The subsequent history of the movement must be briefly sketched. In 1842, the disruption, above mentioned, of The British and Foreign Temperance Society was healed, and the two societies which that disruption had called into existence were amalgamated iu Time National Temperance Society. The work of proselytizino. then went ou vigorously. Innumerable tracts were circulated, and all Britain echoed with the noise of infinite speech. Excursions, processions, Exeter hall demonstrations, incessant tea-parties, etc., were got up with enthusiasm, which speaks volumes for the energy and sincerity of the teetotal agents. But in a less showy though more noble way, the mis sionaries of the new faith pursued their benevolent work in the lanes and alleys of large cities, the haunts of profligacy and dissipation, where they sought out the homes of drunkards, and tried (not without success) to rescue them from the power of the horrible vice that was dragging them to destruction. Action of this sort—whatever one may think of the movement as a whole—is to bespoken of only with reference. In Aug. 1846, The World's Temperance Convention met in London, on which occasion 302 delegates were present, representing different societies in the United Kingdom and the United States. Since then, the temperance cause has steadily, if not rapidly, progressed. It has recently been estimated that there are not fewer than 4,000,000 total abstainers (inclusive of juveniles) in Great Britain and Ireland, and a much greater number in the United States of America. Of late years, total abstainers have devoted themselves mainly or largely to advocatindthe necessity or propriety of imperial legislation on the subject of intoxicating liquor.
The most recent development of the temperance movement is that known as Good Templarism. It originated in New York in 1851, and rapidly spread through the United States. In 1868, the order established itself in England, in 1869 in Scotland, and in 1870 in Ireland. Its pro"ress has been singularly rapid. In England alone, exclusive of Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, there were in 1875 no fewer than 3,570 "lodges," having 168,425 members, estimated in 1879 to have iucreased to more than 200,000 persons. These of course do not represent absolutely new adherents to the temperance cause. They are in many cases members drawn from the older temperance societies, though it is also an undoubted fact that the order has been very successful in making fresh con verts to the cause of total abstinence. The name is derived from the famous Knights Templars, and originated in a fanciful analogy between the functions of the ancient order of military monks, and the modern disciples of temperance. As the former were enrolled to defend the holy sepulcher and the interests of religion, so the latter are banded together to protect Christianity against a worse foe than the Saracens, viz.," the drinking institutions of the land." It is professedly a religious movement, and its ritual is evangelical. Its platform is absolute prohibition of the manufacture, importation, sale,
or use of all intoxicating liquors as beverages: but it owes its great popularity to certain peculiarities in its constitution, its picturesque or showy ceremonial, and its aim to com bine social and festive amusements with missionary zeal.—See Good Templarism, by the rev. George Gladstone (Glasgow, 1872); as also the several regularly appearing maga zines of the order, the Good Templar, the Good Templars' W atchword, etc.
Pleas and question of abstinence from intoxicating liquors is capable of argued on three distinct grounds, scriptural, physiological, and social. We propose to furnish a brief synopsis of the leading arguments pro and con under each of these aspects. First, then, the scriptural argument.
The scriptural argument in favor of abstinence from intoxicating liquor may be briefly stated. The only "strong drink " mentioned in the Bible is wine. It is both praised and blamed. The question raised by teetotallers is: Are the sacred writers refer ring in both cases to the same kind of wine? This they deny. and endeavor to make good their denial by an appeal to the original Hebrew. On examination it is found that ten or twelve different designations for wine are used, but the two by far the most frequent are yayin and tiros& The first of these is the generic term for wine, and therefore (say the advocates of total abstinence), as it must embrace fermented liquor, it is the word used when wine is denounced. Thus, it is yayin that is a "mocker" (Prov. xx. 1), that is nOt to be looked upon (Prov. xxiii. 31, 32), etc. On the other hated, when wine is praised, area/ is the word used, and tirosh (it is asserted) moans the wine in clusters, that Is, the actua: grape itself, or the unfermented juice thereof. then, as now, liberally drunk as a beverage by the inhabitants of Syria and elsewhere. The application of this view to the New Testament is obvious. If there was a wine that might be used. as well as a wine that was condemned—which, ask the teetotalers, would Christ and his apostles be most likely to sanction? The wine that " maketh red the eves," that " biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder," that " deceiveth," that -" maketh drunken " and "mad;" or the wine that "maketh glad the heart," that is "good," a "blessing," etc.; —in a word, yayin in any of its dangerous forms (sobs, from the root to " soak ;" ehemer, the " foaming or bubbling;" and mesee, mezeg, minisae, the mixed wines), or the innocent ti.reish, that cheers, but not inebriates? It is conceived that there can be but one answer to this question, and that every candid and reverent Christian must be forced to the con clusion, that the wine which Jesus made at the marriage-feast at Cana of Galilee, and used in his last supper with his disciples, and which Paul advised Timothy to drink for his stomach's sake, was the unfermented, innocuous, and popular tirosh.