ized to a certain degree, so many hours daily, is moderation, then the quantity must be increased from time to time. Every consumer of the drug feels this tendency to increase the quantity. Here and there one detects it at an early stage of his career, and lays down rules for his own guidance, and by self-mastery adheres to them. The vast majority yield. It is characteristic of all drugging habits that they naturally grow. Of bread, and beef, and water, a man may consume no more this year than he did last year, and yet his wants are as well supplied. Of alcohol, opium, and cerebral stimulants generally, Dr. Woods remarks: "Their influence is diminished by habit more rapidly than that of any other class of medicines. It is necessary gradually to increase their dose in order to obtain from them the same impression." Let the smoker or the chewer, who has progressed in the ordinary way for ten years, suddenly return to the quantity which he found abundantly sufficient for him at the end of the first year of the ten, and he will acknowledge that the remark quoted above is applicable to tobacco as well as alcohol and opium. How the habit increases is obvious. Suppose a man is accustomed to smoke one cigar every evening; in ordinary circumstances he finds it sufficient to quiet his nerves and lull mind and body to dreamy repose. But let him be peculiarly troubled or irritated, and one cigar is not enough to produce the degree of narcotization which he desires, and to which he is accustomed, and another must be lighted. Sometimes the example of others who are farther advanced in the habit, and whose society he enjoys, encourages him to proceed. And worst of all, as the victim of alcohol or opium loves the effects of his stimulus and increases the quantity that he may plunge more deeply into his unreal joys, so the consumer of tobacco loves his more gentle intoxication, and is tempted to seek a fuller tide of enjoyment. Where, then, shall the line of moderation be drawn? But suppose this difficult task performed, where shall the seeker of narcotic joys find the wisdom and the strength never to pass the line? Shall he depend on his own native decision of character and self-control? Alas! daily observation, if not experience, renders the prospect in that direction not very full of promise. Venturing upon perilous ground for the sake of needless self-indulgence, will he pray to the Strong for strength? Who would dare approach the throne of heavenly grace with so doubtful a prayer? Who would kneel and say, "Lead us not into temptation," and then deliberately rush into it with his eyes wide open?

Our whole supposition is a fallacy. No line can be drawn to separate rational Christian indulgence in tobacco from irrational un

scriptural excess. Of the use of the drug as a medicine, by those who need it, we say nothing; but employed to secure narcotic enjoyment, we confess that tobacco seems to us too dangerous a thing, and the purposes for which it is employed too nearly allied to those for which alcohol is used, for it to escape arraignment on moral and religious grounds. But whatever may be our opinions in regard to the practicability of fixing a limit both theoretically and in practice, all will admit that excess is by no means uncommon, and that many are thereby injured. The ill effects are most visible when boys of only ordinary strength of constitution become excessive smokers and chewers. They soon become languid, inert, inefficient, indisposed to physical exercise, as well as hard mental labor, and consequently less successful as students, and less useful as clerks and apprentices, than they would otherwise be. And all who use the drug freely are liable to be injured.

Johnston makes the following quotation from Dr. Prout, whom he styles an excellent chemist, and a physician of extensive medical experience, whom all his scientific cotemporaries held in much

esteem:

"Tobacco disorders the assimilating functions in general, but particularly, as I believe, the assimilation of the saccharine principle. Some poisonous principle, probably of an acid nature, is generated in certain individuals by its abuse, as is evident from their cachectic looks, and from the dark and often greenish yellow tint of the blood. The severe and peculiar dyspeptic symptoms sometimes produced by inveterate snufftaking are well known, and I have more than once seen such cases terminate fatally with malignant disease of the stomach and liver. Great smokers, also, especially those who employ short pipes and cigars, are said to be liable to cancerous affections of the lips. But it happens with tobacco, as with deleterious articles of diet, the strong and healthy suffer comparatively little, while the weak and predisposed to disease fall victims to its poisonous operation. Surely, if the dictates of reason were allowed to prevail, an article so injurious to the health and so offensive in all its modes of enjoyment would speedily be banished."

But we will not multiply authorities to prove facts which few will venture to deny, nor will we repeat the common arguments against tobacco habits founded on their cost in time and money, and their offensiveness to those not addicted to the same. These things, and more, are left for the consideration of those who, after reading this article, shall feel, as many may, that the subject ought to be more fully examined before they finally settle the question in regard to what is lawful and best in their own case. To this investigation we leave them, not only hoping that they will reach the right result in theory, but wishing them great success in conforming their lives to their logic.

In the early days of the Wesleyan societies the Methodist trum

pet blew no uncertain sound in regard to tobacco. The preacher in charge of a circuit was directed as soon as there are four men or women believers in any place" to "put them into a band," and "see that every band leader have the rules of the bands." The directions given the band societies December 25, 1744, contain the following: "You are supposed to have the faith that overcometh the world. To you, therefore, it is not grievous:

"I. Carefully to abstain from doing evil; in particular

"1. Neither to buy nor sell anything at all on the Lord's day. 2. To taste no spirituous liquor, no dram of any kind, unless prescribed by a physician."

"7. To use no needless self-indulgence, such as taking snuff or tobacco, unless prescribed by a physician."

