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

Grcatzcss of tie 4A lcoliolic Plague.
death. As, then, the reception of the poison-germs is
essential to the appearance of all forms of plague, so the
reception of the intoxicant virus is essential to the
appearance of all forms of alcoholic intemperance; and
as both are engendered in a similar manner, there is a
certain likeness in the methods of propagation attendant
on both. Contagion and infection are but other names
for agencies by which the poison-germs are transported
from place to place, and become more readily introduced
into the human system; and in the transmission of hereditary predisposition to intemperance, together with
the influence of example, customi, usage, and licensed
traffic, in adding to the consumption of strong drink,
we have physical and social forces by means of which
the material agent of this terrible malady of intemperance is widely diffused, with its pestiferous influence, on
every hand. Other resemblances may be traced, without
any resort to fanciful conjecture. Like the plague, the
intemperate craving is insidious in its approach-imperceptible in its inception-often deceitful in its earlier
manifestations; but, when fully developed, is imperious,
and raging above all common control. If either is curable, it is by the self-same method-the exclusion of the
venomous agency. The pest-stricken man can only escape by throwing off and out of him the germs of destruction; and, failing to do this, an inexorable and terrible death awaits him. With the victim of intemperance
the alternatives are the same; he must either cast forth
the alcohol already imbibed, and preserve himself free
from its further use, or he must remain diseased, and be
consigned to a premature grave. * That abstinence
* iIr. Neison, the eminent actuary, published, in I851, tables showing that
from 20 to 9o the deaths of the intemperate exceed the deaths of the population at large in the proportion of 32 to Iso; but that between the ages of 30
and 40 the proportion is 42 to Io.; and that between 4o and 5o it is 41 to lofourfold!
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