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years, to tell me who, to his knowledge, had suffered through 

 intemperance during the last 30 years. We sat down together 

 and carefully went throughout the whole parish, house by house, 

 and out of 86 families we found that 97 persons had visibly 

 suffered through intemperance ; some ruined, others brought to 

 premature graves, one killed while drunk. One poor woman, 

 the wife of a farmer said in her dying hour, " my life has 

 been a life of sorrow and trouble." Yes, God only knows the 

 agony of that woman's soul, and the floods of bitter tears she 

 shed during the long number of years she was tied to that hus- 

 band with her six or seven children. During the 30 years above 

 mentioned there had been 4 incumbents in the parish, but not one 

 of them had taken any steps to inform the people of the nature, 

 effects and character of alcoholic drinks, or used any special means 

 to stay its ravages. And is not this parish, both as regards the 

 evil effects of drink and the neglect of the Church, but a sample of 

 thousands of others throughout the country 1 I would earnestly ask 

 those clergy — who have hitherto stood aloof from or in the way of 

 temperance work — in the name of the suffering, perishing masses, to 

 stand in the way no longer, but at least to give the people the 

 opportunity of understanding this question — especially in villages 

 — by sermons, lectures, literature, &c. If they will not do this, 

 surely the blood of the slain will one day be required at their 

 hands. This is not only a moral but a physical question. In- 

 temperance puts a physical impediment in the way of a spiritual 

 impression. How unutterably sad it is to see so many of the 

 Ministers of Christ's Gospel to a fallen world, stand by in the 

 present distress as if they had no heart to feel for or hand to help 

 a fallen brother ; and I believe the chief causes are prejudice and 

 want of knowlege of the subject — the first ought never to have 

 existed, the second could have been removed by a few hours of 

 careful study. Who can tell the fearful amount of human suffer- 

 ing that would have been prevented, and the myriads of precious 

 souls for whom Christ died have been saved if the great body of 

 the Clergy had but done their duty in this respect. I again ap- 

 peal to them, in the name of all that is good, to come out like 

 men and take their places right in the front ranks of the Tempe- 

 rance army as Captains of tens, of hundreds, or of thousands, in 

 their various parishes, and the day has now come when they must 

 do it, the state of the country imperatively demands it of them, for 

 the shocking state of things mentioned by the Bishop of Man- 

 chester is but too true a picture of the county generally as shown 

 by the recent religious census. What a subject to reflect upon 

 for the Bishops and 20,000 clergy. Would it not have been 

 better for millions of English men and women to have been born 

 in the darkest corner of heathen Africa, where neither Christianity 

 nor civilization had ever been heard of, and why 1 Not because 

 Christianity and civilization are not the greatest of blessings, but 

 because the conditions under which they live are such as to make 

 it practically impossible for them to benefit by the advantages 



