In the meantime the action of intoxicants even as medicines was being questioned. Dr. Higginbotham of Nottingham had never prescribed such since 1832, and challenged disproof of his increased success in curing patients; Dr. Simon Nicholls, of Longford, by stopping alcoholic prescription during the cholera epidemic, claimed to have reduced the mortality among his patients from ninetyfour to thirty-three per cent.; others gave like testimony, while Dr. Mudge, of Bodmin, had published a dictionary of non-alcoholic treatment. Others also protested that the past "bleeding" and "purging" eras were no more irrational than the later "alcoholic" era; and this was emphasised when, in 1871, a document was signed by 269 members of the medical staffs of the London Hospitals urging that alcoholics should be prescribed with the same care as any other drug, and not be indiscriminately obtained or continually taken.

The fact, too, that by the needless prescription of intoxicants reclaimed drunkards were sometimes drawn to fatal intemperance, helped to lead the Rev. Dawson Burns and G. Wilson McCree to suggest further steps, and in 1872, at the rooms of the "National Temperance League," a Conference projected hospital where all diseases and operations should be treated without intoxicants. Accordingly, on October 6th, 1873, the

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not only officers, but paupers-sick, aged, and working "-have often had "drink allowance," the average annual cost varying for indoor paupers, from 4s. 7d. per head in Carnarvon, to £4 6s. 5d. per head in Radnor; while outdoor paupers varied from 4d. per head in Cardigan, to £1 135. per head in Berks. Scotland and Ireland, during the last decade have similarly varied,one Irish Union spending 3s. 4d. per inmate, and another spending in the same year £15s. 10d. per inmate; and one Scotch Union spent is. 2d. per inmate, while another spent £2 8s. 7d. per inmate. Some years ago, Mr. Luke Ralph, Master of the Wrexham Workhouse, polled the inmates on the matter of their drink allowance, and a majority voted for its discontinuance. Subsequent years showed a reduced per centage of sickness and death there, and the scheduled results were widely published. Since then many other unions have stopped or lessened the drink allowance that of Marylebone saving £300 a year by doing so -and in no case has diminished health been alleged to result; except at West Derby Workhouse, and that allegation has been dispelled by a Government inquiry. The workhouse doctors generally have wide latitude in these matters.

"London Temperance Hospital" was opened in temporary premises in Gower Street; and by 1880, it had received 860 in-patients, of whom 472 had been cured, and 350 relieved, while only 38 died-a very low death-rate for a hospital. The out-patients numbered over 7,000. About one-third of each class were not previously abstainers. Such success led to their projecting a new hospital in Hampstead Road, part of which was opened by the Lord Mayor on 4th March, 1881, costing over £20,000, which sum was already subscribed. The senior physician is Dr. James Edmunds, the triple gold medallist. The hospital has during its nine years' existence never spent a penny in alcoholic intoxicants. During the same period the twelve principal metropolitan hospitals have apparently spent in wine, spirits, and malt liquors, over £50,000, their exact expenditure on such in the year 1878 being £6,766 145. 2d. ; the amount of alcohol prescribed varying from 8 oz. per patient in one hospital to 33 oz. in another.

Our prisoners have thrived under constant compulsory abstinence; but in our Unions

Following the establishment of the Temperance Hospital in 1873, came the promotion of the British Medical Temperance Society, which was formed in 1876, it being originated by its Hon. Sec., Dr. J. J. Ridge, of Enfield. It has enrolled hundreds of the abstaining medical practitioners. A quarterly Medical Temperance Journal strengthens the organization, which now has as its President the eminent scientist Dr. B. W. Richardson, whose Cantor Lectures on "Alcohol" have gained a world-wide circulation, as has his "Temperance Lesson Book," now adopted by many School Boards. It was before this that he had declared that the practice of temperance would increase the national vitality one-third; and the subsequent testimony of Sir William Gull, before the House of Lords' Committee, that "Alcohol is a most deleterious poison,' injuring "even in so-called moderate quanti ties;" the concurrence of Sir Henry Thompson, that men are generally better without alcoholic drinks," even beer; and the later confession of the Premier's physician, Dr. Andrew Clark, that true health "cannot be benefited by alcohol in any degree,"-have

raised the abstainers up to the seventh heaven; and helped to lead the Times in 1882 to tell its readers that the doctors, though much too prudent to connect themselves to a losing cause, have declared for temperance; and that if a patient is out of sorts they no longer advise a little more drink, but tell him to abstain altogether from intoxicants.

