that

farthing per week in strong drink, the total annual amount expended will exceed two millions. At our missionary meetings, the cry of the heathen is sounded in our ears, "Come over and help us ;" we are told that vast nations are accessible suitable labourers are saying, "Here am I, send me ;" and that the great desideratum is an increased revenue; and yet we are annually spending in strong drink-in that which, if not injurious, is at least of questionable utility-which most persons would be better without-which is the bane of thousands-four times as much as we are able to raise for the purpose of fulfilling the Divine command, "Go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature!" Exciting meetings are held, earnest appeals are made, ministers and missionaries travel over the length and breadth of the land, collectors are daily at work, gathering up the fragments of Christian benevolence, and the total result is half a million ! But were the Christian church to deny itself of this one article of unnecessary luxury, the sum thus raised without effort, would at once quadruple the number of our missionaries; and this by an act which, while sending the gospel to the heathen abroad, would tend most powerfully to the prevention and cure of drunkenness at home.

Christians! think of these things! Contemplate the terrible scourge that lacerates society, the dreadful plague that devastates our land. Can we look on with indifference, while six hundred thousand drunkards pass in terrible procession, scattering misery around them, as blindly and recklessly they urge their way to the blackness of darkness for ever? Is it nothing that sixty thousand annually sink into that abyss; while sixty thousand fresh victims are forced from among ourselves to join the ranks of death? True, the cry of distress is wafted wailingly to us from beyond the sea; but how piteous a lament arises from our own coasts, from among our fellow-countrymen all around! It comes from many a distressed household and desolated hearthfrom many squalid children of wretchedness and rags-from many a worn and wasted wife, doomed to see her babes pine away with want and to receive curses from the lips which, but for alcohol, would have breathed only love, and blows from the arm, which otherwise would have been used only to caress her and labour for her support. It rises from our gloomy poorhouses, which alcohol has mainly contributed to fill; and from our crowded prisons, which, but for its votaries, would be almost tenantless. Our national honour invokes us-the credit of the English name.

The world around us pleads, thrust back in its

onward march. The missionaries of the gospel appeal to us, hindered in their work by this great obstacle to its spread. The church at home, from many a gaping, bleeding wound, implores us to come to her aid. We speak with abhorence of bloody persecutors. The tale of the Queen of Madagascar murdering, for the faith of Jesus, some hundreds of her peaceful subjects, has filled us with dismay. We shudder when we hear of the abominations of Moloch worship, with its human sacrifices; of Sutteeism, burning its widows on the funeral pyre; or of the murderous car of Juggernaut, crushing hundreds of deluded devotees beneath its gory wheels; but what is all this compared to the atrocities which drunkenness has wrought-that demon of darkness which has already devoured millions, and year by year still drags down to hell its victims, by tens of thousands, from among our countrymen alone!

With what horror should we hear of sixty thousand persons being led forth for butchery, by some blood-thirsty tyrant ! How would one such an atrocity in the entire range of the world's history be refered to with execration in all succeeding ages! But what if it were repeated every year! And what of, besides similar enormities elsewhere, this annual slaughter occurred in our own land! How would all the classes combine to raise their voices and their hands, and to sacrifice their all, to stay so terrible a curse! But is it less terrible, because it has become familiar; and because it ruins the soul, as well as the body? Ah, there comes a piercing shriek to us from the unseen world! The hundreds of thousands of victims to strong drink, who have entered an eternity of woe, seem to invoke us to warn the dense crowd that press on their heels, lest "they also come into the same place of torment." Shall the appeal be in vain ? shall we rather seem to encourage them in their destructive course, by practically discountenancing the only effectual means for their deliverance? shall we sanction them, by sipping pleasure from a cup which to them is druggad with death? shall we apply the igniting torch to the furnace which may destroy them for ever; or, if already lighted, shall we, by our example, seem to fan the flames? Shall we not rather endeavour to pluck the drunkard "as a brand from the burning," by acting out the great principle of the apostle, "It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or made weak?"

WHAT ENGLAND MIGHT DO.

SUPPOSING the Bible Society to continue its operations on the same scale as during the last two years, it will take upwards of

SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN YEARS

to supply the Sacred Scriptures to the whole of the heathen world.

Contrast this fact with the following

The sum annually spent in spirits, wine, and malt liquors, in the United Kingdom, would, in

ONE YEAR,

purchase a two shilling copy of the Bible for each of the seven hundred millions of poor benighted heathens.

Societies may receive 24 Sixpenny Packets of Tracts and Hand Bills in any part of London, by a post-office order for 10s. 6d., or 50 packets for 21s., being sent to Richard Dykes Alexander, Ipswich. All Country Booksellers may obtain Tracts through William Tweedie, 337, Strand, London.

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

I RESPECTFULLY ask your attention to a few thoughts on a matter of the greatest interest to yourselves and your families. Within my recollection, the blessings of education were denied by some, and they were not valued by others. Not a few of the rich believed that the labouring classes would be better fitted for their duties in life without knowledge than with it: and not a few of the poor, never having possessed knowledge, were insensible to its advantages. Happily, that day has gone by. There are still a few antiquated oddities, who think that the labouring man is better without a head-piece than with one, or at least without anything in it: but the bulk of the rich would be ashamed of such a notion, and they are for the most part ready to promote the education of the poor. The working classes, too, have discovered something of the benefits of knowledge-something of their own capacity for acquiring and enjoying itsomething of the dignity of a human soul, and of their own souls: and, accordingly, great numbers of them have got possession of the key of knowledge, that is, of the art of reading, and still greater numbers are determined that their children shall possess it. There is, therefore, improvement-great improvement. The prejudices of the rich and the blindness of the poor are removed. We are like travellers who have been struggling among defiles by night, and are at length emerging into the open plain and light of day. The dangers are past, the chief difficulties are over : but our journey is not yet done. Far from it. We have a long march to make. Onward must now be our motto. If we loiter

through idleness, or are seduced from our path by various temptations, we shall not reach our expected home-we shall not attain our object, of becoming a well-educated and a universallyeducated people.

There are comparatively few of the working classes who do not, at one time or another, send their children to school. There are, however, some. And there are many more who content themselves with keeping their children at a day-school a very short time, and rely on the Sunday school to make out what is deficient in their education. Now the Sunday school is invaluable as a means of religious instruction and impression. But it cannot supply the place of the day school. In the Sunday school, indeed, your children are taught to read the best of books, and to reverence and improve the Lord's day: they are taught the precious truths of religion-would that they generally remembered the lessons they learn there! But the Sunday school is not intended to teach writing, or arithmetic, or grammar, or geography and unless your children are able at least to write and cast accounts, their education is exceedingly defective. In these days, they will scarcely be considered as educated at all.

The smallest quantity of education that working men should be satisfied with for their children is, that they should be able to read well, write well, and to keep plain accounts easily. Less than this is almost worthless, because it is soon forgot. What a person cannot do without difficulty, he will seldom do at all. An indifferent reader or a poor writer will have no pleasure in reading or writing: he will therefore neglect to practice them, and in a short time he will have forgot them as completely as if he had never learned. All the money and time spent on his education will have been quite thrown away. He may be said never to have possessed the key of knowledge; or if he had it, the key was so rusty that it would not open the lock. He remains outside the door; and if he does not by great effort make up for the defects of his schooling, at a Mechanics' Institution or elsewhere, he will be excluded all his life long from the pleasant paths and fields of knowledge. It is to be feared that,