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TEMPERANCE.

LEGAL AND MORAL SUASION.

No intelligent prohibitionist, really desiring to help rid the world of intemperance, could ever think of discontinuing the moral influences in the good work. Every intelligent and sincere prohibitionist knows that the strength of the movement in favor of sobriety lies in its application of the principles of morality for the help of the victims of intemper

ance.

The total abstinence pledge; the enforcement of the Christian truth that the body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, and should be kept in subjection to the law of the spirit; the power of personal example and persuasion; the heavenly ministries of forgiveness, and patience, and charity; the mighty agencies of prayer; the combination of Christian men and women working with tireless enthusiasm, and pleading with all the fervor of Christian love; these methods, blessed of heaven, and commended by all Christian philanthropists, have never been forgotten. And they are all employed to-day with more patient wisdom and earnest faith than ever before in the history of the beneficent temperance reform. Never before has wiser, ampler efforts been made, through influences of moral suasion, to save drunkards and shield communities from the blasting curse that the Word of God and all human experience denounce as a mortal enemy of the hu

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comprehensive and earnest work to save drunkards, to reach the young, and to relieve drunkard's families, are persuaded that moral suasion must not be given up, but must be supplemented by legal suasion.

Among those who sign and keep and circulate the total abstinence pledge, who plead with drunkards, who warn the young, and exhort moderate drinkers to give up their sensual and selfish habit for their own good and the welfare of their associates, the most numerous, persistent and zealous workers are prohibition

In any community where one advocate of moderate drinking, free rum, or license, may be found really working through moral influence to redeem drunkards, to relieve drunkards' families, and to educate public sentiment to favor the temperance reform, are at least ten well known total abstainers who are prohibitionists, toiling in season and out of season to destroy intemperance by the power of moral suasion.

A CUP OF COFFEE IN THE MORNING.

Wife! is husband called away your by his business at an early hour, long before breakfast perhaps? In the cool, shivery time before the sun is well up, must he cross a ferry, or wait for a street-car, or get through some allotted task? There are scores of men who accomplish a half-day's work before most of us are out of our beds. Post-office clerks, carriers of the mail, milkmen, newspaper men-how early they are up and astir! The rum-seller is up early too. He has a fire, and a light, and his poisonous drinks all ready. And

his "Will you walk into my parlor?" in the spider's most flattering tones, catches many a poor fly.

Many a man begins to drink because he is cold. He thinks it will warm him, and keep out the chilling wind that assails so fiercely when the stomache is empty. True wife! be before the temptation with your cup of coffee! It is the easiest thing in the world to make. Have you a little gas stove, or simply a coffee-pot over your gas-burner: put a spoonful of ground coffee to a cup of water; let it come to the boil; drop in a little cold water to clear it, and the thing is done. Your husband could make it while he was dressing. I know one poor fellow, rapidly becoming a wreck, who might have been saved two years ago from the first drink of whiskey, had he had the morning cup of coffee. If he is ever saved now, it will be so as by fire.

An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. Thanks be to God, he has given many a man the victory over an enslaving appetite! But who shall rub off the scars of the fight? Help those who are exposed to temptation, by fortifying them. physically. Kind words, and a cup of coffee in the morning, may strengthen some weak brother.

ALCOHOL AT ITS BEST.

That alcohol, used as a beverage, however lightly, is injurious to health, is ably proved by Dr. Richardson in a paper contributed to Appleton's Popular Science Monthly. By observation and experiments, we learn that a healthy teetotaler averages 106,000 heart-beats in twenty-four hours, taking eight days together; commencing the ninth day, by giving one fluid ounce of alcohol, the beats increased 340. On the tenth day, two ounces gave an increase of 1872 beats; the eleventh day, four

ounces produced an addition of 12,960 beats; and so on up to the fourteenth day, when eight ounces increased the beats 25,488, being twenty-three per cent. in excess of a healthy pulsation. The daily action of the heart without stimulus equaled the force required to lift 122 tons one foot from the ground. The last day of the experiment, with eight ounces of alcohol, the heart-force was equal to 146 tons, an excess of 42 tons.

