But better than all this, happy mothers of happy children will raise their hands to bless you, and mingle your name in their prayers, while, better still, the Divine Father will behold your self-denying work. His arm will be always ready for you to lean upon in the hour of your weari. iness, and when your labour is done, and you leave the work for other hands to carry on, His voice will welcome you into everlasting habitations.

THE GREAT CURSE OF ENGLAND.

A

TEMPERANCE DISCOURSE.

By the Rev. G. W. McCREE.

"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."-Gal. v. 19-21.

You have perhaps seen a field overgrown with thorns and thistles-a barren, rough, and noxious wilderness.

You have, perhaps, seen a sea-shore strewn with the fragments of a wreck-broken timbers, torn sails, and dead bodies exposed on the sands, and scattered on the rocks, and blackened by the sun.

You have perhaps seen a city desolated by a plague-houses closed, mourners weeping, and graves opened for the reception of the dead.

But no barren field, nor wrecked ship, nor desolated city can present such lamentable, such revolting, such disastrous, or such appalling scenes as are witnessed daily in England in connection with, and springing from, our national curse- -Drunkenness.

That I may justify this statement let me ask you to give your thoughtful attention to—

1. THE MORAL POSITION OF DRUNKENNESS.-See where God has placed it. Not, mark, where man places it. Many persons speak of personal intemperance as "an unfortunate propensity"; as a "little weakness"; as "fondness for company"; as a "failing"; as "indiscretion"; and, as "gaiety of life." Be not deceived. Drunkenness is much more than all that. It is a folly, a profligate habit, a foul transgression of physical laws, an offence against decency and virtue, and a SIN-a great sin before God. Look at the text, and see where God places the drunkard and drunkenness. Just where God places "adultery and murder," there does He place drunkenness. Human law and human opinion does not put it in the catalogue of sins which expose us to the wrath of God, and the loss of everlasting happiness, but the Divine Word teaches us that every drunkard is

in the sight of God guilty, condemned, miserable, and lost. And that is the view of drunkenness which I wish you to take. It is a wasteful folly. It is a degrading pleasure. It is a brutalizing vice. It is a disgusting indulgence. It is a gross and damning sin, and, "they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

Let me now ask you to give your thoughtful attention to―

2. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF DRUNKENNESS.-Probably no sin presents so many melancholy and frightful aspects as that now before us. It is an evil tree with mighty boughs stretching far and wide, and thickly laden with much evil fruit.

1. There, for example, is Physical Disease.-God has so organized the human body, that when placed in suitable conditions, and adequately supplied with fresh air, wholesome food, proper warmth, and harmless liquids, and not allowed to rust in idleness, it becomes and continues healthy, strong, and beautiful. But look at what intemperate habits do for the body-the body which God framed in wisdom and love, and intended for a monument of power-an exhibition of goodness-and an illustration of symmetry and grace. The Rev. Dawson Burns, in a carefully prepared paper, entitled "The Vital Statistics of Strong Drink," shows the annual loss of life in the United Kingdom as follows:-

...

...

...

...

...

27,050

6,962

By disease, accidents, &c. induced by Intemperance 20,251 By limited drinking Thus finding a total of 54,263 persons whose health, bodies, and lives have fallen a miserable sacrifice to strong drink. Look, I say, at the habitual drunkard, and see what a curse has fallen upon his body-a blotched face, a blood-shot eye, a palsied hand, a diseased heart, a trembling footstep, and a form prematurely bent towards the earth and the grave. And mark the fell diseases which, like raging foes, follow in the track of the drunkard. There is paralysis. There is fever. There is consumption. There is asthma. There is cholera. Intemperance predisposes a man to all these, and many have been stricken down by them who might have been living to this day; but they drank of the sparkling cup, and found it filled with a fatal draught. They drank-turned weak, and sick, and pale-lay down-fought hard with death-lost the battle, and died. And thus does drunkenness enlarge the dominion of the grave, and multiply the congregation of the dead.

2. There, for example, is Mental Disease.-The mind is the

glory of man. With it he counts the stars, and measures widewide seas. With it he discerns between good and evil. With it he thinks, loves, hopes, and worships. And yet he suffers this magnificent possession to become the prey of drunkenness. Consider the various forms of mental malady induced by intemperance. There are two of them of which I wish to remind you, namely,-Idiocy and Frenzy.

1. WHAT A DISTRESSING THING IS IDIOCY!-The mind is then a cold, stagnant, dreary blank. No glorious thoughts, no mighty inventions, no sublime poetry flow from it then. An idiot! We shudder at the word. Now, drunkenness often produces idocy. Dr. Howe, in his able Reports on Idiocy, informs us that out of 300 idiots whose history he could learn, 143 had intemperate parents, and he mentions one drunkard who had seven children, and all of them were idiots! The historian of a sober generation would not have to record such a scandalous fact.

And,

2. WHAT A DESTRUCTIVE THING IS FRENZY!-When excited and even maddened by drink, what fearful things men do. They will then swear, outrage public decency, steal their neighbours' goods, rush into awful danger, and perpetrate even murder itself. Take a case in point. A young working man went to spend the day at Rotherham fair. Some friends and he went into a public house to partake of a social glass. They took one-two-three and more. Night came, and he commenced his journey home. He was mad-mad with drink. He sang, jumped, danced, and swore. He met with a young woman, sprang upon her, bore her to the ground, knelt upon her breast, and then drawing his knife he cut her white throat from ear to ear. lay at his feet a pale and bloody corpse. demned-sentenced-executed.

