lows who will build up the business. Yes, build up the business by ruining more homes, and slaying more men. Without further wasting words in trying to prove what needs no proof, let me say in passing that it is beyond the genius of man to invent a system better calculated to fix this evil upon us, and to increase its already heavy burdens, than our much vaunted High License.

Four. The License system forces the saloon into politics. It is not a question of choice, of inclination. It is a question of cool business necessity.

The saloonist has certain rights granted him by law. Now law with us. is the result of political action, of party victory. The liquor dealer must watch parties, reward' parties, punish parties, corrupt parties just as his business interests demand. You regret the power of the saloon in politics? My brother, that power is just as certain to increase as the business is to increase. Each brewery added to the large number already existing is one more center for the

further degradation of American politics. Each saloon added to the 250,000 that now menace the safety of the Nation is one more house of corruption threatening the commonwealth. You

will never drive the traffic out of politics until you have abolished the saloon as a legal institution. NEVER.

If what has been said is true, it is clear that the liquor traffic is civilization's greatest foe, and that the license system protects by law a lawless institution, links avarice to appetite in support of a giant evil, compels the saloonist to make the most of his business, and forces the saloon into politics.

So far as I am aware only one honest, but mistaken reply can be made to the argument as given. Careful and conscientious people say, "It is impossible to suppress the saloon. We cannot abolish the traffic. We are doing as well as we can with it."

Friends, this cowardly cannot is evil, and only evil. Such logic would damn the world were it to become the final

faith of the majority. Society exists, and progress is assured only because men believe that what ought to be done can be done. The history of social evolution is one long record of victory in the face of apparently insuperable obstacles. Man is man because he is ever doing the impossible-or that which seems such to weakness and folly.

One day a generation wise and strong will abolish the saloon. Forbid the manufacture and sale of intoxicants. Destroy the greatest foe of the human race. Looking back upon our day they will hardly know at which to marvel most, our folly in protecting within the State, society's chief curse, or the weakness of our arguments in defence of conduct so utterly without reason, and so at war with common sense and common right.

VII.

SUNDAY AND THE STATE.

I.

THE JEWISH SABBATICAL SYSTEM.

[ADDRESS TO SUNDAY CONGREGATION, MAY 8, 1892 STENOGRAPHIC REPORT.]

OR many months a great discussion

FOR

has been in progress concerning what has been called the American Sabbath. A subject of quite perennial interest to our people; but of special interest just now because of the World's Fair, and the question as to whether this Fair shall be opened upon the whole or part of each Sabbath day.

We have not felt called upon thus far to participate in this discussion, partly because of other themes that seemed to demand our attention, and partly because the discussion as so far carried on has not been pleasing to us; it did not seem to promise any good result, for, to

speak plainly, it has been for the most part a debate of prejudice. Church prejudice versus anti-church prejudice. I think I should be perfectly correct, if I were to say that without any very great study upon the question, or much calm consideration of it, nine-tenths of the people who belong to the churches, or are closely associated with them, have arisen with new zeal in defense of what they call the Christian Sabbath, and that nine-tenths of the people who are not connected with the churches, or closely associated with them, have said with just as little study, just as little of calm thought, "Let us do away with superstition, let us open our World's Fair, let us have done with Puritanical notions, let us have a cheerful Sunday.'

It has been said during this discussion (I presume I have heard it not less than a score of times) that the Church has always opposed liberty and progress, and that free thinkers have always been in favor of progress and of liberty. Now, distinctly and emphatically, that is not

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