Now, as the human body, like all other bodies, can only endure a certain amount of wear and tear before it gives out, it follows that-all other things being equal-even the moderate drinker cannot last so long as the teetotaler. There is a literal significance to the term "fast man," who lives fast and dies early. The strain on the whole animal system by the enormous increase of its central activity is terribly injurious. The flush upon the face of the drinker is but a faint indication of the unnatural heat that inflames the internal organs, ev even when pure alcoholic liquors are used. How much more dangerous, then, are the additional poisons which modern science has so freely and largely introduced into the liquor manufactory! Pure liquors are scarce, and at the best are bad. Impure liquors are more and more plentiful. The only safety from both is total abstinence.

LAWS IN SWEDEN RELATING TO INEBRIETY.

Journal of Inebriety: Where it can be proven that the husband is an inebriate, a dissolution of marriage. will be granted the wife. If the husband is convicted of drunkenness more than twice, the wife can obtain a divorce at once by applying to the king. If the clergyman or guardian shall find either husband or wife to be inebriates, and manifestly unable

to take care of themselves, he may apply to the courts, who will order a separation for one year, and longer if necessary. The penalty of visiting each other during this time will be imprisonment from one to six months. Should the inebriety continue, the king may decree a permanent divorce. If either man or woman contracts marriage in a state of intoxication, or promise to marry, the contract is void. No transaction entered into while in a state of intoxication, or in a condition of mind in which he could not fully realize its nature and consequences, can be sustained at law. But, with a curious inconsistency, he is held fully responsible for any crimes he may commit in that state. The same penalties are to be meted out as if conscious and sane, in addition to those incurred for inebriety. Should any one become intoxicated in a public house, and the landlord allow him to go out on the street, the landlord is liable to a fine for damages which the drunken man may flict. It is the duty of the saloonkeeper and landlord to take care of and protect all persons who become intoxicated on their premises. No person can be received in a lunatic asylum in a state of intoxication. Three private asylums have been opened for inebriates; the local judges can send persons to these places rather than to the house of correction. A strong sentiment in favor of inebriate asylums has been growing among the medical men and law makers. But, unfortunately, the temperance party is against it.

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THE FIRST GLASS OF WINE-A YOUNG WOMAN'S VOW.

We quote the following touching incident from the New York Sun: "Sergeant, will you permit me to see what drunken women you have arrested to-night?" as a neatly dressed,

stout, intelligent-looking young girl of Sergeant Meakin, of the Mulberry street police. The request, although contrary to police rules, was granted, and the young woman went down into the cells. Coming back in a few minutes, she showed the names of two prisoners whom she said she would assist in their trouble.

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Sergeant, as you seem astonished at my visit," said Anne Kennedy, "I will tell you its purpose. Three weeks ago I took the first glass of wine I ever took in my life, at a friend's house. While going home, I felt its effects, and came to this station, and told you of my mishap, and you allowed me to sit in your back room. While there I saw miserable women dragged in. Since then I have gone night after night to the different stations in this city, in the hope of being able to reclaim or assist poor women. You will find my name in your own blotter. I have determined to devote my life to assisting to reform poor women."

The was not a dry eye in the police station as Anne Kennedy, bowing to her hearers, quietly went out.

A HINT TO MINISTERS. An esteemed friend, in conversing with a leading member of a prominent church on the temperance question, asked that gentleman what he thought of total abstinence, and whether he had signed the pledge. His reply was: "I consider it an excellent plan; but have no intention of signing the pledge as long as the doctor (meaning his minister) does not think it necessary."

So it goes. The drunkards are waiting to follow the example of the religious, and they are waiting to follow their ministers.

AN hour lost in the morning cannot be found through all the day's search.

