"13. Christ saves no one from any deserved suffering. "18. Mortal life is not, in any sense, a state of probation for another state of being. "19. Faith has no connection with happiness in a future state. "20. Regeneration is merely a change of party. "21. All mankind will be equal in the resurrection. 22. There will not be a day of general judgment in the resurrection-state. "23. There are no merely spiritual beings, called angels, either holy or unholy. "24. The Christian sabbath is a mere human device. "25. Church ordinances are of doubtful utility. "Such are some of the peculiarities of this novel system. The most of them appear in nearly all their systematic exhibitions of their own faith, and are regarded as essential to their scheme. One after another these tenets have been put forth, as circumstances required. As they now appear they form a complete chain, the links of which are mutually dependent; a chain most difficult to break when once it has been thrown round the heart. To most it proves to be an everlasting chain of darkness." L. ART. VI.-A Plea for the Intemperate. By DAVID M. REESE, A. M., M. D., late Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic in the Albany Medical College. New-York: John S. Taylor & Co. 1841. EVIDENT and striking is the parallel between the advancement of Christianity in the early ages and the progress of the temperance reformation in our own day. In the beginning both resembled the grain of mustard seed. The instruments were alike feeble in human estimation. In either case it required no little moral courage to breast the opposition of habit and interest, and to encounter, what is yet more paralizing, the sneers and the ridicule of the world's wisdom. For the same reason that the heathenish idolator closed his ears to the instruction of Christ, did multitudes throw themselves in the way of the temperance movement. Their craft was in danger. Thereby they had their wealth. In each case, too, it is worthy of remark, opposition came, not only from men who were avowedly regardless of the laws of God, but also from those who were zealous in his service. Many lineal descendants of Abraham were exceedingly bitter in their enmity against the person and the teaching of the Messiah: and in the early days of the temperance reform long and loud were the notes of opposition from multitudes who were spiritually Abraham's seed. It is of no use to attempt to conceal this fact. It would be unwise if it were practicable, as it may teach the pioneers in future reformations what they may expect, and tend to nerve the faltering energies of the soul to meet and overcome obloquy and opposition. We are not questioning the purity of motive by which Christians once. were actuated in opposing the temperance cause. Some dreaded it as having a tendency to secularize Christianity. Some feared its sectarian aspect, while others opposed it as chimerical, or as reflecting on the purity and the power of their faith. They may have been perfectly conscientious in this matter. Many of them doubtless were. Saul of Tarsus dragging men and women to the judgment seat, and Paul the apostle glorying in the cross of Christ, in both cases acted according to the dictates of conscience, and did only what the voice of duty seemed to prompt. Again, the fundamental principles of Christianity are few and simple. They were summed up by the great Founder in one word-love. One word, abstain, conveys the whole object of the temperance reformation, and reveals the entire machinery by which that object is to be accomplished. There is about as much reason, moreover, for the charge of ultraism against those who carry out the principle in the one case as in the other. Total abstinence is even yet looked upon as fanatical by many who profess friendship for the cause of temperance, just as perfect love is deemed visionary by multitudes who are enrolled under the banner of Christ. We shall be charged, probably, with obtruding sectarian doctrines if we push this part of our parallel; but we may not, therefore, flinch from asserting our conviction, that as nothing less than the doctrine of total abstinence can insure the triumphs of the temperance reform; so the full glory of Christianity can never be exhibited by any system that is satisfied with requiring less than the entire consecration of soul and body to the service of God. But that is Christian perfection. In the early period of the church's history the gospel was preached unto Jews only, and it was not until after the day of Pentecost that it was proclaimed to the outcasts of the Gentile world. Until very recently the main efforts in the cause of temperance have been directed, not to reclaim the drunkard, but to save the sober. The former was looked upon, and is even yet looked upon by many, much in the same light as that in which the Jewish convert viewed his heathen brother: as beyond the pale of salvation, without hope, accursed. We live in the dawn of a new era. The proclamation has gone forth: there is hope for the besotted victim of intemperance, however abject or degraded. The trophies of a few past months have shown, to an extent almost incredible, the potency of the simple watchword-abstain. Many a wretched outcast, for whom naught was expected but the grave and the hell of the drunkard, now walks erect in all the dignity of manhood. The desolate hearth has been made glad. The tears of her who once looked almost with envy upon the widow in her loneliness have been wiped away. The blush that mantled the cheek of children worse than fatherless has given place to the radiance of heartfelt joy. Without irreverence the friends of the temperance cause may now exclaim: Our day of Pentecost is fully come. Nor is this all. The reclaimed inebriate has gone forth to the rescue of others. With his own experience for his teacher he is enabled to reach the conscience of the drunkard far more readily, and with a tenfold greater prospect of success, than could possibly be hoped for from cold abstractions and speculative eloquence. His style of address, and his sources of argument, differ greatly from those heretofore presented in what have been styled temperance lectures. It is like the difference between the attempts of philosophy to meliorate man's moral condition and the glowing appeal of philanthropy and sympathetic kindness. While the former plays in fitful coruscations around the understanding, the latter takes the heart captive, and renovates the entire affections. Hence, with the man of intemperate habits, he who has been himself a