State, county, city, town, and school district, is stated, on authority of the census bureau, to be a little more than seven hundred thousand millions of dollars,-nearly a hun-· dred millions less than the drink-bill, when putting the retail prices of liquors at the lowest mark. The amount actually consumed was seventeen million barrels of ale and beer, and seventy-two million gallons of distilled liquors, on which taxes were paid, to say nothing of what evaded taxation.

But the direct money cost is the least part of the evil. If usefully or harmlessly expended, the country could bear it. The ruinous effects of the drink habit are chiefly to be considered. Without blind reliance upon statistics, which may easily be made to mislead, and after the most careful investigation, on the evidence of the most competent authorities, we are compelled to admit that at least seventy-five per cent. of all vice and crime and pauperism and social disorder and domestic misery is directly chargeable to intoxicating drink. "Municipal corruption," says the New York Tribune, “crime, poverty, ignorance, immorality, all flourish rankly because the people tolerate rum. At the bottom of nine-tenths of all the evils which modern society suffers, this cause is to be found." "It is not confined to the lowest classes. It weakens the purpose of educated and benevolent men. It breeds allies for the powers of evil in almost every quarter. It generates a spirit of indifference as effective against reform as active friendship for intemperance. The ill effects of drink are known to all. The daily journal presents its perennial records of political abuses, of the franchise marketed, of venal ignorance swamping enlightened patriotism, of plundered treasuries, of defalcation and bankruptcy, of murders and assaults, of divorce and desertion, of profligacy, destitution, suffering and shame in myriad forms, and behind each and all these calamities and evil deeds may be seen the drink habit as the prime cause. It is everywhere. It makes and mars in every relation of life. It pursues thousands from the cradle to the grave. It reinforces every malign influence and agency. It baffles all

efforts at better things. Yet the public do not regard it as an enemy to be fought with uncompromising and persistent hostility: they even sometimes seem to think that it is better to let it alone."

And yet, strange to say, the journal from which this long philippic against drink is taken is an advocate of the license system! After such an array of wrong-doing, it advocates the selling to "these venders of poison and manufacturers of crime and ruin," as it calls them, the privilege of carrying on "the most evil and corrupting and degrading occupation the world has ever suffered from," a trade which is "the fountain-head of all evil." We use its own language, because no stronger can be found.

No wonder that the writer goes on to say, although to his own seeming condemnation, that the "national conscience needs to be stirred to the absolute resistance" of so great an evil, "that it is futile to alternate churches with saloons, leaving the weakest elements of society at the mercy of the most powerful temptations."

We believe that at last the national conscience has been stirred, and that a new era in the Temperance Reform has begun. It is the old conflict, but waged by a different army, with greater courage, on more enduring principles, and with the certainty of complete victory, by God's blessing, before their arms are laid down.

Some ten years ago, in Hillsboro, a small town of Ohio, a prayer-meeting was held in a Presbyterian church, in which divine direction was invoked by an assembly of women, to show them the way to save their children and their homes from the curse of intemperance. At its close, a band of twenty-five or thirty women, with Mrs. Eliza J. Thompson as their leader, went to the nearest saloon to plead with its keeper to cease from his poisonous traffic. They knelt on the sanded floor, while the amused and wondering men looked on, and prayed for God's mercy on the wrong-doers and for their rescue from their ruinous work.

From one saloon to another, the band of "crusaders" passed, day after day, until the power of prayer and

woman's earnestness prevailed, and every saloon was closed. All over the land, the report of that "crusade" was spread, by some treated as a joke, by some as an outrage, by some as a shameful abuse of woman's privilege, by nearly all as a mere local outburst of unreasoning zeal, which would have little influence and deserved little attention. But "these things were done that it might be fulfilled," which was written, "God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty." It was the uprising of woman's heart. It was the cry of her despair. It was the prayer of Christian hope and faith, which God never fails to answer.

