And now see how he advances in beauty and power, attended by knowledge, health, and truth, while the harmonies of domestic life, of civil concord, and social duty, accompany him, and make music in his path.  But where is the angel of intemperance, discord, and destruction?  Hideous monster, behold him!  No longer great nor terrible, he flies, or rather totters, from before his serene opponent—­he shudders—­he stutters and hiccups in his howlings—­his limbs are tremulous—­his hands shake as if with palsy—­his eye is lustreless and bloodshot, and his ghastly countenance the exponent of death.  He flies, but not unaccompanied; along with him are crime, poverty, hunger, idleness, his music the groan of the murderer, the clanking of the madman’s chain, filled up by the report of the suicide’s pistol, and the horrible yell of despair!  And now he and his evil spirits are gone, the moral atmosphere is bright and unclouded, and the Angel of Temperance, Industry, and Peace goes abroad throughout the land, fulfilling his beneficent mission, and diffusing his own virtues into the hearts of a regenerated people!

Leaving allegory, however, to the poets, it is impossible that, treating of the subject which we have selected, we could, without seeming to undervalue it, neglect to say a few words upon the most extraordinary moral phenomenon, which, apart from the miraculous, the world ever saw; we allude to the wonderful Temperance Movement, as it is called, which, under the guiding hand of the Almighty, owes its visible power and progress to the zeal and incredible exertions of one pious and humble man—­the Very Rev. Theobald Matthew, of Cork.  When we consider the general, the proverbial character, which our countrymen have, during centuries, borne for love of drink, and their undeniable habits of intemperance, we cannot but feel that the change which has taken place is, indeed, surprising, to say the least of it.  But, in addition to this, when we also consider the natural temperament of the Irishman—­his social disposition—­his wit, his humor, and his affection—­all of which are lit up by liquor—­when we just reflect upon the exhilaration of spirits produced by it—­when we think upon the poverty, the distress, and the misery which too generally constitute his wretched lot, and which it will enable him, for a moment, to forget—­and when we remember that all his bargains were made over it—­that he courted his sweetheart over it—­got married over it—­wept for his dead over it—­and generally fought his enemy of another faction, or the Orangeman of another creed, when under its influence:—­when we pause over all these considerations, we can see how many temptations our countrymen had to overcome in renouncing it as they did; and we cannot help looking at it as a moral miracle, utterly without parallel in the history of man.