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There is no sweeter word in the

English language that home. It is associated with the infant's prattle, the playthings of boyhood and girlhood, the social pleasures of riper years, and, it may be, the joyous scenes of marriage ceremonies, and also the solemn hours of departing friends with their loved and loving farewells. Home should be made the most attractive place on earth. The influence exerted there should be the earliest, surest, best preparation for "our Father's house" above. The love of it should have a restraining power over all who pass away from it, and should last until they pass through the portals of the tomb. It lived in the heart of the prodigal in "the far country," made him resolve to go home, gave energy to his emaciated body, until he felt the warm kisses of his father's forgiving love, and sat down at the festival prepared for him in his father's hall.

There is a very affecting story told

of the influence which that song, whose refrain is the well-known words,

"Home! home! Sweet, sweet home!

There's no place like home!" had upon our English troops who had braved the battle and the breeze. "When the returning regiments, the wreck and remnant of the great Crimean struggle, marched in triumph through the streets of London, stepping to the martial strains of England's grand anthem, 'God save the Queen,' as the first rank wheeled beneath the gates of the Horse Guards, the great headquarters of the army. the anthem died away, and slowly, sweetly, softly, and with an electric power that thrilled through every heart, and called unbidden tears, the strains of this dear tune, Home, sweet, sweet home.'

These were men who had faced death for months and years unmoved, and many of the quicker sensibilities had been blunted by familiarity with

scenes of violence and blood; but there slumbered underneath, pure, strong, and fervent, the love of home; and as those old loved notes fell on their ears, there, amid such familiar scenes and sympathetic faces, they were no longer war-worn veterans, proudly returning from hard-earned fields, but little children at the cottage door the dear, far-off, long-left home! They broke forth into convulsive weeping. They fell on each other's necks. Their hearts were bursting with the fulness of the joy that could only find expression in abundant tears.'

We want the homes of all so sweet, beautiful, happy and attractive, that they will be the safe-guards of our freedom, the nurseries of everything that is pure and good, and the ea nests of the Perfect Home beyond.

THE WEDDING-WINE UF CANA. All the facts we have are recorded John 2: 1-11. The distinguishing fact is, that Christ turned the water into wine. The Greek word is oinos; and it is claimed that therefore the wine was alcoholic and intoxicating. But as oinos is a generic word, and as such includes all kinds of wine and all stages of the juice of the grape, it is begging the whole question to assert that it was intoxicating. As the narrative is silent on this point, the character of the wine can only be determined by the attendant circumstances-by the occasion, the material used, the person making the wine and the moral influence of the miracle.

The occasion was a wedding convocation. The material was water, the same element which the clouds pour down, which the vine draws up from the earth by its roots, and, in its passage to the clusters, changes into juice. The operator was Jesus Christ, who was doing the work of

his Father, and who said: "If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not."

The moral influence of the miracle will be determined by the character of the wine. It is pertinent to ask, Is it not derogatory to the character of Christ and the teachings of the Bible to suppose that he exerted his miraculous power to produce, according to Alvord, 126, and according to Smith, at least 60 gallons of intoxicating wine? Such wine inspiration had denounced as "a mocker," as "biting like a serpent," and "stinging like an adder," as "the poison of dragons,' ""the cruel venom of asps,"

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and which the Holy Ghost had selected as the emblem of the wrath of God Almighty. Is it probable that he gave that to the guests after they had used the wine provided by the host, and which is claimed to be intoxicating?

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But wherein was the miracle? We read in Matt. 15: 34, that Christ fed four thousand persons, and in Mark 6: 38 that he fed five thousand persons in each case upon a few loaves and fishes, taking up seven and twelve baskets of fragments. these cases, Christ did instantly what, by the laws of nature which he had ordained, it would have taken months to grow and ripen into wheat. the case of the wine, Christ, by supernatural and superhuman rapidity, produced that marvelous conversion of the water into the pure "blood of the grape," which, by his own established law of nature, takes place annually through a series of months, as the vine draws up the water from the earth and transmutes it into the pure and unfermented juice found in the rich, ripe clusters on the vine.

We have the highest authority that alcohol is not found in any living thing, and is not a process of life. Sir Humphry Davy says of alcohol,

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