join in such associations, and take on themselves the restrictions common to the members, though urged by no necessity of so doing, is a proposition that will scarcely be disputed. How such separate companies may advantageously correspond, and unite together; and especially how Britain may help the rest of the world in this thing, otherwise than by her example and by sending forth useful publications, is not so obvious. Funds can scarcely be required to any great extent. It is saring, not spending that is proposed; and saving of a kind, respecting which there is some danger that it may be carried to excess, and by stirring up a determined reaction on the part of those who approve not of such measures, come to defeat its own purposes.

I have often said in public that our Christian profession as Quakers, with its rules and discipline, places us in a Temperance Society, perhaps as well constituted as any that could be devised. The secondary motive therefore, of promoting temperance by our example and influence, seems the most likely to be ours when we join in such associations; and as Friends have been very active (I suppose on this ground) in promoting them, it may not be unseasonable or useless here to engage in a little enquiry, and endeavour to advance a few sound principles on the subject.

That which Abstinence rejects and Intemperance abuses, Temperance applies to its legitimate use. “Wine that maketh glad the heart of man," is however not the only cordial that may be converted into a hurtful stimulant. There are moral, as well as physical causes, which are capable of quickening the pulse, and raising the spirits. Contemplate the good man enjoying the company of a facetious friend-see him recumbent by his fire-side, the labours of the day gone through, every limb at ease, and his features playing with an incessant smile! He is taking a cordial; and such an one as, too constantly applied, might actually make him live too fast, and wear him out before his time. Some poor wretches drink themselves to death; not a few, with better intentions, are schooled and educated to death; and some (we need not doubt) without indulging in spirituous liquors at all, laugh and talk and frolic themselves to death. The glass of wine after his frugal meal, is then but the physical (and it may be the least effective) part of the stimulus, which an occasion like that I have described brings in the good man's way: and who that ever felt the corroding tooth of care, and its effects on the health, will deny to his fellow the enjoyment of a social hour, under the pretext of temperance? Now turn to the Bacchanalian-Amidst a knot of choice spirits, nightly co-worshippers with himself of the bowl and the bottle, he sits till morning and enjoys-what? Their laughter, their turbulence, their lewd sallies, their phrenzy? By sympathy with theirs, the springs of his own heart are unlocked-his own feelings wrought up to energy. It is the presence of companions in his madness that to the drunkard brings the chief part of his enjoyment. Take away the company, give him his ale or his porter-his wine or his spirits alone, he will be drowsy or placid, or merry with himself; and at last vapid and stupid enough to shew to himself by certain effects on the morrow's feelings,

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that he has done what he had better have let alone; and if he can be early kept from such company, and placed among men of better conduct, it is great odds but he will be reclaimed.

There is another reason for this misconduct, which excites compassion in quite as large a degree as censure. Persons exhausted by toil, or depressed by affliction, have recourse to spirituous liquors for relief. By the frequent use of these the habit of taking them is established; the constitution is impaired; and that becomes a source of disease which was at first a remedy.

The drunkard by choice counts (it is said) upon "6 a short life and a merry one," but he is miserably mistaken in the event of his choice. The first condition is indeed fulfilled. He dies early in the period commonly assigned to man for his days on earth; and early in this short race does real cheerfulness forsake him! All that is left him, when once the vicious habit is confirmed, is the excitement of a real fever; a disease, every access of which cuts off a portion of his life from him; a disease which weakens the stomach, preys on the liver, and enervates the limbs till the hand itself refuses its office, unable any longer to carry the cup to his lips; and he has to bow down his head (like a beast) to drink! Sad spectacle this, in what should be a rational being!

The drunkard then, lives too fast: as the Ascetick may be said to live too slow-each defeating, by an extreme in the conduct of his Animal life, the nobler purposes of the Rational. Before we attempt to draw the line between them, and shew in what a right practice consists, it may be worth while (as the Temperance Society proposes to embrace other nations) to go back into former ages, and consider what it is that has reduced the term of man's life on earth to a tenth of its original duration.

