It was done; and then for a short time all went on smoothly again. At length a scene similar to the first was acted, and a still larger glass was bought. This also in time proved too small. To remedy the evil, he resolved to drink its measure twice a day. The original limit, with his own knowledge, being once deliberately overstepped, he felt himself in danger, but had not the moral courage to resist his craving appetite. Day by day he sank deeper and deeper in dissipation, till at last he became a drunkard. Business, in consequence of his neglect, left him; friends forsook him; his affairs went wrong; poverty overtook him; and to close my story briefly, he died an outcast, unpitied, unlamented.

This tale may be seized upon by a certain class of temperance advocates to prove that all moderate drinking inevitably leads to excess. It makes me smile to hear teetotallers quote isolated instances to prove the truth of their creed; and then I sometimes think of the old woman's 'gin and sugar,' which she avowed was a panacea. It proves no such thing. One instance does not establish a truth, any more than one truth establishes a system. One atom will not make a mountain, nor one drop of water an ocean. Το say that moderate drinkers are not safe, is to assert what the experience of every man proves untrue. There are few men, comparatively, in any age, who do not drink at some period or other of their lives. We have all of us drank in our day, unless debarred by constitutional inability. I have not a doubt that many members of the total abstinence societies were once moderate drinkers. Many live in the daily habit of taking a glass of brandy and water, or two glasses of wine, at dinner, and some at supper too. Yet of such men, hundreds of thousands are temperate, and live happily to a good old age, respected and honored.

Some men seem to have been born drunkards, as some are born thieves; others again cannot taste alcohol without being ill; and some would rather strike off their right hand, than touch unjustly one cent's worth of their neighbor's property. Unfortunately, too many men have physical failings, or propensities, which they cannot resist.

I for one have drank moderately, when it has suited my feelings or caprice, for twenty years. I feel in no danger; and to this hour, I account myself a sober man, in the usual acceptation of the phrase. I can drink or not, as it pleases me; but I will not taste a drop to please another man alive." Sometimes I feel that a glass of brandy or whiskey, properly mixed, does my health a positive benefit. 'Good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used.' Yet, at any moment I can entirely abstain, without the least discomfort. I have tried it, and sometimes for a month, sometimes for six months, at a time. A large portion of my acquaintances can say the same of themselves.

If I am asked to become a total abstinence man for the sake of example to others, that is another affair. On the broad principle of philanthropy, I am bound to show a good example to all my fellow creatures. There are few men, however, of philanthropy so boundless, who will deny themselves a pleasure or a benefit, to show an example to those whom they regard, not personally, but simply as fellow beings. I am perhaps one of them. If I moved the centre of a circle, and young, thoughtless men looked up to me for an example, and it was necessary to show that of total abstinence, I am ready

VOL. XVIII.

5

at a moment to banish all intoxicating liquors from my house, and live, in the strictest sense, a temperate man. My position in society only requires me, at least I think so, to be simply a moderate man. Fire is an excellent slave, one with whom we would not willingly dispense, but he is a most tyrannical master. No man in his senses would kindle a fire in a hay-stack or in a pile of hemp; but who is afraid, on a cold night, to make a blazing one in his parlor grate? So it is with liquor; an excellent servant, but beware of him as a master! Some temperaments cannot control the appetite; all such should avoid temptation and danger in every shape. Any man may taste liquor occasionally, provided he possess one particle of self-control; but he, whether old or young, who cannot drink without rushing to extremes, is a madman, quite as mad as the man who could not kindle a fire except in a hay-stack or in a pile of hemp. All madmen should be well guarded, that they may neither trespass upon their neighbors nor injure themselves.

:

Alcoholic drinks are to the young superfluities, and were better avoided the taste for them, like that for tobacco or opium, is acquired, not natural. Yet it is a question, whether if alcohol had never been distilled, the world would have been more temperate. History proves that people and nations whose customs or religion forbade the use of spirituous liquors, indulge in spices and drugs which are quite as debasing in their effects, both on the body and the mind.

