athletes and pedestrians do the same. Captain Kennedy, of the Prince Albert exploring expedition, who, last winter, performed a journey of twelve hundred miles over ice and snow along the most rugged coasts of the Arctic regions, with the thermometer far below the freezing point of mercury, without seeing the sun for months, ascribed, in his official despatch, the health of his crew to their having all strictly acted on the total abstinence principle. It is stated that the Duke of Wellington, who lived to the age of 83, in his long "defensive warfare against death," abstained from wine. So did the old Marquis of Winchester, who died in the reign of Elizabeth at the age of 97. Millions of the Irish nation, under the influence of Father Mathew, abandoned drink. In some of the States of America, total abstinence has actually become the law; and through a great part of the United States, it would be considered a shame for the ministers of religion to taste wine. All the Mahommedan nations, from India to the Adriatic and the Atlantic, have abstained from intoxicating liquors for twelve hundred years; and these include some of the handsomest and most athletic races of men in the world-the Hill coolies of India, the Affghan, Persian, Caucasian, Saracenic, Turkish, Arab, and Moorish tribes. The strongest man of whom we have any record never touched wine; the wisest man that ever lived emphatically condemned it. Finally, two thousand medical men in this country, including those of the very first rank for science and practice, signed the following certificate :—

"We the undersigned, are of opinion, 1.-That a very large proportion of human misery, including poverty, disease, and crime, is induced by the use of alcoholic or fermented liquors as beverages.

"2.-That the most perfect health is compatible with Total Abstinence from all intoxicating beverages, whether in the form of ardent spirits, or as wine, beer, ale, porter, cider, etc.

"3. That persons accustomed to such drinks may, with perfect safety, discontinue them entirely, either at once, or gradually after a short time. "4.-That Total and Universal Abstinence from alcoholic beverages of all sorts, would greatly conduce to the health, the prosperity, the morality, and the happiness of the human race.'

Is there, then, sufficient motive for relinquishing strong drinks.

In my judgment there are two motives, either of which justifies, and even demands it. 1st. A man's own safety and advantage; and, 2nd. The influence of his example, in inducing others to avoid the most fruitful of all causes of vice and misery.

The peculiar danger of intoxicating drinks is in their extreme seductiveness, and in the all but unconquerable strength of the drinking habit when once formed; and their peculiar malignity, is in their being the parent or nurse of every kind of crime, wickedness, and suffering.

I say boldly that no man living, who uses intoxicating drinks, is free from the danger of at least occasional, and, if of occasional, ultimately, of habitual excess. I have myself known such rightful instances of persons brought into captivity to the habit, that there seems to be no character, position, or circumstances, that free men from the danger. I have known many young men of the finest promise, led by the drinking habit into vice, ruin, and early death; I have known such become virtual parricides; I have known many tradesmen whom it has made bankrupt; I have known Sunday scholars whom it has led to prison. I have known Teachers, and even Superintendents, whom it has dragged down to profligacy; I have known Ministers of religion in and out of the Establishment, of high academic honours, of splendid eloquence, nay, of vast usefulness, whom it has fascinated, and hurried over the precipiece of public infamy, with their eyes open, and gazing with horror on their fate. I have known men of the strongest and clearest intellect, and of vigorous resolution, whom it has made weaker than children and fools. I have known gentlemen of refinement and taste, whom it has debased into brutes. I have known poets of high genius, whom it has bound in a bondage worse than the galleys, and ultimately cut short their days. I have known statesmen, lawyers, and judges, whom it has killed. I have known kind husbands and fathers, whom it has turned into monsters. I have known honest men, whom it has made villians. I have known elegant and Christian ladies, whom it has converted into bloated sots.

Is it not notorious that, under the ravages of drunkenness, the

land mourns ?-that it is this which-I may almost say exclusively-fills our prisons, our workhouses, our lunatic asylums, our dens of pollution, our hospitals ;-which causes most of the shipwrecks, fires, fatal accidents, crimes, outrages, and suicides that load the columns of our newspapers ;-which robs numberless wives of a husband's affection, and numberless children of a parent's fondness;-which strips thousands of homes of every comfort, deprives scores of thousands of children of education, and almost of bread, and turns them into the streets;—which leaves so many places of worship almost empty, and so many Mechanics' Institutes languishing, whilst the pot-houses are crowded; which brings down (it is estimated) sixty thousands of our population every year to a drunkard's grave?