The patriarch Noah lived 950 years. We cannot doubt that he was a temperate person; although it is recorded of him, that having planted a vineyard, he drank of the wine and was drunken. This is the first mention of drunkenness in Sacred writ; and whatever may have been the vices and crimes of the antediluvians, we are not informed that this was among them. Indeed it is extremely probable that intoxicating liquors had not begun to be taken at all before the deluge. The intoxication of Noah appears to have been purely accidental. He had planted vines in a favourable situation, in a richer soil perhaps than had existed before the flood-and they had yielded fruit of a superior quality. This was a part of his husbandry; and the ripe clusters are not only delicious to the taste but capable of very agreeably quenching thirst; when pressed into the cup and drunk immediately. We find this practice of pressing the grape into the cup long after, at the court of Pharaoh in Egypt. But up to this period (or 1718, B.C.) it is by no means clear that the fermented juice of the grape had at all become a beverage.

Noah, I conceive, on some occasion of entertaining company, had more of the must pressed out than was consumed; which being set by, until the fermentation had taken place, was by the patriarch himself

(as having more curiosity and less fear than those about him) taken by way of trial in the usual quantity; and with the effects mentioned. -But with or without the use of wine (properly so called) Shem the son of Noah lived 600 years.

Arphaxad his grandson attained to 438 years. Shelah, the next to Arphaxad to 433 years, and Eber his son to 464 years. The mean duration of life in these three generations is 445 years. Peleg and Reu lived each 239 years and Serug 230 : The mean of three generations being 236 years. Nahor lived 148: Terah 205 and Abraham 175 years: The mean of the three generations 176 years. Let us now review the gradation from extreme longevity to an age to which many in modern times have attained: observing, first, that the gradual decrease of the term may serve to obviate any supposition of error or deception in the record.

of

Human life then, being at the time of the flood 950 years, is reduced in the next generation to 600. For the three generations following we find it at 445; then for three generations at 236 years; and lastly, in the three generations ending in Abraham, at 176 years. Joseph, the third from Abraham (having been probably luxurious in his manner of living in Egypt) dies at 110: but his brother Levi attained the age 137 years. Moses, in the third generation from Joseph, lives 120 years, and Joshua in the fourth 110. Thus in about 560 years, a longevity which might by some be deemed miraculous is wholly done away; and in the days of David, or about six generations later still, the life of man appears at very nearly its present standard.

To what cause shall we attribute its abridgement? To a climate more moist and variable? To a more lax fibre-to nerves more irritable-to a circulation more easily disturbed? Each of these doubtless had its share in the effect: both the constitution of man, and the elements amidst which it was placed, had now become adverse to so long a duration of existence: but there is another cause to which I think we may ascribe a still larger portion of that influence by which his days were shortened: HIS SPIRIT WAS BECOME MORE ACTIVE AND

HE LIVED FASTER.

I can conceive of an Antediluvian, as an exceedingly silent sedate and deliberate person; going forth in the morning to the fields, or to the gate of his city, returning in the evening to his family and retiring to rest; and this, day by day, for a month together, without having done as many separate moral acts, or uttered as many sentences, as a busy modern would get through in an hour. The effect of these different courses of conduct on the duration of the animal frame would-differ, probably, beyond the possibility of comparison.

Our forefathers had a notion of something in themselves (distinguishable from the bodily organs), which they called the animal spirits. I am not sure that we moderns, with all our terms and distinctions, are yet further advanced on this subject than to a new notion. Perhaps the living energy may be said to be in perfection, when the solids have arrived at their full growth, and the fluids, including the most subtle and moveable of them are still pure and in their due proportions.

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Life in its prime, or a good constitution, may then be considered as the young man's bodily estate-a fund of strength, of which he may spend the interest, and on which he may also draw for a portion of the principal. Every day, by the various acts and occupations of life, we are spending what may be called the natural produce of this investment : and seeing that thought and action are both suspended during sleep, we may conclude that at this season the waste of the solids is repaired, the balance of the fluids adjusted, and the animal spirits restored. The wear of the organs themselves, as life advances, proceeding at a greater rate than these daily supplies, may be thought sufficient to account for the deficiency in strength and spirits of natural old age, which Intemperance brings on prematurely. It were better, methinks, to imitate the antediluvian example, and live slowly, though we might die without having achieved all we could desire, than by squandering life, and wasting the animal spirits from day to day in needless excitement, come to our end (putting any positive mischief we may do in the mean time out of the question,) without having effected any good at all.

