "Is it nothing 
 to you, all ye that pass by ? '' Is it nothinfr to you, 
 young men, who, if you be worth anything at all, 
 better than to cumber the barren ground of wasted 
 and useless lives, will be called upon a year or two 
 hence to take up your cross, and the mirth and 
 brightness of youth being ended, to take your hap- 
 py and holy part when God shall place you in the 
 ranks of the great battle against sin and death ; 
 shall it be nothing to you that the blood of your 
 brothers and sisters in this great family of God is 
 being daily poured upon the altars of this deadlier 
 Moloch of a Tophet more awful than that of Ilin- 
 nom'sVale; while in disavowing that you arc your 
 brother's keeper, you become his Cain ? 
 
 Aye, and are we to go on for another generation 
 with our 8,500 public-houses in London only, and 
 see another generation of our country's children 
 grow up amid the same dangers and the same 
 temptations, exposed like a defenseless prey to 
 these evil spirits, nay, even transmitting that awful 
 hereditary craving which shall leave to yet another 
 generation for all their lives the reality of intense 
 temptation, the possibilities of terrible catastrophe? 
 Even if every one of you be individually aiife 
 (whereas what I feel sure of is, that, without the 
 grace of God sought in earnest prayer, not one of 
 us is safe at any time, not one of us is safe from 
 anything ;) but even if you be quite sure that you 
 will never fall unawares in love with this tamed 
 viper, which may seem a bright and harmless creat- 
 ure of God, until, as, alas ! too many of the strong 
 and the gifted and the noble who have beep
 
 The Voiv of the Nazarite. 87 
 
 wounded by it can testify, at some moment of 
 deep misery or crushing disappointment it slides 
 into the soul with tempting whisper or rixcs in the 
 heart its envenomed fang ; even if 3'ou be person- 
 ally safe from this destroyer of all health and vir- 
 tue, this breeder of all sickness and sin, will you do 
 •nothing for — will you think nothing of— those myr- 
 iads and multitudes to whom this drink means 
 orutality and degradation, disease and death ? If 
 so — if you hear with callous indifference — nay, with 
 contemptuous dislike — nay, with angry repugnance 
 — what you have heard to-day — as though, for- 
 sooth, some rude, untutored voice broke in upon 
 your balanced serenity — then, by all means, as far 
 as I am concerned, insult the speaker to your 
 heart's content; eat, drink, and be merry; go up 
 to Ramoth Gilead and prosper. But il", indeed, 
 you do not care to do anything — not even to lift 
 one finger to save this our England from this living 
 death — then stand aside from among us, and do not 
 call yourself a philanthropist, do not call yourself 
 a Christian. It may not be your duty — I have not 
 said, I do not say that it is — to take any pledge of 
 total abstinence as the amulet of a hallowed pur 
 pose, or the safeguard of a strengthened youth, or 
 the outward sign that you, too, will take your part, 
 now and hereafter, in this great struggle between 
 heaven and hell ; but if you do not feel called upon 
 to do this, at least respect and honor the motives 
 of those who, in special positions, and because 
 of special duties, think that in doing it they 
 have obeyed their country's and their Saviour's 
 call ; and that, in the strength of heaven, and for 
 the sake of Christ and Christ's perishing little ones,
 
 88 
 
 The Vow of t/u Nazaritc. 
 
 they have been called upon to act in the spirit of 
 the liijjh lanjjuagc of St. I'aul : " I will neither eat 
 flesh nor drink wine, nor anythinjj whereby tny 
 brother stumblcth, or is offended, or is made 
 Aealc "
 
 THE VOW OF THE RECHABITES. 
 
 By Rev. Canon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S, 
 
 " And I said unto them, Drink ye wine. But they said, Wc 
 will drink no wine : for Jonadab the son of Rechab our father 
 commanded us, saying, Ye shall drink no wine, neither ye, nor 
 your sons for ever." — Jer. xxxv., part of 5, 6. 
 
 Intertwined with the history of Israel is that of 
 a wild and independent tribe of Kenites, descended 
 from Hobab, the brother-in-law of Moses When 
 the western Israehtes abandoned the roving- Arab 
 life to settle in the cities of Canaan, the Kenites 
 still retained their pastoral habits. One of the 
 characteristics which we trace in their history, was 
 a fierce resentment against oppression and idolatry. 
 It was a Kenite woman, Jael, who smote Sisera 
 even in her own tent. It was a Kenite Sheykh, Jona- 
 dab, the son of Rechab, who washed his fierce 
 hands in the blood of Baal's worshippers and 
 Ahab's house. 
 
 The free and eager air of the desert had passed 
 into their lives; and, compared with the settled 
 Jews, they were as the Bedowecn to the Fellaheen 
 of modern Palestine. And this fierce and hardy 
 life was so dear to them, that they determined 
 never to abandon it ; strengthened in their resolve 
 when they saw the nations amongst whom they 
 lived degenerating more and more into luxury and 
 corruption. The son of Rechab would never have
 
 po The J'cnc' of the Rccliubites. 
 
 mounted with Jehu into his chariot, and joined ia 
 massacre after massacre to show his zeal for the 
 Lord, if he had not lonij observed how the subtle 
 intoxication of Phoenician art and I'hoenician mor- 
 als was passinf^ like poison into the blood of the 
 Northern Kins^doms; how the whoredoms of Jeze- 
 bel, and her witchcrafts at once fascinated and de- 
 praved a God-ft)rf^etting race ; how the weak and 
 uxorious Ahab was gilding with royal favor the 
 legalized abominations of Baalim and Ashtaroth. 
 And it was the grief and indignation at such grow- 
 ing wickedness, which found its wiser outcome in 
 this everlasting interdict which he laid upon his 
 descendants, that they should drink no wine, and 
 sow no corn, and dwell in no houses, and so keep 
 themselves uncontaminated from the eflfeminacy 
 which otherwise, like a creeping paralysis, might 
 taint their healthful blood. 
 
 It is an incident from the life of these descend- 
 ants, more than two centuries afterwards, which 
 occupies the first lesson of this evening's service. 
 
 The gradual and victorious approach of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar and the Babylonians had alarmed all 
 Judea. At last the battle of Carchemish had made 
 him master of the advances to the country, and, in 
 alarm lest they should be trampled on by his tri- 
 umphant progress, these children of the desert were 
 forced, for a time, into what to them was the odious 
 shelter of a walled city. And here, while they 
 were fretting for the old free life, their black tents 
 pitched in the open spaces of Jerusalem, became 
 centres of curious observation. Amid a popula- 
 tion given to excess and gluttony, it was natural
 
 The Vow of the Rechabitcs. 91 
 
 that their total abstinence should attract special 
 attention, and Jeremiah received a Divine intima- 
 tion to teach from their obedience an eternal les- 
 son. 
 
 Inviting these rude and faithful Bedoween into a 
 chamber of the Temple, he gave them the invita- 
 ,ion to which the bold wassailers of his nation 
 would so heartil)' have responded, " Drink ye wine," 
 But the Rechabites were not to be tempted. They 
 had adopted the hereditary law of temperance on 
 the bidding of a mighty ancestor, as a protection 
 against the temptations of cities. They continued 
 it because conscience approved, and health re- 
 warded a noble choice. Had they broken their 
 rule once, they well knew that the tendency would 
 be to break it twice and thrice; and that if they 
 broke it at the bidding of social com.plaisance, some 
 at least of their number might soon be led to break 
 it at the bidding of personal temptation. Plainly, 
 therefore, and bluntly came the answer, " We will 
 drink no wine : for Jonadab the son of Rechab, 
 commanded us, saying, Ye shall drink no wine, 
 neither ye, nor your sons for ever." 
 
 Admiring their high and unshaken resolve, the 
 prophet sadly and indignantly contrasted their per- 
 fect obedience to this single injunction of their 
 father, with the perpetual disobedience — the per- 
 sistant defiance of Israel to God's repeated en- 
 couragements and reiterated laws ; and he was 
 then commissioned to pronounce a judgment on his 
 sinful countrymen, and the blessing of God's ap- 
 proval on the whole house of Jonadab the son of 
 Rechab for ever.
 
 Q2 The Vow of the Rcchabites. 
 
 You will sec then, at once, that God distinctly 
 sanctioned, emphatically rewarded, this vow which 
 the Rechabites had made as a living protest aj^^ainst 
 the sins and perils of a corrupt and evil age ; and 
 you will see at once the subject which it forces upon 
 our notice. I have not chosen that subject ; I have 
 not even desired it. It is thrust up(jn us by the 
 lesson for the day ; and since it is thus thrust upon 
 us, I ask vour attention to it as Christians, as citi- 
 zens, as men. Let no one think that the subject 
 does not concern him. It concerns the most tem- 
 perate hardly less than the most intemperate. It 
 concerns both men and women, both old and young. 
 It aflccts all who arc not utterly absorbed in selfish- 
 ness; all who have the interests of the nation and 
 their race at heart. And in speaking of it I shall 
 make no disputable statement ; I shall use no exag- 
 gerated expression ; I shall indulge in no rhetorical 
 amplitude; I shall wilfully offend no reasonable 
 prejudice. I shall use, God helping me, the Ian. 
 guagc which, however dark the coloring that facts 
 may lend to it, is vet the language of absolute 
 soberness and simple truth ; but here, in this cen^ 
 tral city of the world's greatest kingdom — here, in 
 this abbey, connected by so many centuries with 
 all that England boasts of worthiest and best — I 
 will ask, nay, I will claim, in the name of God and 
 your country, your calm, solemn, unbiassed atten- 
 tion, to conditions which it is sinful to neglect and 
 selfish to ignore. And if there be any here whose 
 interests seem to be imperilled, whose prejudices 
 are already in arms, it is their attention most of all 
 that — and not with language of unsympathy, not
 
 The Vow of the Rechabites. 93 
 
 in the lone of denunciation, but as a friend, and as 
 a minister of God, in all brotherly kindness, and 
 with all consideration and courtesy — I would most 
 earnestly desire. 
 
 Is there not then, I would ask you, some special, 
 some national need in the circumstances of this age, 
 that we should take well to heart the vow and ex 
 ample recorded in this evening's lesson ? If I were 
 to tell you that there is, in the British Isles, a Being 
 into whose treasuries are annually poured in un- 
 productive consumption more than 140 millions of 
 our national wealth ; whose actions crush year by- 
 year more victims than have been crushed for cen- 
 turies together by the car of Juggernaut ; whose 
 unchecked power causes year by year horrors in- 
 comparably more multitudinous than those which 
 have recently thrilled our souls with pity and in- 
 dignation ; if I were to say that the services wrought 
 by this Being were, if any at all, which is an open 
 question, yet almost valueless in kind, and infinitesi- 
 mal in extent, while on the other hand, the direct 
 admitted indisputable miseries he inflicts were ter- 
 rible in virulence and vast in ramification ; if I were 
 to say that at His right hand and His left, as eager 
 and ever active ministers, stood idiocy and pauper- 
 ism, degradation, and brutality ; and at that point 
 you were all to rise up at once and cry aloud, 
 " Tell us the name of this Being, that we may drive 
 him with execration from the midst of us, and that 
 every one of us may be a Jehu and a Jonadab, to 
 extirpate his power and expel his polluting foot- 
 steps from our soil ; " and I were to say that, far 
 from doing this, we all as a nation, and nearly all
 
 94 77/<- l^o-u' of tite Rechabites. 
 
 of us as individuals, crown him with garlands, 
 honor him with social customs, introduce him into 
 gladdest gatherings, sing songs in his glory, build 
 myriads of temples to his service, familiarise our 
 very children with his fame and praise; were I to 
 say this, then, sentence by sentence, clause by 
 clause, word by word, it would be literally true, 
 not of a man, but of a thing, and that thing, in'toxi 
 GATING drink! 
 
 The devotion to it, as every one knows who 
 knows anything about his country, is the besetting 
 sin of the nation ; and, so far from trying to check 
 this besetting sin, we encourage, we render attrac- 
 tive, we protect, we indefinitely multiply, we thrust 
 at every step before those whom it is most likely to 
 destroy, innumerable temj>tations to it ; and this we 
 do, and continue to do, though we know that so 
 difficult is it ft^r the poor, even when ihcy wish to 
 keep aloof from it; so subtle, rapid, fatal, enslav- 
 ing is the horrible fascination of it, that a man often 
 becomes a drunkard almost before he sees the 
 awfiilness of his peril ; and when once he is a drunk- 
 ard, most often he is Lurried all down hill with fatal 
 rapidity into incurable ruin of body, mind, and 
 soul. Can we then wonder that, more and more, 
 by common confession (a confession, alas! how 
 humiliating, of a fact how notorious) the national 
 vice of Great Britain is drunkenness*? Not one 
 day passes without our witnessing its terrible rav- 
 ages. To the ruin it engenders, all alike bear wit- 
 ness. From the Army, from the Navy, from great 
 cities, from country villages, from the police, from 
 guardians of the poor, from manufacturers, from
 
 The Voiv of the Rechabitcs. 95 
 
 merchants, from all large employers of labor, from 
 physicians, from judges, from the clergy of every 
 denomination, and most often and most bitterly 
 from the working men themselves, come pouring 
 in the accumulated testimonies — emphatic, heart- 
 rending, unmistakable, reiterated — to the preval- 
 ence, to the increase, to the deadliness of this de- 
 grading sin. Do you who are rich and respectable 
 — you who, shut up in your stately houses or quiet 
 homes, know nothing of this, and therefore, nursing 
 in some delicious stillness your dainty loves and 
 slothful sympathies, hear it with indifference or 
 impatience? If you would know what drunken- 
 ness is, if you would learn what cause there is to 
 lift up the voice respecting it, leave your ease ; do 
 not be afraid for once to sicken your sensibilities; 
 do not be afraid to soil your robes. See women, 
 or what had once been those gracious beings, 
 shrieking, fighting, blaspheming, pawning the very 
 shawls off their backs, and the ver}^ bed on which 
 their children lie. Watch the poor, ragged, ema- 
 ciated drunkard, — lost to health, lost to respecta- 
 bility, lost to shame — reeling from the counter 
 where he has over and over again shamefully 
 squandered what might have kept himself and his 
 family in comfort and independence. Follow him, 
 at least in imagination, to the chronic and squalid 
 misery of that bare, foul room, which might have 
 been a home. See his children fly from him terror- 
 stricken, and huddle away out of sight in the cor- 
 ner, in the street, anywhere. See his wife — but the 
 picture, though infinitely less than the reality, is 
 too horrible; and you may see this almost any-
 
 g6 The Voiv of the Rcc habit es. 
 
 where : you may see it almost any clay ; and when 
 you have seen it, you will know at last why the 
 hearts of thousands sink within them as they con- 
 template this standinp^ shame, this clinging curse, 
 this eating canker of our prosperity and of our life. 
 For one moment, as briefly as possible, let us 
 merely glance at the results of this destroying sin. 
 First, there is ivastc. This is the very least of its 
 evils, yet you may estimate what it is when you 
 hear that this vast unproductive drain on the na- 
 tional resources would, in a few years, pay the 
 whole National Debt. 'Wxqvq.xs physical degeneracy, 
 making the lives of myriads a burden, defacing the 
 proud image of God into that of wretches with 
 blear eyes, shattered nerves, and palsied limbs. 
 There is pauperism — pauperism which, owing to 
 this potent and blighting sorcery, df)es but drag 
 down the working classes by the very cfTi^rts, the 
 shortened hours, the higher wages intended for 
 their improvement. There is disease in every form 
 of shattered accident, and raving delirium, and 
 sudden death. There is brutal violence. 
 
 " When the ntriol madness flashes up in the ruffian's brain, 
 And the filthy by-lane rings with the yell of his trampled wife.' 
 
 There is the powcrlcssness of the Church to 
 counteract the frenzy ing temptation of the gin- 
 shop. There is the frustration of effort after effort 
 to ameliorate the condition of the poor. There is 
 the neutralisation of mission after mission by the 
 imitated vices which make savage nations m^lt be- 
 fore our imported fire-water as before a demon's 
 breath. There is the transmitted ant,'uish, handed
 
 The Vow of the Re: halites. 97 
 
 down from generation to generation, in tainted 
 constitutions and fatal instincts to the drunkard's 
 child. This, then, is what alcohol does. 
 
 These are its infamous results — parent of evil. 
 Who will venture to deny one of these awful in- 
 dictments with which I here arraign it? Unneces- 
 sary as it is, except, possibly, in rarest cases of ill- 
 ness, being neither a food nor a source of strength, 
 it wastes our resources ; it saps our national 
 strength ; it empties our churches : it frustrates 
 our schools ; it fills our prisons ; it crowds the 
 wards of our hospitals: it peoples the cells of our 
 asylums; it swells the tables of our mortality; it 
 degrades many of our rich ; it brutalizes multitudes 
 of our poor. 
 
