It remains for us to consider whether, and how far, the main principle of this Swedish reformation could be introduced among ourselves. It is new; it would certainly be an innovation; but it is eminently worthy of earnest and unprejudiced consideration. these were all transferred to the company. Of | proved, they may be induced to subject the still these, forty-three are continued under the new open branches of the trade to the same wholesome system, and eighteen have been suppressed. The restrictions. details of the management are too complicated and minute to be inserted here. It is sufficient to indicate in general terms some of the main features of the system. The number of licensed houses is greatly reduced. The houses are not thickly planted in poor confined localities, where the inhabitants, lacking home comforts, lack also self-control, and so are easily enticed into attractive dram-shops. They are placed, without regard to profit, in situations most convenient for the population, and causing the least possible nuisance. The houses are large, well ventilated, and clean. There are no boxes, where experienced wickedness may prey unseen upon inexperienced folly drinking is done in large halls each group seated round its own small table, but in sight of all who enter. Those who do drink are assured that the liquor is pure and unadulterated; and the community on that account are probably preserved from many outrages of exceptional ferocity to which criminals in our country are incited by the poisons which they imbibe. One rule, which is a self-acting machinery in favour of temperance, gives the manager of a public-house a profit from the food that he sells; while he derives not a penny from the sale of strong drink. The result of the system has been a marvellous reformation in the habits of the people, and a large revenue accruing to the community, in diminution of their rates. Prisons and poorhouses, having fewer inmates, are more easily maintained; and there is plenty in the public purse wherewith to maintain them. The payments made by the company to the city treasury have averaged more than ten thousand pounds annually during the last three years. This would give thirty-seven thousand a year for a city like Edinburgh. The managers of the scheme believe that the results would be much more favourable, if the whole of the trade in spirits were placed in their hands. As it is, there are a number of privileged licenses over which they have no control; and the retail shops-corresponding to the grocers' license with us-remain, as formerly, independent. There is ground to hope that when the legislature has seen the system sufficiently In the first place, most people will readily admit that we are not at present in a good or safe position in relation to the spirit traffic. As a nation, we are free traders; yet none but a few theorists would propose free trade in intoxicants. If the trade were made free, in a few years, we believe, the community, in terror and rage, would rebound with a demand for its extinction. No large or influential party in this country, however, will propose to open the trade as other trades are open. The reason of this distinction lies deep and broad in the nature and effects of the commodity. It is right that the fact of the distinction, and its grounds, should be kept before the public mind. The trade in beef and bread, in broadcloth and shoes, is free, and ought to be free. It is, indeed, the interest of the dealers in these articles to push their sales. But to push the sale of these articles does no harm either to the individual purchaser or to the community at large. As a rule, the more cloth and shoes and bread and beef any family purchase, the better for the family; always provided that they pay the dealer-and the dealer may be trusted to look after that matter for himself. Again, there is no specific power in the nature of these articles, or in their use, to stimulate those who use them to demand more, or to break the heads of their neighbours. When a man has eaten one good piece of beefsteak, the operation has rather a sedative effect. He is not inclined, in consequence of that meal, to scream out incontinent for more beef, or to fight his nearest neighbour. The purchaser, therefore, though he be not personally a wise man, may trusted to take care of his own interests. Instinct will guide him, if he happen not to possess much mother wit. Thus we allow any man to open a shop for the sale of any of these articles wherever he pleases, and to sell as many of them be as he can. The process is, on all sides, safe and beneficent. Hence we adopt and maintain freedom in buying and selling; and we know the reason why. In the matter of intoxicating drink, we have in point of fact adopted an opposite rule; and here, too, we should know the reason why. The ground of the difference lies in the inherent character and ordinary effects of the commodities. When a man drinks freely for a while, his