courage in the field of battle. We sneeringly call that sort of courage "Dutch courage." The wit that can't be brought out till the utterer is half drunk, is of no better quality. It is only the explosion of gas from the bung of a fermenting beer barrel. It is one of the evils of society in England that we have too little sociality. We are not social, because we have the notion that there is sociality only in drinking. Our mistaken notion of sociality drives real sociality out from amongst us. The decanters, the eternal decanters, as Cobbett used to call them, have banished the good old English hospitality. A man dare not ask his friend to a quiet family dinner, because he thinks it a part of hospitality to set out the decanters: and though he has time to take a quiet dinner, he has not time, perhaps he has not health, to permit his indulgence in wine; so the invitation is not given until there be a great formal party, when all the drinking can be done at once. Then, again, the friend dare not make a call near dinner time-dare not invite himself to take potluck. He has time to spare for a quiet friendly talk, but he fears the decanters. Thus do friends live apart in the same town, perhaps in the next street, perhaps next door to each other, without a quiet interchange of those small unpretending hospitalities which are so delightful. They never eat together but at a great feast, where there is much speech-making, but no talk. All this formality arises from the decanters. Again, the man of small means cannot, for the decanters, associate with his richer friends. He can give a friend a well-cooked plain dinner, but he cannot give him East India madeira, and champagne, and claret. He will not accept, he ought not to accept, dinners when he cannot give dinners. Banish the decanters, and these men could meet on a footing of equality. By banishing the bottles from the table, there would be better company and greater enjoyment. There would then be real sociality instead of a sham. The spirit bottle in the cottage is as potent an enemy of sociality and hospitality as the claret decanter in the mansion, and we shall never be merry old England again till they be thrown out of house and hall, and from coal and waxen light. The claret-decanter men, the black-bottle men, the brown-jug men, only pretend to be merry. You will sometimes hear one of their infatuated number say, "Give me a short life and a merry." Merry! Is there any merriment in the broken-down father who sees one whom he fondly hoped would have been the stay of his old age, sunk into the hopeless, helpless, debased condition of a drunkard? Merry! Is there any merriment in the heart-broken mother who sees all her tender cares to bring up a man thrown away upon a brute in human form? Merry! Is there any merriment in the wife who sees the once-beloved sinking from the consequences of his own vices into an early and disgraceful grave? Merry! Is there any merriment in the child-the drunkard's child-when her meek look of love is returned with a satanic scowl, and instead of a blessing she receives a curse or a blow? Merry! Is there any merriment in the victim himself, in his alternations of lethargy and madness? Any merriment when in his waking dreams he sees the tormentors come before their time, and he already feels the horrors of hell? Young men, young men !

if you have any longing for the short life and the merry, visit the chamber of the man who is suffering under delirium tremens, see his maniac terror, and hear his agonising shrieks, as one horror after another presents itself to his diseased vision, and you will see what the merry life is of which he has boasted. His fate may be yours. Beware of the tempter! Touch not, taste not the infuriating draught. Let the contents of the poisoned cup never pass your lips. I will not take the religious view of such a deplorable case. The respected minister of the adjoining chapel will deliver a sermon on the subject of abstinence on Sunday night. Hear him. In the meantime think, with dread and shuddering, on the death-bed of a man whose life departs in a fit of raging madness induced by drink. A word or two as to the saving that may be effected by temperate habits: let us have no sneering about miserly savings, and laying up dirty pelf. The poor man cannot “lay up," but it is something if he can lift up his head amongst his fellow-men and say, "I owe nothing to anybody." If he cannot lodge money in the bank, he can secure his own independence. He saves money

Not for to hide it in a ditch,
Nor for a train dependent,
But for the glorious privilege
Of being independent.

