vour of the legislative suppression of this traffic, the drunkard's children will not. The little homeless, starving wanderers on the streets of London, Glasgow, and Edinburgh-young in years, but old in bitter experience-subsisting on the scanty profits of some juvenile calling; or lying huddled together in the corner of some lane, or under the arch of some bridge, during the lone hours of a winter night; or flying affrighted at a father's footsteps, when other children gather around the happy hearth, or nestle in a mother's bosom-will they oppose, think you? Whoever may oppose, the drunkard's wife will not; but from a heart torn and crushed by a thousand wrongs, will send up an hourly prayer that the places which have robbed her of a husband and her offspring of a father, and given in his place a tyrant and a demon, may be closed; and the possibility of a consummation so ardently longed for, breaks upon her gloom as a ray of hope. Aye, whoever may oppose, the drunkards themselves will cheer us onward. From their heart they wish that drink and drink-dealers may no more tempt them. And those beautiful beings, who weep over every scene of woe, and minister in the promotion of every scheme of good, will smile over us, and bless us. Yea, the great God himself will bless us. And surely a cause, sacred to the vindication of the rights of the weak and the wronged, and based upon principles of eternal justice, and guarded by angels, and smiled upon by God, is destined ultimately to a glorious triumph.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Scottish Legislative Policy.

WHILE We exhibit the necessity of law to the success of the temperance reformation-while we endeavour to prove the equity of such a law, we at the same time frankly admit that we cannot abandon the ground of total abstinence; declaring that it is a failure, and that nothing but prohibition will ac

Permit me to remark, that

complish the object we aim at. prohibition is not to be regarded as coming in the place of total abstinence, but as a new breakwater to that harbour of refuge which we have been for years constructing-not as a substitution, but as an addition. Total abstinence and prohibition must go hand in hand. They are but different parts of a complete scheme of reformation. Neither by itself can secure the suppression of intemperance. Both together can. As in rowing a boat, if you ply only one oar you perform a circle, and it may be a circle down the stream; if you ply the other, it may prove no better; but a vigorous application of both, will enable you to make head way. To talk of the comparative merits of total abstinence and prohibition is about as wise as to debate the comparative merits of the male and female sexes, or to set morning up as superior to evening, or spring as superior to autumn. The whole controversy is a monstrous absurdity, conceived in a miserable jealousy, and sure to end in nothing but the exposure of human folly. "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” While I contend for prohibition, I contend as earnestly as ever for total abstinence.

A few considerations will be sufficient to show the necessity of this. First, the enactment of a prohibitory law must be distant by many a long day, and what is to be done for the safety of the community in the interval? Thousands may become drunkards, live and die drunkards, before that happy day dawns. Sometime ago, a distinguished advocate of this cause, on arriving at a certain town where he was announced to give a temperance lecture, was waited upon by a number of the committee, who expressed a hope that he would not give them a Maine-law lecture. "And why not?" asked my friend. "Because," said they, "we have of late had nothing from several temperance advocates but Maine-law lectures. Now, good as a Maine-law may be, we have no expectation of getting it in time to save a number of young men in this town who are acquiring intemperate habits, and we much wish you could say something that would induce them to abstain." Now, I refer to this incident from no wish that less should be said in behalf of the enactment of a Maine-law, but that more should be said to meet the present necessity. Are

the young to be left without protection, and the dissipated without recovery till then? But total abstinence provides for the present. Every father and mother may even now do for their families what the Duke of Argyle has done for the island of Iona-banish strong drink from the territory over which their authority is supreme. And the pledge may raise a barrier between the unpolluted lips of the young and temptation, and fence round the reclaimed from the snares to which they are still exposed. Would we not then be committing a more egregious blunder were we to be carried away with the delusive hope of a speedy enactment of a prohibitory law? That a long time must elapse ere such a measure can become law in this country, is most obvious. Such a law can only be carried by the sentiment of the country. Public sentiment rules this nation perhaps more than any other nation on the face of the earth. Public sentiment alone can secure such a law, and keep it when we have got it. How striking is the proof of this in the history of the new Public Houses Act! Although that law is backed to a great extent by the religious sentiment of the country, it requires our utmost ef forts to retain it. That measure was gained, perhaps, more by the religious than by the temperance sentiment of the country. How much, then, have we to do ere we can see the legal suppression of the liquor traffic in this land!

