corruption. Any one who remembers the Biblical statement with regard to man that he was made in the image of God' may well believe that the temptation to fashion, on the authority of this statement, visible representations of the Deity, in human form, cannot have been wanting in Israel. Any one who remembers the marvellous histories of Elijah and Elisha may well believe that the national veneration for their memories might easily have ripened into heroworship. Nowhere in the sacred books is either temptation yielded to. Nor is this fact divested of its marvellous significance by pointing out that both errors were authoritatively forbidden by the first two commandments; for next to the marvel that such commands were given so authoritatively at so early a period is the fact that later generations found no means of circumventing them. It is not denied that idolatry crept in amongst the people, but that any sanction for it crept into the sacred books. The prevailing superstition and polytheism of surrounding nations, and the fact that the Jews themselves, kings and people alike, too often succumbed to the fascinations of the Gentile religions, serve to bring out in strong relief the persistent monotheism of the Biblical writings. One of the most striking threads running through the Old Testament is to be seen in the unceasing efforts to preserve the purity of the religion. In reading the narratives, whether of the Judges or of the Kings, we seem to read in every page, 'Woe to him who pollutes this pure religion! Woe to him who adds other objects of worship besides the One Only Good!' This they inculcate over and over again by the exhibition of warning examples of the fulfilment of the woe. And what the historical books teach by means of example the prophetical books teach by eloquent and vehement denunciation. There is no mythological development here. Though they have glowing imaginations, though they have at command a rich affluence of poetic imagery, yet, instead of corrupting the ideas of the simpler and purer faith, the writers uniformly labour to preserve it from contamination. This they do in spite of powerful temptations to a different course. They show themselves superior to the bias of a natural though false patriotism, and dare to pronounce impending ruin on their country. They set themselves against the current of popular feeling, and are rewarded with opposition, persecution, and martyrdom. Yet it is their utterances, their denunciation of sin, irreligion, and idolatry, not the efforts of the would-be corrupters of religion, that prevail. Persecuted, scorned,

hated of all men during their lifetime, they were venerated after their death. Their writings-no others-were admitted into the sacred canon, and the descendants of those who 'killed the prophets' built sepulchres in their honour.

Can we refuse to see here a marked difference between the history of the worship of Jehovah and that of the worship of Zeus? In the one case the god, thunderer though he be, is powerless to close the doors of a pantheon against intruding deities from every quarter; in the other we must recognize the interference of that God who proclaims Himself from the first a 'jealous' God, and who is able to give effect to His jealousy.

If the preservation of the Jewish religion from the admixture of corrupting elements is significant, not less so is the preservation of the vessel that contained it from the thousand accidents by which it might have been shattered. Many writers have admitted that the beneficial influence of the Jews upon the world has hung at times upon the slenderest thread, which might easily have been snapped. A recent instance of such admission is from the able pen of Mr. Lecky, in the following words :

'The whole religious and moral sentiment of the most advanced nations of the world has been mainly determined by the influence of that small nation which inhabited Palestine; but there have been periods when it was more than probable that the Jewish race would have been as completely absorbed or extirpated as were the ten tribes, and every trace of the Jewish writings blotted from the world.' '1

When the Jewish State had fulfilled its mission, when, at the favourable moment, the local stem of Judaism had produced its catholic and yet more glorious offshoot of Christianity, then, but not till then, the one temple, symbol, and guardian of the monotheistic idea, which now no longer needed protection, suffered demolition, and the Jewish polity passed away.

CONCLUSION.

An attempt has been made in the foregoing pages to show that, while revelation was not an impossibility, Biblical religion may show the marks of its Divine origin in the exalted character of its conceptions, by which it transcended the natural powers of man and surpassed the other religions of the world; in its exceptional preservation from corruption,

1 History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. i. p. 14.

which points to a special Divine guardianship of truth Divinely given; and in the remarkable preservation of the nation which alone possessed it, as marking the action of Divine Providence to ensure the safe delivery to the world of that Divine message.

If the claim in behalf of Biblical religion is a just one, the answer will now be obvious to the question, 'How is it that we have a religion?' Taking the pronoun 'we' here in the sense of all mankind, men have religion because their Creator made them with the power of holding communion with Himself, and actually communicated a revelation to the infant race of man. Too often the result of neglecting His commands has been in individuals and in races to hide Him from them, and to obscure the indications of His will; yet the religious faculty, though perverted as to its direction, still remaining, imagination supplied from the world of sense objects with which it might deal, whence arose mythology, polytheism, idolatry.