 Blasting our prosperity at home ; mocking our 
 efforts abroad, it makes our influence for evil as 
 marked as our influence for good. It empoisons 
 our national present; and imperils our national fu- 
 ture. The Spartans made their Helots drunk to 
 warn their children from a dangerous vice by a de- 
 grading spectacle ; and there is anguish in the 
 thought that we, the sons of free, proud England, 
 are rapidly, by this temptation, degrading our- 
 selves into that which from this pulpit we once 
 were called —the Helots of the world. 
 
 Now, all this being so, what will you do? Oh, 
 I do believe that there are thousands of good men 
 and good women, who, if they knew about this 
 subject all they might know, would at least not do 
 certain things. They would not look on coldly and 
 indifferently while others struggle. They would 
 not think J he drunkard a fit subject for a smile or
 
 f)8 The \ 'oil' of the Rechabites. 
 
 jest. They would not oppose any Icjj^islalive on. 
 dcavor to diminish for the workinj^man his worst 
 and fatalcst seduction. They would not meet the 
 arf;umcnts of temj^erancc by those feeble supersti- 
 tious and explodcdcd fashions of Scriptural reason- 
 ing which have been used ere now to kindle the 
 faj^ot of the inquisitor, and rivet the fetter of the 
 slave. They would not supply to the cause of in- 
 temperance the shallow sophism or the ensnaring 
 cpiijram. But what they would do wouUl be to 
 join hand in hand in a holy crusade against this 
 curse of nations; this worst stumbling-block on the 
 path of moral, intellectual, and religious progress. 
 And if thevdid not see their way to do. as a simple 
 and much-needed protest what thousands, thank 
 God, of our clergy have done (and have done not 
 only without injury to health, but with positive ad- 
 vai:tage to it — not only without diminution of 
 strength, but with decided increase of it), namely, 
 abstain from all intoxicating drinks for their breth- 
 ren's sake, if not for their own; if they did not 
 make this cheap and beneficial sacrifice, yet at least, 
 in order that the next generation may be partially 
 delivered from that which is the bitter curse of this, 
 they would train up their children, when any fer- 
 mented liquor is set before them, to say with the 
 children of Jonadab, the scm of Rechab, " We drink 
 it not, for our father commanded us, saying, * Drink 
 it not.' " Oh. what a generation would that be, 
 htnv healthy, how wealthy, how clear of intellect, 
 how strong of arm, how fertile in resources, how 
 rich in hope, to which drink would be unknown ! 
 The blessing to Jonadab, the son of Rechab, was
 
 The Vow of the Recliabitcs. 99 
 
 that he should not want a man to stand before God 
 forever; and if, as a nation, we continue in this sin 
 unchecked, if the more we earn the more we see 
 the people saturating- soul and body with this de- 
 structive liquid fire, what shall, what must, be the 
 curse to us? Shall it not, must it not, be that on 
 the walls of the banquet houses of our luxury, shall 
 come forth the fingers of a man's hand and write, 
 *' Mene, Mene^ Tekel, Upharsin," "Numbered, num- 
 bered, weighed, and they shall divide?" Must it 
 not be that for us, as for the drunkards of Ephraim, 
 our glorious beauty shall be a fading flower; that 
 our pleasant vices shall be made an instrument to 
 punish us; that the sceptre of our imperial domin- 
 ion shall drop out of the nerveless grasp which our 
 selfishness has relaxed ; that the crov.^n shall fall 
 from our heads, for we have sinned ? Which fate, 
 the fate — because of their sins — of so many sinful 
 nations before us, on our repentance, may God 
 avert! Put if we repent not, then as Assyria fell 
 for her pride, and Babylon for her cruelty, and 
 Persia for her effeminancy, and Athens for her lust, 
 and Spain for her avarice; so, in her turn, must 
 England fall for her drunkenness; and the axe is 
 in the air, and the fiat shall go forth; "A good 
 tree bringeth not forth evil fruit, neither can a cor- 
 rupt tree bring forth good fjuit." "Every tree 
 that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down 
 and c ist into the fire."
 
 REASONS FOR ABSTAINING. 
 
 By thk Rev. Canon Farrar, D.D.. F.R.S, 
 
 WiiKN 1 had the honor of bcinij asked to take 
 part in this n)cctinp. I was told that its object was 
 to consider the physi()h)jj;ical aspects of the Tem- 
 perance question, and my chief reason for accept- 
 ing; the invitation, was, that I mii^ht hear the re- 
 marks and the researches of those two gentlemen, 
 so {)re-eniinf nt in their profession, who liave just 
 addressed you. It is quite obvious that to the 
 physioloi;ical aspect of the question, neither you 
 nor I can give any independent contribution. To 
 ^ive any oriii^inal remark on the subject, would re- 
 quire an expert cai)able of verif)4ng the researches, 
 and of sifting the conclusions of men (jf science, 
 who on the subject arc not yet agreed ; but at the 
 same time, as Dr. Richardson has just said, we, at 
 any rate can each of us contribute to this sub- 
 ject the results of an individual experiment, and all 
 that I have to furnish to this part of the question, 
 is only one little grain of evidence; and yet grains 
 of evidence contributed by a large number of per- 
 sons, must not be despised when we remember that, 
 after all, it is the little grains of sand upon the sea- 
 shore that form at last the sole efficient barrier to 
 the raging of its waves. Now the only individual
 
 Reasons for Abstaining. lOi 
 
 grain of experience that we can contribute, is the 
 (act that in so far as any of us have retrenched the 
 very moderate amount of alcohol which many al- 
 low themselves, we have distinctly gained by doing 
 so. If, then, we come to the conclusion — as we do 
 — that we may try the experiment without any 
 danger, 1 think that it is one worth trying. Now, 
 in prisons and penitentiaries, thousands of people 
 arc yearl}^ admitted who may have been in the 
 habit of intoxication probably from their earliest 
 years, and from whom, from the moment of their 
 entrance into the prison, every drop of alcohol is 
 withdrawn — and what is the result? The men, so 
 far from suffering in health, gain in power and 
 force, and the women recover that bloom which 
 often has entirely vanished from faces that have 
 been sodden by intemperance and crime. Every 
 one of us, therefore co.n, without any sort of dan- 
 ger, try this experiment; and if we can try the ex- 
 periment, without danger to health ; if there be 
 reason to think, as we have heard from two such 
 eminent authorities, that we can try the experi- 
 ment with a positive gain to health ; if by doing so 
 we can contribute a little, be it ever so little, to a 
 noble cause, and do a little, be it ever so little, to- 
 wards dispelling the nightmare of intemperance 
 that rides upon the breast of England like its dead- 
 liest sin — then I do think that it is worth the while of 
 every reasonable and right-minded man to consider 
 whether, instead of turning away from this subject, 
 as they so often do, with disdainful impatience, they 
 might not rather go up into the tribunal of their own 
 consciences, and ask themselves, deliberately ^and 
 calmly, whether by a small and insignificant sacrifice
 
 102 Kcasons for Abstaining. 
 
 Ihcy miijht not |»crhaps do somcthinj^ lo further, 
 for the bcncfitof their fcUow-crcatures, an unspeak- 
 able blessing, and do something to s;ue from s<jmc 
 of their fellow-creatures an intolerable harm. 
 
 Now, it is with deliberate and entire sincerity 
 that I call this a small and insignificant sacrifice. 
 In pamphlet after pamphlet and article after article, 
 I see that total abstainers arc sneered at and railed 
 at as though they assumed to themselves an amount 
 of IMiarisaic virtue. (Here let mc pause to say 
 that I greatly prefer the title "total abstainer," to 
 the wretched and ridiculous word, however much it 
 niav have been honored, of " teetotaler.") Now, so 
 far as that charge has any ground at all, I think we 
 may say in reply, Do not misunderstand us. It 
 may be true that some of us have used language 
 siinplv from the intensity of feelings— or from our 
 conviction that nothing but enthusiasm cm break 
 the bonds of a colossal tyranny— language which 
 sounds, perhaps, laudatory to ourselves and con- 
 demnatory of others ; but. so far as wc have done 
 so, we hope that that language may be attributed 
 simply to our conviction of the dreadfulness of the 
 necessity, and to our conviction of the sacredncss 
 of our crusade: and so far from thinking that by 
 becoming total abstainers, we have done anything 
 at all great or to be proud of, we are quite con- 
 vinced that you would not bring that objection 
 against us, if you would turn to the subject your 
 unprejudiced and deliberate attention ; for when 
 you had faced the overwhelming amount of evi- 
 dence which is now so easily accessible to all. you 
 would be ready at once to join us in so trivial and 
 eflcctive a self-denial. I call it a " trivial selfde-
 
 Reaso7is for Abstaining. 103 
 
 nial," because I am sure that no total abstainer 
 would so libel the manhood of myriads of moderate 
 drinkers, as to believe that if they thought it right 
 they would find any sort of difficulty in giving up 
 what is at the best a needless and, perhaps, not 
 very noble luxury; I call the self-sacrifice " effec- 
 tive " because, as Sir Wilfred Lawson says, the 
 mitred heads of the whole of the episcopate to- 
 gether, could not discover any cause for drunken- 
 ness except drinking; and if every total abstainer 
 was only able in different ranks of life to win over 
 a few others by moral suasion and by manly argu- 
 ment to his own view of the case, then the national 
 sin which now sullies the name of England, would 
 soon become an extinct and a forgotten shame. 
 
 But leaving, therefore, on one side altogether the 
 physiological aspect of the question, I do think that 
 there are two strong reasons why we may begin to 
 assume and to assure people that since alcohol is 
 not, at any rate, as Dr. Richardson and Sir Henry 
 Thompson have just demonstrated, a food, it had 
 better be regarded either as an exceptional luxury 
 or an occasional medicine ; those two reasons — and 
 they are all that I shall dwell upon to-night, without 
 entering upon the great field of the subject of tem- 
 perance and all the reasons for it — are public ex- 
 ample, and personal security. I think there is 
 enough in these two grounds to persuade us thaj 
 total abstinence is an absolute necessity for some, 
 ♦.hat it is a positive duty for a great many, and that 
 at least as a " counsel of perfection " — at any rate 
 in the present time, and in the present aspect of a 
 greal: national struggle — it may be desirable for 
 most to give up the habit of moderate drinking,
 
 104 Reasons for Abstaining. 
 
 and to take to total abstinence as the general liabil 
 of their lives. Now, I do think that there arc cir- 
 cumstances at present, which would give excep- 
 tional force in tins matter to a public example. I 
 am not goini^ over the too familiar ground of those 
 horrors — horrors disgraceful and unutterable — hor- 
 rors foul as the reck of the gin-i)alace, and glaring 
 as its nightly gas— which are the direct conse- 
 quence, the normal result of the ramifications of 
 this immense tratTic, and of the multiplication of 
 every conceivable facility for propagating what we 
 believe to be a dreadful peril, and perpetuating 
 what we know to be a fcprlul curse, I think if we 
 are able to resist the evidence given us by gaoler 
 after gaoler, by clergyman after clergyman, by ma- 
 gistrate after magistrate, no evidence on this sub- 
 ject is likely to convince us at all. 
 
 1 must confess that it is only familiarity with the 
 subject that can at all impress us with its magni- 
 tude, lu the providence of God, my own life has 
 been passed in quiet country places, and it was not 
 until I came to London, and not until my attention 
 was very deliberately turned by circumstances to 
 it, that I was at all aware of how frightful was the 
 degradation, and how terrible was the curse, which 
 was at work in the midst of us. It seems to me 
 nothing more nor less than a Fury, withering and 
 blighting the whole fame of England. Every week 
 in the organ of the United Kingdom Alliance, there 
 is published a ghastly column called *' Fruits of the 
 Traffic." It is no invention ; it is no rhetoric ; it is 
 no exaggeration ; it is nothing that is disputable; 
 nothing that can be in the least questioned ; it is 
 nothing in the world but a scries of horribly pro-
 
 Reasons for Abstaining. 105 
 
 jaic cuttings from the accidents and offences, the 
 police and the criminal reports of other newspa 
 pers, and it records calamity after calamity, and 
 crime after crime, disease, shipwrecks, conflagra- 
 tions, murders, the kicking and trampling of women, 
 the maiming and murdering of little children, all 
 of which are directly attributable to the effects of 
 drink, not by any inference of the editor, but by 
 the indignant declarations of judges, by the reit- 
 erated testimony of witnesses, and by the constant 
 "emorseful confession of the poor criminals them- 
 selves. Are we, then, simply, as it were, to pass 
 from chamber to chamber of this great temple of 
 abominations, and look at what we see as though 
 it were a cabinet of curiosities, and gaze coldly 
 on all these scenes of shame and horror which are 
 painted upon its walls ? Or are we to be aroused by 
 these facts merely to talk the vague language of 
 philanthropy, and to sigh over wretchedness, while 
 we do not so much as lift a single finger to help the 
 wretched? We send abroad bishops and chap- 
 lains and missionaries, and at home build national 
 and Sunda3'-schools ; we multiply holidays; we 
 improve wages ; we endow churches — and what 
 happens? Our bishops and our chaplains and mis- 
 sionaries bear witness, and cr}' to us from dislant 
 lands, that the contagion of this national sin follows 
 them even there — that it often blights into exter- 
 mination the poor ignorant savages, and that in 
 other countries it makes the more doubtful and 
 polished heathen turn away with scorn and hatred 
 from the very name of a Christian. And at home 
 this same potent spell of sorcery frustrates our 
 education, empties our churches, throngs our pri-
 
 lo6 /y!tiiii>ns Jor Abstaining. 
 
 sons, and crowds our penitentiaries. It makes per 
 fectly useless — nay, it turns even into a bane, our 
 shortened hours of hibor, and makes improved 
 wac^es, at which otherwise we should rejoice with 
 all our hearts, a ruin and not a boon. 
 
 Well, now, if these be the results, even if \vc 
 shrink from so terrible and fearful an expression as 
 that which Dr. Richarcls(jn has at once appropri 
 ated and repudiated of callini^ alcohol " the devil 
 in solution," I am quite sure that we should not 
 shrink from sayin<^ that it has a very j^reat deal of 
 bad spirits in reality, and that whether " alcohol" 
 or " Apollvon " be the true name for that multitude 
 of fKiids, they would all of them bear testimony 
 with one mouth, and exclaim — in the lani^uai^e ot 
 the demoniac of Gadara — " our name is Legion, for 
 we are many." Now, ladies and gentlemen, what 
 is it, then, that, under these circumstances, we 
 ought to do? Some people will say, ** Build better 
 houses for the poor; give them improved means 
 of amusement; pass the Permissive Bill — try the 
 Gothenburg system — withdraw the grocers' licen- 
 ses — sternly punish adulteration, provide lighter 
 beverages: try to bring public opinion to bear 
 upon the supporters of the trade so that they may 
 rigidly, in God's sight at least, regulate and, if pos- 
 sible, minimise it within what are supposed to be 
 its absolutely necessary limits." Well, try these 
 and thousands of other things (and may God speed 
 every possible effort to combat this colossal evil), 
 but, at any rate, do not let us waste time in mere 
 talk. Let us, at any rate try to do something. 
 Wo!jld to God that the millionaires in England, of 
 whom there are now a considerable number, in
 
 Reasons for Abstaining. 107 
 
 stead of trying to thrust themselves into the ranks 
 of the landed aristocracy, might only have their 
 hearts moved to try rather to make to themselves 
 friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness, and to 
 aim at the infinitely nobler and better end of lavish- 
 ing their wealth to do all the good they possibly 
 can in this sternly practical direction to millions of 
 their fellow-creatures. 
 
 While, in the meantime, the Legislature is tryi,.g 
 experiments; while conferences are sitting; while 
 congresses are talking; while the requisite thou- 
 sands are being collected ; while efforts are being 
 made to meet this immense and powerful monop- 
 oly, all this while thousands and tens of thousands 
 of our stalwart men and fine lads, and (jur young 
 girls, are simply reeling along that path of fiery 
 pitfalls which ends in the drunkard's grave ; and, 
 therefore, let us all try to do something, and ii we 
 can do nothing else, we can do this one very little 
 thing — viz., show by our personal example how 
 easy a thing it is, and how beneficial a thing it is, 
 to abstain from that which in extreme moderation 
 may have produced no injurious results, but which 
 is most fatal and most ruinous to thousands who 
 begin with that extreme moderation, and are led 
 by it to fatal excess, as by a direct and yet most 
 treacherous avenue. 
 
