This is no exaggerated account of the effects of ardent spirits upon the human frame,-and how melancholy are their effects upon the mind. This too from excessive, and for a time it may be pleasurable excitement, loses much of that which adorns and ennobles it. Depression of its best powers-gloomy discontent-impatience under common trials -open violence-insanity, or self-murder under life's heavier ills-these are among their effects upon the moral and intellectual powers. They produce these by the injury they do the brain and the nerves-and by the indulgence of morbid thinking to which they surely lead.

Now what is the proof of all this? The establishment of a principle is its truth; belief in it rests on evidence. The proof is at hand. It is the diminished power, manifested by those who habitually use ardent spirits, to resist, or overcome disease, and especially to pass with safety through those surgical operations, and those accidents to which the circumstances in which all are placed, not unfrequently give rise or make necessary. A detail of facts to support this asserted proof, would be here wholly out of place. They are facts, established facts, and settle a principle kindred to and not less important than the one first named, viz. that the use of ardent spirits is not only wholly useless on the score of increasing health and strength, but most injurious, most pernicious both to health and strength. What is of special interest in this connection is the well known fact, that this deleterious agency is exerted by ardent spirits over the animal economy, even when they are not used to the extent of intoxication. The moderate daily use of them is as surely, though it may be more slowly, deleterious; and there are constitutions, and these are not uncommon, in which even a very moderate use will lay the sure foundation for future suffering and disease. A slight injury in such a frame will frequently be followed by destructive inflammation, and an ordinarily mild disease, place life itself in jeopardy.

The temperance reform then, has adopted and acted upon these principles as fundamental, and with the convictions that its friends have of the whole truth of these principles, they would have failed in a most important duty had they not openly and freely declared them.

The principles just noticed are derived from the human physical constitution, and from the known effects of alcohol upon this constitution. Similar and equally important prin

ciples are presented by the moral constitution, and by the known effects produced in its manifestations on the character and conduct, by the use of alcohol. The reform has had little difficulty to convince men that intemperance is fatal to the best exercise of the moral powers, that it hurts, debases these powers, and in its extremest degrees goes nigh to destroy the moral faculty itself. It has ever derived highly important principles of action from these acknowledged facts. These have already come before us, when treating of the nature of the reform. It was there shown how naturally the principle of total abstinence became a part of the system, and how in many cases the doctrine and the practice of the pledge has been eminently useful. These principles have been adopted from a consideration of the claims of the individual to the regard of the reform. It has been to reclaim the intemperate, and to prevent intemperance, because to the individual this vice was so immense an evil.

PROSPECTS OF THE TEMPERANCE REFORM.

This is a subject of great interest. Progress almost of necessity, belongs to some matters of human pursuit, and if in such, progress be not continuously made, this does not necessarily involve a retrograde movement. The pursuit of natural science in all its departments is a striking instance of the truth of our remark. The natural philosopher, is an observer of facts which always remain the same. If he make an experiment the same result may always be looked for with entire certainty provided the circumstances be in all respects the same. Now he can control these circumstances, arrange all the previous details exactly as he has done before. Hence his entire certainty as to the whole result. Suppose now his interest in the pursuit ceases, or that he can no longer command the means for a further prosecution of his inquiries; what he has learnt belongs to the science he has cultivated. It can never be lost to it. A certain point has been gained, and though this may be the limit of knowledge in this particular direction, the knowledge to this point, this limit is settled and permanent. What more commonly happens in such a case is, that the individual prosecutes his labor, progress is constantly making, and he leaves his toil only when age, infirmity, or death, terminates his individual agency in prosecuting discovery. He has made the

whole scientific world the depositary of his discoveries, and even while he was most engaged about them, kindred minds have entered into his labors, and have thus pledged themselves to him, and to science, that they will carry them on to complete perfection.

Such is the nature of human inquiry in a most interesting direction. I suppose that in this very case much of the interest is found in the belief of scientific men in the certainty of the laws of nature, that these are fixed, are invariable, and that their knowledge of them is knowledge in the highest sense of the word.

How is it now with discoveries in morals? What assurance has the moralist who attempts a great change in manners or customs, that what he has done will be carried onward-that progress belongs to good, and that when he leaves his great work, there will be those ready who have imbibed his spirit, who will take up his mantle, and pursue his steps? Is the good he has done in any important sense permanent? and if effort in regard to it should cease, will what has been done remain, or will not the tendencies of things be to return to their former state? These questions are grave ones in their present connection. They must be seriously. considered, when the leading one is. proposed, What are the prospects of the temperance reform?" And this is the question upon which we now enter.

