Reader, how much may be done with fivepence a day!

(c) THE BAD LUMP.-The following incident we relate on the authority of an old sailor, who delivered a temperance lecture on board a steam-boat running between New York and New Haven.

Having found a man who was divested of all decent clothing, and in a wretched state of health in consequence of drinking, he induced him, amidst the discouragements of the tavernkeeper, at whose house he had found him, to sign the temperance pledge for one year. The landlord prophesied that the man would not keep the pledge a year, or that if he did he would never renew it. As the year was coming to a close, the old sailor called upon the man, and secured his signature again. He signed it for 999 years, with the privilege of a life lease afterward!* When the day arrived on which his first pledge expired, he humourously went to visit his old friend the tavern-keeper. "There he comes," said the eager rum-seller, "he will have a great spree now to pay for his long abstinence." When he arrived at the tavern, he complained of a bad feeling at his stomach, and of various evils, among which was a bad lump on one side, which had been growing for a number of months. Ah," said the landlord, "did I not tell you it would kill you to break off drinking so suddenly? I wonder you have lived as long as you have.-Come, what will you take?" and suiting the action to the word, he placed a decanter before him.

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But," said the visitor, "I have signed the pledge again for 999 years, with the privilege of a life lease after it !"

"What a fool !" said the landlord, "if you go on as you have done, you will not live another year."

"Do you really think So, landlord ?"
'Certainly. Come, what will you

take?"

"Oh no, landlord; I have signed the pledge again: and then this terrible lump on my side, I do not believe that drinking will make it any better.

"It is all," said the landlord," because you left off drinking. You will * Of this expression we do not approve.-ED.

have a bigger lump than that on the other side before long, if you continue another year as the last."

"Do you think I shall? Well then, so be it. I will not violate my pledge, for, look here, landlord (pulling out a great purse, with a hundred dollars in silver shining through the interstices), that is my lump which has been growing for so many months, and, as you say, is all in consequence of signing the pledge. This is what you would have had, if I had not signed it; and if I have a bigger one than that for 999 years, I will not go to drinking again!"

(d) THE WAY TO PAY RENT. -A blacksmith in the city of Philadelphia, was complaining to his iron-merchant that such was the scarcity of money that he could not pay his rent. The merchant then asked him how much rum he used in his family, in the course of the day. Upon his answering this question, the merchant made a calculation, and showed him that his rum amounted to more money in the year than his house-rent. The calculation so astonished the mechanic, that he determined from that day neither to buy nor drink any spirits of any kind. In the course of the ensuing year he paid his rent, and bought a new suit of clothes out of the savings of his temperance. He persisted in it through the course of his life, and competence and respectability were the consequence.

(a) THE LAST OF THE MOHEGANS.-The Mohegans were an excellent tribe of Indians, who lived about Norwich, Connecticut. They had a long line of kings in the family of Uncas. One of the last was Zachary; but he was a great drunkard. However, a sense of the dignity of his office came over him, and he resolved he would drink no more. Just before the annual election, he was accustomed to go every year to Lebanon, and dine with his brother governor, the first Governor Trumbull. One of the governor's boys, who heard old Zachary's story, thought he would try him, and see if he would stick to his cold water; so at table he said to

the old chief, "Zachary, this beer is excellent; will you taste it?"

The old man dropped his knife, leaned forward with stern intensity of expression, and his black eye, sparkling with indignation, was fixed on the boy: “ John," said he, "you do not know what you are doing. You are serving the devil, boy! I tell you that I am an Indian! I tell you that I am; and that if I should but taste your beer, I could not stop until I got to ruin, and became again the drunken contemptible wretch your father remembers me to have been. John, while you live, never tempt a man to break a good resolution."

This story the venerable Colonel Trumbull tells of himself. Let all our readers remember it, and never tempt a man to break a good resolution.