 And, now, I should like to say one word on the 
 other aspect — viz., that of personal security ; andi 
 you must not be either startled or incredulous at 
 my saying anything about it. You may with per 
 feet truth say that all vour life long you, like thou- 
 sands of others, have daily drunk perhaps one or 
 two glasses of wine or beer, and yet have never
 
 lo8 Reasons for Abstaining. 
 
 known in your lives, by personal experience, what 
 it is to exceed moderation, and that may be per- 
 fectly true. And yet I do think that if you were 
 to look round you — it may be in your own family 
 circles, and it may be in the ranj^c of your personal 
 acquaintance — you would |)r()bablv find many 
 very p^ricvous cases which would lead vou to doubt 
 the advisability of the process of moderate drink- 
 injj; in fact, I am certain that if this ^reat meetinjj 
 were polled and asked whether thcv knew of any 
 one man or woman whom drink had ruined, the 
 answer would be that there was not one, or scarce- 
 ly one, house in which there was not one dead. 
 Certainly I myself have known man}- who have 
 been ruined in this way. They bei^an without any 
 thouEjht of excess whatever, I dare scarcely sum- 
 mon either from the livinij^ or from the dead these 
 ghosts and shadows of what once they were, in or- 
 der that they may warn us from this peril by the 
 waviiij^ of their wasted hands; still, I may distant- 
 ly and dimlv describe one or two cases only which 
 I have known in my own rank of life. I think of 
 one young jj^ailant olHcer, brave as a lion, liberal as 
 the lii^ht of day — a man whose name was once not 
 unknown in his country's service, whose career 
 was suddenly cut short, and who died a disgraced 
 and ruined man. I think of the case of another — a 
 young University student of brilliant attainments, 
 of unusual promise, who suddenly sank from the 
 same cause to destitution ; who used to write beg- 
 g ng letters most abject in tone, and yet written in 
 Latin so choice and so eloquent that few could 
 have surpassed it, and who died disowned by his 
 family in the ward of a London hospital, of delirium
 
 Reasons for Abstaining. 109 
 
 tremens. I think of a lawyer, whose practice once 
 bade fair to be magnificent, indulging in such " pleas- 
 ures," sinking into dubious practices, losing his 
 place and influence in society, and dying a dishon- 
 ored man. I think of another — a clergyman, very 
 eloquent and widely known, whose presence was 
 everywhere desired, who died miserably with a 
 mysterious blight upon his name from the same 
 cause. And I could go on giving many more cases 
 which have come under my own immediate knowl- 
 edge. There is very near my own parish a com- 
 mon lodging-house, where, if you entered, you 
 might be met by people who would address you in 
 French, or German, or Italian, or even Latin, or 
 Greek — men who were men of rank and position, 
 men of culture, captains in the army, teachers in the 
 university, but who, by this cause, have sunk down 
 to the degraded rabble of guilty sufferers. 
 
 Well, now, what is the moral of these facts? 
 Surely it is that alcohol, whether you call it a poi- 
 son or not, has something very peculiar in its na- 
 ture ; that there is about it a sweetness and seduc- 
 tiveness, a sort of serpentine spell of attraction, 
 which gradually draws men on while they do not 
 know it, and which at last they find themselves un- 
 able to resist. They begin by admiring the " orient 
 liquor in the crystal glass " of the enchanter, and 
 they go on drinkiug their wine day by day and at 
 last the hour of misfortune comes when they are 
 tried by toil or disappointment, when they are tried 
 by sorrow or bereavement, and perhaps on that 
 account alone they drink too much ; and although 
 they began life as gay, and proud, and as happy 
 as anj- of us, they are notv sitting amid the en-
 
 I lO Ki'iiscns /or Abstaining. 
 
 tani^lcmcnt of terrible temptation — amid the very 
 ruins of their former state. Coleridge says: " Evil 
 habit first drav/s, then drags, and then drives." 
 Or, as an eminent French writer expresses it, " We 
 are insensibly led to yield without resistance to 
 slight temj)tations which we despise, and gradually 
 we find ourselves in a perilous situation or even 
 falling into an abyss, and then we cry out to God 
 ' Why hast thou made us too weak to rise,' and, in 
 spite of ourselves, a voice answers to our con- 
 sciences, ' If I made thee too weak by thine own 
 power to rise out of the gulf, it was because I made 
 thee amply strong enough never to have fallen into 
 it.* " Oh ! do not let any of us be so proud as to 
 think we should be safe. If men of the highest 
 genius ha\e fallen under this temptation, if even an 
 Addis(jn, a Burns, a Hartley Coleridge, and hun- 
 dreds of others, had been tempted by the excess of 
 their intellectual work to rekindle the vestal flame 
 upon the altar of Genius, by the unhallowed fires 
 of alcohol, I, for one, will not be the man to abstain 
 from saying to any one — Let him that thinketh he 
 standeth — however superior he may think himself 
 Irom the same possibility of temptation — still let 
 him beware lest he fall. 
 
 These, tiien, seem to me to be sufficient reasons, 
 both on the grounds of public example and per. 
 sonal security, why every one of us might, with 
 perfect rectitude and perfect honor, and without 
 any fanaticism or any folly, try an experiment 
 which can do us no harm, which may do us great 
 good, and which, at any rate, may be the means of 
 enabling us to do good by our example to thou- 
 sands of others. Our leading journal told us the
 
 Reasons for Abstainhi;^. 1 1 \ 
 
 other day that speeches on ecliicalioii were tire- 
 some to fatuity. Be it so. It ; not possible with- 
 out persistence and without enthusiasm to carry on 
 a battle like this. Let our speeches be tiresome 
 and fatuous so long as they be in the slightest de- 
 g-ree, necessary to the permanence to the glory of 
 England and the preservation of thousands of her 
 sons ; however dull our speeches may be, I take it 
 that they are not, by a long way, so dull as the 
 monotonous wail of misery that rists from thou- 
 sands of homes which drunkenness has made as in- 
 tolerable as a wild beast's lair ; and however weari- 
 some our speeches may be, I am quite sure that 
 they are not one tithe so wearisome as the pauper- 
 ism, and crime, and degradation which are handed 
 down from generation to generation, and against 
 which we seem to strive in vain. It may seem to 
 be in vain, but it will not be in vain. The rook 
 which shatters and flings back the assault of the 
 billows, is gradually undermined by the flowing 
 wave, and as long as we hear the incessant lap- 
 ping of the water on the crag, we ma}' believe 
 that the tide of public opinion is rising and rising 
 — rising by these very means, rising b}' these very 
 meetings, rising by these tedious and fatuous 
 speeches — until I venture to prophesy it shall have 
 risen so high, that before another twenty years is 
 over, it will have resistlessly swept away the strong 
 rock of opposing interests. It will have risen so 
 high, that it will have utterly overwhelmed, under 
 fathoms of national shame and national indigna- 
 tion, that sunken reef of vice on which we are now 
 suffering so many a gallant and noble vessel to 
 crash, and to be irremediably shipwrecked.
 
 THE SERPENT AND THE TIGER. 
 
 By the Rev. Canon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. 
 
 I CAN not help asking what is the reason and the 
 object for all these temperance meetings which are 
 now taking place constantly all ov^er the country. 
 I will try to answer that question, and possibly in 
 answering it I may contribute one little sand-grain, 
 however small, and however insignificant, as a bar 
 rier against that rushing tide of evil, which, as Mr. 
 Thornton has already said, is threatening to over- 
 whelm us. The reason is because we find ourselves 
 face to face with a colossal evil. Mr. Thornton has 
 said that I have been accused in Glasgow — I did 
 not know of it, but I have no doubt it is true — of 
 exaggerating the evils of intemperance; but those 
 who say we are exaggerating the evils of intemper- 
 ance are simply ignorant of its deadly virulence. 
 Whatever we may think of any particular remedies 
 which may be suggested, no serious-thinking man 
 who has faced the overwhelming evidence on the 
 subject can possibly assert, in the face of that 
 evidence, that we exaggerate the evils of which 
 we complain. And yet, although we are face to 
 face with this evil, which is so colossal and so terri- 
 ble, it certainly is the fact that at present the Legis- 
 lature of the country is not aroused, the press of 
 the country is not aroused, the nation in general is
 
 1 1 4 I'h4 SrrptHt and the Tiger. 
 
 not aroused, even the Church is not arouscti to a 
 full sense of its duty upon this subject. If you 
 l(H)k at it. the attitude of the nation in fs^encral. I 
 think it can only be described as that of indolent 
 accjuiescence. They are very like the Athenians, 
 who, when they were toUl that the Empire of Philip 
 was j^rowinj^, and was threatening to overwhelm 
 them, s.'ud that it was disastrous and very danger- 
 ous, but did not do what they ouj^ht to have done, 
 namely, rush down to the sea-shore and man the 
 ships and >;ather at the muster-jjround for recruits. 
 In the siinie way the press can only be described as 
 beinjj in a condition of indolent acquiescence. It 
 is quite true that now and then they fret and fume 
 a jjreat deal when there arc some disclosures of the 
 danj^ers and extent of intenjpcrancc, but they don't 
 show the least inclination to clutch the pois'>nous 
 monster by the thrt)at. And, aj^ain, the attitude 
 of the Lej^islalure can only l>e called that of in- 
 dolent acquiescence, or even in some cases of 
 ruinous patronaj;fc, for they certainly ijjnore petition 
 after petition on the subject, and constantly throw 
 out bill after bill, and whereas they arc ready to 
 give days after days to party squabbles, it is very 
 rarely they will give even hours to face and do 
 away with the evil which, while the scourges of 
 war, and pestilence, and famine are continually a|>. 
 pcaring and disappearing, is going on forever. It 
 is a scourge more deadly in its ravages than pesti- 
 lence, and more devastating than war, and yet they 
 show no inclination to give even hours for the re- 
 nioval of that scourge, and therefore I can only say 
 that the tone of the Legislature is still that of in- 
 dolent acquiescence. But again we may say the
 
 The Serpent and the Tiger. 115 
 
 same of the Church. It is only now that a minority 
 of the nation is really in earnest in this matter, and 
 who not only say they are in earnest, but who show 
 they are in earnest not only by their lips, but also 
 in their lives. Well, now, our work, of course, is to 
 do away with this evil, and if we only can succeed 
 in making the nation, and the Legislature, and the 
 press, and the Church in earnest for one single hour, 
 then certainly the head of this great monster would 
 be crushed, and we would throw off these great 
 fetters, which, though they even be fetters of iron, 
 would then become mere tow at the breath of the 
 fiame, and if wc succeed in doing away with that, 
 it is impossible to comprehend the immensity of the 
 change which would be gained. I am no temper- 
 ance fanatic myself, but no less a man than Mr, 
 Bright said many years ago, that if for five years 
 only we could do away with the liquor traffic, at 
 the end of these five years we should not know the 
 face of the country from the immense difference 
 and blessedness. It would show no comparison 
 with what had been before ; and proving, as we 
 can decidedly prove, that alcohol is, as Mr. Thorn- 
 ton said just now, not a necessity, there being, as 
 has been said, no more food in it than in a flash of 
 lightning; bringing, as we can bring, an immense 
 mass of evidence showing that, for the majority, at 
 any rate, of those who take it, it is essentially dele- 
 terious. We can safely point to facts that arc not 
 only undisputable, but undisputed — that this alcohol 
 is slaying its tens of thousands and debasing its 
 hundreds of thousands, and being the source o"" 
 misery to millions in this country. And yet, show- 
 ing, as we do show, that it is supported by immense
 
 Ii6 The Serpent and the Tiger. 
 
 prejudices and an immense hereditary force of cus. 
 torn, then \vc can but ask in reference to all these 
 facts whether we are really in earnest or not about 
 it. Are the people in earnest when the publicans 
 have more than once boasted that they miii^'.U in 
 any election purchase as many votes as they liked 
 —that was said before the ballot, but I suppose it 
 is the same now — by giving the men pots of beer? 
 Are the constituencies in earnest who arc constantly 
 sending members to Parliament who arc ready to 
 talk out the most moderate bills for temperance re- 
 form, and who last session almost exhausted the 
 forms of the House in trying to prevent the almost 
 unanimous wish that Ireland should gain for itself 
 a Sunday which was undissipated and undcse- 
 crated? Are the Legislature, once more I al^k, in 
 earnest? There is a very fine old rule which is, 
 Salus populi suprema lex — ihe safety of the people is 
 the highest possible rule. Can we say the Legis- 
 lature is following that rule when they leave the 
 people entirely undefended as a prey to the in- 
 tensity of this most terrible temptation? Let us 
 only try to look for a fe'.v moments these facts a 
 little more closely in the face. Here we have 
 iodging among us a Protean form of harm and 
 temptation to which mvriads succumb. It ruins 
 our best parts ; it blights our fairest hopes ; it infects 
 our rising colonies; it is the curse of our Asiatic 
 dependencies ; it makes races detest our dominion ; 
 it makes empires loathe our name; it undoes the 
 effects of our schools ; it paralyzes the influence of 
 our churches ; it is prolific of disaster, disease, and 
 death, and that is the evil which we are now called 
 \ipon to face. Well, we can look at this matter in
 
 The Serpent and the Tiger. 1 1 7 
 
 two ways. It has two characteristics about it. 
 Sometimes it takes men slowly and stealthily like a 
 serpent, and sometimes it comes terribly and with 
 tiger leaps. It has in it the natures of these two 
 animals — the serpent and the tiger. Now let me 
 illustrate for a moment by two anecdotes. I will 
 bring testimony both from America and Scotland 
 to show you that very often the curse of drink 
 begins in the individual man by insinuating into his 
 mind in the form of a necessity or in the form of a 
 virtue. An American gentleman was once asked 
 how it was that he never by any chance took a 
 single glass of spirits, but always two or three or 
 more ; and his answer was that whenever he had 
 ♦,aken one glass of spirits he felt himself to be 
 another man, and then he felt himself bound to treat 
 that other man. If he had said that he not only 
 felt himself another man, but also a very much in- 
 ferior man, if he had felt himself much less under 
 the control of reason, which ought to be the guide 
 of every man's life, he would have been very much 
 nearer the mark. A poor woman said in London 
 the other day that she had two husbands in one 
 man. One of them was a kindly, honest, and re- 
 spectable person, whom she loved, and that was 
 her husband when sober. The other was a drunken, 
 brutal fellow, who was constantly ill-treating and 
 abusing her, and that was her husband when he 
 was drunk. I was told the other day by the Lord 
 Provost of Glasgow that no remark was made more 
 constantly by women brought before him than that. 
 He used to ask them, " What kind of a husband 
 have you?" and their answer was, " When sober 
 he was the best husband in Glasgow, but when
 
 Il8 The Serpent and the Tiger. 
 
 drunk he is waui than a beast." Well, now. I have 
 told you that story from America to show you how 
 very rarely people stop with one g^iass anv more 
 than any one can stop with one sin in iiis life. 
 Another story I may tell you is regarding a Scottish 
 minister, who, very much to his own credit, was a 
 total abstainer, and was so because he wished his 
 people to be so too, and had been so for some time. 
 Being ill, he went to the doctor, who gave him that 
 very bad piece of advice which so many doctors 
 have given, to the ruin of thousands of their patients, 
 although 1 am glad to say every day our greatest 
 physicians arc less and less resorting to that advice, 
 lie said: "You must take a little spirits — a little 
 whisky." The minister said : "I can not do that; 
 I am a total abstainer. My people would hear of 
 it." The doctor insidiousl)' said : '• Vou must not 
 let that stand in your way. You are not at all well. 
 You can take whisky, and you can have the hot 
 water brought up to you when you shave." An 
 elder, going to the house some time after, asked 
 the housekeeper how the minister was. The serv- 
 ant said: "Well, he is well enough, but there is 
 something wrong. I don't know what it is." The 
 elder said : " What is wrong with him?" " Well," 
 said the servant, '* he is clean daft, he is just shav- 
 ing all day long, and always ringing for hot water." 
 So that you see if you once begin indulgence you 
 will go on, and always be ringing for hot water. 
 That is what I call the serpent form of this tempta 
 tion. 
 
 " The smiling infant in his hand shall take 
 The crested basilisk and sp>eckled snake, 
 Pleased, the f^roen lustre of the scales sun'ey. 
 And with their forked tongues shall innocently play."
 
 The Serpent and the Tiger. ng 
 
 But we are not in the millennial age, and if any one 
 plays with this serpent as we do, and regard it as 
 we do, a thing to be honored at public and social 
 gatherings, if they secrete it in the heart, the)'' will 
 5nd at the end, as Scripture tells us, that it biteth 
 as a serpent. The other form of particular tempta- 
 tion which alcohol assumes, the particular way in 
 which it assails man, is the tiger form. It comes 
 crouching upon him, and then makes a sudden 
 spring. How do we treat that wild beast ? We 
 give him splendid lairs, and make them glare in 
 glass and gilding. The tiger lies constantly in wait 
 at our street-corners to spring unexpectedly on un- 
 wary travelers. 
 
