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

80o erdict of ScicItcc (?,d Clristianity
temperance movement has acted, in a word, as the main
check and drag on that development of drinking and the
drink traffic which, but for its interposition, would have
been terribly rapid and enormous. But to charge z' with
"failure" is one of the absurdities which it is difficult to
believe are credited by those who coin them and add them
to the current f(>illy of the world. If it has failed to suppress the whole evil, it has done so because it has failed
to be sufficiently supported, especially by those whose
rank and influence would have given them the greatest
power over social custom and the course of legislation.
Yet how can the temperance system be blamed because
such men failed to give it their valuable and necessary
help? Is truth a failure because many are liars? or
goodness, because many are base? or Christianity, because only a third of mankind are its nominal professors?
or sobriety, because drunkenness is still extensive?
Are sanitary laws failures because a fourth of those who
die annually in our country are sacrificed by the neglect
and violation of those laws? God demands human cooperation, in order to the full effect of his providential
blessing; and where any evil is traceable-like this of
intemperance-to man's own active wrong-doing, to
expect its cessation until man ceases to do wrong is
infatuation indeed. To go further than even this, and to
ascribe the failure of relief to the system which urges
man to forbear his wrong-doing, is to travesty every
principle of common sense and commnon justice. Those
who bring this charge will be fortunate if they can acquit
themselves of contributing to the failure they discover,
by withholding their own aid from the temperance reformation. Principles do not promulgate themselves, and
movements are made up of co-operating minds; and those
who censure either the one or the other for "failing" to
do all that is needful. while they have been doing nothing
to help or much to hinder, adopt the most conspicuous