There is something very appalling in the thought, that Britain expends, every year, fifty millions of money on intoxicating drink. We often complain of our high taxation, and we often grow nervous at the thought of our enormous national debt. But here is a tax for which we cannot blame our rulers—a tax self-imposed and self-levied, a tax for which we can only blame ourselves, a tax which would pay the interest of our national debt twice over, and a tax as large as the entire revenue of these United Kingdoms. We thought it a great sum to pay in order to give the slave his freedomwe thought the twenty millions given to the West India proprietors a mighty sacrifice; and certainly it was the noblest tribute any nation ever paid to the cause of philanthropy ;but large as it looks, half a year of national abstinence would have paid it all. We rather grudge the eight millions which Ireland got last winter, seeing it has failed to set our neighbours on their feet; but it was eight millions given to save a famishing people; and large as the grant to Ireland sounds, two months of national abstinence would have paid the whole

It

of it. But tremendous as are the fifty millions which as a people we yearly engulf in strong drink, the thought which afflicts and appals us is, that this terrible impost is mainly a tax on the working man. The lamentation is, that many an industrious man will spend in liquor as much money as, had he saved it, would this year have furnished a room, and next year would have bought a beautiful library; as much money as would secure a splendid education for every child, or in the course of a few years would have made him a landlord instead of a tenant. Why, my friends, it would set our blood a boiling if we heard that the Turkish Sultan taxed his subjects in the style that our British workmen tax themselves. would bring the days of Wat Tyler back again, nay, it would create another Hampden, and conjure up a second Cromwell, did the Exchequer try to raise the impost which our publicans levy, and our labourers and artizans cheerfully pay. But is it not a fearful infatuation? Is it not our national madness, to spend so much wealth in shattering our nerves, and exploding our characters, and ruining our souls? Many workmen, I rejoice to know, have been reclaimed by teetotalism, and many have been preserved by timely religion. In whatever way a man is saved from that horrible vice, which is at once the destruction of the body and the damnation of the soul, 'therein I do rejoice, and will rejoice.' Only you cannot be a christian without being also a sober man, and the more of God's grace you get, the easier will you find it to vanquish this most terrible of the working man's temptations.-Rev. Jas. Hamilton, London.

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Stereotyped and Printed by J. M. Burton, Ipswich.

THE

CRAVING OF A DRUNKARD.

ILLUSTRATED:

IN AN EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM A FRIEND.

MY DEAR FRIEND-Is it our duty, as men and as Christians, at the present day, to abstain entirely from partaking of intoxicating drinks as a common beverage? This is the question, of which I take the affirmative. I trust I shall be able to expose my arguments to the force of your opposing reasoning, that so they may be thoroughly tested, and stand or fall as the truth demands.

My first statement, then, will simply set before you the appalling fact, and regarding which I presume we shall be quite agreed-viz., That about fifty thousand or upwards of our fellow-countrymen perish annually through means of intoxication. It is difficult to form anything like an adequate conception of such a mass of human beings; and of the horrible evils involved in and attendant on these hopeless deaths that would bear a moment's comparison with the dreadful reality. This terrible portion of the actual history of every year of our country has made, and is continuing to

make, an all but overpowering impression upon my heart. I shudder to look at it, even as if afar off. Oh, my friend, what must it appear to the eye of Him whose compassionate heart fails not to feel for every one of all that vast and ruined multitude? This subject rouses the spirit of inquiry within me, and leads me to ask for the cause of this peculiar mode of filling the regions of eternal woe. I know the root of all iniquity, and see it working in all the natural courses of men ; but there is a peculiarity about this wholesale sweeping ruin that leads me to look for the cause of that peculiarity, and to ask how it is that so vast a multitude are swept into perdition in so much haste, and with so many of the most horrid accompaniments attending their latter end. There is ruin, and that eternal, as the consequence of all courses of sin; but it is impossible to hide the fact, that he who is ensnared by drunkenness has a peculiarity of horror about his end, and also about the way to it, which makes his whole career bear the stamp, as it were, of a triple curse.

One thing is specially worthy of attention—that is, many of those who are involved at last in the ruin of the drunkard,

appear for a time to be saved. I am acquainted with several of the most heart-rending cases of this description. I numbered among my friends, a person who was taken from the gutter (literally), and washed and clothed by the tender hand of benevolent 66 abstainers." She abstained, and was brought under the sound of the gospel-appeared to believe in Jesus-was received into the church-became highly respected and respectable-continued for a good many years, to all appearance, an active Christian. She was induced to take a little intoxicating drink as a medicine. She took it. The appetite, that till then had slumbered, was roused; and in spite of all the efforts of the most devoted friends that ever strove to save a poor maniac, she was, in an almost incredibly short space of time, actually stripped of her very clothing, and staggering in wretchedness on the street. Such is one of those cases that have forced upon me the inquiry as to what can be the cause of the peculiar power that distinguishes that which hurries onward the poor victim of intoxicating drink to an awfully hopeless end. I am at this moment also writing with my eye upon another case, in which another friend of mine was saved from drunken habits, and continued for fifteen years to occupy a position of confidence, both in the

church and in the world, until he saw almost all his family and near relatives converted to Jesus around him. He was induced to take "a little spirits as a medicine," and in a very short time was staggering out of a spirit cellar, and a crowd of children hooting at his heels. After recovering in deep agony from this first fall, and being actually mentioned for restoration to the church, the apparently unquenchable fire within him again called so loudly, that he fell worse than ever before it. I am personally acquainted with not a few others, who assure me, from their own feelings, that were they to taste spirits, there is nothing in the world could restrain them from the most fearful outbreak. They know that insanity itself takes possession of them, the moment they taste intoxicating drink. But mark especially the fact, that not a few are dragged down from high positions of respectability and confidence, and that, in a single week, nay, often in a single day, by the mere taste of intoxicating drink.

My second statement, then, will simply set before your mind the fact, that an unnatural, but in many cases most mighty appetite, has been created in the stomachs of all drunkards. It is a tremendous addition to the deranged and depraved desires which characterise man as a truly fallen and unholy being. Consider it, my dear friend, in the spirit of the compassionate Christian. Here is a woman having, so far as it is possible for man to judge, as powerful an affection for those that are justly dear to her, as any woman can well have having as strong a desire to be saved, and to follow Jesus, as any with whom we have been acquainted—having, moreover, had the indescribable horrors and despair of the drunkard as a large part of her former experience-knowing, with the deepest and clearest conviction, that eternal woe is her unfailing portion if she return to her former courses; and yet she has only to taste the burning and (to man naturally) nauseous drug, and a craving is awakened within her that arises with gigantic energy, carries her over every barrier that man, and even God, has placed in her way, and hurries her onward, with her eyes open, direct to eternal perdition. Is it not a matter of Christian and most special inquiryWhat can be the nature of this most dreadful appetite? Most assuredly it is; and I am far mistaken indeed, my friend, if it do not prove a subject of inquiry, which, when you turn your mind to it, will bring you to be more zealous