nearly all those people, and wrung out of them their last farthing. The poor-law commissioners in 1833 stated that all the rick-burning was the work of the frequenters of beer-shops. How many midnight murders have poachers and mugglers committed, running all risks for money and drink! Mr. Wontner, the gaoler of Newgate, reports that 99 out of 100 prisoners committed crime in drink. "If it were not for this drinking," said judge Patteson to the Norwich grand jury, "you and I should have nothing to do." In Scotland, and in several places in England, women have been convicted of poisoning their husbands and children, to get the insurance from burial clubs to indulge in the love of drink. Truly, the love of drink is the root of all evil; and man will run all lengths of wickedness to obtain it. Property, character, health, liberty, life, salvation-all are sold for it. And let no man who sells it say, "The buyer is free to do as he pleases." He who knowingly helps his neighbour to destroy his own life is guilty of his death.

3. The sins of the tongue are exceedingly multiplied by strong drink. Who can reckon the eursing against God and man, the number of oaths and blasphemies, which drink vomits forth from men's lips every moment? Surely, since "by thy words thou shalt be condemned," drink ripens men for perdition. Even sober men find the tongue an unruly evil; but strong drink is raging, quarrelsome, and filthy. A publican's wife told me she sometimes was forced to lock up her own children in a room to keep them from hearing the talk of the tap-room. And yet respectable Christian parents hire their daughters to serve in such places: but, if drunkards are unfit for the kingdom of God, they are unfit company for the children of God; and serious people should in mercy bear their testimony, and have no fellowship, and take no wages through having fellowship, with the works of darkness (Prov. xx. 1, xxiii. 19; Ps. Ixix. 12).

4. The sin of fornication is exceedingly multiplied by strong drink. The word of God declares this, and all experience confirms the declaration (Prov.xxiii. 81-83). Every Sunday, in London and in all our great towns, youth of both sexes and of all ages are drawn together to public teagardens and saloons, where, under the deadly excitement or stupefying influence of drink, they abandon themselves to all sorts of licence, and are ruined for ever. A girl, only eleven years of age, was persuaded to drink a glass of brandy in such a place she woke up from the stupor it produced to find herself a wretched, ruined child. And who can think without tears on the end of multitudes of miserable young women in this land sho began to fall when they began to drink? Once capable of becoming the useful friends and belpers of their now sorrowing parents, they are cast on the streets, the victims of drink, defiled and degraded, nightly exposed to cold and insult: with a too late remorse they sink by disease, die before they are thirty, and are entered on the bills of mortality unknown and unlamented. While the drinking system lasts it will be a snare to the young. Disciples of the Redeemer, friends of mankind, dash down the cup of intoxication, and declare that a practice which turns men into

seducers, and women into wantons, shall never be sanctioned by you (Joel iii. 3).

5. The interests of religion are most commonly hindered by strong drink. God, in his law, forbade the use of strong drink by his ministers (Lev. x. 8-11). And, in the prophets, they are rebuked for indulging in it (Isa. xxviii. 7, 8; lvi. 10-12). Noah, who by faith escaped a flood, fell by strong drink. Who can estimate how many thousands are kept every sabbath-day by drink from the house of God? 40,000 men are reported to be engaged in malting barley for brewers every Lord's-day. The Rochdale Temperance Society inquired lately into the habits of sabbath-school children, and visited the singing saloons on a Saturday evening. In one of these sixteen boys and girls were found smoking and drinking, and fourteen of them members of Sunday -school bibleclasses. There they sat, listening to filthy songs and swallowing liquid fire. Many a promising teacher has fallen a victim to drink: one of these, in a letter, observes, "O, sir, if Sunday-school advocates could only see a small part of the large amount of their labours which is utterly lost by means of strong drink! I feel satisfied the same love that constrains them to teach the scholar would induce them to abandon for ever that article which wastes so much of their labour." In every country, where the use of strong drink has become general, ungodliness abounds. Our devoted missionaries have no difficulty to deal with among the heathen so great as the corrupting example of English drunkards before the heathen's eyes. Prince Lee Boo, on seeing a sailor drunk, thought he was poisoned, and refused to touch liquor afterwards. judgment-day alone will show how many precious souls, for all of which Jesus died, have been lost by drink. How many a faithful pastor's hopes have been blighted, and how many once promising members of churches cast away, by this one deadly foe of God and man! Truly "it is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak" (Rom. xvi. 21).