drunkard is the most successful pleader. He can enter into his feelings, solve his difficulties, probe the deep recesses of his soul, and, knowing by his own sad experience the power of temptation, is not easily discouraged. Very opportune in this crisis of the temperance reform is the little manual by Dr. Reese, entitled "A Plea for the Intemperate." Its object is twofold. First, to inspire the victim of intemperance with hope in his own case; and, secondly, to encourage those who are making efforts to rescue him from ruin. The author's mind seems to have been thoroughly imbued with the beautiful sentiment of the Saviour: "There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance." A glorious truth, and one that had it not been revealed from heaven would never have entered into human conception. Our author's object is to carry out this idea with reference to the victim of intemperance, and while he would not interfere with the conservative efficacy of the common temperance movement, he beholds in it a restoring and renovating power, to the exercise of which he summons the friends of humanity as with a trumpet voice. The foundation of the author's "Plea" is the self-evident, but too often forgotten truth-the drunkard is still a man; and being a man, it is urged, that so long as he is on this side of hell's dark cavern, he may be restored to society; and that to make efforts for such restoration is the dictate alike of Christianity and philanthropy. But who looks upon the reeling and bloated drunkard as upon a fellow being? Has he not been regarded as an outcast? Why has the bubbling fountain of human sympathy, that cheers all other wretchedness, and seeks to make glad all other desolation, been sealed up against the victim of intemperance? Why should it not visit his dwelling? Is there any thing in Christianity to forbid it? Breathes there aught of the spirit of Christ in the cool calculations that are made with reference to the probable duration of the drunkard's stay on earth? Is there philanthropy in the argument, addressed as it frequently is to the sober and the temperate, that if they will sign the pledge, in so many years every inebriate will be in his grave, and the banner of temperance shall wave in universal triumph? There might be, if, as was once believed, he who had passed the boundary line is beyond recovery, away on the other side of the rubicon of hope. But now we know the contrary; and while we may trust that the times of our ignorance God winked at, it becomes Christians especially to take heed lest conscience force from them in an unexpected hour the bitter ejaculation, "We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear." Our brother! Ay, there is power in that word. Call him vile? You speak truly. Degraded? Even so. On a level with the brutes that perish? Nay, not quite. Made in the image of God, our brother still. His soul a deathless spirit like thine own. His body, a temple; magnificent, though in ruins. It is a strange anomaly that in almost every other species of degradation to which man is liable, human sympathy is enlisted just in proportion to the depth of his wretchedness. In other cases it stops not to inquire how the man has become vile; it is enough that he is wretched, and needs relief. The cause may be speculated upon afterward. Says our author, "But when once a man has become publicly known as a drunkard, he is at once exiled from the home of his youth, and the house of his friends. His companions in the associations which made him what he is, and by whom his moderate drinking had been encouraged by example, until he fell by the snare they had laid both for themselves and him, and by which they are still entangled; these all avoid and disown him as a fellow not fit to live.' If they speak of him in his absence, it is as of one lost, utterly beyond recovery, as for ever lost. Or even if among his former friends there be any semblance of commiseration over his unhappy fate, while they express their emotions of pity, or even find it in their hearts to make prayer in his behalf, both the one and the other are accompanied with all unbelief, and despair in his case is universally felt and expressed. A brother's and a sister's love, a father's paternal regard, a mother's compassion, and even a wife's deep fountains of affection are, alas! too often sealed, and toward the hapless wanderer, all, all are without natural affection,' and his name is seldom mentioned but with a feeling allied to execration. "Is he met in the street, or in public places, after he has become known as a drunkard? Even his own familiar friend will pass him without a look of recognition, and possibly not content with thus slighting him, will even outrage his forlorn condition by a visible expression of scorn or derision; and his immediate relatives, if they speak to him at all, do so in terms of rebuke and contempt, perhaps accompanied by upbraiding and reproachful epithets. They look upon him as an outlaw from all the ties of kindred; a living pestilence, for whom there is no hope. Not only is he shut out from all the redeeming influences of the domestic circle, but his company, and even his presence is shunned, nor is any effort made to reclaim or restore him, prompted either by parental, filial, fraternal, or even conjugal love. Thus abandoned by all, and constrained to feel the unutterable anguish of his cruel exile, he becomes given up to self-abandonment, and exclaims, in the desolation of his spirit, 'No one cares for my soul!' The last ray of light and hope is thus, alas! too often extinguished, and the hapless exile, now only the sad remnant of what he was, regarding himself doomed to infamy and execration, soon yields to his destiny, and his immortal spirit is ingulfed in the whirlpool of perdition." To strengthen our author's plea, he contends that the habitual drunkard is a monomaniac: and that drunkenness is a disease just as really as is delirium arising from any other cause. While, therefore, he is unsparing in his condemnation of the moderate drinker, he views the confirmed drunkard as an object of pity rather than of blame. His sin consisted in drinking at first moderately it is his misfortune that he is now a monomaniac. It is not for us to call in question the pathological accuracy of our author in this matter. He is a physician eminent in his profession, and not likely to hazard his reputation by publicly advocating an untenable position. To ourselves, and we doubt not to the generality of readers, this gives to the whole phase of intemperance a |