bodily organs, more or less gradually, or suddenly, fall into such a condition, that the immediate physical effect of one glass is a burning thirst for another, and another, until he fall senseless on the ground. This effect is not produced in all who taste. Many, partly from moral strength, and partly from physical constitution, escape the morbid appetite, and use intoxicants moderately all their days. If this were the case with all-or even with all but a few-there would be no necessity for legislative restraint. The traffic in spirits might be flung open, like the traffic in other things. But a very great multitude do not escape. By thousands, and tens of thousands, the people fall into the snare. With these, one glass means the passionate, unreasoning, mad demand for another. And such is our system, that it is the interest of the seller to supply this mad demand, although he perceive clearly its madness. Nay, it is his interest to create and promote the craving, that he may sell more of his article, and obtain more profit. I abstain carefully from saying or even thinking of individual sellers that they do so act. I judge no man. I merely announce the notorious fact, that the more they sell, the more profit they have to maintain their families; and the more they sell of their wares, the more wretched becomes the community. If the seller in point of fact refuse to sell when the customer is eager to buy, and willing to pay, then an amount and kind of beneficent self-denial is exercised by that class of dealers, which, by the nature of the case, is never exacted of any other class. The case stand thus, and there is no escape from its inexorable logic :— Either the sellers of drink, like the sellers of other articles, stimulate and promote their sales, and sell to customers up to their demand and ability to pay, or they do not. If they do, the success of their trade is ruin to the community. If they do not, then from year to year, and day by day, they conduct their business, not as other merchants, for their own pecuniary interests, but restrict their trade, and sacrifice the comforts of their own families, in benevolent efforts to shield the intemperate from the consequences of their own vice. Thus this class of dealers must be, either a great deal more mischievous, or a great deal more virtuous, than any other. The duty of the commonwealth in the circumstances is manifest. We should not, on the one hand, permit this class of dealers to inflict the misery on the community which is implied in the one alternative; and we should not leave them exposed to the exceptional and crushing self-denial and self-sacrifice which is implied in the other. The result is, that in any case we should take the traffic in this dangerous and exceptional article altogether out of private hands. There are indeed many difficulties in the way. If a great and well-appointed army should make a landing on our coast, intent on subjecting us to a foreign power, there would be many serious difficulties in the way of meeting the enemy, and driving them into the sea. But these difficulties we would overcome. The thing would be done. The other battle will be fought too, and won, whenever the nation awakens to the dread fact that an alien army squats on our soil, reducing the people to slavery. One of the difficulties lies in the vastness of the sum that would be claimed as compensation. In Scotland, perhaps, an easy escape may be found on that side; for every license bears that it is given for one year and no more. Any landlord who lets a shop in these terms, would certainly have the right, after due warning, to eject his tenant at the end of the year without compensation; and it would be hard if the community should be found to have sold itself to the publicans, when it had guarded itself against that very danger by the use of the clearest terms which the skill of lawyers could invent. But the difficulties are not all on one side. By our present law and practice, of six or seven contiguous shops in a new street, probably only one will obtain a public-house license. The moment | profit for success in sales, and suffering no loss by that it gains this privilege its own rent is doubled, and the rent of the others diminished, through the nuisance caused by the public-house in the neighbourhood. Of the six proprietors so situated, who shall be the favoured one? There is no rule. Here a system of private canvassing goes on, which is disgraceful to our civilization, and degrading to all the parties concerned. Granting that the licensing magistrates, one and all, close their ears against private solicitation, the fact that private solicitation is systematically applied is a shame and a nuisance. The two extremes are, absolute freedom, and absolute prohibition, of the traffic. The public opinion of the nation has been conclusively pronounced against the first alternative, and the country is certainly not at present ripe for the second. Some middle