my example is in danger of leading others astray, I must abandon it; for it is good neither to eat flesh, nor drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.' "One word to the female portion of this audience. Let female influence be consecrated to this cause. Let it tell upon a world lying in sin, and bleeding at every pore. Let it be felt in the social circle-let fashion frown upon the use of all intoxicating drinks; and I will engage they will soon come into disuse."

H.

Statistics of intemperance deduced chiefly from the London bills of mortality, and from mortality throughout England and Wales.

"This is a very interesting article in the appendix to the Report of the New British and Foreign Temperance Society. The object of it is, to show that the number of deaths and burials in London, for more than a century have risen and fallen, according to the facilities granted by government for manufacturing, vending, and purchasing spirituous liquors. Whenever the government to satisfy distillers and venders, opened the flood gates and suffered them to pour out the poison upon the community, then, the bills of mortality, invariably arose; and when the evil became too great to be. borne and the government laid on heavy duty, and checked importation and hedged up the traffic, then the mortality was lessened. Thus in the second year of William and Mary, an act was passed avowedly for the purpose of encouraging the home-manufacture of spirituous liquors. Distillers became so expert in their business, and sold their manufactures so cheap, that the poor began to drink it extravagantly to the destruction of health, morals, and life. In the year 1729, the bills of mortality rose to 29,722. That year, the government interposed to check the evil, and imposed a duty of 5s. in addition to all other duties on the gallon of British spirits. The consumption of gin was greatly diminished, and the mortality in 1730, was 26,761. But the duty was so obnoxious to the farmers, that it was removed in 1732, at which time the mortality was 23,358. The nation went again to drinking, and in 1733, the mortality rose to 29,253. Again in 1757, when the mortality of London was 21,313, the distillation of home spirits was suspended for three years, in consequence of a scarcity of grain, and a great diminution of consumption ensued; men could not poison themselves so rapidly as before, and the mortality was, in 1757, 21,313, and in 1758, 17,520. In 1760, distillation was re sumed, and the mortality increased in a year, 1230. From this period, drinking, and death, maintained for many years a nearly uniform relation to each other. In 1792, there was a great increase upon the preceding year, in the consumption both of spirits, and small liquor, and the increase of mortality was 1453. In 1796,

distillation had again to be suspended from the scarcity of grain, and the mortality of London sank 1891. In 1801 was another season of scarcity, and the mortality which had risen to 23,068, sunk to 19,376, or 3,692. In 1803 the duty was advanced, and the consumption, and mortality, sunk together. In 1831 the Beer bill flooded the kingdom with beer; the consequence was, that while the mortality in 1830 was only 21,645, in 1831 it was 25,337. And lest it should be objected, that a large city cannot afford a fair specimen upon an entire country, of its drinking customs, the following table, is given to prove that, not in London only, but throughout England and Wales, an augmented consumption of alcoholic liquors is ever succeeded by an augmented mortality of the people. Not in the order of nature, not by the visitation of God, not by pestilence, nor famine, nor the hardships of poverty, do they perish; but by a plague their own hands have prepared.

"The numbers in the first column, says the compiler of these statistics, will guide the reader to the particulars of each epoch, as we have already described them, in treating of the varying mortality of London. The effects of the Beer bill, in 1831, we are unable to exhibit, there being no returns in existence of the burials, throughout England and Wales, for that year. With this unavoidable exception, we have been so fortunate as to procure the necessary information for illustrating the periods of change since 1801. It will be seen how precisely they accord with the results we have already obtained from the Metropolitan bills. We need only add, in further explanation, that a period of severe distress, in 1809, arising from the high price of grain, increased the mortality throughout the kingdom, but especially in the country districts, and thus the beneficial effects of diminished consumption are less strikingly exhibited, than in the preceding period of 1503-4. "But neither this table, nor those which have preceded it, show

more, be it always remembered, than an increment of deaths, resulting from an increment of consumption. The real amount of deaths produced by intemperance, as we observed before, they do not show. That amount remains wholly unknown, wholly incalculable.

"The subject thus presented, is, certainly, worthy the attention of the philanthropist, the Christian, and the patriot; and the inquiry ought to be pressed home to every man's bosom. Is it not the duty of every government so to legislate as to preserve the lives of its citizens? If they may legislate so as to keep out yellow fever, plague, and other destructive evils, may they not, ought they not, to keep out those alcoholic poisons, which fill graveyards with their deluded victims ?"-Am. Temp. Union.

I.

ANTI-BACCHUS.

This work has just been issued from the press in this city, and we need do no more than call the attention of the Temperance public to it. As we have been for some time engaged in preparing a work on the wines of the ancients, particularly those of Palestine, Greece and Rome, we shall withhold the conclusions at which we have arrived, until its publication. In the meantime, we give the following summary of Mr. Parsons' investigations:

"I have adduced arguments and authorities which most incontestibly prove that the wines of the ancients were very different from ours. I have shown, from the heat of the countries, the highly saccharine quality of the grapes, the boiling and evaporating of the juice, or the diluting of the must, by the addition of five times its amount of water, vinegar, &c., as in Cato's family wine, the care taken to prevent this must from fermenting, by excluding the air, and immersing them in water to lower their temperature, the frequent filtering of the juice or wine, and the placing of the vessels in fumaria and ovens; from the sirupy character of many of their wines, and the custom of diluting them with so large an amount of water; from the popularity of wines destitute of all strength; from the desire of the people to drink large quantities without being intoxicated; from the innumerable varieties of the wines, and the fact that Falernian was the only wine that would burn; from the weakness of wines produced from the natural juice of the grape, and the non-existence of pure alcohol to increase their potency; from the testimony of Aristotle, Polybius, Cato, Varro, Pliny, Columella, Horace, Plutarch, &c.; in a word, from science, philosophy, and history, I have demonstrated that a large proportion of the wines of old, were not produced by vinous fermentation, and those which were inebriating, borrowed, in a majority of cases, their intoxicating power from drugs rather than from alcohol.Anti-Bacchus, Prize Essay, Chap. 5.