The

6. Disease and death are multiplied greatly by the abuse of strong drink. It is enough to mention this. The lives of a people are the riches of the sovereign. But, year by year, thousands of families are robbed of fathers, brothers, husbands, friends, by this means. Look round this neighbourhood; visit the grave-yards, and read it on the tombs. The "social glass" has made more havoc among the sons of men than ever did the stroke of pestilence or the sword of war. Dr. Farre gave in to the house of commons a certificate signed by above 400 medical men, which stated that the habit of using ardent spirits produces many diseases, makes disorders worse, and renders them incurable; that persons given to drink sink rapidly under inflammations: their constitutions are broken by it, and they cannot take the necessary medicines. I met the surgeon of a hospital in London in May last. He said, "Would you had been with me to-day to see a poor fellow's body, whom we opened to know what he died of! His liver was turned, by beer, into a substance like white leather. Men come to us complaining of being in misery all over. We cannot save them. By drink their stomachs are destroyed.

They sink rapidly, and die, often in the prime of life." What numbers are killed in drunken broils! how many burnt, drowned, cut off drunken; children overlaid; hearts broken; fevers, and all fatal diseases, brought on or helped on by drink (Isa, xxviii. 1-3), And where is the drunkard's place beyond the grave (Gal. v. 21)? Mr. Neison, actuary of a leading life-office, has proved the fatal effects of drinking habits, by showing that more people die who drink than die by any general causes; that people who drink die as three to one of those who die by other causes. Suppose a young man of 20 drink, he will probably live about 15 years; but such of the same age as do not drink are likely to live 44 years longer; and, as a man grows older drinking, he dies sooner than men of the same age who are sober. Life-offices will not insure an habitual drunkard at a sound man's price: they know that he is drinking his life out daily. Mr. Neison has found that, short as the life of the beer-drinker becomes, when his habit is confirmed, the spiritdrinker's is shorter still; and such as drink both beer and spirits are shorter-lived than the rest. Now, observe, here is a habit which not only shortens life, but time for repentance; and, while it shortens life, hardens feeling. The young man who first falls drunk feels ashamed, and fears consequences; but, by long habit, his heart gets hard and his feelings dead; he forgets the terrors of eternity; he loses the power to weep, to tremble, or to stop. His company sinks with his morals: his pleasures become low, his delights cruel; taverns, races, cards, dice, raffles, bull-dogs, or fighting, war and violence, are his all. And in this state he dies, not only in sin, but heartily choosing and loving it. Dead to God, the drunkard perishes; fo revive "where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.' "" And that mar might have been healthy, useful, happy, holy in his life, blessed in his death, and crowned with eternal glory. Sobriety could not have saved him; but strong drink has destroyed him: it made him, while he lived, the agent, and, when he died, the heir of sin and hell for ever.

Then it is not enough that on the grave of the drunkard should the warning be written," His end is destruction"; but we must inscribe it over the entrance of his course, in letters as large as those which invite the unwary into the walls of the drink-seller, "Drink is the way of death."

Consider well these things, my pledged and unpledged brethren. Here is ground for deep humbling, that any one of us has served the cause of so much waste, crime, filthiness, blasphemy, strife, suffering, and death. Here is much place for self-condemnation for the moderate drinker. True, indeed, his temperate use of drink is at one end of the habit, and a drunkard at the other; but, in a chain, the first and last link make one length; and, if you lift the last, you shake the first. If the drunkard is shut out from heaven, let the tippler beware: if the tippler is warned, let the taster take heed.