From that small beginning, that "silly outbreak of woman's fanaticism," came the formation of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, which now comprises five thousand societies, in every State of the Union, with a constituency of a hundred thousand active members, who are busily at work under the banner "For God, for Home, for our Native Land." We have no hesitation in believing that it is the strongest temperance organization ever formed, and, thus far, the most wisely governed. All its officers are women, including committees, lecturers, and editors of its temperance journals. From beginning to end, they manage their own affairs, form and execute their own plans, receiving such assistance only as comes voluntarily from men in sympathy with their undertaking. Their methods of attack against the great enemy, intoxicating drink, are by education of the children, both at home and in school; by wide diffusion of temperance literature; by lecturers travelling from place to place, speaking in churches or public halls or private houses or factory buildings, or wherever they can get audience; by petitions to legislatures and Congress and municipal assemblies; by personal appeals to voters and candidates for office; by whatever moral and religious agency they can bring to bear upon the public or private conscience. They advocate everywhere and always the absolute abolition of the license system for manufacture or sale of intoxicating drinks, by constitutional amendments in every State

and by the general government. It is the home against the dram-shop, the family and household against that fell destroyer of domestic and social peace, the liquor-trade.

But the great element of its power, the source of its best strength, the explanation of its past and the guaranty of its future success, is found in the religious principle of its organization. It is a Christian union. It begins and ends every renewed effort with prayer. Not only for husbands' and children's and homes' sake, but for Christ's sake and as his followers, they are banded together. They do not know what it is to be discouraged or disheartened, for they feel sure that God is on their side. The question at issue they seek to settle, not upon political nor financial nor social grounds, nor as one of mere expediency, but as solely a question of right and wrong under the gospel law of Jesus Christ. All other considerations, however important, are held as secondary and, comparatively speaking, insignificant.

We believe that, in all moral conflicts, this is the only ground upon which a successful battle can be fought. Ultimately, no doubt, that which is right proves to be the highest expediency, and the conflict between them is only apparent and temporary. But so long as the expedient is first considered, and the question of profit and loss in some shape, whether financial, political, or social, is made to supersede the moral character of wrong customs and unrighteous laws, before the tribunal of public opinion, the reformer of abuses acts at disadvantage and loses more than half his power. The public conscience is not stirred to strong and energetic action, it is not thoroughly awakened, in any work of radical reform, until the people hear the word of command, "Thus saith the Lord." The obligation of duty under the gospel law of Christian brotherhood must be deeply felt, or the abuse, however great, will go on, with little or no diminution. Palliatives and compromise measures will be the order of the day.

Here, we find the explanation of the long continuance of licensed gambling-houses, the "hells" of Paris and other large European cities. Lotteries still hold their ground, and

creep into churches and charity organizations, corrupting wherever they are allowed, from the same cause. "Regulated vice" is another experiment in doing evil that good may come, systematically tried in France under the Police "des Mœurs," in England and its dependencies under the "contagious diseases" acts, on the continent of Europe, almost everywhere, under some registry and inspection laws, and always with the same results of increasing vice and its worst consequences. It was tried in St. Louis, Mo., having been introduced under martial law, and continued several years by civil legislation, with delusive promises and false show of beneficial effects "in restraining evils which cannot be prevented," so that for a time the "very elect" were deceived.

In all such cases, although the compromises with evil have never yet been proved to lessen the evils contended against, yet so long as it has been held as a question of more or less, or as a choice between two courses of action, both of which are legitimate and right, the victory has remained with those to whom personal advantage and selfish indulgence have been the underlying motive. When the plain question is asked, and brought home to the conscience,- What is right? What does the law of God command or forbid?-a different issue is made. The victory falls to the other side.

The License System for dram-shops and saloons is no exception to the rule. It will maintain its hold even among good and true men, until brought to the crucial test of moral obligation. Have we a moral right, as Christian communities, to sanction by law a business the natural and universal outcome of which is vice and crime? Granted, if you please, for argument's sake, although all experience proves its falsehood, that high license will lessen the evil influence of dramshops and restrain their abuses, have we a right to sell such a privilege of wrong-doing, at any price? It is universally conceded that all the best interests of society are injured by the liquor trade. In proportion as it flourishes, the whole community suffers. It is evil always and everywhere. The dram-shop, of whatever grade, is nothing more nor less than