on Sundays or on week days, the open sale of ardent spirits is an indefensible abomination. Some years ago, Chief Justice Tansey is reported to have said in the Supreme Court of the United States 'If any State deems the retail and internal traffic in ardent spirits injurious to its citizens, and calculated to produce idleness, vice, or debauchery, I see nothing in the Constitution of the United States to prevent it from regulating or restraining the traffic, or from prohibiting it altogether if it thinks proper.'1 We have discussed restrictive proposals first, although it is the harsher side of a difficult social subject. But while legislatures and party organizations are wrangling, numbers of quiet thoughtful people, with an unerring dislike of coercion and penal laws, are thinking over messages of peace and remedies of amelioration. Men and women will not be dragooned into morality; and even if they could, it is not the Gospel plan. Oh, the magic of a little sympathy! Foremost among remedial influences is the promotion of public and personal hygiene. Is there one person in a thousand among the so-called upper and middle classes who has seen for himself the horribly wretched condition of many of the houses of the poor in our large towns? Take such a statement as that made early in 1879 to the Metropolitan Board of Works by a deputation from S. Luke's, in which the overcrowding was represented as of a most sad and appalling character, and instances were given which fully bore out the plea. A practical paralysis has come over the promising Artizans' Dwellings Act. What an old story it is (part of the rather faded panorama unrolled at most Total Abstinence meetings) that drink causes misery; whereas the converse is quite as often true, that misery drives people to despair, and goads them into the stupefaction of poisonous liquors! The habitual breathing of bad air (however contaminated) causes a morbid craving for narcotic drinks and drugs. With what judgment and precision the precepts of personal cleanliness were laid down by Celsus and Galen! It was not till the period of darkness which followed the collapse of the Roman Empire that dirt became the odour of sanctity under the example of fanatical devotees. Then about our water-supply: how remarkable that Aristotle specially advises a separate source Society (if we may judge from the official Chronicle) needs steadiness and moderation. How is it that in all great movements extreme men and extreme measures will force themselves to the front? 1 Quoted in a recent book on America, entitled Through the Light Continent, by W. Saunders, of drinking water to be obtained, different from that used for other purposes. Within the memory of those who are still young, the defilement of our springs has been proved to be the source of formidable and fatal diseases: how great, then, is the responsibility of providing pure water, if water is to be the universal drink! The movement of seventeen and eighteen years ago to erect drinking fountains in our great towns was a good one, but the impulse was soon spent. Fresh cold water may be acceptable and invigorating for three or four months in the year; but the severities and uncertainties of English weather create a real desire for a warm, nervine, and slightly stimulating beverage. It is curious that for about twenty years after the introduction of coffee in England we find a continued series of invectives against its adoption, both for medicinal and domestic purposes. Isaac Disraeli, in his Curiosities of Literature, says that the history of coffee-houses, ere the invention of clubs, was that of the manners, the morals, and the politics of a people. Fancy a Royal proclamation in 1675 for the suppression of coffee-houses as the great resort of idle and dissipated persons; and then, when Royal fickleness graciously allowed the trade in coffee to revive, how the delicious drink rouses classical memories of Tatlers and Spectators, and the bright social chatter of the literary men and wits of that day. But the happy institution of the coffee-house or tavern became practically extinct as the eighteenth century wore on, and there were few places for refreshment save those in which dull drunken carousing could be indulged. What a stroke of genius it seems that, after long weary years of the negative and minatory clause, 'Thou shalt not drink,' some brilliant philanthropists have thought that, as people must and will drink something, warm and wholesome stuff might be provided and sold; and that, not as a charity, but as a thriving piece of business. It was Dr. Chalmers's' expulsive power of a new affection' applied to our poor animal needs. A Duke and a Lord Chancellor, in opening new coffee-houses (shall the proper phrase be house, home, tavern, or palace?), admit that those who sought simply by legislation to prevent men from resorting to beer-houses, gin-palaces, and the like, had not attended sufficiently to the necessity of providing attractive 1 The women of the seventeenth century did not like coffee-houses more than the women of our own day like beer-houses. In the Women's Petition against Coffee, 1674, they complain that 'on a domestic message a husband would stop by the way to drink a couple of cups of coffee.' Quoted by Disraeli, Cur. of Lit. ii. 324. substitutes. What a confession, and how true it is! Never mind now, however, who is to blame. Let the past bad diplomacy be forgotten; and let us all, moderate men and total abstainers, shake hands over a movement which has the germs of being a great moral and social success.' The establishment of milk-taverns is becoming remunerative, and would be very useful. The idea has been very successfully carried out in New York and other American cities. In these special restaurants iced and warm milk is the principal feature, and is served as a nutritious drink with pastry, fruit, rice, coffee, tea, and chocolate. The shops are large, tastefully fitted up with flowers and shrubs, and are well patronized by all classes of the community at dinner-time and tea-time. There is a milk-tavern in Bristol which claims to be the first of the kind in England. In establishments of this new order there should be a shop for the supply of refreshment to the casual passer, and an agreeable place of resort inside to the working man; and in all other ways every reasonable requirement and innocent taste ought to be gratified. Refreshment sheds and stalls, especially near places much frequented by working people, are another way of meeting the horrible seductions of drinking bars and saloons. Another economic problem waiting to be solved is the supply of nourishing and non-intoxicating drinks in the harvest-field. Beverages of lime-juice are becoming acceptable, and are very innocent and wholesome. In all, or any of these ways, we invite and entreat medical men to help the 'good cause.' 