point must be found. The middle point which we now occupy is erroneous in theory, and mischievous in practice. The condition of the trade satisfies no party. It is an open sore on the body politic. It is undermining the health and the morals of the people. We cannot remain much longer where we are. A new middle point must be found; a new principle must be discovered and adopted. Such is the nature and effect of the traffic, that the community refuses to make it free. But we have not yet discovered any rational, or fair, or safe rule for selecting the favoured individuals to whom the monopoly of the dangerous drugs should be entrusted. It remains that we should retain it in our own hands. We are not able to devise any means whereby its dangers and its profits should be handed over to private parties, and therefore we are bound in our corporate capacity, and as represented by our magistrates, to assume the responsibilities on our own shoulders, and retain the profits in our own pockets. Of late years, the principle that communities should retain their water supply in their own hands has been advancing with a rush, and many a profitable monopoly has gone down before it. There are stronger reasons why communities should retain the control of the whisky supply. The main principle, we repeat, of the Gothenburgh plan is the absolute removal of motive from the seller to promote his sales. Obtaining no failure to effect them, he is under no temptation to encourage the consumption of his wares. Whatever of humanity may lie in the seller's heart gets free scope, not impeded by concern for his own bread; he is free to act on the impulse of humanity, and endeavour to dissuade the taster from excess. The great foul stream of drunkenness that overflows and desolates our country is generated, like the Nile in Egypt, by the confluence of two constituent streams, meeting each other from opposite directions. One of the forces which goes to constitute the body and the momentum of our aggregate intemperance, is the appetite of the drunkard; and the other is the money gain of the seller. These two not only meet and flow together, like two confluent rivers; they are multiplied into each other at the point of contact, and the product in sin and misery is inconceivably great. The zeal of the seller to dispose of his goods would not produce so great an amount of mischief, if there were not a morbid appetite to meet it; and even the morbid appetite would not so often obtain its dangerous supply, if the desire of profit did not multiply and spread so many attractive enticements in the way of the unwary. One of these two affluents is unhappily beyond our reach; but it is in our power to cut off the other. The one that is left will be less productive if it miss its marrow. When we arise in our might as a nation, and absolutely quench all motive for selling drink, then shall we have the satisfaction of thinking we have done what we could to dry up the vicious thirst that craves for stimulants. The principle of the Swedish plan is further commended by the consideration that upon it the several sections of temperance reformers amongst us may cordially unite. Those who practise total abstinence, or advocate prohibition, may well join heart and hand with fellow-citizens of less energetic aim in endeavouring to secure one great step in the right direction. And those who, although lamenting the intemperance of the age, have not been able to accomplish any practical amendment, because they could not agree to what they considered extreme measures, may combine their influence with their more advanced neigh bours to achieve a reasonable and just ameliora tion. Finally, we take the liberty of urging that something must be done. We may well say at this crisis,— "Soldiers of Christ, arise, And gird your artДour on." God's cause and man's springing up in the community. The only thing that is to our minds altogether intolerable, is to fold hands and sit still, content with things as they are. By not interfering, we do a cruel wrong to many thousands of innocent victims-the wives and children of drunkards. These helpless beings are murdered by inches in our sight, and we are silent. At the meeting lately held with Mr. Carnegie in Edinburgh, a magistrate informed us, from his own bitter experience, that while the law enabled him to punish, by fine or imprisonment, a carter who should drink his wages and send his horse to the street without shoes, a None who wait for the coming of the Lord can be content with the social condition of the country. Many of the evils under which we labour might be removed, or greatly diminished, if all who “sigh and cry for the abominations that are done in the land" could unite on some common ground. We have offered our humble suggestions as a contribution to the cause, and invite fellow-father may drink all he wins, and send his childisciples of Christ to throw in their contribution whenever they find an opportunity. We