But the end of this address is to promote the repentance of the reformed; to assist, now that by the pledge he is so far set right with men, in leading him by genuine penitence in the right way with God. If, then, you, my brother, would repent yourself thoroughly, you must view your

sin as the Lord views it; and that is, from first to last, in particulars and in generals, in beginnings and in endings; in its ways, in its companions, and in its consequences. See this in Ezekiel xviii. 10-13 : the Lord takes a catalogue of offences, Ps. 1. 17-21; the Lord makes a note of a man's ways and speeches. You must reckon them over also, and see your sin as it is; ruinous to yourself and every body else, to soul and body, for time and eternity, and at variance with all that is good, lovely, and happy. And, as such, you must mourn over it, and confess, and thoroughly abhor and for ever abandon it.

And the proof that this repentance is genuinethe proof to yourself will be that you have a vebement desire to stop the sin, to pull sinners out of the fire of intemperance, and to roll them back out of this pit of misery and death. It will set your heart to work; it will engage all your powers to watch and pray, and to persuade and entreat men to abstain and come out, and join our society.

You will set yourself to abate the occasions of this sin. You will bear your testimony against the drinking customs of the world. You will discourage, by word and by example, the payment of wages, the making of bargains, the meetings of clubs, the connexion of trade with public-houses. Especially will you bear decided witness against drinking customs at births, baptisms, marriages, and funerals, at religious seasons, and on religious occasions. By drink at funerals, the house of mourning is turned into the house of feasting-a heathenish profanation. From such things keep thyself pure. And the Lord accept your prayers, sanctify your sorrow, give you a heart of flesh, make your repentance sincere. Then may he lead you to Jesus, seal to your contrite heart the free pardon of the past through his blood, and fill you with holy peace and joy in believing, for Christ's sake. Amen.

The Cabinet.

all Christian and afflicted persons (saith the prophet) follow mine example, and put all your hope and from evil, and bless us with all goodness. Pour out trust in the mercy of God; who only can save us therefore before him all your cares and heaviness, and look assuredly for help from him; for doubtless the help of man is nothing worth. For, "if man and vanity were both weighed in a pair of balance, vanity itself would be weightier than man. so light a thing as man is, help in the time of trou ble?" And, as a man is but vanity, or else rather more vain than vanity, so be all worldly riches that afflicted man, as man is unable to help himself. man possesseth, and as little or less able to help an

THE PSALMIST'S TRUST IN GOD.-Wherefore,

Bishop Hooper.

How then can

HUGHES, 12, Ave-Maria Lane, St. Paul's; and to be London: Published for the Proprietors, by JOHN procured, by order, of all Booksellers in Town and Country.

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This plant appears to have been commonly used as a pot-herb by the Greeks: it is not, however, pleasantly aromatic.

SKETCHES.

BY THE REV. DENNIS KELLY, M.A.,

Minister of Trinity Church, Gough-square, Fleet

street.

No. XLIX.

EXCITEMENT.

"The man whose virtues are more felt than seen
Must drop, indeed, the hope of public praise."
COWPER.

Ir I were asked to name a word most characteristic of the state of the general mind at the present day-so far, at least, as the outward and professing Christian church is concerned-that word would be "excitement." It is an age of religious excitement. This age is distinguished by examples of the extraordinary power of combined effort, by the immensity of the objects of Christian enterprise; whether we look to the great plans set on foot for evangelizing the heathen abroad, or for diffusing the light of divine truth at home, for the education of the rising generation, for mitigating the various evils and sufferings which afflict our kind. And by the consequent great demand for Christian aid and co-operation it looks as if the great discovery of the age was the immense power of associative influence. Every great object is now sought to be accomplished by bringing numbers together, and by endeavouring to elicit public sympathy and co-operation. And, without doubt, there is much to commend in this. And they who originated the idea of this great engine of usefulness have reason to congratulate themselves on the success of the experiment, or rather to bless the Almighty for the manifest blessing which he vouchsafed on it.