He can besides, for himself and children, make provision for a considerable advancement, morally and intellectually, by a little saving. The price of a single glass of beer in a week would furnish him with a weekly number of "Chambers's Journal" to read in his family, and to furnish many agreeable conversations; the price of another would enable him to send one child to the infant's school; the price of two more would enable him to send an older child to a respectable day school. Abstinence from a quart of sevenpenny beer a week would do all that for him and his. Let any man here ask himself which of these is the best way of spending seven-pence. Allan Ramsay represents his Gentle Shepherd as sitting on the hillside and " talking with kings." With books you may talk with greater than kings, and books are cheap companions now. The best of books, the book of books, the Bible-thanks to the labours of John Childs, of Bungay, and Joseph Hume, who broke up the monopoly of Bible printing-may now be had for nine-pence; the New Testament, neatly bound, for four-pence halfpenny. Any man who can afford to buy beer can afford to buy books. Let me now point out to you how a shilling a week saved from the beer-shop would affect both the sanitary and political condition of the community. You all know how the working classes of Manchester and Salford are crowded into narrow lanes and courts, ill paved, without sewers, and where purifying air and the light from heaven can seldom penetrate. They are not so badly circumstanced in that respect as the inhabitants of Glasgow, and, therefore, have not been visited by cholera, which has been so destructive in the northern manufacturing city. But the crowded state of the population is greatly prejudicial to health, and typhus fever is always most

prevalent and most fatal where there is a want of cleanliness, and air, and light. An immense improvement would take place if the man who pays £12 a year in rent were to remove into a £15 house; if the man who lives in a £10 house were to remove into one of £12; and if he who pays £8 were to remove into a house at £10. This would ease the crowding into unhealthy localities. The health of every family would benefit by the change: the health of the whole community would benefit by the change. Decency and morality would be promoted by having separate sleeping apartments for each sex. How is this to be effected? The saving of a shilling a week now spent in drink, would do it all: or this saving, put into a building club, would soon enable a man to live in his own house, rent free. So much for the sanitary improvement that might be made. Let us look at the political change that might be effected. If he who now pays 3s. a week for his cottage paid 4s. he would possess what, in my opinion, every sober man ought to possess-the elective suffrage. He would have a right, whether he paid his rent weekly or quarterly, to require that his name should be registered as an elector. This is a privilege not to be lightly prized. At present, in a great number of boroughs, the representation is sold by the drunkards. If they were to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage, there would be some sense in it; but they sell it for a pot of stupifying beer. A candidate could not bribe a teetotaler. The teetotaler is above his reach. Only think how much better the House of Commons would be if it represented, not the drunkards, but the sober men of the community. In a very great number of boroughs, so nearly are parties balanced, that a body of fifty men could turn the balance either way. This is a great power to possess. In whose hands ought it to be? In the hands of a drunken band, who will sell it for beer or brandy; or in the hands of sober thinking men, who will exercise it for the benefit of the community? There is a wish to extend the forty-shilling freehold suffrage. The extension already effected has done great good-its further extension would do still greater. This movement deserves our most earnest support, and I hope there are some here who will possess themselves of a county vote; but for every freeholder added to the county registration we could add twenty to the registration in boroughs. If it should add 10,000 to the county constituency, we might add 200,000 to the constituency in the boroughs. Think of the influence which such a body of men would possess. I do not say that they would be tories, whigs, or radicals. There would be 200,000 men clear-headed enough to form an opinion-honest enough to express their opinion. They would spurn with contempt and loathing the dirty and degrading bribe; they would set an example to all the other electors. An election would no longer be a spectacle of man in his most degraded state below the level of the beasts that perish; but it would be a spectacle of man exercising an ennobling right-not, indeed, a legislator, but a maker of legislators. And would not the example rise? The sober elector would not choose a drunken representative. Go into the House of Commons an hour or two after a late dinner, and you will see

