moderation, all died of drunkenness, and more radical methods were found necessary. Ignoring the experience of the past, this new society made its public début in Chickering Hall, New York city, on the evening of the 11th of March, 1879. The attendance was large, and the president is said to have been a grocer who deals in liquors for family purposes. Addresses were delivered by Rev. Howard Crosby, D.D., LL.D., a very influential minister of the Presbyterian Church, and Chancellor of the New York University, Octavius B. Frothingham, Peter Cooper, and others. The speakers all disclaimed any purpose to antagonize the total abstinence movement, and the secretary, who stated the objects of the society at length, presented a series of pledges, only one of which called for total abstinence. The "partial" pledges restricted light wines or beer, limited abstinence to business hours, and obligated against treating, etc. Dr. Crosby expressed his preference for the "blue" pledge, which abolished "treating." Mr. Frothingham, while frankly stating that he was not a total abstainer, said that even the very moderate use of light wines, to which he had always been accustomed, had been detrimental rather than otherwise; and that if he were himself a young man again, he should be a total abstainer. The secretary and Dr. Crosby spoke freely of the failure of total abstinence in restraining the grosser drinking habits of society, and also of the failure of prohibition. But it was admitted that the pledge not to drink during business hours ignores the welfare of the family, into whose presence the drinker may come unrestrained.

The New York "Sun" effectively commented upon this weak point in the society's plan :

One of the songs prepared for the use of the Business Men's Society for the Encouragement of Moderation has the following sentiments :

"Then let us adhere to the standard,

Remember our promise each day;

No drink till our business is over,

And then--we have nothing to say."

Taking the above stanza as a complete sentiment, there would be no incongruity in a man staggering into the presence of his family at any hour of the evening, saying:

"Then let ush ad(hic) here to our shtanard,

Re(hic)member our promish all day;
No drinksh till our bishness is over,

And zhen-we have (whoop!) nozzing to shay!"

DR. CROSBY AND THE RELIGIOUS PRESS.

As the advocate of these views, Dr. Crosby went to Boston early in 1880, and delivered a lecture in Tremont Temple, which called out very free comments every-where. As indicating the type of public sentiment on this subject, and its extent in high literary and religious circles, we quote extensively from the "National Temperance Advocate" the opinions of the press. The subject of the lecture was "A Calm View of Temperance."

The sanitary editor of the New York "Independent," Dr. Ezra M. Hunt, said:

The remarkable temperance lecture of Rev. Dr. Crosby, at Boston, has an admixture of grand truths and pernicious errors.

The Boston "Congregationalist " said:

Chancellor Crosby's recent Monday lecture upon the temperance question may be called, on the whole, a plea for moderate drinking as opposed to total abstinence. . . . Try this thing apart from yourself, and in your thought of your own son or daughter, and see if you would not feel the most of security as to their future, if you knew they would not use any of these drinks at all. If that be true, it covers the whole case, and it makes it wise and right for you, too, never to use them yourself.

"Zion's Herald," in a long and able editorial, said:

The lecture was misnamed. It was not a "calm view" of the subject. The lecturer, indeed, was perfectly self-possessed, as he always is; his language, except in a few instances, was not violent, and never vituperative; but he was not calm. His opinions were presented as dogmatically and positively and earnestly as the English language admits of its being done. He was evidently very much aroused. One of his severest indictments against the advocates of total abstinence was the bitterness and