could yield much of our own preferences as to methods in favour of others, if we could see a true zeal for A dren to the streets barefoot, the streaming blood dyeing the snow as they struggle through, and the magistrate has no power to touch him. "Fie on't! oh, fie; it smells rank." MARCH. WAKE, O mother Earth! Awake, O The fountains of the deep, the mighty ocean's roar The winds that rush around thee in The spring-tides rushing on thee, filling all thy their boisterous mirth, And all the groves of pine that these wild winds do shake, And bend, and rock above thee, call on thee to wake; caves; The murmur on thy sands of tiny rippling waves; eyes, Meekly smiling on thee from the midnight skies; And their deep-tangled roots, that vibrate through The soft round moon that poureth down her silver Call on thee, mother Earth, to wake thee from All call thee to awaken from thy long night of thy rest. The song of larks is o'er thee, and their melodies Are floating in the air, high through the clear cold skies. dreams. Awake, O mother Earth! The spring-time of thy gladness Riseth in her joy over the winter's sadness; Awake, O mother Earth! The willow boughs O mother Earth, awake! O dust and ashes, With their long silken catkins, the waters rolling Easter songs triumphant to our risen King: And of those in long white garments, sitting where He lay. The voices of thy children singing in the woods, sing! Call thee in their mirth, like the voice of many O grave, where is thy victory? O death, where waters. is thy sting? A. V. G. S soon as Captain von Edelstein left us, my father retired to rest, but seemed little disposed to sleep. It was still early, and I sat beside him. He was thoughtful and silent. He had remarked on the strangeness of the meeting, and dwelt with wonder and pleasure on the nephew's extraordinary likeness to the uncle. "It is not looks merely," he said, "nor only colour of hair and eyes, and resemblance of figure-features-voice; it is the 'tout ensemble'-the tone of thought-the earnestness, and gentleness, and sweetness of spirit the truth and tenderness of heart; and strange, too," he murmured, "also the same views -the same submission of mind, and heart, and will, and life, to the same high ideal of religious truth and principle. I could see it, even though he did not directly speak of it." "Léonie," be said suddenly a short time after, "did you ever know that my lost Conrad held the same faith and hope as your mother?" I started with surprise. "Papa! oh no!--was it really so? I should have thought!"—I hesitated. "You would have thought one so closely linked to me by the strongest ties of friendship, would have shared my sentiments. But it was not so. We were wholly opposed in our replies to the question, What is truth?' He, in spite of his free brave spirit, and clear powerful mind, received with the simple faith of a child the teachings and revelations of what he unhesitatingly believed to be the inspired Word of God. He believed them, and he lived according to them. And I know he died in them. I only reached Munich in time to take a last look at-what had been my friend. But he left a message. Perhaps it had been as well had I heeded it then. Now the time for doing so is past; I could not, even if I would." He sighed deeply, and I longed to ask what the message had been, but dared not. Presently he spoke again: "Yes, Léonie, my two dearest were one in faith and hope. In life, and still more in death. Those who had seen Conrad die told me of his calm, unruffled peace-his deep, unearthly joy. He bade them do so. 'Tell my friend,' he had said, 'I find death no "leap into the dark," but a step into the light. Tell him death is sweeter with Christ, than life without Christ. Tell him my last earthly thoughts were of him-my last prayer, that He who is the light may shine into his heart. Bid him seek that light at its Fountain-head; and he will find it to be the "light of life." I shall look for him in Heaven.' "But I did not, Léonie. In Conrad's grave I buried my last lingering remnants of belief in the God of revelation. You may think it strange, but how could I believe the Deity, who had stricken down that young beautiful life in its freshness and promise, to be the God of perfect grace, infinite love, unerring wisdom, full comprehension of and interest in the ways and lives of men, he believed him to be? Would He not rather have let that fervent spirit go forth, as he would most surely have done-as in the brief space allotted him by fate he already had done as a standard-bearer in the van to spread the truth, if it were truth? The strong bright faith that burned so steadily in his soul, in spite of every adverse wind, had till then cast a faint reflection of its own clear glow on mine. His death quenched it. I shut my heart to all but the voice of human reason. "But now that is failing me,—my powers of thought and argument, I mean," he added, seeing my startled look; "for they are failing, Léonie " |