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

80 Tlze Pl-?'ue of Social liztciiipcranzce.
wise have lived long to enjoy'the bounty of their Creator
and to bless succeeding generations.
These statistics of destruction would be terrible enough
if they stood alone. But they do not. Of the major portion
of those who have died directly fP om the alcoholic plague,
it must be feared that the disease attacked the mind and
soul not less disastrously than the body; that the poison
penetrated where the plague-geIrms never enter; that
mental darkness and weakness-often mental aberration
-were the consequences of the love of strong drink;
that vice and irreligion brought up the dismal rear; and
that when the dishonored body was laid in the dust,
charity could drop no word of blessing, and hope could
shed no light upon the scene. WVho also can estimate
the misery of every kind brought upon the family
dependents and relatives of the millions whom strong
drink has delivered over to ruin? How frequently has
not only pecuniary destitution been their fate, but a legacy of immoral influences and associations, which have
embittered and poisoned the future lives of wives
and children, to whom the domestic relations have
brought only sorrow and shame! It may, then, be forcibly asked, Wihat plagte can be compared to this plague?
and what can be urged in favor of these beverages, on which
depend its existence, its prevalence, and its power of
adding to the ills that man is heir to others of surpassing
intensity and sadness?
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O BJECTIONS.
The observations above offered may elicit two replies:
I. It may be said that " The analogy instiztted fails in a
very i2,hortaizt Aarticzlar, because all who lse alcohozc
liquor do not take the drizk-filagzite; and that, iz fact, those
who fall victims to this jphysical and moral zmalady formt a
very smallprofortion of all who drink."
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