J.

THE TRUE USE OF THE VINE.

The following excellent observations on the true use of the Vine, occur in the account given by the Rev. Dr. Duff, of his journey through France, while passing through that country to India, by the way of Alexandria :

"In these countries, mantled with vineyards, one cannot help learning the true intent and use of the vine in the scheme of Providence. In our own land wine has become so exclusively a mere luxury, or what is worse, by a species of manufacture, an intoxicating beverage, that many have wondered how the Bible speaks of wine, in conjunction with corn, and other such staple supports of animal life. Now in passing through the region of vineyards in the east of France, one must at once perceive, that the vine greatly flourishes on slopes and heights, where the soil is too poor and gravelly to maintain either corn for food or pasturage for cattle. But what is the providential design in rendering this soil-favoured by a genial atmosphere-so productive of the vine, if its fruit become solely either an article of luxury or an instrument of vice? "The answer is, that Providence had no such design. Look at the peasant and his meals in vine-bearing districts. Instead of milk, he has a basin of pure unadulterated 'blood of the grape.' In this, its native original state, it is a plain, simple and wholesome liquid; which at every repast becomes to the husbandman what milk is to the shepherd-not a luxury, but a necessary-hot an intoxicating, but a nutritive beverage. Hence, to the vine-dressing peasant of Auxerre, for example, an abundant vintage, as connected with his own immediate sustenance, is as important as an overflowing dairy to the pastoral peasant of Ayrshire. And hence, by such a view of the subject, are the language and the sense of the Scripture vindicated from the very appearance of favouring what is merely luxurious or positively noxious, when it so constantly magnifies a well replenished wine-press, in a rocky mountainous country, like that of Palestine, as one of the richest bounties of a generous Providence."

K.

DRINKING USAGES IN GREAT BRITAIN.

The London Christian Observer for Nov. 1839, in a notice of Mr. Dunlop's excellent work on this subject, thus remarks:"We are astonished, we might say horrified, in reading this volume. We were not ignorant that drunkenness is an awful sin and fearful curse; that more of the crime, and pauperism, and misery exhibited in our streets, and police-offices, and theatres,

and prisons, and workhouses, arises from intoxicating potions, than from nine tenths of all other sources put together; that the habitual use of ardent spirits, even when not carried to the excess of gross inebriation-to which however it too fatally and frequently leads-is still, under its milder forms, except when strictly requisite as a medicine, ruinous to the health and the morals, the body and the mind-nay, when requisite for one disorder, often causing worse diseases than it cures; nor had we any doubt as to the duty and necessity of attempting to stay this plague; or any hesitation as to the sound and Scriptural principle, or practical utility, of temperance societies; but ignorant we certainly were of the extent to which drinking usages are carried in the extensive ramifications of British Society. It is indeed upon the surface of things, that births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths; dinners political and municipal; canvassings and elections; contracts and performances, beginnings and finishings, are too often celebrated with a jolly full bottle;'-and no man is unaware of these practices; but we had not imagined the extent of compulsory, customary, or expected usages, in almost every trade, and among artisans and all persons concerned in manual labour; usages, for the most part, peculiar to Great Britain and Ireland. It is humiliating to think that this country, with all its religion and philanthropy; all its institutions of science, literature, piety, and morality; is more entangled, more hemmed in, with the meshes of drinking usages than any nation in the world; so that powerful temptations are placed in the way of a person in the rank of an operative or tradesman in going through the usual stages of his career, to acquire a taste for potent, especially spirituous liquors. And hence arises an obstacle in the path of Temperance Societies which has not been duly considered. In other lands, those who drink these liquid poisons, for the most part, do so to gratify their own depraved appetite; they might abstain, if they pleased, from drinking, or encouraging others to drink, without giving offence, or exciting attention. Not so in England. A gentleman cannot, according to usage, dine at a coffee-house or hotel, without ordering wine, for the good of the house,' even though he may dislike it, or refrain from it as considering it injurious. A workman does not consider himself handsomely used in a gentleman's house, if he has not money given to him to purchase intoxicating liquor, during, or at the conclusion of his job. But among the trades, drinking usages are reduced to a regular system; and all persons connected with them must pay in their turn, whether they drink or not. Mr. Dunlop, in addition to the convivial laws in use at visits, marriages, courtships, births, baptisms, deaths, funerals, bargain and sale, holidays, and other occasions of business and domestic life, has described the peculiar festal customs of ninetyeight trades and occupations in the three kingdoms; including their footings, fines, entries, pay-night practices, allowance pots, way-geese, remuneration pints, mugging bribes, drink penalties, and other usages, occurring statedly on numerous occasions; the whole detailing two hundred and ninety-seven different usages. The labour, perseverance, and expense of the author, in collecting