He rose.

She

He was tried- -con

And now

listen to this. A

christian man went to the prison and saw him.

He said, "How away the young

ever could you do such a sad thing as take woman's life?" "I cannot tell, Sir," he replied; "I have a perfect remembrance of being in the public house, but from that time to my coming to my senses in the lock-up, I have no knowledge of what I did or where I was." "How long," asked the visitor, "had you been a hard drinker?" "I was not a drunkard, Sir; I took very little liquor indeed in a general way, and therefore what I took at the fair had such a sad effect upon me." "Ah! my friend," replied the visitor, "what sorrow you would have avoided had you been an abstainer from all intoxicating drinks. I am thankful to say that I have never

tasted them for many years past, and I recommend every one to adopt my example." The poor murderer pressed his hand to his head, burst into tears, and wept bitterly. Had that young man been taught by his parents to shun the drunkard's drink, he might have lived and died a christian man. As it was he was hanged like a dog. "He that hath ears to hear let him hear."

3. There, for example, is Social Disorder.-Let it be granted that there are many causes of social disorder, it is still true that its chief cause is drunkenness. The profanity, the quarrels, the fights, the robberies, the disturbances, and the murders which disgrace and shock the land, flow mainly from the drinking customs which prevail around us. That it is so is proved by the records of our newspapers, and the testimony of our judges. Look at the hideous facts recorded in our newspapers. From about 20 of them, in 52 weeks, there was obtained a list of outrages and crimes. Here it is :—

Seven hundred and eleven brawls or violent ASSAULTS, including many cases of stabbing, cutting, and wounding;

Two hundred and ninety-four ROBBERIES by or upon drunken persons; Two hundred and thirty-seven cases of atrocious CRUELTY upon wives or children;

One hundred and sixty-six cases of serious ACCIDENT or striking bodily peril;

One hundred and sixty-two actual or attempted SUICIDES.

Five hundred and twenty premature DEATHS, generally with horrible accessories; and

One hundred and twenty-one MANSLAUGHTERS and MURDERS.

With regard to the sentiments of our Judges, I will content myself with quoting the testimony of Baron Platt, who, at the Newcastle summer Assizes of 1855, observed:

"It is the practice of gangs of thieves to infest the public houses and beershops of this town on a Saturday night, and to take the opportunity of throwing themselves into the society of industrious men, who come there intending to drink a glass of beer, but ending, very likely, in intoxication. The thieves watch them to the public houses. They go thither, perhaps, without them, but they fall into their company; and the unfortunate man, if he happen to take a glass too much that night, is sure to be dragged to one of the arches, not far distant from the spot where I am, and there he is knocked down, throttled, his life put in peril, and his purse endangered. It does seem that you will find by the calendar, that drunkenness is at the bottom of one-half of this mischief. Thieves would go home without their plunder if men would keep sober; but we find either that the thieves themselves make themselves desperate by inspiriting themselves with drink, or else the unfortunate man who has the plunder to be taken from him, makes himself a victim by his conduct on the Saturday night. It is grievous conduct; but DRUNKENNESS HERE, AS IT IS ALMOST ALL OVER THE KINGDOM, IS THE VICE OF THE PEOPLE."

Need I add a word to these facts and this testimony? No, they clearly prove how great is the social disorder which springs from drunkenness.

4. There, for example, is Domestic Misery.-We sing of Sweet Home." And home ought and might be sweet, bright, and happy. Every home might be marked by cleanliness, order, love, and religion, and where these are you may sing— "There is no place like home." But where drunkenness is— what then? Poverty, scolding, jealousy, ignorance, dirt, profligacy, blows, misery, and death. The facts of every day prove this, and they prove also that juvenile delinquency is generally the poisonous fruit of parental drunkenness. Sir A. Alison, speaking of the records of the Glasgow House of Refuge, says:

"These highly curious annals of crime show, in the clearest manner, the fatal influence of the drinking of whisky upon the lowest classes of the people; for out of 234 boys, who at present are in the institution, it appears from their own account that the drunkenness of their parents stood thus:

So that upwards of two-thirds of the whole boys in the institution have been precipitated into crime, through the habits of intoxication of one or both of their parents."

And the Rev. John Clay, of Preston gaol, quotes thus from the confession of a child:

"My mother is dead: my father often got drunk: he used to lick us with a rope he used to bring women into the house-drinking-on Saturday nights. I have broken into two houses. I got in [on the last occasion] through the back door, about twelve at night. I went upstairs into the man's bedroom, and took 13s. 6d. from his pocket. I bought something to eat with the money. I slept out every night. I have four sisters and a brother; and I am the youngest but one. Is aged nine."

Have I an intemperate father or mother here? O think of your sons and daughters-think of your little children, and forsake your folly and sin lest they should rise up in the day of judgment and condemn you. Let your home be made "sweet" by the abiding influences of a sober, affectionate and holy life. 5. And there, for example, is Premature Death.-How often does the drunkard inflict sudden and premature death upon either himself or others. "Come, Sir," said a woman to me one night, “and see my husband-he is dying." I went. He was still a young man, but he died—died in consequence of his irregular habits. In his case death-premature death fell upon himself, but sometimes, nay, often, the drunkard brings "sudden destruction" upon the innocent, the worthy, and, the happy.

J