 Well, then, here we have to ask, whether in the 
 face of these facts, the Legislature has not indo- 
 lently acquiesced, and now on what grounds are 
 they doing so ? I say, unhesitatingly, that the 
 grounds on which Parliament does not interfere 
 with the sale of drink are theoretically untenable 
 as well as practically disastrous. First, they do 
 not interfere because of the liberty of the subject, 
 and second, because of vested interests. Is it any 
 violation of the liberty of the subject to save a man 
 from his destruction ? If a man is brought up when 
 he makes an attempt to commit suicide, why are 
 people practically encouraged not only themselves 
 to commit suicide — although il is so slowly that 
 none call it murder — but even t<^ drag the families 
 along with them to the same lingering and horrible 
 death by means of drink? Is it violation of the lib- 
 erty of the subject that vaccination is made com- 
 pulsory to save us from being scarred and killed by 
 smail-pox ? Is it violation of the liberty of the sub-
 
 I20 The Serpent and the Tiger. 
 
 ject that venders of p^iinpowder r^re not. allowed 
 with impunity to sell fireworks to children that 
 they may blow themselves uj>? Is it violation ot 
 the liberty of the subject that s^anil)lini;-hoiises and 
 lotteries have been abolished in order that our 
 youiiL!^ nobles may not ruin themselves bv the fatal 
 fascination of the dice-box ? Well, then, if measures 
 like these, all of which arc interferences with the 
 .iberty of the sul>ject, arc not only tolerated, but 
 desired — yes, if liberty be the very antitliesis ol 
 dangerous license — if \vc interfere in these in- 
 stances, because in these instances liberty would be 
 ruinous, one can not help asking whether you can 
 do a deeper shame to liberty than to use her name 
 as a justification of acts which really tend to the 
 perjK'tration of an indescribable national disgrace? 
 
 Statistics show that owXy one |)erson in three 
 millions of those who travel by rail in England dies 
 by railway accident, and from sliipwreck the losses 
 are not much more than seven hundred per annum ; 
 and yet by drink, and the diseases caused by drink, 
 more persons die in one year than die from niilway 
 disasters and shipping calamities in fifty years. !• 
 these circumstances this must be seen to by o» 
 Legislature, and I think you could not make ih*. 
 name of liberty stink more in the nostrils than by 
 degrading it to such ignoble uses, and by using its 
 shield as a sign for the dram-shop. There is no in- 
 terest so unblushing, because there is none so tol- 
 erated as that of the monopolist who claims a vested 
 interest in a public injury. 
 
 Until the Legislature has learned that it is their 
 plain and stern duty to put Mr. Gladstone's rule 
 into force to make it easy to do right and difficult
 
 TM Serpent and the Tiger. 121 
 
 to do wrong- — until they learn that it is thevr plain 
 and stern duty to protect from temptation those 
 who are far too weak to protect themselves — until 
 they have learned that it is their duty to prevent 
 private interests from driving their roots into and 
 drawing their sap from the conditions of national 
 decay and national corruption — until the nation has 
 learned that it is its plain and stern duty to send to 
 Parliament men who will help them in fighting 
 against this deadly and imminent foe, and until the 
 Church has learned that its duty is to blow, as it 
 were, a trumpet-blast to wake its members to a 
 sense of their duty — so long these meetings of ours 
 will be not only right, but necessary — and until we 
 have turned the present rout of our nation into 
 resistance, until we have finally succeeded (as I be- 
 lieve we shall succeed) in turning that resistance 
 into a victory. Above all, it is necessary for this 
 pujpose to arouse the Church, an,d it is a good sign 
 of the times that over fourteen thousand clerg3^men 
 of the Church of England signed a petition to the 
 archbishops and bishops, which resulted in the 
 formation of the remarkable committee of the 
 House of Lords which is now sitting, and which is 
 amassing so much evidence of a striking character. 
 The action of all the churches in favor of total ab- 
 stinence is becoming more and more marked, but 
 when I see one of our bishops arraying himself 
 agamst it, and quoting Scripture against it — when 
 I see another using exploded sophisms and saying 
 that he would rather see England free than En- 
 gland sober — when 1 see clergymen preaching in 
 cathedrals in favor of the beer traffic and using all 
 the futile fallacies that had been used for a genera.
 
 122 The St-rprnt and the Tiger. 
 
 on, I think that the Chorcli has not arisen to a 
 sense ol its duty in the matter, and that it has not 
 recoiMiizcd the overwhchning necessity for its ac* 
 tion in the matter, for indilTerencc in such a case is 
 as much as trcaclicry. The facts of the case are 
 tcnibie. 
 
 " Come, sit you down, 
 And I will wrinjj your heart, for so I shall, if it be made of 
 
 penetrable stuff. 
 If damning custom have not braced it so 
 That it is proof and bulwark against sense." 
 
 We have only to look at the gliaslly pictures 
 which have been drawn by Hoi^arth of Gni Alley 
 and Rum Alley, in order to form some idea of the 
 frif^htful ravaii^es which drink has been makin<^ in our 
 country durin^"^ the last two hundred years, or to the 
 series drawn by that great and good man whom 
 the tcmperace cause has just lost — brave George 
 Cruikshank. When we think that all these horrors 
 sprung from a cause that is perfectly curable, that 
 is easily remediable, that is absolutely preventable, 
 then we can not help asking, How long do we, the 
 people of England and Scotland, intend this worse 
 than Turkish and worse than Russian atrocities to 
 be going on daily and hourly among us as the 
 spasms which speak of a still more profound and 
 universal misery? I say to you — 
 
 " Can such things be, 
 And overcome us like a summer cloud. 
 Without our special wonder ? " 
 
 For all I know, some Aberdeen newspaper may 
 charge me with exaggeration, but in answer to that
 
 TJie Serpent and the Tiger. 123 
 
 will only say to you, take up any newspaper you 
 Jike for a week, and cut out all the accidents and 
 all the disasters which are recorded as having been 
 caused by drink, and before half a year is over, if 
 you are not driven to be a total abstainer, it nnist 
 be because you are either very callous as to the suf- 
 ferings of your neighbors, or else because you feel 
 that that particular method is not the way which 
 you should adopt to cure this evil. To talk of ex- 
 aggeration is nonsense, and the ghastly record of 
 the evils of the drink-traffic is the best refutation 
 of the charge made against temperance reformers. 
 Now, as to the attitude of clergymen in regard to 
 the drink-traffic, I think there is nothing excites my 
 scorn and indignation more than a man who carries 
 his reverence for Scripture to the extent of hold 
 ing that it sanctions the use of drink. The Church 
 is not yet roused to a sense of duty in the matter, 
 and as I have already said, its condition has been 
 up to this time, on the whole, that of being in- 
 dolently acquiescent. I think I have answered the 
 question I asked at the beginning. What is the use 
 of these temperance meetings? We are told thdt 
 they are of no avail. It is by these means and by 
 such as these in every instance that great reforms 
 have been carried on, and that the claims of vested 
 interests to commit public injury have been swept 
 away. It was by these means that the slave trad« 
 was abolished ; it was by these means that ragged 
 schools were established ; and the necessity tor 
 such meetings will continue so long as such an evil 
 as this exists. It is only by enforcing the obligations 
 of duty on this subject that the justice and truth of 
 this matter can ever be heard. I feel convinced if
 
 124 The Serpent and the Tiger. 
 
 men, if Christ inns, have a heart of pitv m them 
 have any spark of nobleness in them, if they did 
 not become tibial abstainers, they would use every 
 possible means in their power to show that it •'. an 
 evil which is destroyini,^ our brothers aiKi sisters 
 in multitudes — which is staininy: with its polluted 
 and {)estilential stains tlic white souls of those 
 youni,^ jrjils and boys whom we are trying to save 
 for a life of good; that they would do their best 
 in some wr.y or other to save the continuance of 
 this evil in the midst of us. 
 
 One word more, and I have done. 1 say if you 
 see a gieat conflagration, and see a great mass oi 
 people looking on at it, and they begiif by saying it 
 is very disastrous, and doing a great deal of dam- 
 age, but still doing nothing to put it out, and at last 
 getting so familiar with it that they go and warm 
 their hands at it, and then argue when they could 
 enjoy such an indulgence as that in cold weather, a 
 coiillagration is rather an advantage nationally 
 than otherwise. As long as such a state of things 
 exists, we must go on shouting "Fire! fire!" un- 
 til they are shamed into helping us to |)ut it out. 
 If we see a ship going along in full sail with every 
 sail set. and with the wind and tide straight to- 
 ward a reef on which we know that the ship is to 
 be shattered, and if the majority of the crew arc 
 ignorant or indifferent to the danger, then it is that 
 we must have down the sails and reverse the en- 
 gines and put out every inlluence it is possible to 
 keep it back; and if we are able to do this much, 
 and with all our power against the wind and tide, wc 
 can make it move one inch an hour backward 
 even then the victory is won. If that is too late
 
 TJie Serpent and the Tiger. 125 
 
 and the vessel has struck on the rocks, we must 
 then launch the lifeboat to save the perishing crew. 
 That is what these temperance meetings have 
 been doing to some extent. If we have not been 
 able to quench the conflagration, we have done 
 something to stop it; if we have not been able to 
 save the ship altogether, we have been able to 
 do something for its safety ; and if we have not 
 been able to save all the crew, we have at least 
 been able to save some from perishing. Many a 
 brawny arm has launched the lifeboat, and those 
 who are too weak to take an oar can at least send 
 us a cheer across the wave. The Legislature has 
 not listened to us yet, and thus the work is not 
 done, but much is being done. If the Church is 
 not yet aroused, it is being aroused, and, as I said 
 before, clergymen becoming total abstainers are 
 daily increasing in number; and if the nation has 
 not yet been aroused, still it is being aroused, and 
 there are said to be at this moment four million 
 total abstainers in England, and therefore if the 
 Legislature won't listen to us now, they will listen 
 to us in a short time hence, when we speak, as we 
 hope to speak in the nation's voice, and if they do 
 not pass temperance measures now, they will do so 
 when we come with the people knocking at the 
 doors. Then a common victory will be won. We 
 shall see God's terrible and fiery finger shrivel up 
 the falsehoods from the seals of men. The work is 
 being done gradually and impeixeptibly, but it is 
 bemo- done. Look at the mountain sides in winter, 
 clothed as they are with the apparently immovable 
 masses of colorless snow which cover the whole 
 mountain slope, and you would think it impossible
 
 126 The Serpent and the Tigtr, 
 
 that these vast masses of snow could disappear, and 
 yet winter passes into sprini^, and crystal by crystal 
 the snow melts away into the air, and then spring 
 passes into smnnier, and the warm sun passes over 
 them, and hrst one snowflake is detached and then 
 another, and these gather force and roll with a 
 thundering avalanche into the valley, taking with 
 them, as you would think, the whole mountain side, 
 and so bv these gradual, imperceptible, and silent 
 influences the work is being done, even when it 
 seems most stationary, and then, if you go a few 
 days afterward, what was frozen and repellant, you 
 will see is a beautiful mountain slope with green 
 grass upon it, and with myriads of sweet and trag' 
 rant flowers.
 
 OUR DUTY AS A NATION 
 
 By the Rev. Canon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. 
 
 ** Come Home." This expression represents a 
 very common incident ; but what words can rx- 
 press, what imagination can even conceive, the 
 amount of anguish of which this one incident is but 
 an insignificant item ! 
 
 A wife is trying to induce her husband to 
 leave the public-house ; trying, that is, to struggle 
 against an influence the most common, the most 
 seductive, the most deadly, of all those which the 
 spirits of evil have at their command for the curse 
 and ruin of whole nations, and the misery and de- 
 struction of myriads of individual lives. For, what 
 is the history of myriads of lives and myriads of 
 homes in these British islands alone? We spend 
 princely revenues upon education, and the majority 
 of all the children born on British soil have now 
 the opportunity of soundly acquiring the rudiments 
 of instruction. To a certain extent more educa- 
 tion, as it means less ignorance, means also more 
 self-respect and less vice. But there is one most 
 potent enemy al. work against all that we achieve 
 in the spread of knowledge and enlightenment. I 
 need hardly name it. Ev^ery judge, every magis- 
 trate, every clergyman, every philanthropist, every
 
 128 Our Duty as a Nation. 
 
 policeman and j^aolcr knows it well ; and not one 
 ot these will ever tor a moment hesitate to say that 
 this enemy is intoxicating;- drink. 
 
 The boys ami ^irls leave our national scIkk^Is 
 about the a^e of thirteen. Up to that time the 
 teachinj;-, the discipline, the humanizinqf tendencies 
 ol the school system — seconded to a certain extent 
 by the control of all but the worst and lowest 
 homes— tend to keep the children from vice and 
 degradation. Hut ihe inevitable time comes when 
 they leafvc school, go to work, become almost im- 
 mediately independent, and not unfreqnently throw 
 olT every vestige of parental or other restraint. 
 Now, what are the temptations which thev have 
 immediately to face.' Bad companions, bad lan- 
 guage, low places of amusement? Yes, these no 
 doubt; but these, and all other incentives to ruin, 
 are in closest alliance with — are, in fact, all but in- 
 separable from — those which assail them daily and 
 almost hourly from drunkenness and drink. In all 
 towns, and in many country places, it is, as a rule, 
 at the public-house that they hear the lowest and 
 vilest language ; it is at the public-house that they 
 meet with the worst companions; it is from the 
 public-house that they are allured to the basest and 
 most demoralizing places of amusement and resort. 
 
 And, as all the world may see, these public- 
 houses and beer-shops are scattered through our 
 great cities in hundreds and thousands. It is said 
 that we have 98,955 public-houses and 38,845 beer- 
 shops in this country; and, whatever the awful 
 number may be, this at least is certain, that the 
 ein-palace is especially the pioneer of our civiliza-
 
 Our Duty as a Nation. 129 
 
 tion; that wherever new suburbs spring up fr)r the 
 working classes, an effort is always made to seize 
 the most conspicuous corner houses for the sale of 
 drink ; and that no working man can walk through 
 London at any hour, from early morning till late 
 night, without passing house after house, which by 
 its glaring lights and glittering attractiveness 
 allures him under the sway of his most powerful 
 and his most fatal temptation. 
 
 What are the consequences? The first conse- 
 quence is an almost universal fondness for beer and 
 spirits among the working classes ; the second con- 
 sequence is the frightful prevalence of drunken- 
 ness; the third is the appalling multiplication of 
 pauperism, brutal violence, degradation, criminal- 
 ity, lunacy, disease, and untimely deaths. 
 
 Take the earliest stage — mere fondness for beer, 
 and the constant use of beer, as though it were not 
 a mere dubious luxury, but a necessary article of 
 food. It might be thought that this, at any rate, is 
 harmless. So far is this from being the case that it 
 is a national evil of the most immense proportions. 
 I have no hesitation at all in saying that it is the 
 chief cause of pauperism. If the poor could be 
 persuaded of the truth that alcohol is not an article 
 of food or a source of strength, and if they could be 
 persuaded to lay by the ;^36,ooo,ooo which they 
 annually spend upon it, it is certain that two-thirds 
 of our work-houses could be closed, and that 
 myriads of families could live in cleanliness and 
 comfort — self-respecting, well housed, well fed — 
 who nctw drag out a miserable existence on the 
 starvation level, and whose manl}^ rectitude and
 
 I30 Oia Duly u.< a Nation. 
 
 independence is utterly broken down by having to 
 rely on parish relief or on promiscuous cliarity. 
 
 But the evil of pauf)erisin, immense as it is. is yet 
 *ar less deadly than those which arise from the 
 traffic in intoxicating^ liquor when the fondness for 
 'irink has passed into actual drunkenness. It is the 
 insidious and fatal peculiarity of alcohol that the 
 use of it leads hundreds of thousands of men and 
 women insensibly, rapidly, and almost inevitably to 
 its abuse; and before the maddening intensity of 
 the craving caused by drunkenness all moral con- 
 siderations are shrivelled up like tow at the breath 
 of flame. Well may the young wife try every pos- 
 sible inducement to wean her husband from the 
 very first signs and beginnings of intemperance. 
 The growth of that fatal vice means the utter de- 
 struction of every element of happiness in the 
 house. The fires of hell begin very soon to mingle 
 with those on the drunkard's hearth. Work is 
 neglected — character is lost — self-respect is de- 
 stroyed. The money which should have been 
 spent on the needs of the family is grossly squan- 
 dered in brutish self-indulgence. The wife has to 
 slave and starve^ and well for her if she-too does 
 not fling herself in sheer misery over the ^(S^e. of 
 the same terrible abyss. The home, even if it is 
 not transferred to a fouler neighborhood, rapidly 
 becomes bare, dirt}', unwholesome, comfortless 
 j The children are left unwashed, unkempt, un- 
 trained^ and those of them who are born after Uie 
 drunkenness has become a chronic condition are 
 either ricketty, or idiotic, or are endowed with the 
 hereditary instinct which is only too likely to make
 
 Our Duty as a Nation. 131 
 
 their lives a curse to their neighbors and a burden 
 to themselves. In such families, when the husband 
 staggers back drunk, perhaps also to find a 
 drunken wife, the lairs which they call their homes 
 are torn asunder by fights and quarrels that dis- 
 grace and disturb the whole neighborhood, and are 
 not unfrequently rife with tragedies of unspeakable 
 horror. Men, who in past days were manly and 
 honorable, kick, and beat, and maim, and murder 
 those whom they once vowed to love and honor, 
 and often end their miserable, and degraded, and 
 maddened lives on the hangman's scaffold or in the 
 felon's cell. Even women — or those who were 
 once those gracious things — women who, but for 
 drink, might have worn in unpolluted womanhood 
 the rose of matronly honor — sink into a horrible 
 and shameless abandonment of every better instinct, 
 which lowers them below the level of humanity. 
 "Drink," says Father Nugent, of Liverpool, "is 
 making terrible havoc upon the female population 
 of this town — not only demorahzing the young, and 
 leading them step by step into vice and the lowest 
 depths of crime, but destroying the sacred charac- 
 ter of family life, and changing wives and mothers 
 into brutal savages. The poker, the knife, the bot- 
 tle, and the glass have become the ordinary 
 weapons of attack and defense under its uncontrol- 
 lable influence, producing the most fatal conse- 
 quences. Not a week passes without some one 
 being brought to the prison^ whom drink has mad- 
 dened and robbed of all female decency, whose 
 language and actions are so horrible that they 
 seem no longer rational beings but fiends ' That
 
 132 Our Duty as a Nation. 
 
 iS a terrible testimony ; hut it is testimony which 
 inipjlu be adchiccd, antl has aj^ain and again been 
 adduced from well-nii^h every great town in I'^ng- 
 land and Scothmd— all of whicli are at this moment 
 sufleiing from a curse which is being continued, 
 and increased, and mulii plied fn^m generation to 
 gcneralion, and from age to age, and in comparison 
 with which those horrors were as nothing which 
 England has spent millions of her treasure tf) avert, 
 and shed rivers of her blood to avenge and remedy. 
 