THE DENOMINATIONAL MOVEMENT,
1873-80.

The Bible Christian Conference had endorsed total abstinence in the infancy of the cause, and all its 312 ministers, aud most of its students, teachers, and scholars, are regarded as abstainers. The Primitive Methodist Connection was founded by an abstainer, the Rev. Hugh Bourne, and has always endorsed abstinence. The ministers of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists have commonly been abstainers; while the great majority of the entire Society of Friends ("Quakers") are probably teetotalers.

An "unofficial" Church of England Total Abstinence organization, formed in 1862, had registered over seven hundred of the clergy as abstainers, Canon Ellison always being a leading spirit.

Not till 1873, however, did the general Denominational Movement begin. In that year, under the authority of Convocation, the present "Church of England Temperance Society" was formed, with the Archbishops as Presidents, and, later, Her Majesty as Patron. Its basis is dual : the parish pastor is ex officio president of the parochial society, which can adopt a "moderation" or "teetotal" basis, or both. It has enrolled three hundred thousand members in nine years; several bishops, many canons, and some thousands of the clergy being abstaining members. Its Irish branch has fifty thousand members. Its annual income is £9,000; and it issues weekly an able, illustrated, Temperance Chronicle. No doubt this organization made it possible for thirteen thousand five hundred (about two-thirds of the whole) of the clergy in 1876 to memorialize the bishops in favour of that principle of "Local Option" (in repressing the liquor traffic) which has latterly been so generally endorsed. Three years after the Church of England, the Church of Scotland also reorganized its Temperance Society on a dual basis. Its statistics are not out.

The "Total Abstinence League of the Cross," headed by Cardinal Manning, dates from 1872, when Father Nugent began his Temperance work at Liverpool; but its first National assembly was at the Crystal Palace in 1874; and in 1881 it counted about one hundred and eighty thousand members. The Congregational Union Total Abstinence Society" was endorsed in 1874. Its president

is the octogenarian, Sir Edward Baines, an abstainer of forty-five years. There are over two thousand Congregational ministers, and of these 1,168 are known abstainers, as are nearly all its ministerial students. The year 1874 also saw the projection of the “Baptist Total Abstinence Association." About six hundred of the Baptist ministers, and eighty per cent. of the college students, are now known to be abstainers.

In 1875 the old Sacramental Wine question began to take an organized form in Ireland; and in 1876 in Scotland, and later in England, by the formation of societies to promote the use of unfermented wine at the Lord's Supper. Prior to 1841, the Primitive Methodist Conference had thus used unfermented wine; while in that year the Wesleyan Conference, among other things, prohibited such use of unfermented wine in the ordinance; these prohibitions resulting in a secession. In 1872 the American Wesleyan Conference enjoined the use of unfermented wine; and five years later the English Methodist Conference declared it could only sanction the fruit of the vine, and recommended the "light," but yet alcoholic "Tent" wine, while not prohibiting the unfermented element. It is curious that in the same year the Virginia Conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church prohibited the use of any but the unfermented juice of the grape. One firm at Kensington, which has long made pure unfermented grape wine for this purpose, now imports foreign wines similarly preserved unfermented, and supplies one thousand eight hundred places of worship with it, including some of every denomination.

The Wesleyan Reform Union, which largely consists of abstainers, and uses unfermented sacramental wine, got so far in 1876 as to urge personal abstinence upon all, and to advise voters to support only such candidates for Parliament as would vote for the people having power to suppress the drink traffic.

