The bases of the temperance reform: an exposition and appeal./ With replies to numerous objections. By Rev. Dawson Burns.

I I4 Scriptzire aizd the/ [ratc ace i n Oesiion.
slavery; it would be worse than useless to allege that
therefore modern Christianity ought not to have condemned it. Christianity does not change, but its seminal
principles branch forth and bear richer fruit as time goes
on. The acorn is not an oakl, but the oak springs from
the acorn. The apostles, while their positive religious
teaching was "with the HJoly Ghost and with power,"
exhorted the whole body of Church members to cherish
those spiritual gifts which would more and more open up
fields of knowledge and pastures of truth, and ways of
righteousness, in which their Divine Leader would guide
them, "for his name's sake." WVe have yet to enquire
what the apostles did teach respecting intoxicating
drinks; but it is universally admitted that they warned
men against the dangers of their use, and condemned
intemperance in all its forms. The evil, as they apirehenzlfedif, they denounced-how much of the evil this was we
shall proceed to consider; but, acting in the spirit, and
walking in the track of the sacred writers, we are not
only authorized, but constrained to condemn whatever we
may discern, by means of our increased experience and
scientific researches, to be also evil. Unless the apostles
are supposed to have had an infallible and universal
knowledge of all truth upon all questions-and we know
that this knowledge they did not possess, even as to all
questions of religion (for example, the period of the
Lord's second coming and the final judgment), we may
claim, without presumption, to possess upon many questions of physical science, social economy, and political
jurisprudence a knowledge greater than theirs, and
therefore the right and duty of applying to these subjects
those principles of Christian judgment which it was their
glory to proclaim. In so doing iwe do not disparage their
work; on the contrary, we render it the loftier homage
when we apply to the circumstances of our times the
unchangeable canons of Christian righteousness. We
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