 To do away with this ghastly curse, to wipe this 
 fretting plague-sj»ot from our national lile, to save 
 another generation from the burden, the shame, 
 and the ruin which one preventable vice has in- 
 flicted on our own, is emphatically the task which 
 we of this generation have to do. No work tha*^ 
 any nation ever had to do can be more immediately 
 and, indeed, overwhelmingly important. Our 
 fathers went to the stake for religious liberty; they 
 died in battle to win us civil freedom; they faced 
 trial, and difficulty, and opposition, and obloquy to 
 further education, to reform prisons, to liberate 
 England from the disgrace of the slave trade. 
 What we have to do, if we would be worthy of 
 our fathers, worthy of our country, worthy of our 
 Christian profession, is to enable our people to con- 
 quer or to mitigate the violence of a sin which is 
 far more fatal to our national morality, and, there- 
 fore, to our national glory, than unreformed prisons 
 or ill-treated and kidnapped slaves. 
 
 But how arc we to take part in this great, tnis 
 most blessed and most necessary work ? One very 
 easy and obvious way of doing so is open to us alL
 
 Our Duty as a Nation. 133 
 
 We can, in the present distress and danger, become 
 total abstainers ourselves. If we can not do this 
 wiihout an effort, the effort may be very desirable 
 for our own sakes ; if we can do it without an 
 eff.)rt, it may be only right to do it for the sake of 
 others. Another way of furthering the work of 
 temperance reform is to do what we can, socially 
 and politically, to awake the attention of the Legis- 
 lature to the eminent importance of this question. 
 The most serious, and probably the most effective, 
 measure lutherto brought under the notice of Par- 
 liament is Sir Wilfrid Lawson's Permissive Bill. 
 That bill is simply intended to enable the people to 
 protect themselves from that which they have found 
 by long and bitter experience to be an overwhelm- 
 ing peril. Hitherto Parliament has utterly refused 
 to help us. They can not and will not refuse if the 
 demand comes to them in a nation's voice, and if 
 that voice speak in the accents of men who are 
 resolutely and indignantly determined to use every 
 means in their power to save a new generation 
 from a sin which has been, to an extent so utterly 
 deplorable, the ruin an;i the curse of this generation 
 in which our lives are cast.
 
 ABSTINENCE FROM EVIL. 
 
 By the Rev. Canon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. 
 
 "Abstain from all appearance of evil." The 
 true meaning of this verse is, "Abstain from every 
 form or kind of evil ; " yet, though the other read- 
 ing be erroneous, it gives us a very noble meaning. 
 It is narrated of two Jewish patriots — Pappus, and 
 his brother Julian — that, knowing their firm resolve 
 not to drink Pagan wine lest they should seem to 
 sanction idolatry, Rufus, the Roman Governor, 
 ordered -water to be served to them, but in glasses 
 so colored that it should look to the multitude as 
 though they were drinking wine. Seeing at once 
 the object of the deception, they sternly refused 
 the water, and faced death by terrible martyrdom 
 rather than taste it. This was a noble spirit; it is 
 one more of the many illustrations from the lives 
 of the truly brave and heroically good, that they 
 will not only refuse to do wrong — will not only say 
 with Joseph, " How can I do this great wickedness, 
 and sin against God ? '! — but that they will not 
 even suffer it to be imagined that they countenance 
 wrong, when their actual conduct is right. The 
 duty of this absolute aloofness from 2vil is taught 
 even by heathen morality : " In a field of melons," 
 says the Chinese proverb, " do not stoop to tie 
 your shoe ; " " under a plum-tree do not adjust 
 your cap ; " — in both instances for the same reason
 
 13^ Absthicuce from Evil. 
 
 — lest } ou should even seem to wish to steal. And 
 the principle that underlies these precepts and ex- 
 nmplcs is the great principle of Scripture, "Abhor 
 that which is evil; cleave to that which is c^ood ;" 
 " Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not 
 in the way of evil men. Avoid it; pass not by it; 
 turn from it, and pass away." 
 
 I have been asked to speak to you, my brethren, 
 on the subject of temperance, and I desire simply 
 and humbly to fulfdl that duty. Were it not that 
 the kindness of others in this great city has laid on 
 me burdens somewhat beyotul my strength, 1 
 might have spoken more worlhily than 1 now can 
 do. But in the endeavor to perform such small 
 good as God may place in our power, it is a duty 
 not to shrink from efi'ort, and ncjt at all to care for 
 self. Now, I would ask you, my friciuls, not to 
 think of the speaker, or his imperfections, but 
 simply and solely whether what he says be true. 
 And if it be true, sufier not the poor personalities 
 of criticism to hover at the church door, like fowls 
 in the air, to take away the good seed from your 
 hearts. The inspiration that comes from heaven, 
 remember, is often subjective, not objective; it Iw 
 in the glow of the hearer's heart, not in the fire of 
 the speaker's lips. God, indeed, sends forth His 
 seraphim to toucii. with a living coal from the 
 altar, the mouth of whom he will. Bui when it is 
 to Israel that he speaks, Moses may not be eloquent, 
 yet he utters the fiery law ; and because their own 
 hearts are faithful, they feel that there is the palpi- 
 tating splend-or behind his shrouding veil. So be 
 it with us. 
 
 " Lord, grant us this abiding grace, 
 Thy word and saints to know ;
 
 Abstincttce from Evil. 137 
 
 To pierce the veil on Moses' face. 
 Although his speech be slow." 
 
 And though I am bidden to speak to you about 
 tcnriperance, the point of view from which I shall 
 speak is that of total abstinence. It is, I know, the 
 unpopular view, the depreciated view, the despised 
 view. By taking it I rank myself among those of 
 whom some speak as unpractical bigots and igno- 
 rant fanatics. But, because I believe it in the pres- 
 ent need to be the only effective remedy for an 
 otherwise hopeless evil, therefore I take it undeter- 
 red. Public opinion, my brethren, is a giand 
 power. It is a mighty engine for good if we can 
 array it on our side. He who despises it must be 
 either more or less than man ; he must be puffed 
 up by a conceit which mars his usefulness, or he 
 must be too abject to be reached by scorn. He, 
 tlierefore, that affects to despise public opinion, 
 stands self-condemned ; but yet public opinion has, 
 many a time, been arrayed on the side of wilhng ; 
 and he who is not afraid to brave it in defense of 
 righteousness — he who, in a cause which he knows, 
 to be good, but which his fellow-men do not yet 
 understand, is willing to be ranked among the 
 idiots and fools — he is a partaker Avith all those 
 who, through faith and patience, have inherited the 
 promises. It was thus — it was for the cause of 
 scientific truth — that Roger Bacon bore his long 
 imprisonment, and Galileo sat contented in his cell; 
 it was *:hus — it was for the cause of religious truth 
 — that Luther stood undaunted before kings; it 
 was thus that, to wake the base slumbers of a 
 greedy age, Wesley and Whitfield were content to 
 " stand pilloried on infamy's high stage, and bear
 
 138 Abstinence from i.vti. 
 
 the pcllinic scorn >f liall an asjc ; " it \va<i thus that 
 Wilborforcc facrd in Parliament the sneers and 
 rajje <>l wealthy slave-owners; it was thus, '* in the 
 teeth of clenched anfa^jonisms," that education was 
 established, that inis>ions were founded, that the 
 cause of reli;^ious liberty was won. The persecuted 
 abject of to-day is the saint and exemplar of to- 
 morrow. St. John enters the tht i streets of 
 the capital of Asia as a d«- i v.i.iiiie;in and an 
 unnoticed exile ; but, w hen i;< hm .itions have passed 
 away, it is still hts name which clinj^s to its indis- 
 tini^uishable ruins. St. Tn ■! ^i.inds^ in his ra^j^jtd 
 paberdinc, too mean for O - supreme contempt ; 
 but tt>-day the cathedral dedicated to his hj)nor 
 towers over the vast imperial city where the name 
 of Gallio is not so much as heard. "Count we 
 over the chosen heroes of this earth," says a great 
 orator, ** and I will show you the men who st(K)d 
 alone, while those for w hom they toiled and ago- 
 nizcd pouretl on them contumely and scorn. They 
 were ijlorious iconoclasts, sent out to break down 
 the Dagons worshipetl by their fathers. The very 
 martyrs of yesterday, who were h<H)ted at, whom 
 the mob reviled and expatriated ; to-day, the chil- 
 dren \A the very gencj-ation who mobbed and re- 
 viled them are gatherin?^ up their scattered ashes 
 to deposit them in the gt)ldcn urn of their national 
 history I " 
 
 Not for one moment do I pretend, my brethren, 
 that if you adopt this cause you will need any hero- 
 ism, any great sclf-abnei(atit)n, any extraordinary 
 sacritice, or that you will have anythinjj worth 
 spcakm^; of to bear in avoucliinij it. But the 
 principle is the same. If, tt) help your fellows, you 
 were bidden to do some great thing, and you have
 
 Abstinence from Evil. 139 
 
 done it, how much more when 3-ou are merely 
 asked to abandon a needless, a trivial, and — unless 
 a mass of strong- evidence be disproved — a deleteri- 
 ous indulgence ? The time when abstainers were 
 persecuted has passed away. Milton, iu his day, 
 thinks it would be an impossible stretch of gener- 
 osity for even Puritans to " lose their sack for the 
 certain abolishing of so great a sin ; " and who is 
 there, he asks, the holiest, " who less loves his rich 
 canary at meals, though it be fetched from places 
 that hazard the religion of them that fetch it, and 
 thoug'h it makes his neighbor drunk, out of the 
 same tun ? " Howard, the illustrious John Howard, 
 who has left his name like a beacon fire on the hills 
 of Christian self-sacrifice, was a total abstainer ; yet 
 he sank so sensitively from ridicule, that he always 
 ordered the wine which he never drank. Even 
 your illustrious countryman, Thomas Guthrie, 
 went with positive tremor to the table of Lord 
 Jeffreys, in the then despised fanaticism of total 
 abstinence. All tJiat, thank God, is, through the 
 labor of good men and brave m.en, entirely changed. 
 In the halls of great colleges, at the banquets of 
 illustrious statesmen, at the hospitable boards of 
 wealthy nobles, I can thankfully testify that you may 
 now see many a man whose sole drink, like that of 
 Samson, is from the crystal brook. In the upper 
 classes the victory of total abstinence is so far won 
 that it has enforced its own respectful recognition. 
 But they who hav^e achieved that result have not 
 all lived to see it. The army that, under the eye 
 of their great leader, Wellington, crossed the foamy 
 bar of the Bidassoa into France, was not the same 
 army that won his mighty victories in Spain. They 
 lay dead on the heights of Busaco, or in the breach
 
 14^ A bstinence from Evil. 
 
 of Badajoz, Along" the whole line of \irtorious 
 march were scattered the bones of those who did 
 not live to gaze on hostile France from its barrier 
 mountain slopes, or " to see the spray as it broke in 
 foam on the bar of the Bidassoa." They were 
 younger men who reaped the laurels of conquest 
 which the brave hands of those dead veterans had 
 sown ; but other and yet sterner battles were before 
 them ; and who would not have cried shame upon 
 the laggard who, even then, would have shrunk 
 from any suffering in his country's cause ? Even 
 so with you. If you join this holy struggle to en- 
 sure a temperance reform, vou will not have to en- 
 dure all that they endured who now sleep in their 
 nameless graves ; but much has yet to be borne 
 and done, and, if it is ever to be done, it can only 
 be b}^ our enlisting heart and soul into the cause 
 the generation Avhich is to follow in our steps; by 
 flashing into their minds " the epidemic of noble, 
 ness," which shall induce tJiem also to use personal 
 effort, and to make personal sacrifice, to save their 
 brethren and their country, ere, forever, it be too 
 late. 
 
 My brethren, I need not tell 3^ou of the horrors 
 caused by drink. The very city in which your lot 
 is cast is under the deadly blight of it. It is as- 
 serted, from statistical records, that London is more 
 drunken than Paris, and Liverpool than London, 
 and Glasgow than Liverpool. It is the national 
 vice of England ; and, alas ! it is of Scotland, too. 
 Yes, even of Scotland, the land of exceptional edu- 
 cation; the land of exceptional intelligence; the 
 land of exceptional patriotism ; the land of ex- 
 ceptional loyalty ; the land of the Covenant and of 
 the Westminster Confession ; the land of John
 
 Abstinence from Evil. 141 
 
 Knox and Andrew Melville; the land of Bruce 
 and the Douglas ; the land which was ev^en yester- 
 day the home of Edward Irving-, and Thomas 
 Guthrie, and Norman Macleod ; the land whose 
 sons fought at Bannockburn for their country, and 
 at Culloden for their king ; the land where the 
 Sabbath is the pearl of days, and where the West- 
 minster Catechism has borne for centuries its noble 
 witness that the chief end of man is to live for the 
 glory of God, and to enjoy Him forever hereafter. 
 Yes, even of this land of sainthood and chivalry, 
 drunkenness, the base and brutal vice of drunken- 
 ness, is the national sin ! You know, better than 
 a stranger can tell you, that your land, too, is a 
 victim, an almost helpless victim, to this scathing, 
 debasing, degrading, despicable, but perfectly 
 curable, perfectly remediable, sin. Why need I 
 tell you of the horrors of drunkenness? Have 3'ou 
 not seen them? Do you not daily see them with 
 your own eyes? In your national history does not 
 the wasted figure of Prince Charles Edward rise 
 before you — beautiful no longer, noble no longer, 
 beloved no longer — sinking dishonored into a 
 drunkard's grave? In your literal"}^ history rises 
 there not before you, with the solemn agony not 
 yet faded from his noble features, the figure of hiro 
 
 " Who walked in glory and in joy, 
 Following his plough upon the mountain side," 
 
 to emphasize the warning of another countryman, 
 that " this accursed vice has changed into ashes 
 the laurel crown aroimd the head of genius and — ■ 
 the wings of the poet scorched in its nell-fiic 
 flames — he wiho once played m the light of sun-
 
 142 Abstiftt'HCf from Eft!. 
 
 heuns has crawled basely in tijc c1u>l • Do yoo 
 not sec ill vour own streets the dramshops there 
 most al)oiindiii^ where the viaxitHitm of poverty 
 leaves men with the minimum of force to resist 
 temptation? Have you not marked its ravages 
 in fallen companions, in deposed ministers, in fair 
 lives hlij^htcd as by a Fury's breath ? I lave you not 
 lu-.ird of mothers cursed by their sons because of 
 it? of husbands and wives bcatin^^ each other to 
 death because of it ? of parents sinkinj;^ into the 
 i^rave broken-hearted because of it ? of every sanc- 
 tity of lite made, because of it, bankrupt of bless- 
 ing and prolific of bitterness? Our jails choked 
 to the dcKir by drink; our asylums cnnvded by 
 drink with the maniac and the idiot; our churches 
 emptied ; our sch(x>ls defeated ; our missions ren- 
 dered fruitless; our people made poor, diseased, 
 brutal, reckless, wicked, by this inexcusable scan- 
 dal, this horrible source of degradation and pau- 
 peiism. Is all this nothing ? " Is it nothing to you, 
 all ye that pass by?" Unless you have purposely 
 closed your eyes, you Jknaiu these things ; and if you 
 know them, arc you a man ? are you a Christian ? 
 have you a heart ? have you any human pity ? have 
 you one spark of nobleness left in you, if you can 
 look on them with indifferent acquiescence? And 
 if you arc not indifferent, what can you do? Be 
 temperate. My brethren, I should not think thai 
 worth saying to you ; I should not have been asked 
 to come four hundred miles to tell you that. In 
 this particular struggle, temperance is worth noth- 
 ing. Temperate !, of course you are temperate, if 
 ycni be even gentlemen. No Christian, I hope, 
 would feci a spark of pride in saying that he did 
 not know what intoxication was. It is no mat-
 