We may begin our answer to this question by recurring to what has already been done. The past in an important sense belongs to the future. How direct are its connections with the present. What in short is this present, this moment of being, but the result, the sum, whether great or small, good or evil, of all that has been. Not of what has been to us, but to all beings, and all things in all the long past. The temperance reformer, finds in the present condition of this, reform, the sum of all the labor, and all the sacrifice which have been employed in this great cause. He looks at a result of momentous interest, and sees in every direction in which he looks for the causes of all this good, the traces, the deep traces of an intellectual and moral energy, which is without equal when it is considered how vast have been the numbers by whom it has been manifested. As in natural science, he sees that a single purpose has governed every movement, and that to gain and diffuse such light as would promote that single purpose has been the great object with

all. He is perpetually called upon for admiration at the success with which this labor has been crowned. It seems hardly credible that so much has been done, when the nature of the evil to be removed, and the simplicity of the means, are placed side by side. The past thus comes to us full of promise, and encourages every friend of the reform to go on with his labors, and holds out a prospect full of brightness and hope.

But with all this encouragement, our retrospects furnish some highly useful lessons in regard to the future. The reform at first, as we have seen, moved slowly. At length it acquired a prodigious momentum, and now it is full of zeal, of wise and commanding energy. It keeps its way amidst a thousand private troubles, and public depressions. The public press every where has taken its part, and thousands of publications are almost daily coming forth in aid of its progress. Eloquent men have brought their peculiar gift into its service-have penetrated into the depths, the sources of human feeling and human action-have awakened the conscience and left impressions too deep to be effaced by time, or lost when that which made them is withdrawn.

Now under the operation of these and many kindred causes, a great deal has been done. This amount of good has been produced too in a short time. This is an important fact in its bearings on our present subject. How shall this good be continued and added to?-to what shall this cause look for its future support, and uninterrupted progress? It must look for both these to that great principle with which we begun, the remedial moral power which has been provided for moral evil. This principle cannot be destroyed, and while it is made, or as far as it becomes a spring of action, that action must be permanent. It is this which lies at the foundation of all the lasting institutions of society. It is this which declares to us the evil of ignorance; and education, or its means, as a remedy, is the natural growth, if I may so say, of its declarations. We feel so sure of the evil here, of ignorance, have so deep an interest in its removal, that we estimate the means by which to remove it, as above price, and cheerfully contribute all of money and of talent within our circumstances. So it is with the temperance reform. It must be universally regarded as it has already become, one of the permanent necessary institutions of society, and so is allied after the closest manner with every other social and domestic

means, for the religious, the moral, and the intellectual progress of man. Its interests have been hitherto in some sense felt to be committed to a few-to individuals forming societies for the express purpose of publishing its doctrines, and showing by example its happy effects. It has been by this direct agency of societies, that the reform has made progress, and it must from the nature of things continue for a longer or shorter time to go on in a similar way. Its complete success, its permanent operation, however, must be looked for in the universality of the sentiment, that the personal interest of the individual, and of every individual in this cause, is the paramount concern among men. It must be felt that every man who practises entire abstinence, whether from a fixed principle, or merely from or for example sake, as truly belongs to this cause as if he were formally enrolled among its friends. As this becomes more and more the case, and how rapid is its progress, excitement in regard to the cause will be less. The timid, or the narrow thinker, may find in this, cause for alarm-he may see, in the quiet of a wide spread sobriety, a decay of principle. But his apprehension will be groundless. The only cause to which we should look as adequate to the destruction of much of the good which has been done, or what is equivalent to this, the checking the progress of the reform, is forgetfulness, or neglect of the great truths on which it so surely depends. Until this takes place, the cause has all the permanency, and certainty of progress, that belongs to physical science. For what truths are more emphatically such than moral truths? Of these we have the sure testimony of our whole moral and intellectual nature. We do not appeal to the senses to confirm them— their proof is ultimate and complete, the stern and solemn convictions of our own minds.

With so much to encourage its friends, the prospects of reform are to be, after all, gathered from the use of the principles which have so much engaged us. They will operate always; but the extent of the operation may be limited, and the progress retarded, by any and all misuse or misapplication of the means. Men are not to be forced into right conduct, either by their fears or their interests. ness must be short-lived, and very feebly operative, which comes of such means. It is not by general or municipal regulations that we are to call men from evil habits. We must go deeper than conduct; we must go deeply into that

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