And, more hopeful than all, signs are becoming more and more apparent that the people are everywhere awakening to a sense of the dangers that attend this traffic.  Enlightenment is steadily progressing.  Reason and judgment; common sense and prudence, are all coming to the aid of repression.  Men see, as they never saw before, how utterly evil and destructive are the drinking habits of this and other nations; how they weaken the judgment and deprave the moral sense; how they not only take from every man who falls into them his ability to do his best in any pursuit or calling, but sow in his body the germs of diseases which will curse him in his later years and abridge their term.

Other evidences of the steady growth among the people of a sentiment adverse to drinking might be given.  We see it in the almost feverish response that everywhere meets the strong appeals of temperance speakers, and in the more pronounced attitude taken by public and professional men.

JUDGES ON THE BENCH

and preachers from the pulpit alike lift their voices in condemnation.  Grand juries repeat and repeat their presentations of liquor selling and liquor drinking as the fruitful source of more than two-thirds of the crimes and miseries that afflict the community; and prison reports add their painful emphasis to the warning of the inquest.

The people learn slowly, but they are learning.  Until they will that this accursed traffic shall cease, it must go on with its sad and awful consequences.  But the old will of the people has been debased by sensual indulgence.  It is too weak to set itself against the appetite by which it has become enslaved.  There must be a new will formed in the ground of enlightenment and intelligence; and then, out of knowing what is right and duty in regard to this great question of temperance and restriction, will come the will to do.  And when we have this new will resting in the true enlightenment of the people, we shall have no impeded action.  Whatever sets itself in opposition thereto must go down.

And for this the time is coming, though it may still be far off.  Of its steady approach, the evidences are many and cheering.  Meanwhile, we must work and wait.  If we are not yet strong enough to drive out the enemy, we may limit his power, and do

THE WORK OF HEALING AND SAVING.

What, then, is being done in this work of healing and saving?  Is there, in fact, any cure for the dreadful malady of drunkenness?  Are men ever really saved from its curse? and, if so, how is it done, and what are the agencies employed?