question of prohibiting such a violation of the Divine commandments? Shall Christians stand aloof from enacting laws to prohibit stealing for fear of infringing on the liberty of individual thieves? Can crimes be prevented without interfering with the "personal liberty" of criminals to commit crimes? What is stealing when compared to the selling of intoxicating drinks and tobacco as they are sold in our streets, and all over our own and other lands? Kind Christian parents, which in your estimation would be the greatest crime, and which would you prefer, that a thief should steal from your boy or son, before he is twenty-one years of age, or after you cease to be responsible for him, his money, or that a man should sell cigarettes, beer, fermented wine, or other intoxicants unbeknown to you, and take his money, giving these poisons instead, and thus leading him on step by step, until an unnatural appetite is formed, and he becomes a slave to the use of a poison often before he has reached the age when his rational faculties are fully developed; and when by the use of these poisons the full development of his body is prevented, and his prospects for enjoying good health thereafter and of living to the allotted age of man are most materially lessened. In both instances his money is taken, and we know, by the poverty-stricken men and women and young men we see visiting our saloons, that some of the saloonists, as well as the thief, will take his last penny. Which is the greatest crime, to steal a man's money who is under bondage to a perverted appetite, and consequently comparatively irresponsible for his acts, or to sell him the above named poisons, which so seriously prevent development and endanger his health, reason, and life, and which bring such wretchedness and sorrow to so many homes? In both instances the man's money is gone, his wife and children are deprived of the benefit which might result from its legitimate use; but in the one case the man returns to his family a sober, loving husband and father--in the other, perchance, drunk, or on the direct road that leads to drunkenness. In reply to his intimation that the Bible permits Christians to use fermented wine, but the Koran does not allow Mohammedans to use it, I would simply intimate to the reverend gentleman that the Lord, in His good Providence, has permitted, through the Koran, the Mohammedans to be protected from the drinking of fermented wine and other intoxicating drinks, as He has attempted to protect Christians directly by the numerous warnings in His Word; but the difference lies right here--the former have heeded the warnings, while the latter have not, and hence the fearful drunkenness prevalent in Christian countries. And we see the people of Christian countries sending their whiskey into heathen or Gentile lands with their missionaries. Alas! alas! Which is better--to be a good heathen or a drunken Christian?