The Wesleyan Methodist Conference inaugurated its Temperance movement in 1877, but many of its adherents were previously temperance workers; and the Methodist Temperance Magazine had circulated since 1869, its leading editor being the Rev. Charles Garrett, a zealous abstainer for forty years, and who was recently elected President of the Conference. The Temperance Societies organized on the Conference basis are managed by an equal number of abstainers and moderate drinkers. Wesleyan abstainers cannot have generally enrolled in these societies, which only report 10,000 members, while the Conference Bands of Hope, on a strictly abstinent basis, soon reported two hundred thousand members in two thousand societies.

In 1878, the United Methodist Free Church

Conference projected a "Temperance League," which was inaugurated on a total abstinence basis, in 1880, the Rev. John Thornley being subsequently engaged by the Conference as its organizing secretary. Of the 341 home ministers, 300 are abstainers, and 250 belong to the League.

The Methodist New Connection had long recognised Bands of Hope; but its present "Temperance and Band of Hope Union was formed in 1879, and its juvenile adherents now number about twenty-five thousand. Of its 186 ministers, 120 are abstainers, as are all its college students.

The Primitive Methodists in 1879 projected a Connexional Temperance League; and also organized, in connexion with their Sunday-Schools, Bands of Hope, which comprise over 60,000 members. The great majority of their ministers and students are abstainers.

The New Church (Swedenborgians) projected a Temperance Society in 1880; as have other smaller denominations, during the last few years.

AUXILARY MOVEMENTS; AND SPECIAL WORK IN 1881-2.

The last decade fitly preceded the Temperance Jubilee Year by enlisting so many of the medical men and the ministers of the land in the ranks of the movement; and it also witnessed or heralded many other important, though sectional, organizations. For instance, the "British Women's Temperance Association," with Mrs. Lucas (sister of the Right Hon. John Bright) as its president, has its two hundred branches among the gentler sex; and other female societies do similar work. The new "Young Abstainers' Union" is enrolling children of the middle class, and educating and interesting them by monthly letters, garden parties, etc. A "National Total Abstinence Society" has been formed for the deaf and dumb; and another for "Travellers "--showmen, etc.— attending fairs. The police of Hull, Birmingham, London, etc., have total abstinence societies, as have metropolitan postmen and cabmen. Scotland now boasts an "Highland Temperance League," and a " Scotch Railway Temperance Society." The army, though producing £100,000 in a few years as fines for drunkenness, is being encouraged to be sober, its Good Templar Lodges, at home and abroad, flourishing under military sanction; the "Soldiers' Total Abstinence Society" in India, under the Rev. Gelson Gregson, having official support, and numbering ten thousand members; while Sir Garnet Wolseley is almost emulating the rigidly abstinent Sir Henry Havelock, in denouncing drink as the soldier's worst foe, and total abstinence as his best friend. Miss Robinson's tem

perance "Soldiers' Institute" at Portsmouth, and Miss Weston's "Sailor's Home" at Devonport, are two of the monuments of progress; the "National Temperance League's" two hundred branches in the navy are encouraged, and the latest legislation lessens the facilities for insobriety which the service formerly afforded to its jack tars, while the abstinent seamen are now specially served with temperance fare instead of the old allowance of grog. Of late all these efforts have been stimulated by the Gospel Temperance or "Ribbon" movement, started in London by William Noble, and carried through the kingdom with unprecedented success by the American advocates, Messrs. R. T. Booth and Francis Murphy; while the abstinence teaching of the Salvation Army" has done much to reclaim those in the lowest strata of society.

CONCLUSION.

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Our readers will judge whether that was a reasonable saying of the writer in the Westminster Review, that temperance is as old as history, and yet as modern as yesterday.