 Abstinejice from Evil. 143 
 
 ter of pride for a man to be able to say that he has 
 not, by greedy drinking, reduced himself to bestial 
 degradation. No ! I come to ask you for something 
 much more. I come to plead with you for a per- 
 fect, a certain, a final remedy. I come to ask you 
 to take stronger part in that struggle, which even 
 the calm, wise voice of Richard Cobden told us 
 years ago lies at the basis of all moral and social 
 reform. It may not be (we will suppose) your indi- 
 vidual duty to take part in this particular effort. I 
 condemn no man. I judge no man. Never against 
 even publicans or gin-distillers have I or will I ut- 
 ter a single word. But this I say, that, except by 
 total abstinence, you will in this crisis do no real 
 abiding good. Some of you will be ministers. 
 Man}' of you are fathei"s ; many of you are Sab- 
 bath-school teachers. If you take your wine, or 
 your whisky, because you like it, or because you 
 think you need it, your people, your sons and 
 daughters, the poor children whom you teach will 
 do so likewise, and many of them, by a natural, in- 
 evitable consequence — a consequence which is 
 purely physical as well as moral in its awful char- 
 acter — will ^o so to excess ; and say to you, 
 
 " But, good my brother. 
 Do not, as some ungracious pastors do. 
 Point us the steep and thorny path to heaven, 
 While, Hke a puffed and reckless libertine. 
 Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, 
 And recks not his own rede ! " 
 
 If you, for your own pleasure, or your own fancied 
 need, will row about above the rapids, you may be 
 thrilled too late by their shriek of anguish, but 
 think not that they will heed your voice before^
 
 144 Abstinence from Evil. 
 
 hand, when it warns them lest they be swept over 
 the leapinsj^ cataract. •' Then " (in the *' Pil;^t iin's 
 Pro^jress ") ** Christian called to Demas, sayini^, ' Is 
 not the place tlani^erous ? hath it not hindered 
 many in their pil^rimaj^^e ? * * Not very dansj^erous 
 said Demas, * except to those that arc careless.' 
 lint 'fit /in I he bin shed as he spake ! " 
 
 Consider then, my brethren, whether God calls 
 you or no to help in rcmovinj^ from your country 
 its deadliest cuise ; but this 1 .s;iy to you, that, if he 
 does, you can only do it effectually by bcinp^ an ab- 
 stainer. Now, those who ari^ue with a man in favtif 
 of that which he likes, in favor of a pleasant cus* 
 l(;:;i, in favor of a popular practice, arj^ued with 
 him in shorthand ; but he who would run countei 
 to vulpar customs, he who is not afraid "to smite 
 the hoary head of inveterate abuse,'" must be pre- 
 pared to face at the first stage violence, at the sec- 
 ond ridicule, and at the third — for we have already 
 stormed those two redoubts — the heaped fascines 
 of plausible objection. We arc told, f()rso<ith, that 
 total abstinence is morose, that it is .Manich.xan, that 
 it trenches on the province of the baptismal vow, 
 that it invades the true functions of the Church, 
 that it isa violation of Scripture. These cobwebs of 
 miserable sophistry, had time permitted, I would 
 have oj'.adiy swept away ; but I must conclude, and 
 amon<; many and pressinj^ grounds on which it 
 might well be, if nut your direct and positive duty, 
 at least your strength and your safety and your 
 hcnor, to deny yourself an infinitesimal pleasure to 
 further an infinite gain, I would touch in conclusion 
 on two alone. 
 
 The first is the blessing and the duty of a simple 
 life. Our lot has fallen in hard times. Wc live in
 
 Abstinence from Evil. 145 
 
 a very crowded country. It is a nation of toiling 
 fathers, of crowded professions, of diminished pa- 
 tronage, of abolished sinecures, of portionless 
 daughters, of sons educated, but unemployed. Life 
 has become for most men a ceaseless strug-ofle. It 
 is a time of depressed commerce, of stagnating 
 trade, of intensified competition, of glaring contrasts 
 between colossal wealth among the few and among 
 the many painful struggle and ghastl}^ poverty. 
 Wars are in the air and rumors of war. There are 
 social problems around us of unequaled gravity; 
 the growth of population, the relations of capital 
 and labor, the place which England is to hoid 
 among the empires of the world. It may be a 
 question whether in the advance of civilization we 
 may not have contracted some of its deadliest vices, 
 and drawn into our veins the virus of its most cor- 
 rupting luxury. Never, at an\' rate, considering the 
 battle of life, was it more pressingly incumbent 
 upon young men, even for the sake of their own 
 happiness, to take high labor for their portion ; to 
 be scornfully indifferent of mere luxury; to reduce 
 life to its simplest elements: 
 
 " To sit self-governed in tlie fien^ prime 
 Of youth, obedient at the feet of law." 
 
 It is to such a )'outh, trained in simplicity, strong 
 in self-conquest, like the Nazarites of old, temper- 
 ate and brave and contented, and full of holy rev- 
 erence and manly courage, that we look to uphold 
 the ancient honor of this virtuous and godly island ; 
 and the very first and most obvious step in such a 
 simplicity, in such a scorning of self-indulgence, is 
 to abandon that intoxicating drink, which, as sci-
 
 146 Abstinence from livil. 
 
 encc has indisputablv |>rovccl, is n(>t.a iiccc«s;»ry 
 food; and which if it be not, as I bcHcvc, a positive 
 source for most men of sickness and weakness, is 
 not at any rate a source of h"allh or strenj^th ; 
 which weakens the power of the intellect and 
 blunts the sensibilities of the spirit ; which, if there 
 be any evil in us, tends to stir up all the evil, and 
 if there l)e any ^ood in us, to encarnalize all the 
 pood, (iranted that it is a pleasure— but it is a 
 pleasure of all the least needful; of all the most 
 dani^erous ; of all the one which can most easily be 
 supersedetl by others transcendently more noble. 
 The happy warrior of the future, independent for 
 mirth on a chemical infusion, will desire not a low 
 pleasure, but a rational happiness, and on the very 
 lowest ground, will scorn to heap up his contribu- 
 tion to that " monstrous pyramid of gold," which 
 a strugirling nation, to its own destruction, spends 
 — nay wastes, nay squanders — on the very meanest 
 of animal indulgences. 
 
 And. secondly, I will urge you the duty of self- 
 denial for the sake of others. If you arc fond of 
 drink, abandon it before it be too late for your own 
 sake ; if vou are not fond of it, it will cost you 
 nothing to give it up. We are all face to face with 
 a hideous, a degrading, a colossal evil. The Legis- 
 lature either can not or will not help us. Warning, 
 preaching, moral influence, even extended educa- 
 tion fails to help us; increased wages, diminished 
 hours of work, only deepen our peril and our loss. 
 There is one way, and one way only ; but that is 
 a certain and an easy way by which, not merely to 
 check, but even to annihilate, the curse. It is that 
 svery one of us should cease to contribute to this 
 monster evil the penny of a contribution or the
 
 Abstinence from Evil. 147 
 
 shadow of an example. The use of that deadly, 
 peculiar, and wholly unnecessary substance, is so 
 far inseparable from the abuse, that where the indi- 
 vidual use is, there the national abuse will be. Un- 
 restricted liquor traffic will, to the end of time, 
 mean for myriads intense temptation ; temptation 
 means drunkenness ; drunkenness means degrada- 
 tion, horror, ruin, crime. You are a Christian. 
 Will you give up a needless luxury to help in sav- 
 ing others from a blasting curse ? You are a pa- 
 triot. Will you give up a poor tickling of the pal- 
 ate, an unwholesome tingling of the brain, to res- 
 cue your nation from a blighting degradation ? If 
 you do not help, at least be ashamed to hinder. 
 Call not those fanatics who would clear their 
 conscience from every taint of so dangerous a 
 leaven. Do not gild a self-indulgence with the 
 Ophir gold of Holy Scripture, or hide the forehead 
 of a luxury under the phylactery of a scribe. 
 
 Not long ago there was in a certain colliery an 
 explosion by which four hundred miners were sud' 
 denly hurled amid shattered ruins into horrible 
 death. It was caused by a single miner who had 
 opened his safety-lamp to light his pipe. To that 
 pipe of tobacco were sacrificed four hundred pre- 
 cious lives of fathers, of husbands, and of sons ; 
 and, alas ! on the bodies of not a few of those who 
 perished in that fiery blast were found duplicate 
 keys by which, hitherto with impunity, they had 
 done the same. Alas ! my brethren, England and 
 Scotland are such a mine; they are full of the ex- 
 plosive fire-damp of intemperance. In all societies 
 it hangs dense around us in the perilous and pesti- 
 lential air. Do not say that there is none of this 
 flaming peril around you ; that you may open your
 
 r.^S Abslincncc jrum I'.viL 
 
 snfclv-lamp and no harm come of it. It may be so; 
 it m;iv not be so. You could not, you would not 
 do it if you were sure that there wasdaiikjcr; for 
 that— as you see at once — would be a deadly selfish- 
 ness and an atrocious crime. Hut you can not be 
 sure that there is not danpjcr. Is the ^ain worth 
 the risk ? Is the transient and animal indidj^c-ncc 
 worth the j)ermanent and eternal peril? No harm 
 mav come U^t you ; but if harm come to others who 
 aie reassured by ^ i>ur example, you, even you will 
 have helped to perpetuate a frij^hlful curse, whose 
 efiects, in shatterinij blast after shalterin|ij blast, 
 shall be flapped in echoes of ruin and of misery, 
 loo late for i)enitence amid j^eneralions yet unborn. 
 The fatal and thv fatally common key of that satety- 
 lam[) is what is called "moderate drinkinj^." II in 
 this particular strug^i^lc, you would be patriots, if in 
 this matter you would show your true love for your 
 brother-men — flini^'' it away. Like the Nazarites of 
 old.like the chiklrcn of Jonadab the son of Kechab, 
 drink neither wine nor slronj^ drink, so long as by 
 it you make weak or cause to stumble, or tempt 
 into ruin and misery, the soul — the priceless soul — 
 of a brother; the soul of your brother FOR 
 WHOM CIIKIST DIED.
 
 AN 
 
 ADDRESS TO TEACHERS 
 
 ON 
 
 TOTAL ABSTINENCE. 
 
 By Rev. Canon Farrar, D.D., F.R.S. 
 
 1 AM not goirif^ to take you through the moral 
 dangers which accrue to this nation from drunken- 
 ness, but I am going-, in a very few words, and not 
 at all as a speech, but rather in conversational 
 style, to point out to you how very much you may 
 do in diminishing that which is undoubtedly the 
 most growing, the most multiform, and the most 
 ineradicable of our national evils. We of the 
 clergy have very much to dt) with the stupidity 
 and fixedness of adult humanity. We have to deal 
 with those whose habits are formed. You know 
 the difficulty of reclaiming the habitual driuikard, 
 with his sodden brain ar.d debilitated will. But 
 ■ou, ladies and gentlemen, have to do willi the 
 young while they are still uuvitiated b^^ Lheteirible 
 craving, and I do think you may exercise a most 
 potent and most beneficial influence over the fu* 
 ture of England. You know it was that great and
 
 I50 1" ],/Jrtss to Teachers 
 
 wise Siatcsman, Kicharcl Cobdcn, who said that the 
 IcniperaDCC reformation lay at the very basis of all 
 social and political reform. I do think you could 
 no have a more splendid ambition than to take 
 vour part in brinj^iui^ about the immense reforn], 
 which will not be wroup;ht in our j^eneration, but 
 may be in that of those who arc now the boys and 
 j;irls under your care. There arc two ways in 
 which you may work: first of all, by pointinj^ out 
 to them, as forcibly and kiniily as you can, the moral 
 disij^race and crime of drunkenness. You may help 
 to frame the public opinion among^st the working 
 classes, which is, after all, the only power on which 
 we can ultimately depend for the deliverance of 
 this cf)Uiitry from its national curse and misery. 
 If you leach the working classes to Icel about 
 drunkenness as the middle and upper-classes have 
 been tauj^ht to feel, viz., that to be seen drunk is to 
 forfeit character and tt> incur disjj^race and infamy 
 — I say if you once teach the workin<j-man that, 
 you then will be doinj; more than can be done in 
 any other way to roll away this enormous evil, and 
 you can do that by pointin*^ out to the children 
 that drunkenness is both a fjreat sin and a ^xq^X. 
 disi^racc. You may also confirm what you say by 
 an appeal to the lower j^rounds (for on this matter 
 we must not despise any grounds), if you point out 
 to your children this undoubted fact, that not only 
 drunkenness, but drinking, is the main cause of that 
 pauperism which is so terrible a bane in our great 
 cities. I hold a little leaflet in my hand, published 
 by the Church of England Temperance Society, 
 xvhich shows the cost of a daily draught of intoxi
 
 On Total Abstinence. 151 
 
 eating liquors per year, and the sum it will amount 
 to it put out to interest for twent}' years. Two- 
 pence (four cents) per day, for instance, comes, with 
 interest, to £Z6 (-430) in twenty years. Now, here 
 we arc not dealing with theories, but with plain 
 and palpable facts. Now, how many families 
 amongst the poor are content with a single pint, 
 which is the basis of the reckoning in this case? 
 Suppose the jugs to be filled twice a day, and the 
 cost is fourpence (eight cents), that is £6 (^30) a 
 year, or £\']^ (^90) with interest in twenty years. 
 You may then tell your children what they would 
 be able to do with this money in permanently im- 
 proving their temporal condition ; what, for in- 
 stance, they would be able to do in the way of pur- 
 chasing houses to reside in. That is actually the 
 case in a parish which I know, where the clergy- 
 man has labored very assiduously in the cause of 
 temperance. In the parish there are sixteen houses 
 in a row, one after another built by common labor- 
 ing men with the ordinary wages of working-men, 
 simply out of the proceeds of what they have 
 learned from the clergyman to put by instead of 
 spending it in that which science has now proved 
 is not a food, not a source of health or strength, not 
 a necessity, but simply nothing in the world but a 
 luxury. Is it not obvious that if the poor families 
 who are crowded by thousands in the vicinity of 
 this Abbey were to lay by that which they are 
 daily pouring into the publican's tills, their condi- 
 tion would undergo a complete change? A vision 
 rises before me which is almost too bright to be- 
 lieve, and yet which is perfectly possible of being
 
 15- An Atiiinss to Ttachcrs 
 
 iclncvcd, and which you each may do an immense 
 deal to achieve, of renovated homes and of rescuctl 
 thouscinds. Judi;e after jud^e, |)hysician after phy- 
 siciaii, majjistrate after niaj^istrale. all the govern- 
 ors and chaplains of our jails, all who deal with 
 the crime, disease, and pauperism of our country, 
 have stated that if once we could unlearn amonjjst 
 the workinjj-clas>cs those drinkinj; habits which are 
 short even of drunkenness, and which arc so uni- 
 versal amonij them, you would brinjj about a state 
 of thini^s which would show an entire abolition of 
 nine-tenths of our crime, nine-tenths of our pauper- 
 ism, and nine tenths of our disease. I have not yet 
 said a word about total abstinence. I have never 
 said to any one that his or her duty was to become 
 a total abstainer. I prefer that they should decide 
 that question absolutely for themselves by their 
 own imbiascd judgment; but what I do earnestly 
 request of you, as one who has had the honor of 
 belonging to your class and being the master of a 
 public sch(X)l, is to consult for yourselves a little of 
 the literature on this subject. Vou are all edu- 
 cated. Vou are all intelligent men and women. 
 You are capable of forming a conclusion upon the 
 evidence put before you on which your consciences 
 can rely. I would only ask you to buy the ** Con- 
 vocation Report on Temperance," published by 
 the House of Convocation for the province of Can- 
 terbury, and I think if you will read that through, 
 or any of the other numerous publications on this 
 subject, you will find the evidence so irresistible, 
 that you will in some way join the ranks of those 
 who are laboring to improve the temperance of this
 
 On Total Abstinence. 153 
 
 country. When you have read that evidence you 
 can decide for yourselves whether you will become 
 an abstainer or not. I will tell you plainly what 
 made me one. When I first came to London, the 
 very first experience I had showed me that this 
 was the curse of the nation. The very first time 
 I preached in m.y church the service was interrupt- 
 ed by a drunken man. The first time ray wife 
 went to visit Westminster Hospital she was as 
 nearly as possible knocked down the steps by a 
 drunken man. The first pastoral visit I paid was 
 to the room occupied by a woman who, though too 
 poor to pay for the schooling of her children, yet 
 was able to spare enough for a consumption of 
 drink that forced her to clutch the nearest article of 
 furniture to save her from falling. With experi- 
 ences such as these, what could one do but take 
 any step that would in the slightest degree — were 
 it only one individual or one famil}- — rescue these 
 people from this state of degradation ! If there be 
 a vast amount of easily preventable crime and suf- 
 fering, is not that a ver}' small sacrifice — a very 
 cheap offering — to make to God for the purpose of 
 preventing that which is so easilv preventable? 
 You will feel when 3'ou deal with the children that 
 you will be in a much more forcible position when 
 you are able to sa}-, " Don't grow up in the habit 
 of taking these things. They are not necessary to 
 you because they are not necessarv to me." If I 
 say to a man, '- You ought not to drink," he might 
 answer, " I feel dreadfully faint and overcome by 
 the atmosphere about me, and the squalor of my 
 home, and therefore I go to the public-house, and
 
 154 An AtUress to Teachers on Total Abtsincnce. 
 
 take a little artificial happiness, which makes the 
 pulse of life beat luorc rapidly, even if it costs me 
 afterwards a in«)re terrible reaction." ll I take a 
 glass of wine when 1 feel all the cares which the 
 cler^Cyman of a London parish must feel, antl take 
 my ji^lass of wine at dinner in ortler to remove that 
 dejection, I am doinj^ precisely the same thinjj as 
 the workinij-man does when he i^cws to the public- 
 house. Certainly 1 do not S|>cak of total abstinence 
 as any virtue. I should be ashamed if I took so 
 Pharisaic a line as to s.'iy I had done that which 
 put me in the least on a jjround superior to others, 
 but what 1 do say is, I could not help doinfj other 
 than I have done, I was driven to it simply be- 
 cause I fouiul that that gave me a firmer standing 
 when trvinj^ to persuade others to do the same by 
 tellinsjj them, *' If it is not necessary for me, it can 
 not be necessary for you ;" and I am sure that not 
 only I^r. Richardson, but any other eminent phy- 
 sician will bear it out, that for whatever class of 
 people alcohol may be deemed necessary, it is most 
 absolutely unnecessary and fatal to those who have 
 as you have, to work hard with your brains. If any 
 of you would try for six months the experiment ol 
 total abstinence, I am quite sure you would feel an 
 increase of mental, if not of physical, power, and I 
 ani also quite sure that althoui^h you will meet 
 many people who will tell you you have done an 
 unscriptural tliitic^, and who will, in fact, try to 
 persuade you you arc performing a great virtue 
 when you are drinking beer, I am quite certain yoh 
 will have done that of which, when your last day 
 comes, you will have no occasion whatever to fee 
 ashamed.
 