The preachers in charge were directed to enforce "vigorously, but calmly, the rules concerning needless ornaments, drams, snuff, and tobacco." When a new "helper," or preacher, was received he was asked before the Conference: "Have you faith in Christ? Are you going on to perfection? . . . Do you take no snuff, tobacco, drams?" The seventeenth question and answer in the Large Minutes read thus:

'Quest. Have those in band left off snuff and drams?

Ans. No. Many are still enslaved to one or the other. In order to redress this, 1. Let no preacher touch either on any account. 2. Strongly dissuade our people from them. 3. Answer their pretenses, particularly curing the colic."

At the Christmas Conference of 1784, when the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized, all legislation on the subject of tobacco was repealed, except the band rule against it, and in 1792 that rule was also repealed. Whether this retrogression is to be attributed to a secret love of the drug among the preachers themselves, or to the acquisition of light not possessed by Wesley, or to the difficulties in the way of enforcing the rules, it might not be safe for us to decide. Nor will we even conjecture the fate of the Church if the rule had been made general, and rigidly enforced, whether Methodism would have been stronger and purer than it now is, or whether its commission to "spread holiness through these lands" would have become null and void. One thing, however, seems tolerably clear, if the habit of using tobacco is commendable among Christians, our Church ought to cease publishing tracts against it, and strike out No. 127 from the list.

ART. III.-THE MORAL THEORY OF THE BIBLE AND OF PHILOSOPHY HARMONIZED.

THE paradox between moral philosophy and theology lies in this: that the former restricts the moral region exclusively to the action of the will, while the latter extends it to the thoughts, sensibilities, and physical functions, nay, even to the undeveloped capacities and tendencies of our entire nature. Moral science ascribes the moral quality of the actions to the intentions, that is, to the choice of what the conscience approves or disapproves; not to the ideas of it, nor the feelings respecting it, nor to the overt acts; these have in themselves no moral character whatever, and are absolutely incapable of it; all the right or wrong in any wise applicable to them is to be traced to the volitions, and properly belongs to the volitions alone. The Bible, on the other hand, not only attributes right and wrong to the intentions, and even goes so far as to blame us for doing what God has not forbidden, provided we think it wrong, or even doubt that it is right, as in eating meat that had been once offered to idols; but it also declares that we "are by nature the children of wrath," and that "death passed upon all men for that all have sinned," and accounts for it by our descent from Adam: As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners." Now, here is an apparent contradiction between science and revelation! How can we reconcile them? Here is the problem of ages, and far more important than that of reconciling the discoveries of geology with the Mosaic account of the creation; for that has troubled only the learned, and those who are so situated as to read the rocky records of the preAdamite world; but this has perplexed all serious minds, and is perpetually pressed upon the attention by the ever varying aspects of our experience. Miss Catharine Beecher, in her work, "Common Sense applied to Religion," has expressed the agonized feelings of thousands who have tried in vain to understand these mysteries by the aid of popular theological systems: "There must be a dreadful mistake somewhere, but I will trust, and obey, and wait quietly for light."

It is often contended that moral science is superseded by revelation. This is true, whenever the direction of revelation is beyond science; but not when it seems to come into collision with science. Many truths we should expect inspiration would disclose which could not be discovered by reason; but then science is founded on facts and formed by strict induction; it admits of no contradicFOURTH SERIES, VOL. XI.-14

tion; the evidences of inspiration and the principles of interpretation cannot establish a biblical theory or a theological dogma any more firmly. One belief can never be abandoned for another, but they must be held separately, until you arrive at the means of reconciling them. To do otherwise, to suppress the evidence of reason and experience, because it seems to invade some cherished religious creed, has always the effect of disgusting thoughtful and observing men with such a creed, and, in many minds, endangers the credit of religion itself. It would better serve the Christian faith, if the principles and canons of interpretation were rigidly tested by reason, and especially that nothing should be allowed as a proper rendering of Scripture which is contrary to common sense. Common sense, the intuitive universal judgment of mankind, is the first and last principle of interpretation.

But is the science of morals, as above stated, well established by induction? Let us see. In every instance of action, if we analyze our experience, we shall find a conception of something to be done, attended by certain emotions and desires appropriate to it, also by ideas of right or wrong, and the corresponding emotions of approval or disapproval and feelings of obligation; then comes the volition to act; then follows the nervous and muscular motion, if it be an overt action; or if it be a mental action, as reckoning up an account, the series is completed by the mental operation. Now, in all these phenomena, there is no such thing as liberty except in the volition alone; all the other operations, mental and physical, are necessary. The thoughts come and go by the unalterable laws of association or suggestion; the emotions and feelings are spontaneous, the nerves and muscles are governed by a vital mechanism; all these obey their appropriate antecedents; they have no alternative. But when the volition is put forth it is with the conviction, clear to your consciousness as the volition itself, that you might have made an opposite choice. Here then is liberty: it is an attribute of the will, and it is nowhere else.

Equally clear in every mind is the conviction, the intuitive belief, that guilt or innocence, merit or demerit, attaches to the volition. Here, then, certainly, both reason and revelation find the moral region; but the moment you go beyond, reason dissents, and for no other cause but the absence of liberty. Liberty then is the sine qua non, the indispensible condition of the imputation of virtue or vice to our experience and conduct. If at any time we speak of thoughts, and feelings, and overt actions as right or wrong, it is only as they are dictated by the free will. If the intention exists, the moral movement is complete, whether the mental or physical