But He has been calling men back to Himself while they have in various parts of the world betrayed their want of rest apart from Him in the changes which their religious ideas have undergone. He in the meantime has been preparing the means by which they may be brought back to Him once more. When in old days one-Abraham-was supereminently obedient to the Divine call, the half-closed channel of communication was opened once more in his person, and in such of his descendants as followed the example of his faith, so that it came to pass that his posterity, in spite of many individual aberrations, kept up the knowledge of God in the world, and some were favoured with further illumination, until, in the fulness of time and in fulfilment of the Divine purposes, the Son of God Himself was incarnate upon earth, revealed more fully the perfections of the Creator, gave further encouragement to men than had ever been given before to converse as children with their heavenly Father, and, leaving, promised to the faithful a future and eternal life with Himself in another state of being, when the first promise given by revelation shall receive its complete and final accomplishment and they shall be freed for ever from evil of every kind.

ART. IV. THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND

TEMPERANCE SOCIETY.

1. Report of the Church of England Temperance Society for 1878. (London, 1879.)

2. Report of the Select Committee of the House of Lords, appointed for the purpose of inquiring into the Prevalence of Habits of Intemperance. (London, 1878.)

3. Health Primers. Alcohol: Its Use and Abuse. (London, 1879.)

4. Alcoholic Drinks. The Oration delivered before the Medical Society of London for the year 1878. By ALFRED CARPENTER, M.D. (London, 1878.)

'Our religion does not lie in doing what God has not enjoined, or abstaining from what He hath not forbidden. It does not lie in the form of our apparel, in the posture of our body, or the covering of our heads; nor yet in abstaining from marriage, nor from meats and drinks, which are all food if received with thanksgiving.'

THESE sentences occur in a tract by John Wesley, printed and published at Bristol in 1747, and sold for one penny. The tract was designed to sketch the 'Character of a Methodist,' and was a good pennyworth of practical wisdom. But we may grudge to any 'Methodist' the exclusive possession and practice of social virtues, or the exclusive application of that happy mean (auream mediocritatem) which consists in using rightly what God hath not forbidden.' Herein lies a large part of the moral discipline of life. The principle waylays us at every turn, underlying the commonest duties, animating all our pleasures, and affording a practical standard for the direction of the conscience. Emphatically does this test operate in the exercise of the human appetites. So imperiously do these govern a vast number of mankind, that no apparent curb is put upon them by thoughts of physical consequences, or by restraints borrowed from the higher sphere of morals. Such is the problem presented to the statesman and philanthropist by that difficult substance called Alcohol. A French cynic assumes, in harmony with Byron's view, that 'man, being reasonable, must get drunk ;' because all nations have sought refuge from the dull monotony of life in excitants of some kind. But that same poet, Byron, when he makes his hero Sardanapalus sing, 'The goblet I reserve for hours of love,' makes him also say, 'But war on water;'

Milton was sorrowful over the 'poison of misused wine;' and thus the ground which we propose to travel over now is a well-trodden one, and is none other than the use and misuse of an appetite, the lawful handling of a potent medicine, and the determining whether a given thing shall be an obedient servant or a tyrannical master. The battle which is being fought on this subject covers two distinct regions of ground. There is the moral and social battle, arising from the fact that common drinks, easily made and cheaply bought, are often consumed to excess, and then become deadly poisons. This poisonous effect is manifested in various ways; and one way is that the poisoned person acts (perhaps unconsciously) in a manner inconsistent with public order and decency, and therefore becomes liable to legal coercion and penalties. Secondly, there is the scientific battle: not a 'battle of the books,' but a seeking after truth by honest searchers, observing keenly and experimenting patiently, and having an impassioned zeal to find out what is true in this matter. Their reports and their deductions widely differ; but one thing ought never to be forgotten, that Nature must be explored without reference to any supposed consequences. If we start with a moral hope or bias one way or the other, we may miss the very point and pith of what we are trying to discover. We want to know the dry naked truth, without a thought that there can be any harm or ill in knowing it. All scientific truth is the truth of God; and the truth of God can never be out of harmony with the moral welfare of man.

We propose to discuss our subject, then, from the standpoint of the current science of Alcohol, considered as a diet and as a medicine. Let this be delineated with a precise and firm hand, and the moral and social arguments follow almost as a matter of pure logic. The question cannot be profitably approached in any other way. Our confusion and our difficulties arise very much from ignorance or forgetfulness of the nature of the substance with which we have to deal. Chemically or inorganically, our knowledge of Alcohol is tolerably complete; but its effects on vital processes and morbid conditions are as yet very imperfectly understood. Several times have we seemed to be near an important discovery, and the threads which we hold as guides to that discovery are already many and valuable. Naturally we interrogate the medical profession; and though there is even among experts a great divergence of opinion, there is a large and influential consensus of authority on the positive side-the side of moderation, temperance in its truest sense. The path of