and try to make the world you live in, the better for your living in it. And remember for your encouragement, that this is all promotive of self-improvement. Teaching, you learn; giving, you get; well-doing becomes welfare; duty, delight; and labour its own reward.

6. Be your own daily censors.-Every night before you sleep, think over the events of the day, and how you have acted your part in them. If in any respect you have failed, learn caution for the morrow. If you have erfed, learn wisdom. If you have done wisely and well, be thankful; take courage, and seek to be more and more established in well-doing. If the day has been misspent and lost, be humbled at the saddening fact, and resolve that such another day shall never witness against you. Thus daily taking yourselves to task, may you not hope to be every day wiser and better?

It will be advisable also to exercise the same censorship over more extended periods. At the close of every week, take yourselves to task for the week. At the close of every month, for the month. At the close of every year for the year. And let the censorship be solemn and searching, in proportion to the extent and importance of the period under review. This we know has been a mode of self-culture practised by many wise and good men ; and they have found in it their reward. Try it; try it fairly and fully, and the reward will be yours.

We have thus given you a few kind honest counsels. We have indicated the path by which you may advance in mental and moral improvement. We have set before you some of the means and modes, by which, with the divine blessing, you may become wiser and better every day; and now, the result is with yourselves. Where there is a will, there is a way. But where the will is wanting, the way will not be found. Advices, however good, will be of little avail to those who have no desire to excel. By those who have this desire strongly, advices will be little needed; the strong desire will find and make its own way. We trust that most of our readers belong to the latter class; and it has been our object to guide, and encourage, and stimulate all such to yet firmer resolves, and more earnest labours. And now, here is the conclusion of the whole matter-here the sum and substance of present duty: Mental and moral improvement by one and all of us. Wiser and better every day, by one and all of us. For our own sakes, for the sake of the pure and patriot cause which we have espoused, by one and all of us, every day wiser and better.

J. M Burton and Co, Printers and Stereotypers, Ipswich.

THE EXPERIENCE

OF

EDWARD BAINES,

(Editor of the Leeds Mercury,)

FIFTEEN YEARS A TEETOTALER.

ONE distinct personal testimony to a matter of fact and experience often produces a stronger impression than many arguments. It cannot be wrong for an individual to publish his personal experience, if he believes that in so doing, he might influence others to adopt a course favourable to their health, virtue, usefulness, and happiness. In this hope I feel it my duty, having abstained from intoxicating liquors for fifteen years, to state, that during that whole time, I have enjoyed good and vigorous health, with scarcely a day's interruption; that I have never for an hour felt any need of such liquors; and that I believe I have done more work, have had better spirits, have eaten my food with greater relish, and have slept more tranquilly, than I should have done if I had habitually taken wine or beer.

To boast of health would be impious, and to presume on its continuance would be irrational. What God has graciously bestowed, he may at any moment take away. I only speak of the past and the present, which I do with humble thankfulness; and my reason for speaking at all is a conviction, that an incalculable amount of evil, as offensive in the sight of God as ruinous to man, would be prevented by the general discontinuance of the use of intoxicating drinks, but that men decline to abstain from them under the notion that they are necessary to health, or at all events not injurious, whilst they believe them to be conducive to personal enjoyment. Convinced that these notions, the latter as well as the former, are erroneous, I offer my own experience to show that they are so; and with the same view I add a few particulars.

I did not adopt total abstinence owing to any illness or tendency to disease, nor because liquor was any considerable temptation to me. I had always used it moderately. My sole object was a desire to induce some whom I knew, by example, to abandon an indulgence which was leading them to ruin. And it seemed to me, that if I could do without strong drink, other persons in ordinary health might do the same: because my constitution is not robust; on the contrary, I have from childhood been rather pale and thin. Therefore the experiment of total abstinence seemed in me a very fair one: I was an average subject: many of my friends even thought that I needed a little wine, dissuaded me from giving it up, and mourned over my unwise persistence. I myself had the prejudice that it helped digestion. Well, I tried the experiment-first for a month, then for another month, till at length I learned to laugh at the prejudices of myself and my friends, and in the consciousness of firm health and good spirits, I have continued the practice to the present day.

