aggregate of juvenile ignorance, depravity, crime, and wretchedness, that a frightful amount of it is consequent on the want of good mothers, and the presence and influence of the ignorant and the vicious, whether in our crowded cities, large manufacturing towns, populous mining districts, or extensive public works. A TRUE STORY. TO YOUNG ABSTAINERS. LISTEN, dear ones, to my story, "Twas the Sabbath. From my casement Glanced mine eye along the road; Scene I saw of dark debasementBlush, Oh earth! forgive, Oh God! Came a pair of drunkards hoary, Wife and mother named they one: Husband he-ah! shameful storyFather to that sorrowing son; Who, when long from home they tarried, While he props the helpless mother, Folks from out the doors came peeping; Oh those tears! I pray that never One steps forth from the beholders Good Samaritan is he "Friend," he said, and touched his shoulder, "Thanks!" he said, and raised his mother, All insensate, on his arm; Bore his unknown friend the other, Shelter'd both from shame and harm. Children, are your hearts not burning OUR NATIONAL CURSE. It must be sufficiently evident to all that there exists at present a deep and anxious impression on the minds of the thinking part of the public that we are on the eve of a great moral and educational movement. Still, like Rebecca, when she felt the strife of opposite principles within her, we are ready to make this doubting inquiry"If it be so, why are we thus?" Why do we not, like John, whose voice was heard crying in the wilderness, set ourselves to prepare the way, to make straight the paths, to remove the stumbling-blocks out of the way, and with voices like trumpets arouse the slumbering energies of the people of Britain? Where is the invincible and indomitable spirit evinced by the champions of the Revolution and the Reformation, when they burst asunder the gates of brass, and made the iron fetters of civil and religious despotism to fall? And thou, Scotland, where is the spirit which inspired the martyrs of the Covenant, when they resisted unto blood, striving for liberty of conscience-when in the green glens and on the dark hills of their native land the fires of persecution were kindled by the breath of a perjured King and the intolerance of his priestly minions, who sought to drown in blood that spirit which quailed not, faltered not, yielded not, until the men of bigotry and blood were removed, and "violence was no more heard in our streets, wasting and destruction in our borders?" But now, alas! for my country, for "her gold has become dim, and her fine gold is changed,” and in the year 1850 too well do we know what spirit it is which rules, as with the rod of a mighty magician, the heads, hearts, and hands of a great part of her population. Yes, we know full well what manner of spirit it is whose fell enchantments, like the monstrous folds of the hideous anaconda, are entwined around the writhing form of our crushed and groaning country, until the victim, saturated with its fetid saliva, and stifled in its horrid embrace, becomes a lifeless and shapeless mass, ready for dissolution. Baneful Intemperance! thou art that spirit accursed; thou art the bloody Juggernaut of Britain, who on thy tremendous car sittest gloating over the countless thousands of self-immolated victims who, in the wild frenzy of intoxication, madly rush to throw themselves beneath thy grinding and gory wheels! And why are we thus? Why amidst all the lights of knowledge, the sun-bursts of genius, science, and literature which brighten and beautify our horizon, do we see dark clouds, heavy with death and lowering in blackness, hanging over our cities, towns, and villages? Why do tens of thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands of our fellow-creatures stagger and grope about in Cimmerian darkness, until their feet stumble on the mountains of |