Beer has something to do with this matter of stupidity. These southern climates in Europe and this soil are favorable to the culture of wine-grapes, and wine is the solace and stimulus of the commonest people. You may buy as good a bottle of wine for thirty cents in Spain as you would have to pay three or four dollars for in New York. And if you will not give thirty cents for it, you can have as much as you want for little or nothing. Until the railroads were built and transportation made easy and cheap, it was common, when the new vintage came in, to empty the casks that held what was left over of former years. And a church was pointed out to me that was built with mortar made with wine instead of water, there being a scarcity of water in the vicinity but plenty of wine that was to be thrown away. Sherry wine, which is the _sack_ of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, is the leading wine of Spain, and is made now and here just as wine was made in the times of Hesiod and Isaiah; for in such climes as this the people keep on doing things as their ancestors or others did in the same place thousands of years ago. They drink wine as freely as the English drink beer, and as Americans drink rum and water. But they do not get drunk as our people do, and they are not so stupid as the beer drinkers of England are. They are stimulated, of course, and the exhilaration is carried to excess sometimes. It is not true to say there is no drunkenness in wine-growing countries, but the best informed men, who had the most abundant opportunities of learning the facts in the case, assured me that _intemperance_ is not common; that it is very rare among the working people of Spain. This is not to be used as an argument in favor of wine raising and wine drinking in America. It would indeed be better for the health of the drinking men to drink pure wine than bad whiskey, or the vile compounds that are sold as wine in our country. But if wine were as cheap in the United States as in Spain, there would be just as much intemperance in the United States as now. The climate and the strife of such a country as ours furnish causes for the use of stimulating drinks that do not exist in Italy or Spain; and philanthropists who discuss and legislate on the subject of temperance, without regard to the physical circumstances of a people, are in the same case with the traveller who reckoned his bill without his host. It is well to multiply and fortify wholesome laws to restrain men from evil indulgence, and it is our duty to ply all possible moral agencies to reform and save our fellow-men; but our duty does not end with legislating and preaching. There are social burdens to be raised from the poor by the voluntary action of the rich, and by the application of the gospel principle of brotherhood, which will so ameliorate the condition of the lowly that they will not be tempted as now, by the pressure of weariness, care, and woe, to fly