We have seen that the practice of abstinence from intoxicating drinks was as old as humanity; contemporaneous with the civilization of the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, and Hindoos; was practised by the Rechabites, the Nabathæans, the Essenes, the wise Magi of the East, the warlike Suevi of the West, the soldiers of Carthage, and by the Macrobian warriors of Ethiopia; was identified with the best days of the Medes and Persians, and associated with the empires of Greece and Rome; while a history of Intemperance could show the share strong drink had in the downfall of successive nations.

The Israelites were taught to abstain by divine command in such special cases as the Priesthood, and the honoured Nazarites ; the practice was associated with the strength of Sampson, the wisdom of Solomon, the comeliness of Daniel, and with the sacred mission of the forerunner of Christ, John the Baptist; while in early Christian ages it was adopted by some of the saints and martyrs.

In the middle ages, total abstinence held a place in at least some communities; and in later times could count among its adherents the poet Milton, the philanthropist Howard, the patriot Franklin, the philosopher Locke, and many other men of fame. John Bright's eloquence was first aired at a temperance meeting, and for nearly half a century he has neither drank intoxicants nor allowed them in his house. John Cassell, when a journeyman carpenter, signed the pledge after an address by Dr. Grindrod, and then went through the country ringing a bell

and speaking for temperance; and afterward, still practising abstinence, founded and reared the great publishing house to which his name is still attached. The inimitable caricaturist, George Cruikshank, who would whistle and dance at eighty-four years of age, was an abstainer from an early period. And Sir Wilfrid Lawson's "gay wisdom" is that of a strict abstainer.

Among eminent abstaining divines are the Bishop (Temple) of Exeter (with several other Bishops), Canons Farrar, Fleming, Ellison, Barker, and Wilberforce; Cardinal Manning; and such leaders in Nonconformity as the Revs. C. H. Spurgeon, C. Garrett, and Newman Hall.

The physical excellence of abstainers is testified to in the persons of such examples as David Livingstone, the great Christian traveller; Elihu Burritt, the blacksmith-consul; Grace, the eminent cricketer ; Angus Cameron, twice the winner of the Queen's prize at Wimbledon; Hanlan, the oarsman; and Weston, the pedestrian.

Many temperance pioneers of half a century ago still live to rejoice in the jubilee of their work. Instance Richard Allen, of Dublin; Erskine Mayne, of Belfast; John Davey, of Dunfermline; Dr. Richmond, of Paisley; Dr. Grindrod, of Manchester; John King and Joseph Livesey, of Preston.

These may be regarded as representative of the great army of abstainers, of whom fully a million adults, and a million and a half of children, are registered members of the various societies; while probably an equal number of both adult and juvenile abstainers are unattached; giving an aggregate of 5,000,000, or about one in eight of the population of the United Kingdom!

In America (where the movement has progressed even more rapidly than at home),

the Beecher family were from the first identi fied with it; and the roll of illustrious abstainers of that country includes Presidents Lincoln and Hayes, and Lloyd Garrison, the founder of the Anti-Slavery movement.

On the Continent of Europe, the propor tion of abstainers is small, but, through the influence of International Temperance Congresses, and especially in Scandinavia of Good Templary, steady advances are being made. Probably the great majority of the peoples of Asia, Africa, and South America are practically abstainers, though some intoxicating compounds are to be found in most countries.

Among most Christian nations the abstainers are in the minority; but it is perhaps not unreasonable for them to claim that, the world over, a majority of the people practise their principles.

When, on July 5th, 1882, the Total Abstinence Jubilee was celebrated by 50,000 people at the Crystal Palace, a critic seized the occasion to suggest that "the net result, after half a century's propagandism of total abstinence, seems to be that there are more publichouses, that more people get drunk, and that more money is spent in drink." The fact is, that the last few years have witnessed a material decrease in the consumption of, and expenditure of money on, drink; and that, in spite of depression in general trade and less wage earning, the people have annually deposited millions of money in savings banks more than before. But the critic had already answered himself, when in the same article he wrote: "It is always open to the total abstainers to reply that if things are no better now than they were in 1832, they would have been infinitely worse if there had been no temperance propaganda.”

J. M