And of all the victims of intemperance, be it remembered, there is NOT ONE who did not begin by moderate drinking, or who had the remotest idea, when he began, that he should be led into excess.

Such, then, being the peculiar seductiveness and danger of the practice of taking intoxicating liquors, and such the enormous malignity of its consequences, is there not a strong, and even a resistless, ground for appealing to good men, to patriots, to philanthropists, above all, to Christians and to Christian Ministers, if not for their own sake, yet for the sake of others whom they see gliding down by scores of thousands, as on a slope of ice, to the gulf of temporal and eternal ruin, to take their stand on the safe platform of Total Abstinence ?

It is universally admitted that the only hope for a person who is addicted to intemperance, is in total abstinence. The habit is such that it may be broken by a sudden effort and entire discontinuance of the indulgence; but it cannot be given up gradually. It is like a chain of india-rubber, that may be snapped, but, from its peculiar tenacity and elasticity, cannot be broken by a gradual effort.

No direct Scripture injunction can be quoted for total abstinence : but it is worthy of remark, first, that the wines of Palestine and the East, in the time of Christ and the Apostles, and at tho

present day, were incomparably less intoxicating than the wines and beer of northern countries*; and the vice of drunkenness was incomparably less prevalent; and, second, that the principle of total abstinence, under circumstances like ours, seems to be involved in two memorable passages,- -as regards a man's own interest and duty, in the precept of our Lord to pluck out the right eye or cut off his right hand or foot, if it cause to offend; and as regards our duty to our neighbour, in the declaration of the Apostle Paul.-"It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak." (Rom. xiv. 21.)

As I myself was led by the example of some whom I respected† to discontinue intoxicating liquors, others may possibly be led by my example: and if one drunkard should be encouraged by my appeal and testimony to snap the chain of his bondage, or one young man should be saved from so terrible a snare,—if one wife should be preserved from a broken heart, or one child from neglect and ruin,-I shall be thankful to my dying day.

EDWARD BAINES.

Leeds, November 9, 1852.

† Principally by that of the Rev. Dr. Pye Smith.

[* In fact Pliny states, that of 195 wines then in existence, there was only one; viz. the Falernian, from which a flame could be kindled.-ED. I. T. T.]

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CHRISTIANS of every name! to you the following appeal is made. Not to the drunkard, to persuade him to become sober; but to the temperate man, that he may be induced to relinquish a lawful indulgence for the good of others. Neither to all the temperate are the following pages addressed; but to those among them who, being sincere disciples of Him who "came to seek and to save them that are lost," are open to the influence of gospel motives, and are desirous of acting out, in every case in which the glory of God and the welfare of men may be promoted, those great principles of philanthropy which, either personally or by his apostles, he announced. As followers of him "who went about doing good," they are ready to take up their cross, and follow him, whithersoever he summons them. And they believe also, that he does summon them to every act and every sacrifice which the welfare of their fellow-men demands. They are convinced that any gratification ought to be relinquished, which, though harmless to themselves, is pernicious to others, especially if it leads them into sin, and impedes the progress of the gospel. The principle is admitted; its application alone has to be proved. To such persons, on the grounds of Christian obligation, the cause of Total Abstinence appeals.

It is well known, that a few years ago a Society was instituted for the promotion of temperance, on the principle of abstinence from ardent spirits-but that its results greatly disappointed the expectations of its benevolent founders. Another principle was then adopted, viz. total abstinence from all intoxicating beverages whatsoever. It is equally well known, that Societies founded on this principle have spread throughout the world, and have been the means of reclaiming multitudes of confirmed drunkards producing, in numerous districts, a vast and obvious change in the entire moral aspect of society; of restoring happiness and plenty to many a wretched, desolate home; of inducing thousands who previously lived in the entire neglect of religion, habitually to listen to the truths of the gospel; and thus, have been instru

of