Of late years, temperance societies have wrought much apparent if not real good. I remember the time well, when almost every merchant in the city went daily to the old Tontine, about noon, for his glass of brandy or beer. Not one respectable man in a hundred does such a thing now. It is unfashionable; it would injure his credit. Sit to-day at the ordinary of an hotel: there is scarcely a drop of brandy to be seen on the table: ten or fifteen years ago every body drank it, as regularly as he ate his dinner. Go to a private dinner, or an evening party: brandy is seldom offered there. A few years ago a sideboard was an indispensable article of parlor furniture, upon which various kinds of liquors were displayed, tempting the inmates and visitors. Now, sideboards are considered unfashionable, and clumsy lumber; and among the better classes of society, to offer drink, unless perhaps a glass of wine, is not held a refined custom. But although this salutary reform is apparent, are we sure that the world is more virtuous? Is crime lessened? How many still drink in secret, or how many, avoiding liquor, fly to other excesses quite as demoralizing?

While I applaud to the echo the efforts of temperance societies, and greatly rejoice in the reformation they have wrought, yet I cannot too readily admit that the world is more virtuous. I fear not to assert that the zealot who would instantly banish from the earth intoxicating drinks, and at the same time forbid mirthful indulgences, is a Quixotte, fighting against windmills. He may, it is true, effect apparent temporary good, but will not confer lasting benefits on mankind. Some in every age, from fashion, may abstain awhile; and some, without his assistance, will discover a new mode of indulgence, less baneful perhaps in its consequences on society, but not less injurious to the individual. Open some innocent and healthy vent for

the excitability inherent in human nature, and the first real step to reform is taken· one that may lead to happy and lasting results. What will total abstinence avail, if we do not teach lessons of truth and virtue? Men whose drink is water encourage the young to commit offences both against law and morals, whose example is demoralizing in the highest degree. Parents teach their children to lie, to swear, to cheat, and even to steal; and some who would shudder to be accused of inculcating crimes, yet by not punishing promptly and severely their first commission, indirectly sanction a second offence. Read the annals of crime, and we shall find numerous examples of persons incarcerated for life, or forfeiting life upon the gibbet, who never complained of liquor being the cause; but who have declared that temperate parents, by example, or in express words, encouraged or applauded their first crime. From that hour, they dated their moral degradation.

If we insist that all laxity of morals originates in the inebriate cup, then our sole attention should be directed to cure that fruitful source of crime. But I presume the most zealous 'teetotaller' will not venture to avow such an opinion. That we lessen poverty, degradation, and crime, arising from drunkenness, as we lessen intemperance, is a self-evident proposition. That moderate drinking produces beggary, corrupts the morals, or induces to crime, I firmly deny.

If I correctly understand the object of temperance societies, and of the good men who support them, it is, NOT to prevent drINKING

PER SE, BUT TO PREVENT ITS CONSEQUENCES, AS WELL TO THE INDIVIDUAL AS TO SOCIETY. If alcohol were as innocent as water, all the world might drink like fish,' and not one single voice would exclaim against the practice. If, therefore, my position be true, it is not enough to suppress the inordinate use of distilled liquors: we should provide wise means, that those we reform do not relapse into other habits quite as injurious to religion and to morals. How shall this be done? He that would propose a perfect system of recreation, which, while innocent and invigorating, would give a peaceful vent to the excitability of our natures, would be a benefactor of his race. Without such a system, how shall we proceed to real reform ?

The democratic creed is: No laws shall be enacted that restrict man in his natural rights, except in so far as may be necessary to protect him in his life, liberty, and property, and their peaceful enjoyment: hence it follows indirectly, that every law is constitutional that promotes the general good.