flushed faces, and see conduct, and hear sounds, that tell you plainly enough that honourable members have been indulging too much in wine to be able to listen to an argument. Go in an hour or two later still, and you will find the whole atmosphere of the house redolent of Bellamy's brandy and cigars. In common decency, these men would not be less decorous than their constituents. Up, then, teetotalism! "Up higher yet our bonnets," "There's a braw time coming,"-"We'll mak the warld better yet.' We mean to do some good in our day and generation; let all who have a similar ambition come and join us-and when? to-morrow? next week? next month? next year? No! Now. This very night. Men, women, children-you all have something in your power-do not leave this room until you have put your hands to the good work by enrolling your names in our body. Why should any one delay? It is proved that the ordinary use of intoxicating liquors is not necessary to the preservation of health. It is proved that the abuse is most destructive to health. It is proved that cholera is almost always fatal when it attacks a person debilitated by drinking. It is proved that the use of stimulating drinks is destructive to the reasoning powers. It is seen, or beginning to be seen, that the drinking usages of society lessen hospitality and lessen sociality. It is seen, that out of the savings of abstinence a comparatively poor man may educate his children, and supply himself with books. It has been proved, by the Rev. Mr. Lee, minister of the adjoining chapel, that three-fourths of the pauperism which falls so heavily on us in Salford, is caused by drinking. It is seen that by the savings of abstinence, a man may have the great comfort of living in a better house, and a more healthy locality—that he may live in a house his own property-that he may acquire the suffrage, and thus be greatly influential in procuring good laws and cheap government. As a friend to morality, then, say let us have teetotalism; as an advocate for sanitary improvement, I say let us have teetotalism; as a politician, as an earnest reformer, as an old labourer in the cause of government for the benefit of all, I say let us have teetotalism. Let us set the example to the world of a sober people, living at peace with each other, at peace with all the nations of the earth, and daily making progress in comfort, in useful knowledge, in morality, and in religion.

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THE ALTERED MAN.

BY T. B. SMITHIES.

It is difficult for those who have not systematically VISITED amongst poor drunkards to form a just conception of the debasing influences of our drinking customs. The hardness of heart, the abandonment of all religious restraint, even by those who once knew the way of righteousness, and the extent to which infidel principles are fostered by the aid of intoxicating liquors, are beyond conception.

The following affecting instance was met with in York :—

On a Sabbath in 1848, on leaving the Wesley-place Sundayschool, and proceeding up Black Horse-passage, I met an emaciated creature, staggering at every footstep. Taking hold of him by the arm, I kindly remonstrated with him on his unhappy condition. Although he had been drinking at the public-house all the night, he was yet able to converse with considerable collectedness, but he had to make use of the wall to prevent himself from falling. I soon found that I had encountered a man of considerable natural talent, and who had evidently once moved in better circumstances. He boastingly avowed himself an INFIDEL, ridiculing all reference to the Bible and a future state of being, whilst he loudly protested that religion was all "humbug." _Fixing my eyes steadily upon him, and still grasping his hand, I earnestly but affectionately said, “I have met with others who, like you, have ridiculed religion whilst they were in health, but who, when death stared them in the face, have wished me to pray with them; and in the last half-hour of your life, DEATH will make you think differently to what you now do." The awful look of despair, the gnashing of the teeth, the clenching of the fist, and the fearful oath with which he exclaimed, That DEATH plagues me," I shall perhaps never forget.

66

In further conversation, I endeavoured to move him by referring to his departed mother. He became affected, and with a deep sigh exclaimed, "Ah! I was once a happy man.'

From answers to inquiries, I found that he had been a member of a Christian church for seventeen years, but that during the last seven years he had been an unhappy "backslider."

I now assured him that there was still hope for him if he would abandon his ways, and return to Christ for pardoning mercy. "You may again become a happy man," I assured him. "No, never! sir; it is all over now,' he replied. After pleading with him to become a total abstainer from drink, as a step towards the right way, he exclaimed, "I never will! Every morning when I awake, I am as miserable as man can be until I get some drink; but when I've got it, then I'm as happy as any man in the world, and care for nothing."

On inviting him to accompany me to a place of worship, he said, "No, sir; I shall never put my foot within either church or chapel again." On handing him a tract he refused it, and replied, "I do not wish to insult you, sir; but I shall not read either it or the Bible, nor will I let any one read to me. It is no use now!”