(b) THE FATAL TEMPTATION.-An intemperate man, and one of the most brilliant gems of the age, made a desperate effort to reform. For three months he confined himself to drinks which were no more stimulating than tea and coffee. The hopes of his friends and his country were much excited; but in an evil hour he was induced to take a little beer and water. The slight intoxicating quality contained in this liquor, lighted up the latent fires within him. Desire was again renewed; resolation weakened; he relapsed, and went from beer to wine, from wine to brandy, until reason was dethroned, and he became a madman.

(c) DRINKING MODERATELY. -A gentleman, of the most amiable disposition, had contracted confirmed habits of intemperance. His friends persuaded him to come under a written engagement, that he would not drink, except moderately, in his own house, or the house of a friend. In a few days he was brought home in a state of intoxication. His apology to a gentleman, a short time afterwards, was, that had the engagement allowed no intoxicating liquor whatever, he would have been safe; "but if," said he, "I take the half-full of a thimble, I have no power over myself." He practised entire abstinence afterwards, and was strong and well.

homet is said to have been led to put the prohibition against the use of wine, in the Koran, by an incident which occurred to himself. Passing through a village one day, he was delighted at the merriment of a crowd of persons enjoying themselves with drinking at a wedding party; but being obliged to return by the same way next morning, he was shocked to see the ground, where they had been, drenched with blood, and, asking the cause, he was told that the company had drunk to excess, and, getting into a brawl, fell to slaughtering each other. From that day his mind was made up,-the mandate went forth from Allah, that no child of the faithful should touch wine, on pain of being shut out from the joys of Paradise. The simple truth we suppose to be, that Mahomet foresaw there would be no stability to the religion and empire he was building up, if the use of ardent spirits was permitted to his followers.

(e) A CHANGE AND CONTRAST.-On an extreme cold night, shivering by the stove in a grog-shop in Cincinnati, sat a young man about twenty-five years of age (although he appeared much older), who was evidently the victim of a depraved appetite. His eye, though swollen and bloodshot, had not entirely lost the power of its expression, and a careful observer could discover that he once possessed a bright intellect and a commanding genius. He gazed on vacancy, reflecting perhaps upon the misery he had brought upon himself and relatives by his dissipation. He was thinly clad, and seemed to be labouring under some horrible sensation,

Those who came and went, looked with disgust upon him, and then passed away. At length one entered who was acquainted with him, and after looking at him for a moment, turned upon his heel and said to the bartender:

Two years passed away, and William H-had become a Washingtonian, and a highly respectable member of society surrounded by innumerable friends, who placed the most implicit confidence in his integrity as a man and a citizen, and was doing a prosperous business. One morning, as he took up the daily paper, his eye fell upon that department devoted to " Coroner's inquests"-and, to his utter astonishment and grief, he read that George Somers had died on the previous day at the Alms'-house, from the effects of intemperance!

(f) WESLEY AND THE DYSPEPTIC CLERGYMAN. When stationed in the city of Bath, says the Rev. Mr. Towle, I was introduced into the company of an aged man, whom I understood to have been intimate with Mr. Wesley, and once a useful local preacher. We entered into conversation about Mr. Wesley's times, when among other things he observed,-" On one occasion, when Mr. Wesley dined with me, after dinner, as usual, I prepared a little brandy-and-water. On perceiving this, with an air of surprise he cried, What! my brother, what's that?' 'It's brandy,' said I; 'my digestion is so bad, I am obliged to take a little after dinner.' How much do you take?' said he, let me see.' "Only about a table-spoonful." Truly,' said he, that is not much; but one table-spoonful will soon lose its effect, and then you will take two; from two you will get to a

full glass; and that, in like manner, by habituating yourself to it, will lose its effect, and then you will take two glasses, and so on, till in the end, perhaps, you will become a drunkard. 0, my brother, take care what you do!"

Happy had it been for that man, if he had taken the timely warning of his good friend Wesley. But, alas! he trifled with his little drops, until he became a drunkard, ruined his reputation, and at the very time I had an interview with him, he was a poor, old, miserable backslider, apparently within a few steps of the grave.