Now we all admit that intemperance is a fruitful source of crime. The law dares not revenge; it punishes justly: it is wiser to prevent the commission of crime than to punish offenders. We all admit too that intemperance makes paupers, and pauperism creates a tax, which the industrious and sober citizen must pay. Without thinking, for the moment only, of the private suffering and misery which intemperance produces, it is enough for our present purpose to ask, why should the community be taxed to suppress or punish crime, and to support paupers? It is an attack upon property,' which the social compact is bound to protect: hence any law that justly, mildly, and equably drives intemperance from the land, is constitutional. I am aware that no law is obeyed which is contrary to the general feeling.

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However wise or constitutional it may be, it lies dead upon the statute book. Has the time arrived when we may make enactments against intemperance? I think it has, or at least is approaching fast.

We have long had municipal regulations against drunkenness; but we must confess they have done little good. They are either imperfectly framed, or laxly enforced. Whatever might have been thought twenty years ago of a state law declaring intemperance a crime, I am persuaded that a judicious one would now be received with favor. All good people would lend their aid to enforce it. I verily believe that the good' constitute the majority. Such a law must be framed with consummate skill, else it will not be obeyed. Our citizens, our temperate citizens, even, will never submit to a law persecuting any class, or unnecessarily curtailing the natural liberty of any man. We have lately seen the effect of the 'fifteen gallon law' in a sister State. I apprehend the objections were not to the end proposed, but to the means adopted for obtaining that end. It was certainly most injudicious, in the present state of public feeling, to enact that no person should, under a severe penalty, buy or sell less than fifteen gallons of alcoholic liquor. In the first place, the opposition of drunkards is certain against all laws, the tendency of which is to suppress their particular vice, or pleasure, as they may please to term it: in the second place, that law enlisted many moderate drinkers against it; men in reality, though perhaps not technically, as temperate as the most rigid teetotaller.'

I am not one of those who would attempt to cure the deep-rooted evil in a day, by condemning moderate drinkers; or like the Emperor of China, seize and instantly destroy all the poison we could lay our hands on. I fear that would not avail. I would effect a gradual cure. Physicians inform us of maladies which they could easily eradicate in a day, but dare not, because a worse disease would certainly follow. As we daily see unhappy proofs that the law's punishment will not prevent crime, though it may deter many from the commission of it, so all the statutes that man could frame would not drive drunkenness from the land. Some natures will not be cempelled even to do good; compulsion would rather induce them to an opposite course; while, if proper means be used, there are few indeed who may not be enticed to virtue.

In another article we may consider the effects of law and persuasion in the cause of temperance.

WHERE ARE THE DEAD?

'WHERE hath the spirit flown,

That, past the reach of human sight,

Ev'n as a breeze hath gone!

O WHITHER are they fled,

Those spirits kind and warm,
That, numbered with the dead,
Have nobly braved the storm?
And gained a port at last,

A port of peace and rest,
Where, earthly perils past,

Their happy souls are blest?

In some bright-beaming star

Do they weave the pencil'd rays,
That streaming from afar,
Upon our vision blaze?

Or is the flickering light

That the varying twilight brings,

As it glimmers on our sight,

The waving of their wings?

Perchance along the sky,
The far-off azure dome,
They wing them free and high,
In their lofty spirit-home;
And the cooling zephyr's wing,
As it fans the brow of care,

In its voiceless whisperings

May a message from them bear.

Perchance they lightly glide

Where the friends of childhood dwell,

And linger by the side

Of those they loved so well;

Or in visions of the night,

Come with their whispering tone,

And the dreamer's spirit light

With a magic all their own.

I've read a page that tells
Of a home beyond the sky,
Where the ransomed spirit dwells
With the God of love on high;
Yet their crowns of living light
They cast down at his feet,
To seek this lower night,

And the child of sorrow greet.

Low, where dark shadows fall,

On the heart, and on the brain,
Where earthly pleasures pall,

And the bosom throbs with pain,
There, with kindly lingering stay,
On their ministry of love,

They smooth the thorny way,
And point to rest above!

E. E. C.