I may be referred to the abolition of slavery, and the repeal of the corn laws, to show what energy and earnestness can do. And we have been informed that so many thousand pounds would secure a prohibitory law in so many years, by the employment of so many able advocates in its behalf; that so much more would secure it in so many years fewer; and that "£100,000," I think, was the sum stated necessary to secure it in the course of a single year. Now, it is very easy to applaud a speaker when he makes such a statement; it is a very different thing to realise his expectations. We must not suffer ourselves to be beguiled into a premature hope by the success of movements which essentially differ from our own. Both the anti-slavery and anti-corn-law movements were mere questions of pounds, shillings, and pence. The only obstacle to their success was pecuniary interests. Give the slaveholders and landholders compensation for their loss,

and their opposition ceased. Twenty millions helped to tide over the one, and the fear of revolution helped to tide over the other. Besides, those interested in maintaining the evils of slavery and dear bread were a small minority in the community; but we have not only the majority against us, we have the appetites and customs of the majority against us. How much, then, must be done in the way of abrogating custom and conquering appetite, ere we can hope for the law we ardently long for! We say these things with no design of repressing ardour or extinguishing hope. No one more ardently desires than I do the utter annihilation of what I consider the greatest abomination with which this or any other land is cursed. No one will expose more thoroughly than I will do a traffic which neither fears God nor regards man. But we say these things because we believe that our ultimate aim will be all the sooner gained by a calm and just estimate of the difficulties to be encountered. Now, it is because a prohibitory law can never be got in time to save the present generation, I urge that whatever we do in that direction, we shall never cease to demand of every individual an immediate adoption of abstinence practice, and a withdrawal of all countenance to drinking customs.

Then, again, prohibition per se leaves for the present our drinking customs untouched. Where is the appetite for liquor acquired? A man may drink apart, and alone, when he has become intemperate; but no one learns the fatal art of drinking apart and alone. Drinking customs constitute the school of drunkenness. Are these customs, then, to be allowed to remain in full force till we secure prohibition?

But, again, I hold that we can only create a sound temperance sentiment by the inculcation of total abstinence principles. It is the article called alcohol in which all the evil lies. Convert a whisky-shop into a beef, bread, or tea and coffee shop, and it ceases to be dangerous. If, then, we would go to the legislature for a prohibitory law, we must go on the ground that the article we would proscribe is a health-destroying, vice-creating article; an article in the use of which no community can be safe. But before we go to the legislature with this plea, we must show by our practice that such is our belief. Is it to be expected that Parliament

will grant what we wish, so long as the great body of the religious and respectable classes continue to use what we condemn ? The middle classes, after all, govern this country; and till we can carry them with us, we go to Parliament in vain. Now, the enlightenment of these classes is the very work in which total abstinence associations is engaged. What is it that has given us in Scotland such an advantage for the promotion of even the prohibitory movement? It is because we have contended for more than a quarter of a century for personal abstinence from the use of intoxicating liquors. What is it that has created that noble body of men and women throughout the country who constitute the temperance party? It is the advocacy of total abstinence principles. But were we now to abandon this course, where would we be? The absence from our ranks of many beloved friends who were wont to grace this movement, tells us how speedily a generation passes away. Cease, then, the cause of total abstinence, and in a brief season you are without even the means of carrying forward the prohibitory movement. I, for one, shall never have confidence in any body of temperance reformers who do not evince their sincerity by personally abstaining from what they implore the law to prohibit the sale of. Consistency is necessary to the prosecution of every movement-it is specially necessary to the prosecution of the temperance movement. What, then, shall we think of those who would shut the door of the publican by law, while they help to keep it open by patronage? The man who does not abstain, has not yet acquired just notions of the properties of alcoholic liquors. He has most inadequately judged of intemperance and its causes, and he is not likely to bring to the movement that principle and moral influence which are essential to perseverance and ultimate success. Do I, then, affirm that our total abstinence societies ought to take no part in the promotion of the prohibition movement? I affirm nothing of the kind. We cannot do too much in this direction. What I affirm is, that we ought not to do the one and leave the other undone.

What then can we do in present circumstances? We can give, both from the platform and the press, sound Maine-law teaching. And I regard the course which the Scottish Tem