years as they have done within the last two decades. It is a law of all fanatical movements, and one of their most peculiarly dangerous features, that they readily enmesh large numbers of people, and that their workings, tendencies, and developments fall of necessity, in the long run, into the hands of the extremists, the _intransigentes_, among themselves. Nor has this movement proved an exception, as is seen in the attempt made by legal enactment to coerce people into the practice of an enforced abstinence from stimulants—an abstinence _not_ shown to be physiologically desirable, _not_ commanded by the church, and most assuredly _not_ inculcated in Scripture. But in secret societies always, in sectarian combinations generally, and oftentimes in political parties, the experience of all ages shows that people first set up for themselves a master, and then obey him like so many slaves. They do this, too, under the delusion, for the most part, that they are carrying out their own convictions of right. It is much easier to join one of these secret organizations in a flush of curiosity, enthusiasm, or other temporary excitement than it afterwards proves to leave them in calm blood. Ties of acquaintance and _quasi_ friendship have been formed which most men strongly dislike to break. Good care is usually exercised that “the rhetorician, from whom,” as Aristotle says, “it is an error to expect demonstration,” shall be on hand to stimulate, exhort, inspirit, and incite to still further and more vigorous exertion; the boundaries between right and wrong fade away from the mental view; and few start in on this false track who fail to accompany their misled companions as far as the archbigot or archfanatic may choose to take them.