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

Objection from Alleged Failure A nswered. 67
rare and abnormal where substances, generally poisonous, are innocuous and even useful to any. In all main
points men are made alike, or they would not all be men;
and the man has yet to be born on whose constitution
alcohol can be shown to act as a food, or as assisting,
instead of retarding, the vital functions of the physical
system. It is true that many who have tried the abstinence plan have abandoned it, but from the ranks of
these seceders great deductions must be made. First,
there are those whose trial has been plainly inadeqztate-a
few days or weeks only. A mere change of habit might
be expected to cause temporary inconvenience; much
more when the change has been from the use to the disuse of an article characteristically exciting to the nervous system. Secondly, there are those who, having become really ill, have been easiy persuaded by their friends
that thiz'r abstinence'was the cause, but who have often been
ill before and since without ascribing their ailments to
strong drink. Thirdly, there are those who, having become abstainers from benevolent motives, but without
any knowledge of the action of strong drink on the body,
have anagnz5fedMhe "sacrifices" macde, and have looked upon
themselves as martyrs in the cause of humanity. That
the imagination has an astonishing effect on the bodily
state is known to all physiologists, who will agree that
an expectation of ill-health is expressly adapted to predispose to it, and even to provoke it. Instances are
known where persons who have abstained, and have suffered in health from the fancy of having resigned a physical good, have regained their spirits and health when
they had become convinced that intoxicating liquors possessed no power of benefiting the users. Fourthly, there
are those who, having been consumers, daily or more frequently, of bitter beers and ales, have accustomzed their
stomachs to the billtter ingredient it these ziiuors, and it is not
improbable but that in their case sudden abstinence from