know it? We answer this important question. The common evil is a stomach diseased by alcohol.

The stomach, by its sensation, motion and peculiar solvent, performs a most important office in digestion, and, also, exerts a controlling influence over the heart, lungs and brain, and through these over all the other organs of the body. It is the great centre of organic life, so that in one sense, the health of the stomach is the health of the human body and its disease is that of the whole system: yet into this important organ of the human body is inconsiderately or wilfully poured, in place of water, cordials, beer, wine and brandy, which cuts short, by one half, the life time of thousands of unprepared immortal beings. Numerous indeed are the graves of the drunkards!

Under the healthful influence of water, the stomach's natural stimulant, the alternate expenditure and accumulation of the nervous power are uniformly sustained, and the span of human life is fully made. But alcohol habitually used acts upon the stomach in such a manner as to impair natural thirst, and eventually natural hunger, and to produce a faintness and wretchedness which demands another kind of exhileration. Therefore the inebriate drinks, and he will drink again and again, and gradually more and more frequently, and stronger and stronger draughts, if left to himself. The stomach itself has become diseased by the artificial stimulant. Specimens of the drunkard's stomach are exhibited in the Pathological Cabi

net of Sir Charles Bell, of London, and are placed, by that experienced pathologist on the same shelf with specimens of stomachs poisoned by corrosive sublimate, arsenic, nitric acid and laudanum.

But it is not on the stomach only that alcoholic liquors act. Facts are accumulated to prove that alcohol eventually destroys the natural barriers to the admission of whatever is noxious, and entering the blood, comes in direct contact with the liver, lungs and brain, and circulates through their substance. The breath becomes alcoholic, the fluid of the cavities of the brain become alcoholic. Dr Kirk, of Greenock, Scotland, as quoted by Grindrod, examined the body of one who died of intoxication. "In the two cavities of the brain, says he, we found the usual quantity of limpid fluid. When we smelt it, the odour of whiskey was distinctly perceptible, and when we applied the candle to a portion in a spoon it actually burned blue. The lambent flame, characteristic of the poison, played on the surface of the spoon for a few seconds." This fact is confirmed by Ogston and Hare. Magendie has found alcohol in the blood. Percy has obtained it by distillation from the substance of the brain and liver. In view of even these already ascertained facts, it may be reasonably inferred, that alcohol reaches every part of the body, and there produces disease by direct contact; and, by its deteriorating influence on the lungs, destroys the vitality of the blood itself.

The above short medical statement is made to show that Intemperance is a physical evil-a disease having three stages; first, a disorder merely of the functions of the stomach; second, a diseased condition of the substance of the stomach itself; third, a diseased stomach with alcoholic blood and secretions. It is in the second stage of this alcoholic disease that the inebriate is commonly cut off: and if, by strength of constitution he survives it and reaches the subsequent one, he ultimately becomes insane. Grindrod shows, by satisfactory statements, that alcoholic stimulation is thrice more productive of madness and idiocy than the most prolific of all the other causes of mental disorders. In these latter stages, the inebriate, in many instances, is beset with false perceptions of frightful objects of enemies and of falling walls, which so torment him, in his morbid and delirious vigilance, by day and night, that he flies to a window, a cord, or other means and commits suicide: or, in some instances, he sinks into an insensible state.

In taking this physical view of Intemperance, it is not intended, in the least, to disturb the moral influence of that stigma which public sentiment has wisely put upon the drunkard.

The inebriate is immoral. He prostrates his reason, violates his conscience, and puts himself under the power of an acquired, an exclusive and a tyrannical appetite. His conduct is a debasing exhibition of unre

strained animal propensities. You may see him singing and dancing and hallooing; or he is flinging about his empty bottles and ready to quarrel with every one; or he has become heavy and lumpish and sleepy and crying out for a little more drink; or he is showing himself off as one wise in his own conceit when he can't bring forth a right word; or he's in a silly weeping or at playing the goat." Persons thus comporting themselves, violate public station and trust, endanger the state, grieve the church and embitter and ruin home. The inebriate is physically degraded. His face has lost its intellectual expression. He cannot sustain the distinguishing rectitude of the human form; his limbs have the gait and step of premature decrepitude; he is downcast, totters, reels, and falls prostrate, and sometimes falls where even the brute insults him. Truly the moral and physical degradation of Intemperance is extreme, and richly merits the unqualified rebuke of a virtuous community. Yet we must not cast off, nor turn with unmitigated disgust from, the victim of Intemperance. He is a fellow being under disease; he needs a physician, and that physician requires for his patient such medical appliances as meet the necessity of the case, the most important and indispensable of which is a long separation from the cause of his disease, viz: alcoholic drink. An appropriate Retreat under medical supervision would meet this object.

The utility and necessity of such an institution have been recently exhibited by Dr. Samuel B. Woodward, of Worcester, Mass., and more recently in a pamphlet from the able pen of one of our own citizens. Their appeal rests chiefly on the fact which we have endeavoured to expose, viz: that intemperance, when established as a habit, is a physical evil, calling imperatively for a repetition of the stimulant upon which it depends: 2nd, that it is curable: 3rd, that many have been cured: 4th, that a large proportion of cases can be cured by one year's medical treatment, though some cases may require a longer time: 5th, that it is incurable whilst the practice of drinking is followed. In view of these facts, it is believed, that a large proportion of the intemperate in a well conducted institution would be radically cured, and would return again to society with their health re-established, their diseased appetite removed, and with principles of temperance well grounded and thoroughly understood, so that they would be afterwards safe and sober persons.

If these be correct principles, what shall be done for the Victims of Intemperance in the bosom of our own families, and if not of our own, of those of our friends? Who shall make the effort to restore these persons to their families? Who can estimate the joy which the successful operation of such an institution would produce! Let the trial be made: call a meeting