I do not pretend to say that mankind, very soon after the flood, did not go into the use of fermented liquors and suffer by it; but the machine was then, as it seems, in a more perfect state, and it was more difficult to break down its structure. It becomes us certainly, with whom the living power is reduced to its minimum, to be careful how we use it. We may spend the interest of life, but should still respect the principal; in which we are sure to suffer enough (if I may now so change the figure) by the depreciation which is constantly taking place in the value of the Lease.

(To be continued.)

ART. II.-Signs of the times.

From the Patriot' paper: In the General Assembly of the Church [why not Kirk] of Scotland.

General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. On Thursday, May the 16th, the Annual Meeting of the delegated members of the Church of Scotland commenced their Sessions. At half-past eleven o'clock the Lord High Commissioner held his first levee in the County Hall. Soon after twelve o'clock his Grace proceeded to the high Church, where an excellent sermon was preached by Dr. Chalmers, from Revelations xxii, 11. After divine service the Lord High Commissioner, with his attendants, proceeded to the New Assembly House, where the General Assembly met and was constituted by the Old Moderator in the usual solemn manner. The roll of members having been read over by the clerks, Dr. Stirling, of Craigee, was elected Moderator. His Majesty's commission to Lord Belhaven was now read, as also the King's most gracious letter to the Assembly, conveying his annual donation of 2,000l. for promoting religious education in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Permission was given to the Presbytery of Edinburgh to meet on Saturday, on the subject of Irvingism, in the College Church. His Majesty's letter to the General Assembly was again read, together with a draft of the answer proposed to be sent, which was approved of.

After the despatch of other affairs of the Kirk, on different days, follows "Thursday" again

Overture on Calls.-DR. CHALMERS moved, "That the General Assembly having received various overtures on the subject of Calls, do find and declare that it is, and has been since the Reformation, the practice of this Church that no minister shall be introduced into a parish, or pastoral charge, contrary to the will of the congregation; and in consequence of doubts and misapprehensions being entertained on the subject, whereby the just and salutary operation of the law has been impeded, the General Assembly declare it as their opinion, that the dissent of the majority of male heads of families residing in the parish, who are members of the congregation, and have been in communion with the Church for two years, shall prevent his introduction; and to carry this declaration into effect, a Committee shall be appointed to consider the best means of effecting it, and to report to next General Assembly."

Dr. Cook moved, as an amendment, "That in all cases of presentation to a vacant parish, a majority of the congregation may give into the Presbytery objections of whatever nature against the presentee. That the Presbytery shall consider these objections, and if they find them unfounded, shall proceed to the settlement; but if they find them well founded, shall reject the presentee; it being competent to all parties interested to dissent from the sentence so pronounced." After a long debate, the Assembly proceeded to a vote on the two motions, when there appeared for Dr. Chalmers' motion, 137: for Dr. Cook's, 149; majority, 12.

It appears, then, that there is yet left in the Kirk of Scotland a small representative majority in favour of THE INTOLERANT PRINCIPLE: of that sort of government and discipline, which prescribes to the consciences and judgments of inferior bodies, and of individuals, by force and without expecting conviction, in matters appertaining to the worship and service of the Almighty. Let us hope that, ere the lapse of another year, this majority will have disappeared, and that it will be competent to congregations, using the national way of worship in that country, to choose whom they will elevate to the seat of the Rabbi, there to exercise the office of sole teacher, if not also of priest. As it is, we need not wonder at meeting, in another publication, with the following comparison: "The British Magazine states that the increase of ministers of the Established Church in Scotland during the last century was 125, while that among the various dissenting communions was about 650."

Tithe. At the late York Assizes, a farmer's servant named Jeremiah Dodsworth, residing in the parish of Lockington, prosecuted a Magistrate who had committed him to the house of correction at Beverley, for refusing to pay to a Tithe-collector the sum of nine shillings and four-pence with two shillings and eight-pence charges,

AS TITHE OUT OF HIS WAGES.

The warrant of commitment was signed by this magistrate alone contrary to law: on the discovery of which error he discharged the plaintiff, after nine days confinement. Being now informed that proceedings were taking against him, he tendered the inan twenty-five pounds as an indemnity; notwithstanding which the action was brought. It appeared in evidence that a TITHE (so called) out of Servants' wages of four-pence in the pound had been payable (and usually compounded for at one shilling for a man, and six-pence for a woman) in