Within fifteen years of life one passes through various circumstances, which would be likely to try the merits of any regimen. But I have never felt as if strong drink would help me in any of those circumstances; certainly not in protracted study; as certainly not in the prolonged and exciting public meeting; not in active business, however pressing; not in travelling, by night or by day; not in pedestrian rambles on the mountains of Cumberland or Wales; not in the cold of winter; not in the heat of summer; not in the raw damp of intermediate seasons; not in the morning, not at noon, nor yet at night; not in anxiety and trouble; not in joy and social intercourse. I need it in none of these circumstances; it would do me mischief in many. It might cloud my intellect, or excite my brain, or disorder my stomach, or cause local inflammation more or less serious. There are those who think that wine or beer is needful whenever they feel fatigued or exhausted. But surely Nature provides her own restorative at a much easier and cheaper rate. He who is tired should rest; he who is weary should sleep; he who is exhausted

should take wholesome food or innocent beverages; he who is closely confined should take air and exercise. I repeat, that in my own case, alcoholic drinks are never necessary, and would never do me good.

I claim no merit for total abstinence-1st. Because it is no privation. A total abstainer does not care or think about liquor; at least, after the first few days or weeks, he forgets it. 2ndly. Because I am firmly convinced that a total abstainer has more physical comfort, and even more gratification for his palate, than he who takes liquors: the digestive organs being generally in a healthier state, he enjoys food and innocent beverages with greater relish; if he loses the pungency of strong drink, he also escapes its painful consequences. 3rdly. Because abstinence from liquor is no mean saving of money, which may be so much better applied. 4thly. Because it is a still more important saving of precious time. And 5thly. Because it obviously keeps men out of many dangers and temptations. Therefore, in my judgment, enlightened self-interest, nay, an enlightened regard for mere physical enjoyment, might make a man give up strong drink.

I do not presume to say that there are not persons who, from sickness or peculiarity of constitution, may not require wine or beer, at least occasionally. I know those who believe, and are so advised by their medical men,* that it is needful for them. But my belief is, that with very few exceptions indeed, they are not needful to persons in ordinary health. And I take the liberty of just glancing at a few facts which seem to prove this beyond all reasonable question.

*May I venture, with much deference, to suggest to medical men, whether medicines of a less dangerous character than alcoholic drinks might not frequently be administered to their patients, with at least as good effect. I should be far from ascribing to medical men a heedless adherence to old prejudices and modes of practice; but I may, without offence, entreat them to consider carefully the light thrown on the subject by the experience of so many thousands since Total Abstinence began to be adopted. Some of the fatal cases of confirmed drunkenness which I have known, were to be traced to the use of liquor after sickness,, on the recommendation of the doctor. No class see more of the dreadful effects of intemperance than medical men, or could reveal such horrifying scenes of hopeless death-beds owing to that cause. A friend suggests, that where alcoholic liquors are absolutely necessary, they should be sent in medicine bottles, carefully labelled (as with laudanum), with the number of drops to be taken, and discontinued as soon as possible. The medical certificate, quoted in a subsequent page, cannot but weigh with the candid and benevolent members of that profession.

First, I will speak of cases within my own personal knowledg I know, and could name, many of the hardest working men, wi for years have not tasted drink, and who declare themselves ir better without than with it-glass-blowers, forge-men, BE others, who work in front of the hottest furnaces, pressers i dry-houses, farmers working out of doors in summer's heat and winter's frost, printers working at the press, joiners, bricklayers, masons, etc. I know coachmen, exposed to all weathers, one of whom drove the night mail over the hills of Scotland; I knov medical men in large practice, driving about all day, and often disturbed in the night; I know ministers of religion and lecturers, among the most animated and laborious in the country, in the habit of speaking at great length in crowded meetings, and often out of doors; I know missionaries labouring in tropical countries; I know merchants, tradesmen, clerks, etc. of the greatest activity; I know literary men and editors of very sedentary habits; I know Members of Parliament and Ministers of State, among the most constant in their attendance on the trying duties of Parliament, or of office; I know old men of near fourscore, children and young persons of all ages, nursing mothers, servants, in short, persons of almost every class that can be mentioned: I know persons under all these varied circumstances, who act on the system of total abstinence, enjoying health and vigour, and believing that they are better without intoxicating liquor than they would be with it.

Beyond my personal knowledge, instances without end might be adduced from unquestionable authority; but it may suffice to mention a few classes of cases. For example, the Governor of York Castle told me that he never knew a single instance of the health of a prisoner suffering from his being at once deprived of intoxicating liquor. It is notorious that there are soldiers who go through their arduous exercises, and whole crews of sailors and fishermen exposed to all weathers in all seas, practising abstinence with advantage. Mr. Mayhew says the same of the coal-heavers of London. The ancient athletes, in training for their severe exercises, abstained from strong liquor, and modern