Looking at the other side of the question, we find that all great temperance reformers have appealed to public opinion to aid them in their efforts. Confucius did not say to his disciples, “Be careful not to drink wine to excess, for it will enervate your bodies and debase your intelligence.” He was more practical than that. “The superior man when he is at table does not glut his appetite,” he said; and “when you go abroad be not given to excess in wine.” In other words, “Don’t lower the standard of morality, nor degrade yourselves in public estimation, by setting a pernicious example; for, remember, you are superior men, the leaders of society.” The Buddhist priests were ordered not only themselves to refrain from using strong drink, but they were told that “there is no reward for him who gives intoxicating liquors.” And St. Paul advised abstention from drink lest others should be “made weak” by the example. Pliny, too, denounced the public drinking practices of his age, and the scandalous conduct of the great military leaders, who, as we have already said, moulded public opinion; and Mahomet said of drunkenness, that it diverted the attention of mankind from its highest and noblest occupations, prayer and the remembrance of God. And if this has been the policy of temperance reformers in past ages, much more conspicuously is it so in the present day, when public opinion is becoming the censor of morals and the approver of merit and virtue. That it is absolutely essential for them to have the popular sentiment on their side has been conclusively shown in connection with every phase of the question. It is futile for earnest men to lecture to drunkards amongst the lower classes, so long as the great mass of the electors, guided by unscrupulous party-leaders, choose publicans to represent them in town councils, and promote them to the aldermanic or civic chair. Equally idle is it for clergymen to preach temperance sermons to decorous congregations whilst those who are enriched by the results of drunkenness are permitted, in consequence of their wealth and influence, to hold a higher rank than the parishioner whose calling is innocuous, and even above him whose profession ministers to that health and comfort which are undermined and uprooted by the gin-palace. Repressive legislation, however wise and however indispensable it may be, is, as we have seen, quite inefficacious unless supported by public opinion. It is in those countries where not only the upper ranks, but the whole mass of the people, enjoy the benefits of education, where, in fact, an enlightened public opinion is a possibility; in Sweden, Norway, and the United States of America, that the interference of the State authorities has proved of any avail in the work of temperance reform. The duty of Englishmen, in what is by many believed to be an important crisis in our history, is therefore very plain. It is because the abuses to which