 EXPERIENCE 
 
 OF A 
 
 TOTAL ABSTAINER. 
 
 By the Rev, Canon Farrar, D.D.. F.R.S, 
 
 Rev. Canon Farrar, in taking the chair to pre- 
 side for Dr. B. W. Richardson, at one of his lect- 
 ures, referring to his own experience as a total ab- 
 stainer, said : 
 
 Practically, I have only been a pledged ab- 
 stainer for little more than a year, because, dur- 
 ing the whole of my life, having had the happiness 
 to live amongst strictly moderate people, I never 
 before had really brought home to me the extent, 
 the frightfulness, and the ramifications of this curse 
 of drink. It was only when I came face to face 
 with it in London parochial work that I felt it to 
 be imperative at once to take that very small step 
 of personally abstaining as a protest against the 
 worst evil of our land. So far from feeling any 
 difficulty in this matter, I experienced none what 
 ever, I can't take any credit, therefore, to myself 
 for even the smallest particle of virtue in having be 
 come a total abstainer. Before that time I had al- 
 w*ays taken a very moderate amount of beer or 
 wine during the day as an ordinary beverage, ancj 
 even when an undergraduate at Oxford, I never once 
 had a bottle of wine in my rooms, and so far from
 
 156 Expcr'uncc of a Total Abstainer. 
 
 siiffcrintr llirouLjh j^ivinsj^ up this sinnll amount of 
 drink, 1 have to stale th:rt. althouji^h the year was 
 for me a peculiarly disailvanta«]jeous one for an ex- 
 periment, 1 in all respects pained bv the course I 
 took. I found, for instance, that althoujjh 1 had 
 come to London, not likin«^ a town life, but natu- 
 rally delif^htins^ in the country; althouLjh, ab(ivc 
 all thini::s in life, what delighted mc most was 
 watchini^ the ordinary course of nature, and see- 
 in*^ the dew fall and the flowers blow, yet havinij 
 Dccn called away from that to the foLjs of London 
 life, and althoujj^h I am peculiarly sensitive to puri- 
 ty of air — in spite of all these drawbacks, so far 
 from the results ha[)penincf to me which the dole- 
 ful chorus of my friends and ctMupanions predicted 
 1 should underj:^o, I have been better in every re- 
 spect. Last week, for instance, havim^ been called 
 upon in a maimer entirely alien to my habits, and 
 the most opposite that I could desire, to address 
 no less than seven large auilienccs of from two to 
 three thousand people each, in five days together, 
 with long night journeys from London to Glasgow, 
 Glasgow to Aberdeen, and Aberdeen back to Lon- 
 don, I was able to bear all that fitigue without any 
 personal inconvenience, which I am certain I 
 should not have been able to do in the days when 
 I was not a total abstainer. I felt inclined to think 
 at one time that Dr. Richardson's lectures would 
 be like the famous Dr. Traill's definition of snakes 
 in Iceland, consisting of the four memorable words, 
 " There are no snakes." *' There arc no diflficultics 
 in learning to abstain." I feel now that in many 
 ways that was a mistake, and Dr. Richardson's last
 
 Experience of a Total Abstainer. 157 
 
 lecture, which I had the pleasure of reading, 
 brought home that fact to my mind. There are 
 decided difficulties. There are social difficulties, 
 although they are so slight in this day that they 
 are perhaps hardly worth counting. But there are 
 physical difficulties arising from the intense hold 
 of habit ; there are moral difficulties arising from 
 the weakness which is correlated to the tree of 
 habit, and special and peculiar difficulties arising 
 fiom the nature of alcohol itself. I think that Dr. 
 Richardson's lectures will enable many to persevere 
 in abstinence who have begun in it, and thought 
 of giving it up. I have met a great number of the 
 clergy particularly who have said to me that they 
 became abstainers, tried it for about a month, and 
 then found they were so poorly that they were 
 obliged to give it up. What happens is this : A 
 man has been accustomed all his life to a certain 
 amount of beer or wine, and he feels a certain 
 craving for it and longs to go back, but Dr. Rich- 
 ardson has decisively proved that as long as there 
 is any alcohol in the system it creates a desire for 
 more. Then the imagination of the incipient total 
 abstamer fixes itself upon this craving. Every 
 ailment or imaginary ailment is at once intensified 
 in his thoughts, and he puts it down to total absti- 
 nence. Then all his friends renew their predic- 
 tions, " We said you would be ill," and, to crown 
 all, in comes the local doctor and says, "You must 
 take wine or beer, or else you have no chance of 
 re^aininir vour previous health." An eminent cler- 
 gyman whom I know stands for a type of all these 
 difficulties. He said: " I became a total abstainer.
 
 158 lixf^truncc of a Total Ahtuvur. 
 
 At ihc ciul of a UK-nth I had a carbuncle on the side 
 of my nose, and on cotisultini^ my doctor he saiiJ, 
 * 1 see h(j\v it is; it is entirely owiujj U) your havint; 
 gjivcn up wine. You must j;o back to your ordi- 
 nary habits.'" Now, that carbuncle stands as a 
 type of all those difficulties with which Dr. Rich- 
 ardson has to deal. I am sure by the administra 
 tion of a little plain advice, and by teachinjjj peo[)lc 
 they must not suppose that every ailment of a total 
 abstainer arises from total abstinence, and that 
 alone, he will have done a very great service to 
 that lar^i^e number of excellent people who see that 
 for them it would be a rijjht and proper thinij to 
 abstain, but who, havinjj tried it, and not finding it 
 immediately agreeable, fancy it is also deleterious 
 to them, and so henceforth always speak of total 
 abstinence as a kind of amiable fanaticism, which 
 may be very good for a few, but impossible for 
 them. I think that the service performed by our 
 lecturer will enable all those persons who desire to 
 be total abstainers to go on in that course, and pre- 
 vent them from being weary in well-doing, and he 
 will enable them, by giving them advice which 
 thev can easily follow, to persevere in a very noble 
 cause.
 
 ALCOHOL AND THE STATE. 
 
 12mo. 411 Pages. Price $1.50. 
 
 By Robert C. Pitman, L.L.D., 
 
 Associate Justice of the Superior Court of Mass. 
 
 The National Temperance Society has just issued a new 
 and important work, entitled " Alcohol and the State," from the pen 
 of Judge Pitman, who has given this subject a life-long consideration. 
 It treats, with great conciseness and marked ability, of what 
 the State loses in various ways through alcohol, and, in turn, of what 
 is the duty and proper function of the State concerning alcohol. It 
 is of a high order of literary merit, and is a book for statesmen, 
 legislators, and all intelligent, thoughtful temperance men and women 
 everywhere. It shows that the Liquor Traffic is the enemy of the 
 State, and the foe of all the objects for which the State exists ; and 
 presents such strong arguments, statistics, appeals, and authorities 
 as will add greatly to an intelligent and wise solution of the Liquor 
 Problem. The economic and legislative aspects of the Alcoholic dis- 
 cussion have never been so ably presented, and it should be in the 
 hands of every citizen and in every library in the land. 
 
 The following is the Table of Contents: 
 Part First- Alcohol vs. The State. 
 
 CHAPTEB 
 
 I. Preliminary. 
 
 . II. Waste. 
 
 III. Destruction of Home. 
 
 IV. The Parent of Pauperism. 
 V. Injury to Public Health. 
 
 VI. The Chief Occasion of Crime. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 VII. Vitiates Human Stock. 
 VIII. The Universal Ally of Evil— Th« 
 Universal Antagonist of Good. 
 IX. Is there a Set-off of Benefits? 
 X. A Case for Intervention. 
 
 Part Second— The State vs. Alcohol. 
 
 chapter 
 
 XI. The Province of Law. 
 XII. Extent of Legislative Power. 
 
 XIII. Liberty and Government. 
 
 XIV. Law a Necessity. 
 XV. License Laws. 
 
 XVI. The Necessary Failure of License. 
 XYII. Half-way Measures. 
 XVIII. The Gothenburg System. 
 
 CHAPTEB 
 
 XIX. The Milder Alcoholics. 
 XX. The History of Prohibition. 
 XXI. Prohibition a Success. 
 XXII. Maine a Crucial Test. 
 
 XXIII. Secret Drinking. 
 
 XXIV. Law as a Teacher, 
 XXV. Enforcement. 
 
 XXVI. The Outlook. 
 
 Sent by mail on receipt of price. 
 
 Addiess J. N. STEARNS, Publishing Agent, 
 
 d8 Iteade Street, Neiv York.
 
 READINGS AND RECITATIONS, 
 
 No. 3. 
 
 I2mo. f/j p.i^c*. Paper Covers. a5 ccnn Cloth. 60 cents. 
 Compiled by Miss L Pevney, Editor of " y.tfi^mi/ Temfemtue Orato* 
 and " ReaJim^t and Rtcilaliont," No*. I and a. 
 
 This valuable book, just issued In aniform style with " Readings and 
 Recitations" Nos. i and 2, contains an entirely new selection of articles in 
 both prose and verse, on every phase of the temperance question, suiuble for 
 Declamutiun, Recitation, Public and Parlor Readings. 
 
 A larger iiuml>cr of articles have been prepared specially for this number 
 than for either of iu predecessors, and its list of authors includes John G. 
 Whitticr, John H f: I' ht Williams. Dr. J. G. Holland. G«o. 
 
 W. Bungay. Rev. J . . . . Aiti Talmagc. DD ; Dr ». W. Rich- 
 
 ardson, T. L Cuyler, D.D ; John W. Drew. Edward CarswcU. Pansy, Mrs. 
 Susannah Evans Peck, Ella Wheeler, and others equally well-known. 
 
 It is just the book for use in all temperance organizations, at the public 
 meeting, and at the fireside. 
 
 The following is the uble of contents :— 
 
 POETRY. 
 
 Battle of the Rai.s (The). 
 Boys' Rir.nrs. 
 
 Demon Ship (TheV 
 
 Disenthralled (The\ 
 
 Don't Say that He Died Through 
 
 Drink. 
 Don't Drink. 
 Dot H.\by or Mine. 
 Dream ok the Reveler (The). 
 Failure. 
 Key-Note (The). 
 Legislation. 
 Little Bow of Blue (A). 
 
 :.E (The). 
 
 Losr I. 
 
 MOR.\I. . 
 
 Not Lost. 
 
 Objections to Good Templausm. 
 
 Oi:r War Cry. 
 
 Ov: V- ,\RA. 
 
 Pc: i SroRY (The). 
 
 Prj^km Crisis (The). 
 
 Put ir Throliwi. 
 
 Surrender (The). 
 
 Temperance Arithmetic. 
 
 True Courage. 
 
 Wh.\t our Country Needs. 
 
 PROSE. 
 
 B.ATTLING FOR TeMPERANCF., 
 
 Education as a Cure for Intemper- 
 ance. (A Stump Speech). 
 
 E.ktremes Compared. 
 
 Five Minuted. 
 
 Gain and Loss. 
 
 Interrupted Speech (The). 
 
 Mule Story (A). 
 
 " My Daughter Susan " Speaks Her 
 Mind. 
 
 No Surrender ! No Compromise. 
 
 Our Warfare and Our Duty. 
 
 Pirate Alcohol (The). 
 Power of the Press (The). 
 Power (»p Example (The). 
 Property and the Traffic. 
 Sabb.vth and the Liquor Traffic 
 
 (Thei. 
 True Help. 
 
 Unaccountable Mystery (.\.n). 
 Undressing Little Ned. 
 We have not Begun to Fight Yrr. 
 We Can if We Will. 
 Who Did It? 
 
 Address 
 
 J. N. STEARNS, Piiblishin- AsfPiit, 
 
 5<i Iteadc Sttreet, New York.
 
 THE 
 
 PROIlIBITIONISrS TKXT-BOOK. 
 
 12mo, 312 Pages. Price, $1.00. 
 
 The National Temperance Society have collected to^ ;*bcr and juBt published In one 
 Tolume the f<jllowin? most valuable arKumciits, otatistics, tet^timoniciJ and ap))i'al8, 
 ihowiug the iniquity of the licence system and the right and duty of prohibitionists. 
 ft Is an invaluable hand-book for all friends of prohibition. 
 
 NUMBER OF rACiBS. 
 
 Prohibition Does Prohibit. J. N. Stearus, . ... 48 
 
 Suppression of the Liquor Traffic. Rev. II. D. Kitcliell, D.I)., 48 
 
 The Throne of Inicjuity. Rev. Albert Barnes, D.D., . . . 29 
 
 Fruits of the Liquor Traffic. Sumner Stebbins, M.D., . . 24 
 
 Maine Law Vindicated. Ilea. Woodbury Davis, ... 8 
 Review of Ex-Governor Andrew on License. Rev. \Vm. M. 
 
 Tliayer 8 
 
 Indictment of the Rum Traffic. By Rev. W. W. Hicks, . 4 
 
 The Fruits of License. Rev. William M. Thayer, ... 4 
 
 The Ballot for Temperance. Rev. James B. Dunn, ... 4 
 
 Natural and Reserved ilights. Rev. Joseph Cuiumin^s, D.D., 4 
 
 Evils of License. Rev. Wm. M. Thayer 4 
 
 Rum and Taxation under License. Rev. Wm. M. Thayer, 4 
 
 Why We Oppose the Traffic, Rev. A. Sutherland, ... 4 
 
 The Rumseller a Robber. Rev. Luther Keene, . . 8 
 
 Accountableness for Evils of Intemperance. Rev. J. C. Foster, 8 
 
 The Evils of Beer Legislation. Rev. James B. Dunn, . 8 
 
 What it all Costs. Ovid Miner, Esq., 4 
 
 Practical Workings of Prohibition. Hon Robert C. Pitman, . 8 
 
 National Legislation. A.M. I'o well, Esq.. .... 4 
 
 The Sabbath and Beer Question. Rev. Ueo L. Taylor, . 4 
 
 Moral and Legal Suasion. Hon. Robert C. Pitman, ... 4 
 
 The Hesults of Prohibition. A. M. Powell, Esq. . - . 4 
 
 Law as an Educator. Rev. Wm. M. Thayer, .... 4 
 
 The Relations of Drunkenness to Crime, ii^lisha Harris, M D., 8 
 
 Constitutionality and Duty of Prohibition. Rev. II. M. Scudier 4 
 
 Governor of Massachusetts Against License. Hon. T. Talbot, 4 
 
 The Street of HeU. Rev. 11. T. Cross 4 
 
 Second Declaration of Independence. Rev. A. \V. Corey, . 4 
 
 Constitutional Amendment on the Manufacture and Sale of 
 Intoxicating Liciuous. lion. li. W. Blair, . . . 13 
 
 It la a Btorehoase of fact, arirament, aLd statistics, and ehoald be In the handB o/ 
 eveiy iticturcr, clergyman, student, and every one who is interested In temperanc* 
 Bent by mail, poat-paid, on receipt of price. 
 