Few things can be more interesting to the philanthropist than to trace the history of this combined Christian influence and action as exhibited in the rise and progress of those periodical meetings, the object of which is the glory of God and the spiritual and temporal welfare of mankind (and which are, without doubt, one of the brightest distinctions of the present age), commencing with the time when a few men of God, men of prayer and faith and zeal and active benevolence, made the first experiment in a meeting of some half-dozen individuals held in a small

cence, upon a scale which may surprise us when we recollect how comparatively few of the most wealthy, of the possessors of the largest fortunes in the country, are contributors. We may justly conclude that the scheme itself of helping forward the cause of God by means of public assemblies and public speaking, and com bined Christian effort, is owned and blessed of the Almighty. Indeed, its almost universal adoption seems to afford the most convincing proof of this.

But, alas! in this fallen world every good thing is liable to be perverted and abused. Man, through his infirmity and perversity, spoils every thing he puts his hand to. And I fear that even this great mean of usefulness, this engine for eliciting public sympathy and effect on behalf of the cause of God, has had its abuse. It seems to have been overdone. This method of appeal has been carried to a faulty extreme. It seems to have originated a morbid appetite for publicity and excitement. Nothing can be done in the way of maintaining any good object except it be brought before the public eye. The magnitude and inpulse of every object seems to be measured and tested by its publicity, by the share of public attention which it draws. The great step in every good undertaking is to bring it before the public, to make a demonstration, a parade of names, to seek notoriety, to make a great party. The grand desideratum is the public meeting, the exciting speech, the frequent thunders of applause. It seems as if nothing could be done for the cause of godliness or humanity except it be done before the general eye. Now, this state of feeling may be carried to a hurtful extreme. It may lead many to confound excitement with Christian zeal. It is not, I think, a state of feeling very favou

is no eloquence which he has heard in any other assembly

* The writer speaks advisedly when he states this. There

heard delivered in Exeter-hall. A popular author has spoken which can stand comparison with some speeches that he has of the "bray" of Exeter-hall. The writer will not imitate the extreme want of candour evinced in the sarcasm by depreciating the talents of him that uttered it-confessedly great; but he has no hesitation in affirming that the highest efforts that individual has made either in literary composition or in eloquence (though it admits of question whether an essay, however elaborate, repeated memoriter is entitled to the name of eloquence at all; for it is obviously deficient in that which the greatest master of human eloquence declared to be the "essence and quintessence" of eloquencethat term'; for how small a part of eloquence are the mere "action"; action in the comprehensive and classic sense of words!)-the writer hesitates not to affirm that the greatest triumphs that individual has achieved are no more to be com pared with speeches which he (the writer) has heard delivered in Exeter-hall (he would specify one in particular made by Dr. M'Neile in the year 1838 or '9, he thinks), than, to borrow of the long-eared animal spoken of is to be compared to the an illustration from the classic pen of that author, "the bray" music of the nightingale.