AB

3. ONLY THOSE WHO TOTALLY STAIN EXERT A GOOD INFLUENCE OVER THE INTEMPERATE, OR COMMAND RESPECT AS CHRISTIANS.

(a) A DISTILLER HOOKED.— A Washingtonian in Pennsylvania says, "I went to see a distiller, and offered him the pledge to sign. 'No, sir,' said he, 'I manufacture the article, and do you suppose I would sign? I'll tell you what I'll do,' said he; I have a son, and I should be right glad if you could get him to sign; and you may tell him if he will, there are 500 dollars in the hands of Mr. Taylor, and the home farm, and he shall have them both if he signs it.' Like many a father he was willing to give anything but the influence of example. So off I went in search of the son. I told him what his father said. 'Well now,' said he, how do you expect me to trot, when daddy and mammy both pace?' I turned round, and went after the old man. Now,' said I, 'what do you say to that?'Well, sir,' said he,

I pledge you my word I never saw it in that light before; and I never will drink or manufacture another drop as long as I live;' and he put down his name upon the spot. I took the pledge to the young man with his father's name to it, and he signed it directly."

(b) WILLIAM LADD AND HIS WINE. - William Ladd was always ready for every good work. He early enlisted in the cause of Temperance. He had seen so much of the awful effects of the vice against which we contend, that he gladly heard and obeyed the call to do what he could to suppress it.

Bat, as he told me, for a long while he opposed only the use of distilled spirits, and continued himself to drink wine daily and freely. To be consistent, however, he took the pains to send all the way to New York to procure wine that was not infused with brandy. And you know, sir, that article can be readily obtained in that city or our own; for there are kind, accommodating merchants, who wish to suit their purchasers so much, that they can draw you wine with alcohol, or wine without alcohol, from the same cask. Well, sir, Mr. Ladd obtained his pure wine at a considerable additional expense, had it conveyed down to Minot, and carefully bestowed in his cellar; and he continued to regale himself as he saw fit with his anadulterated juice of the grape, even while he was going about preaching the doctrine of total abstinence. Of this he made no secret, for he was too good a man to do that in private which he was ashamed to acknowledge before all men. Indeed he did not perceive, he did not suspect his inconsistency. But, on a great occasion, at a large county meeting, he exerted himself more than ever, and, as he told me, with great success. "I never," said he, with his wonted frankness, "I never made so good a temperance speech in my life. I used up the objections of the opposers of our cause. I thought nobody could get away from my arguments. I sat down," said he, "thinking that he who could withstand the appeal that I had made must be a hard one indeed, when a little crusty-looking man got up in a distant part of the house, and merely said, 'Ha, if the squire will give us some of his good wine, we won't drink the nasty rum any more." This was too much for Mr. Laad. It revealed to him, as with a flash, to what little purpose he had laboured. He rose at once before the assembly, acknowledged his inconsistency, renounced from that moment the use of any and every kind of intoxicating drink, resolving, in the spirit of the apostle, that he would not drink wine nor any other thing whereby his fellow-man might be led to offend. This, sir, is the true spirit of our great reform. For the sake of ourselves, and for the sake of others, we must abstain

wholly from the use of intoxicating drinks of every sort. We must show our faith by our practice.

(c) TIMING IT.- A minister, in the Highlands of Scotland, found one of his parishioners intoxicated. The next day he called to reprove him for it.

"It is very wrong to get drunk," said the parson.

"I ken that," said the guilty person, "but then I dinna drink as meikle as you do!"

"What, sir! How is that?"

"Why, gin it please ye, dinna ye aye take a glass o' whisky-and-water after dinner?"

"Why yes, Jemmy, surely I take a little whisky after dinner merely to aid digestion."

An dinna ye take a glass o' whiskytoddy every night before ye gang to bed?"

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'Yes, to be sure, I just take a little toddy at night to help me to sleep!"