 Address, 
 
 J. N. STEARNS, Publishing Agent, 
 
 58 Meade Street, New York.
 
 PACKAGE OF 
 
 TEMPERANCE DIALOGUES. 
 
 ISTo. X. 
 FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH 
 
 IB 
 
 Schools, Bauils of Hope, and other Juvenile Organizations. 
 27 DIALOGUES, U8 PAGES, FOR 25 CENTS. 
 
 The National Temperance Society have just published a package 
 of six new Temperance Dialogues, for children and youth, adapted 
 to schooU, concerts. Bands of Hope, and other juvenile organizations. 
 The names of the Dialogues are as follows: — 
 
 Will** a ^ork<'r. Hr Mary Dvvin»-ll (.hplllii. For lhrp« ifirU 9 
 
 FiK'it AKiiliiHt Itiiiii aii«l Tobuoco. liv Mary Dwinell 
 ( iitllis For thr<'' U.v?* niul thrt-o jjirls. ... . . 6 
 
 Counlliiff Ike C'oikt. Hy Mary Dwinell CbellU. For foar boys. . 4 
 
 Bliiv Bo\v<«. liy Mrs. J. McNair Wttabt. For two girla and two 
 
 Ixiys ............. 4 
 
 Curiiii; It Driinktird. By Mr««. J. Mo.N'air Wright. Fur foar (lirln. 4 
 
 Tho Xew Pledgee. By Misa Julia Colman. For four boys, a Pre*. 
 idem and Secretary. 6 
 
 These Dialogues have all been written for the National Temperance 
 Society, and will be found inculcating excellent truth. 
 
 One Dialogue for each character put in a package, making 27 in all, 
 (or 25 cents. Sold only in packages. Sent by mail on receipt of price. 
 
 Address J". IST . STE^RISTS 
 
 3 
 
 5» KEADE ^TIIEET, S. V
 
 THE DIVINE LAW AS TO WINES 
 
 By GEO. W. SAMSON, D.D., 
 
 Former President of Columbian University^ Washington. D.C. 
 
 i2mo, 326 Pages, $1.00. 
 
 Published by the National Temperance Society and 
 
 Publication House. 
 
 -»-♦- 
 
 This is a thorough and scholarly work, by G. W. Samson, D.D. 
 Years of careful study have been given to its preparation, aided by 
 personal observation and extensive inquiry in Eastern lands. The 
 whole question is treated from a stand-point and acquaintance with 
 the subject which commands the attention of scholars, scientists, 
 ministers, and all who are interested in a thorough investigation of 
 this most important subject. 
 
 Dr. Samson, formerly President of Columbian University, is well 
 qualified to treat this topic. He weaves into the book with a master 
 hand the fruits of patient inquiry into the medical and legal aspects 
 of the question, ancient and modern ; into its literature, history, and 
 philology. He has made it one of the most complete discussions in 
 existence, and enriched the work by apt citations from a wide range 
 of authorities, critical and scientific. 
 
 This book should be in the hands of every minister and student 
 of the Bible, and of every friend of temperance. The book will be 
 sent to any address on receipt of $1.00. Address 
 
 J. N. STEARNS, Publishing Agent, 
 
 58 Reade Street, Neiv York.
 
 J^ew Temperance Dialogues. 
 
 TiiK National Tkmperaxck Sociktt hag Just poblisbed three new dlalo^ee, writt«a 
 •7 II. EltioU McBriile: 
 
 1. A llo)'^" llehraraal, for ol^ht boyi, lo whicb each one rebctu'tei hli ■per'cb 
 
 r-i'Iechil fur a public tiio<'tlnjf. Till* 1- <ino of the \if»\ tnmpt— •rico (li*loguc« lor \ntj* 
 
 CUT |iiil)lMlioiI. l-snio, ■.'0 paj{e», lO cont»; rlu^lL- . r li jzeu 91.00 
 
 !l. A ThII* «»•! TiMtii»rrunc»<, for two horn, hii < . .rt for recmlts for a pulv 
 
 l4'- iiii'i-iin.;. liiuo, 7 pa;;i-ii, O Cfnt«; iiliigle coploa, per duion 00 
 
 8. A lllltrr Ooav, two characters, man aud wifr. Tkc drunkard cared by a "bitter 
 
 duiu." Itiiuo, II pagca, lU centa; aiugle coplcK, per duscn l.OO 
 
 'rii4> foIluxNiii;; lia.s also ICoocntly b(M>ii Piiblisliod. 
 
 4 . Trtwl ol' Jolt II Itaric) corn, bv a Jurr of twelve men, with Attorncy-Ucocral, 
 
 Couuitcl, ShcrllTA. and afieea VVltncDSci. :iG {iai,'ca lU centa each; per doacn 1.00 
 
 Tltc fulluw-iiiS' are ICxccllciit I)iaIo)j:uc«« prcvioiinly 
 
 ptitiliHlicd. 
 
 Wnrry No "Tfnn I'r Hf OrlnkB. Mc.-nta... Per doxcn l.OO 
 
 AVIil<'li \t III \ oil 4 lioo-o r t'> pa^-rs. By Mlaa M. D. Cbellta. ISceota. I.&O 
 
 At liii< u« II f|<'<llrlM< . luconla " l.OO 
 
 I he Sliiiiiblliiu llloik. iDConIS '* l.OU 
 
 Miall I Miirr) i« 'loilt-ralc Drinker. 10 centa ** I .Oti 
 
 Trlul iiiid « ••ii«l<>iiiiinll<>n ol JiidM« \%'<>rinaker. IS centa ** 1.60 
 
 'I'hr l''lr»l (.lu««; or, 1 111! I'owrr of W.imaira Iiiflm-Dce. and 
 
 'I'lin \ oiiii:; I'retnlaler: or. Saved at Laat. 15 ceuta fur both " 1.50 
 
 It<-<-laliii<'<l : or. The I)anz<<r o^ Mixlorato Drinkinx. 10 cenia " 1.<M» 
 
 Tlio .Alculiul FIrud. 6cenU ** .00 
 
 CONCKRT EXICRCISES. 
 
 The T»vo Way*. Hy ficori:c Thavor. Ifi page*, .'i cnia each — per doaon .60 
 
 'I'lif < lip ol Itritdi. Uv HevW . F Crafm. ir, [in^-p*. .') renin '«ch. *' .6t» 
 
 "I'Im" T** <> \%liii-«. Hy t'. K. Tbonip'»on. Hi patre* .'i centa cach " .HO 
 
 •rUf 1 1« ohol KIrml. Hy Ucv. W. F fraft*. Id pa^jea. & centa each " .GO 
 
 'reim»«Tiiiii«« Kx«T<l«c. By Edward Clark. *! [iii.:va, 18mo " .OO 
 
 Sirlpliiro r«'«llinoii> . By T. U. Thoinp«on. Iti pagea. 5 ct». each. " .60 
 
 llo\* wro olMroiiii llrliik. By Mra. E. if. Thompaou 16 pagca. 5cU. each. " .flO 
 
 Thr Colli raal. Bv T. K Thompson ' •« each .. " .30 
 
 Tlio Kriill* Tlioroof. Bv T. K. T' ■• 5 cent* each .... " .«0 
 
 Scrlpniro <liaraclfri». Ity T. K. 1 , . , ..,-(i. 5 rtnts each. ... " .UO 
 
 .IIVIOXC; XHI£ CllILUREM. 
 
 Jhc Calorlilain on .ilcohol. By MIm Julia Colman. 36 pa^ca " .60 
 
 Tlie I'linpt-raiiru <'ai«Miit«in. By Kev. Jan. D. Duun " .«<> 
 
 Itaiidoi il ope iTI a II iihI. .'<<j pnirea " .60 
 
 IColl ol III r. iriiH.' or •ln::le pledjje, si*e«0 X 23 Inchea, apace for »40 names .. .'iS 
 
 <'«>rilll< aii'x <>l" ^ionibor«ilitp per hundred 3.00 
 
 tlilldroii'» llaiitl of Hope I'ledae and Cortlflcate combined " 4.O0 
 
 The I'l ••!:;e liidulcs tobacco and profanity. Mz«. 1« x 9* Inche--, In color*. 
 riiroino Pledge Card, (onialnlnsc cither the single or triple pledge... " 2.00 
 
 F«n'k<-l i'U'du€>-II«»ok. With space for SO namea lO 
 
 Till' r«'inp<raiiro Speaker. By J. N. St^arnn. 288 pajjea 75 
 
 llie >ailoiial Temperance Or»Cor. By M las L. Penney, ISmo, 388 paxes 1.4»0 
 
 lluiid ol Hope .TIclodle*. 4S pai.'cr'. 10 conts per hundred 1 O.OO 
 
 lllpplfM ol'Nuiis. fil p'i.;i'a. .^Inirle copies, 1.1 cents "' 12. OO 
 
 A new collerilo;i of Temperance llvmnn and J>ongs. dcsiinicd for children at\<', yonth 
 in S.ilib;»iii--chool9, B.in.ts of Hope, Juvenile Templars, Ca<leis of Temperance, etc. 
 Iteadiii:'* and itecltatioiiM, \oit. 1 and 2. % pa;,'e8. By Miss L. Penney. Each .95 
 luveiillc Teiuperauce .'Vlannai. By JnliaColmau. 157pp. Cloi h, 60 cla.; paper, .25 
 
 THE YOUTH'S TEMPERANCE BANNER. 
 
 The National Temperance Society and Publication Oonse publish a beantifiilly Illustrated 
 Monthly paper, cspccu'ly adapted to Children and Youth. Snnday-nchool aiiil Juvenile Temper- 
 ance Or^'-iniz.ations. F.acL nunber contains several choice eDgravintpt, a piece of mnsic, and 
 I great variety uf articles. 
 
 r«rm«( Ca»h in Jdc/ince^ inrliitHMgr Poitazf' 
 
 Binirle copy, one ycAr .35 1 50 Copies to one addrcas 6.75 
 
 » C«pl«a to one addreaa 1.08 | 100 " " " 13.00 
 
 Address J. N. STEARNS, Publishing Agent. 
 
 lis Jientlr SIrrrf. S< ir YorU.
 
 STANDARD TEMPERANCE WORKS. 
 
 The National Temperance Society have issued a number of standard temperance works 
 from the pens of some of the best writers in the world upon the vital principles upon which the 
 temperance reform is founded. The following should be in the bauds of every friend of tem- I 
 perance and in every library in the land. Most of these are in paper covers, as well as in cloth / 
 Diuding, for wide circulation : * 
 
 Alcohol and the State. A discussion of the problem of law as applied to the 
 - liquor-traffic. By Rol)ert C. Pitman, LIj.D., Associate Judge of Superior Court of 
 Massachusetts. 12mo, 411 pa<jes $1.50 
 
 It treats, with great conciseness and marked ability, of what the State loses in vari- 
 ous ways through alcohol, and, in turn, of what is the duty and proper function of the 
 State concerning alcohol. 
 
 Oar 'Wasted Kesources. The Missing Link in the Temperance Reform, giving 
 the most valuable statistics ever published. By Dr. Wm. Hargreaves. 12mo, 202 
 pages. Price, in cloth, .$1.25; paper edition .50 
 
 On Alcohol. By B. W. Richardson, M.A., M.D., F.R.S., of London, with an intro- 
 duction by Dr. Willard Parker, of New York. 12mo, 190 pages. Cloth, $1.U0; 
 paper covers .50 
 
 The ProhibitloiiUt's Text-Book. 12mo, 312 pages. Cloth, $1.00; paper, .50 
 
 This volume contains the most valuable arguments, statistics, testimonies, and ap- 
 peals, showing the iniquity of the license system and the right and duty of prohibition. 
 
 The Divine Lniv as to Wines. 12mo, 290 pages. By George W. Sampson, 
 
 D.D. Cloth 1.00 
 
 This is a new and thoroughly scholarly book, examining the entire question from 
 200 years b. c. to the present time, and conclusively showing that the Bible nowhere 
 eanctions the drinking of intoxicating liquors. 
 
 Talks on Temperance. 12nio, 15S pages. By Canon Farrar, D.D. Cloth, 60 
 
 cen(!«; paper 25 
 
 This book contains ten sermons and talks by this eminent divine. They are filled 
 with sound, convincing arguments against the lawfulness, morality, and necessity of 
 the liquor- tratHc, as well as stirring appeals to all Christian men and women to take a 
 firm, decided, outspoken stand in favor of total abstinence from all intoxicating liquors. 
 
 The Text-Hook of Temperance. Historical. Biblical, Physiological, Statisti- 
 cal, Political, and Moral. It gives a thorough discussion of the entire question. 
 By Dr. F. R. Lees, F.S.A. 12mo, :3!2 pages. Cloth, Jtil.'io; paper edition 40 
 
 The Temperance L.esson-Book. By B. \V. Richardson, M.A., M.D., LL.D., 
 
 F.R.6. 12mo, 220 pages TS 
 
 This is a series of fifty-two short lessons on alcohol and its action on the body, 
 accompanied with suitable questions, designed for study in public and private schools 
 and reading in schools and families. 
 
 Readings and Recitations, No. 3. Compiled by Miss L. Penny. 12mo, % 
 
 pages. (;ioth, GO cents; paper 25 
 
 A collection of new and first-class articles and selections, both prose and veree, em- 
 bracing argument and appeal, pathos and humor, by the foremost Temperance advo- 
 cates. Suitable for Declamation, Recitation, Public and Parlor Readings. 
 
 Al«ohol and the Human Brain. By Rev. Joseph Cook. 12mo, 24 pages — 10 
 
 Beer as a Beverage. An Address by Rev. Q. W. Uughey, in reply to the appeal 
 
 of the Beer Congress. 12mo, 24 pages 1" 
 
 Juvenile Teniperanoe Manual. By Miss Julia Colmau. 12mo, 140 pages. 
 
 Cloth, 60 cents; paper covers 2» 
 
 Bacchus Dctltroued. Cloth, $1.00 ; paper edition 60 
 
 Alcohol as a Food and ITIedlcine. By Ezra M. Hunt, M.D. 12mo, 137 pages. 
 
 Cloth, 60 cents; paper edition 2(» 
 
 Any of the above sent by mail on receipt of price. 
 
 Address J, N. STEARNS, Publishing Agent, 
 
 58 lieade Utt'eet, New York.
 
 TEN LECTURES ON ALCOHOL. 
 
 Bj BLNJAMIN W. R10nAIii'.^u.N, MA . M.D.. F.B.B., 
 
 FtUfw »/lk* Kfyml C»iUfi »f Pkftif Umt, Ltmd^m, tl. . 
 
 lamo, 340 pges, clolh, #I.(H>. \''\^t covi . ,, .»0 cent*. 
 
 The National Temperance Sxtiety have just publUhcd in one 
 volume all the 1 s by Dr. Richardson on A!- hich in '" c 
 
 of the mo*t va!.. . ■.■ ..!ul cheapest books ever pu.,.. .... >i. It Ct....j....cs 
 
 ihr fo!Io\vin;j: 
 
 Oil Altultul. With aa lalrodacUoa bj Dr. Wlllard Park>" ■•' 
 
 New York I'tO 
 
 TM«t>« V 
 Artv Th.-«. 
 
 I. 
 
 r 
 
 "U'M Ai.ti i;« f-ii'^tt* rii,i:. 
 
 The Action or4l«*«liol on llir llod> ami on llir tliiid. 1% 
 
 T" —'■•'''■"•--' '• — ..■■.' ',,1 ,rnl citrn.lfd rc»c«rrh- 
 
 t» It '>lol, and tr* •rnvti^ lb« 
 
 •bl 
 
 Itlo4l4-iat4> Drtukiag; Fur aod Agaiost, from Scientific I'oinU 
 or view 4T 
 
 It !• • ()• ' « 
 
 niodenitr '••*■ f 
 
 tbe lDO*t •'> 
 
 T«ltl^ ft>r -. It 
 
 I 1- 
 
 '■« 
 til I '' a-l ( ' . •>■ j'tui ^ iiii'ti, [11 1 iimiiTPj ir««.ijt'rA, 
 
 ■n<t I people ' 
 
 The !TI<-ili«':il l*i-nr«'*>si<iii aiul Alcohol. An AddrcM 
 
 before tbe nrltlpb Mt>tlicAl A««ocUtion St 
 
 ■ Ido A very i-.irnoi't npp ' • 
 
 poniliiii: vi( r'v ;:ii:"'r' -._■■' i - i ' .- 
 
 ■ hi<' -Una of tbU cooaUj, mawnc 
 
 Wbii: tl. 
 
 Tlie l.iberly of the Abject, uud \\\\y I becauir 
 
 an Abalaliier IS 
 
 S40 
 
 Address J. N. STEARNS, Publishing Agent, 
 
 5fi Jieade Street, New York,
 
 
 
 -t 
 
 Th K„ . ^Angela 
 
 ThubookuDlEonthclaMdau 
 
 •"»P<<1 l*cl 
 
 OH. 
 
 RECEIVED 
 
 UUKL 
 
 MAR J 
 
 315