And Burns thus marks the time:—­

     “It is the moon, I ken her horn,
     That’s blinkin’ in the lift sae hie;
     She shines sae bright, to wyle us hame,
     But by my sooth she’ll wait a wee.”

The young people of the present day have no idea of the state of matters in regard to the supper system when it was the normal condition of society.  The late dining hours may make the social circle more formal, but they have been far less favourable to drinking propensities.  After such dinners as ours are now, suppers are clearly out of the question.  One is astonished to look back and recall the scenes to which were attached associations of hilarity, conviviality, and enjoyment.  Drinking parties were protracted beyond the whole Sunday, having begun by a dinner on Saturday; imbecility and prostrate helplessness were a common result of these bright and jovial scenes; and by what perversion of language, or by what obliquity of sentiment, the notions of pleasure could be attached to scenes of such excess—­to the nausea, the disgust of sated appetite, and the racking headache—­it is not easy to explain.  There were men of heads so hard, and of stomachs so insensible, that, like my friend Saunders Paul, they could stand anything in the way of drink.  But to men in general, and to the more delicate constitutions, such a life must have been a cause of great misery.  To a certain extent, and up to a certain point, wine may be a refreshment and a wholesome stimulant; nay, it is a medicine, and a valuable one, and as such, comes recommended on fitting occasions by the physician. Beyond this point, as sanctioned and approved by nature, the use of wine is only degradation.  Well did the sacred writer call wine, when thus taken in excess, “a mocker.”  It makes all men equal, because it makes them all idiotic.  It allures them into a vicious indulgence, and then mocks their folly, by depriving them of any sense they may ever have possessed.

It has, I fear, been injurious to the cause of temperance, that emotions of true friendship, and the outpouring of human affections, should so frequently be connected with the obligation that the parties should get drunk together.  Drunkenness is thus made to hold too close an association in men’s minds with some of the best and finest feelings of their nature.

     “Friend of my soul, this goblet sip,”

is the constant acknowledged strain of poetical friendship:  our own Robert Burns calls upon the dear companion of his early happy days, with whom he had “paidl’t i’ the burn, frae mornin’ sun till dine,” and between whom “braid seas had roar’d sin auld lang syne,” to commemorate their union of heart and spirit, and to welcome their meeting after years of separation, by each one joining his pint-stoup, and by each taking a mutual “richt guid willie-waught,” in honour of the innocent and happy times of “auld lang syne.”  David marks his recognition of friendship by tokens of a different character—­“We took sweet counsel together, and walked in the house of God as friends.”—­Ps. lv. 14.