the

able to the growth of real, solid, personal piety. Christians may be too much and too constantly in eye of one another and of the public. But real piety, I suspect, for the most part, grows best in the shade-best in retirement. Privacy, quiet, meditation, are necessary to that selfexamination, that "deep searching of heart," which always goes along with it. Why is it that we hear so comparatively seldom now of those deep convictions of soul, those penitential breathings and tremblings, which were so common under the religious revivals which marked the last age? Alas! it would appear as if the heads of men were so busied that they had scarcely time for "heartwork"; that they were called so much "abroad" that they have not time to look at home." It is not in this way the root of religion strikes deepest into the soul. Look to those men who have been the most eminent examples of personal godliness, of fervent piety, and you shall find that it was in retirement, in separation from the world, in self-communion, in trials, in afflictions, their piety most rapidly grew. Yes, the soul awakened, convinced, thoroughly in earnest, will be fond of communion with God, fond of closet prayer, and of the calm of domestic retirement. There it was that the piety of the men whose names are most honoured in the annals of our church attained to such an advanced growth. Nay, more: it was when outward circumstances were apparently most discouraging, most unfavourable; when they had opposition of all kinds to encounter, and every sort of disadvantage, that their religion, despite of this opposition, and owing to this opposition, struck a more vigorous root into their souls. This kind of practical godliness, this personal piety, is the great thing we now want. There is no lack of knowledge, no lack of zeal: it is an age of abundant light and knowledge and zeal and Christian effort; but the augmentation of deep, fervent, humble, personal piety is what we chiefly want. Alas! it is not in the atmosphere of public excitement we see "the life of God in the soul" best advance and prosper. Therefore I cannot but look with some degree of suspicion and apprehension upon this eagerness for public notoriety which we perceive in some quarters, this love of publicity, this mustering and marshalling and organizing, this parade of numbers, these clubs and committees, all this bustle of business, all this diplomacy and management, these tactics, these secretaryships, honorary and paid, home and foreign financial corresponding men, these manifestoes, these letters, these circulars, lists of statistics, and these lengthened correspondences; all the "moral machinery" (to use an Addisonian phrase), the object of all of which is what? Really, I cannot well say. Can it be only to foster real hearfelt piety? Alas! could we conceive of a contrast wider than another, it would be that which exists between the spirit which marked those humble, pious, sober-minded men of God who originated the notion and formed the plan of these public meetings, and the spirit which marks multitudes who are now brought

The writer would not be understood as conveying any insinuation against those great religious societies, the object and necessity for which, and the benefit of which, and the excellent working of which, are as plain as the sun at noon

day.

together to proclaim to the world what a powerful body is being formed, what a new mighty moral influence is growing up, and what a more than pentecostal conversion of souls is taking place amongst a class on whom, owing to their peculiar circumstances, we are compelled to look with most of godly jealousy and fear and suspense. We may rest assured that the scene of public excitement is not the arena which piety seeks as its congenial one. It is not the arena where self-knowledge is best acquired, where humility and penitence are best fostered. It is not before a crowd the burden of sins is most deeply felt. It is not before a crowd the heart is most faithfully searched, and all its defilement, pollution, confessed, lamented, abhorred. It is not the head half-bewildered, "dazed" with exciting eloquence, or the nerves agitated with the noise and applause of public meetings, or with the intellectual gladiatorship of the committee-room, that is most favourable to calm, serious, fervent devotion.

Let others admire the display of numbers, of efforts, of zeal, of energy, of subscriptions (and I do not despise them); but give me in preference the piety which is most fervent in the calm of solitude, which loves sweet communion with God, which requires not to go to public meetings to catch a flame, but which glows most ardently (like the purity of the men of olden time) in secret communion with the "Father of spirits." Give me the piety which requires not to be kept up by associating with numbers, and by the eloquence of the public hall, but which best flourishes in scenes and in circumstances which would at first appear least favourable to its growth; amidst the duties of every-day life, in society of the worldly and ungodly, and even scoffers, in which they are obliged by calls of duty to mingle. Give me the piety which can make a man happy in whatever lot Providence has assigned to him; make him joyful in the same, under a sense of his pardon and adoption; make his mind a kingdom to him in every situation; make him a humble-minded, willing, cheerful servant. But I am somewhat sceptical about that sort of piety which is best known by its making men eager for notoriety and publicity. I feel assured that one of the first results and evidences of the influence of Christian principle upon the heart is to make a man content with his lot in life, to cause him to bound his wishes and desires and hopes by the same; to make him content to be just what he is, and just as he is. The most beautiful characteristic attribute of religion is humility. It retires from the crowd; it dislikes popular excitement; and sure I am that, if it is found in scenes where it exists, it is not from love to them, but from an imperative sense of duty, as being a legitimate arena where the servants of the Almighty and the friends of religion may, and no doubt ought, to meet together occasionally to support and to advance the cause of religion, and to strengthen one another's hands.