2 Here, then, is abundant good work cut out for the Church of England Temperance Society. But it is the spirit in which the work is attempted that suggests a few concluding comments. One of Mr. Matthew Arnold's phrases is 'balance of mind and urbanity of style;' and the Society could not have a better guiding motto. The 'urbanity of style' may be exemplified by avoiding aggressive noise and rudeness; by moderating popular prejudices when they hide the simplicity of truth; and by being courteous, even to those whom we con 1 There is a view of this question which must not be forgotten. Tea and coffee may, if abused, become poisons as subtle, though not so dangerous, as alcohol; even in moderate doses they act as poisons to many, and in excess they produce various severe disorders of nutrition. Coffee should be generally preferred to tea, and both should, as a rule, be accompanied by solid aliment.-See British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review, Jan. 1874. 2 Another remedial measure of high importance is 'air for the people' in the shape of more places and opportunities for out-of-door recreation, and especially of playgrounds for the children of our town schools. sider social wrong-doers. Thus, instead of calling publicans by every offensive name that can be applied to poor sinners, it would be a more Christian policy to show them that their commercial interests may be identified with the 'temperance movement,' and to invite them to become helpers with us in the promotion of general sobriety and good behaviour. If a trade be a lawful one, however undesirable from some points of view, it is to the interest of the community that those engaged in such trade shall be men of fair repute, and not mere adventurers without capital or character, wretches who adulterate their wares, harbour criminals, encourage gambling and other vices, and defy the law in every possible manner. Again, it is a severe test of urbanity of temper and style to see drunkenness mimicked on the stage in a fatuous way, as if it were a venial sin; to know that a drunkard may sometimes hoodwink justice by making his intoxication an excuse for crime; and to hear the lenient degree of punishment meted to the incorrigible sot, whose penalties ought to be cumulative if he is not insane. And then there comes the 'balance of mind,' which is essentially the principle of toleration. Goethe said that one has only to be old in order to be tolerant; and in this respect the Church of England Temperance Society should follow the ruling scope and method of the Church herself. Within the Church there are conflicting sounds and clashing echoes, the arrogance of individual opinions, and the lethargy of those who have no opinions at all; but the corporate voice and energy are there, the missionary ardour, the undying flame. The Society is now old enough to throw off its early effervescence, and to remember that unquenchable enthusiasm may be combined with the ripest judgment. Its efforts will, by God's help, be successful in proportion as they are loving, tolerant, and in accord with the New Testament pattern. There is a great future before the Society, and may it be ever guided by wise and far-reaching counsels. 'Let your moderation be known unto all men.' Abernethy, when asked what virtue was conducive to healthy life, replied in one word, Moderation. What we need so much at the present day is a fresh, breezy, uncrotchety philanthropy; a philanthropy which has its measure running over with a happy unobtrusive Christian spirit. Human nature is not always hopelessly depraved; encircle it (even common sense suggests) with higher spiritual influences and better physical surroundings, and the diviner part may come uppermost, teaching men with a quiet philosophy what John Wesley knew and taught more than 130 years ago-how to use our meats and drinks, and to accept them with thanksgiving. 'Two such opposed kings encamp them still ART. V.-FARRAR'S LIFE OF S. PAUL. 1. The Life and Work of S. Paul. By F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S. Two volumes, with coloured maps. (London, Paris, and New York, 1879.) 2. Paulinism: A Contribution to the History of the Primitive Christian Theology. By OTTO PFLEIDERER, Doctor and Professor of Theology at Jena, &c. Translated by EDWARD PETERS. Two volumes. (London and Edinburgh, 1877.) 3 The Church History of the First Three Centuries. By Dr. FERDINAND CHRISTIAN BAUR, sometime Professor of Theology in the University of Tübingen. (London and Edinburgh, 1878.) 4. Oxford Sermons. Preached before the University. By EDWIN A. ABBOTT, D.D. (London, 1879.) IT is one of the commonplaces of our own age, as it is of every age, that its phenomena indicate a time of rapid change and marked transition. We should form a false impression altogether of the course of events if we supposed this to be peculiar to our own time, or to any one time; for it is probably true that change and development in every department of thought are absolutely continuous, and that each. period in the world's history is truly and vitally connected with those which go before and which follow it; so that the existence of a link of connexion, though it may sometimes be indistinguishable by human powers, may always be taken for granted. We are by no means bound, indeed, to accept any particular theory of cause and effect which any knot of hasty thinkers may seek to force upon us. But to be carried into the opposite extreme, and to suppose any event, or series. of events, to be free of the causal nexus, and discontinuous with the providential process which we call the history of the |