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Weel," continued the parishioner, "that's jist fourteen glasses a week, an about sixty every month. I only get paid off once a month, and then if I'd take sixty glasses, it wad make me dead drunk for a week;-now ye see the only difference is, ye time it better than I do!"

This is pretty much the view most people take of this matter; a moderate drinking clergyman may talk to his drunken parishioner till doomsday, but he will never make him a sober man so long as he drinks himself.

(d) A CONVERT CHARGED WITH HYPOCRISY.-It is a fact, of which I have been but recently convinced (says a writer in the New York Evangelist), that the world in general, those who have no religion, and even opposers, consider the conversion of those persons to religion as spurious and hypocritical, who do not approve of and practise total abstinence from ardent spirits.

In a town where there has been a revival the past winter, there is a person who has been from a child in the habit of drinking ardent spirit freely, perhaps almost to excess; and who, until recently, seldom attended a religious meeting. This individual became a hopeful subject of renewing grace, and

professed his faith in Christ. So changed, so exemplary was his walk and conversation, that even the enemies of religion could have nothing to say against him.. After a while, this person had occasion to purchase some whisky for medicinal purposes, and then the cry was raised against him by opposers, that he had no religion, and that the purchase of the whisky proved his hypocrisy !

(e) DEACON BARNES AND THE DRUNKARD.-A man once addicted to intemperance, but who for some months had entirely abstained, though he had not joined the Temperance Society, took occasion not long since to relate, in a temperance meeting, his experience in regard to the influence of temperate drinkers of respectable standing in society, upon the habits of the drunkard. "Many a time," said he, "have I gone to Captain Johnson's tavern and waited for half an hour, or an hour, for some respectable man to come in and go to the bar and call for liquor. After a while, Deacon Barnes would come in and call for some spirit and water. Then I could get up to the bar and do as he did."

Deacon Barnes hearing of this, asked him if it was so.

"It is," said the man.

"Well," rejoined the deacon, "you shall hang on me no longer. I joined the Temperance Society yesterday." "Did you?" "Yes."

"Well, then I will join to-day, for I can do without liquor as long as Deacon Barnes can."

He did join; and remained a consistent temperance man afterwards.

were mostly strangers to him, and he was of a naturally modest and unassuming disposition, he took a seat near the foot of the table, and refrained from taking an active part in the conversation. Just before the dinner was concluded, General Washington called him by name, and requested him to drink a glass of wine with him.

"You will have the goodness to excuse me, general," was the reply, “as I have made it a rule not to take wine."

All eyes were instantly turned upon the young officer, and a murmur of surprise and horror ran around the room. That a person should be so unsocial and so mean as to never drink wine, was really too bad; but that he should abstain from it on an occasion like that, and even when offered to him by Washington himself, was perfectly intolerable! Washington saw at once the feelings of his guests, and promptly addressed them: "Gentlemen," said he, "Mr. is right. I do not wish any of my guests to partake of anything against their inclination, and I certainly do not wish them to violate any established principle in their social intercourse with me. I honour Mr. for his frankness, for his consistency in thus adhering to an established rule which can never do him harm, and for the adoption of which, I have no doubt, he has good and sufficient reasons."

(b) REV. JOSEPH WOLF AND THE RECHABITES.-The Rev. Joseph Wolf says:-"On my arrival in Mesopotamia, some Jews that I saw there, pointed me to one of the ancient Rechabites. He stood before me, wild, like an Arab-holding the bridle of his horse in his hand. I showed him the Bible in Hebrew and Arabic, which he was much rejoiced to see, as he could read both languages, but had no knowAfter ledge of the New Testament. having proclaimed to him the tidings of salvation, and made him a present of the Hebrew and Arabic Bibles and Testaments, I asked him,- Whose descendant are you?'

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'Mousa,' said he, boisterously, is my name, and I will show you who were my ancestors;' on which he immediately began to read from the fifth to the eleventh verse of Jeremiah xxxv.