One of the interesting features of this period was the attention devoted to the young. Prior to 1850 cold water armies were organized in all the cities and large towns. The cut on preceding page represents a gathering of 1,400 destitute children at a dinner party in Faneuil Hall, Boston. Such occasions were improved for the inculcation of moral and religious lessons. In 1851 Rev. John Marsh, D.D., in his "Half Century Tribute," said: 1 And what has been gained in other lands, who can enumerate? In the Sandwich Islands, where a nation has been rescued from utter annihilation by drunkenness, and become the most temperate nation on the globe. In Australia, where the chief officers of the Government and the heads of the Church congratulate the public upon the signal reform. In Madras, Ceylon, and Bombay, where the mission churches are imbuing the minds of the heathen with temperance principles, and saving the converted Hindus from the insidious destroyer. In Liberia, a perfect temperance republic, and in South Africa, where this cause has proved the John the Baptist of the Gospel. In Sweden, where the king and queen think it no condemnation to attend temperance meetings, and the cause is viewed as the cause of the nation. In Ireland, poor, drunken, down-trodden Ireland, where more than 500,000 under Father Mathew have signed the pledge, and for the most part religiously kept it. In England, Scotland, and Wales, where all, from the queen on the throne to the vilest outcasts of the gin-shops of London, were once bound to the car of alcohol, the chain is broken, and a million proclaim themselves free. The Chancellor of the Exchequer pays homage to the operations of the cause, and the Cobdens, and the Sturges, and the Heyworths, see that here, for England crushed with pauperism and crime, there yet is hope. And, to return to our own continent, in the British provinces, where the Sons of Temperance have marched through in triumph; in Canada where, under the extraordinary labors of Father Chiniquy, half a million have taken the pledge; and in the West Indies, where flourishing societies exist, producing their legitimate results. Dr. Marsh also estimated that, in the whole world, fifteen millions of people had adopted total abstinence principles, and four times as many more were influenced by them more or less for good. From 1850 to 1855, and possibly to about 1858, was the period of the best average temperance habits in the history of this country for at least the last one hundred and twenty years. Total abstinence was accepted by a large majority of the people, both in theory and practice, and the old drinking usages of the fathers had almost wholly disappeared from social life. To understand what had been done it would be necessary to go back "to the time when drinking was universal; when no table was thought to be properly spread unless it contained a supply of intoxicating drink; when no person would be deemed respectable who did not furnish it to his guests; when no man had the liberty of refusing it on its being offered him; when no laborer could be found who, for any price, would work without strong drink; when no farm, no manufacturing, no mechanical work, could be carried forward unless it was furnished; when no sailor would enlist for a voyage without his spirit rations; and no soldier enter the army without this was secured; when on all parties of pleasure it had a prominent place; when ministers of the Gospel, meeting for association or ordination, were abundantly supplied by their people; when drinkers and rumsellers were unhesitatingly received as members of Christian churches. . . . Such times I knew. I have seen all the changes; but how few are there on the stage who have."1 1 Rev. John Marsh, D.D. CHAPTER VII. IN THE BRITISH ISLES. As a S early as 1802 an able English writer' said, "There re'mains to be conferred upon our nation a benefit of which the author would deserve infinitely more than any legislator, warrior, or inventor, who ever obtained celebrity among us. It is a simple, and, probably would be, an easy undertaking to persons of influence. I mean a plan of social intercourse independent of the bottle. To describe the probable effects of such a system of intercourse among families, gradually substituted for the present, upon temper, health, and morals, would be worthy of the pen of our ablest author of fictitious biography." The same author not only wrote on this subject, but also instituted remarkable experiments, to show that the greatest degree of physical strength was more easily attainable by those who drank only cold water, than by those who used alcoholic drinks either in their strongest or mildest forms. Mr. Basil Montague, the eminent barrister, the editor, and learned commentator on the works of Bacon, wrote an essay, entitled "An Inquiry into the Effects of Fermented Liquors, the second edition of which was published in 1818; but the subject was likely to be so unpopular that, though he put his name to all his other writings, he did not venture openly to acknowledge his authorship of this, but subscribed the anonymous designation, "By a Water-Drinker." Dr. Trotter, physician of the British fleet, also published an able essay on "Drunkenness." Such were some of the first gray streaks of the dawn of the Temperance Reformation in England. The orb of temperance was destined to rise in the West. This was gracefully acknowledged a little later, in 1832, in an address before the British and Foreign Bible Society, by the Bishop of Chester. He said, "America is indeed a grown-up child; but she is such a child as England will not forget. She has returned a benefit which, some twenty-five years ago, she received from England. She then received the noblest institution the world ever saw WHAT THE GIN-SHOP DOES. This is the Woman, with woe-begone face, The wife of the landlord who coins his bright gold Out of the ruin of youthful and old, Who drink the strong liquors he sells night and day the Bible Society. That society America borrowed from England; and now England borrows the Temperance Society from America. The Bible Society has taken deep root and flourished there; so, I trust, the Temperance Society will vegitate and prosper here, so that we may find the benefit we have received from America is not inferior to that she has received from us." Two men, acting separately but simultaneously-Rev. John Edgar, D.D., professor in the Presbyterian College at Belfast, Ireland; and Mr. John Dunlop, a justice of the peace, of Greenock, Scotland-have been fully accredited as the prime movers in the Temperance Reformation in the British Isles. Each had read American temperance publications, and deeply pondered how to originate a similar movement among their own countrymen. The visit of a New England clergyman brought Dr. Edgar to a decision, and on the 14th of August, 1829, he published an address in the "Northern Whig," of Belfast. "He found a warm coadjutor in Rev. G. W. Carr, of New Ross, where, in the same month, the first temperance society in Ireland was formed. A society for the Province of Ulster was instituted soon after, and in July, 1831, the Hibernian Temperance Society was organized in Dublin, with Philip Crampton, Esq., the Solicitor-General for Ireland, president. The other officers comprised both Protestants and Roman Catholics. On the 28th of August, Mr. Dunlop, in Scotland, unacquainted with what Dr. Edgar had done, initiated the Temperance Reform by an address, delivered in Greenock to a small audience, on "The Extent and Remedy of National Intemperance." In October a society was formed in that place, and on the 12th of November the Glasgow and West of Scotland Temperance Society was organized. In this rapidly growing circle of temperance men there soon appeared one destined to become very conspicuous in the work of reform--Mr. William Collins, who, in June, 1830, commenced the publication of the "Monthly Temperance Record." In the latter end of the year 1829, Mr. Henry Forbes, of Bradford, England, visiting Glasgow, became a convert to temperance principles. Supplying himself with temperance liter |