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

i56 Tllc Szitpflrssl'oz of f4'e Liq,tor 7affc.
beyond question, cannot help the intemperance which
curses them, nor can they deliver themselves from the
miseries which overwhelm them. The question is, Shall
they be sacrificed because the drink traffic must be
sustained?
SOCIAL SELF-INTEREST enters its protest against the
continuance of a system which is at war with every true
interest of the state. It is the interest of society that
sobriety shall prevail; that there shall be little or no
vice, crime, pauperism, lunacy, and avoidable disease;
that there shall be domestic comfort and general education; that trade and commerce shall be encouraged by
the demand for good food, clothing, furniture, and books
by every family; that the rates and taxes and the demands on private charity should be reduced to the minimZzmz consistent with the contingencies of life; and
against the whole and every part of this enlightened interest the liquor traffic wages incessant war. All these
objects, for the promotion of which society is supposed
to use its collective wisdom and power, are largely frustrated wherever the sale of strong drink is licensedand yet the license is intended to guard society against
the evils which are hatched beneath its wing! It may be
affirmed with certainty that the moment society awakens
to a just conception of what it loses by the traffic in
alcoholic liquors, that traffic is doomed. May the
awakening speedily come to pass!
ENLIGHTENED PATRIOTISM cannot be blind to the truth
that a nation, vitiated, weakened, and burdened by the
liquor traffic, must have its vitality lessened, its glory
obscured, and its prosperity imperilled. If there is one
sign of the times more unerring than another, it is thisthat the tendency of science, peace, and commercial intercourse, in bringing nations more closely together, is
also exposing each to a severe competition, and will more
and more test the capacity of all to retain that relative