to take the pecuniary responsibility of ordering the tablet to be cast, he expressed his readiness to contribute one third of its estimated cost of $1,500. His sudden and lamented death in November, 1890, deprived us of his further co-operation, but the payment of his intended gift by his son, followed by the subscription of a like sum in the name of the children of the late A. S. Barnes, together with generous donations from friends of the enterprise in different parts of the country, left no doubt after a few months that the whole estimated expense of the monument, the celebration at Leyden and the printing of the pamphlet containing an account of the proceedings, would be adequately provided for. In this connection the committee desire to express their obligation to the Rev. Dr. Walker, of Hartford, and the Congregational Club of Connecticut, whose united subscription amounted to $400. And also to the Congregational Conferences of New York and Brooklyn which, each at the motion of Dr. Wm. M. Taylor and Dr. A. J. Lyman, contributed the sum of $200 and completed the subscription called for.

The memorial tablet, for the casting and finishing of which and its delivery in Leyden, several months were required, is with a single exception the largest of the kind ever made in America. It is without a flaw and reflects much credit upon the skill and carefulness of the Henry Bonnard Bronze Company, of New York, by whom the work was executed. It was promptly shipped to Holland at the time agreed upon and placed in its position in readiness for the celebration, which it was arranged should take place as early as practicable after the adjournment of the International Congregational Council in London.

The celebration was held on the twenty-fourth day of July, 1891, in the presence of a large company, including American and British members of the Council, representatives of the Congregational Union of England and Wales, Yale University and Mansfield College, Oxford, and many of the magistrates, University professors, and other citizens of Leyden, and was regarded by all as worthy of the occasion. The carefully arranged and impressive services consisted of a devotional exercise, the reading by the secretary of the committee of a brief history of the steps taken in the name of the National Council to place in Leyden a tribute to the memory of John Robinson, and the formal unveiling of the tablet, after which the company present passed into the venerable

church building where an extended historical address commemorative of Robinson and the Pilgrim Fathers was delivered by the Rev. Charles R. Palmer, of Bridgeport, Conn., to which interesting and appreciative responses in Dutch and English were made.

The monument thus erected was formally committed to the care of the authorities in charge of St. Peter's church. It will be faithfully guarded by them as investing with new interest the ancient house of worship, which beyond any other is the Westminster Abbey of the Netherlands. The historic inscription in its conspicuous position in the heart of the city and in full view of all who pass by, will be read and re-read from generation to generation by the people of Leyden, and be to them and to visitors from all lands a witness of the undying reverence and honor in which the memory of Robinson and the company on board the "Mayflower" is held by the Congregational churches of the United States.

The commemorative address, with a more full account of the proceedings, has been printed in a pamphlet form and sent, as was due, to all by whose aid the committee were enabled to meet the expense of the tablet and the celebration. Copies have also been presented to the libraries of several Colleges, Universities and Historical societies, and to a considerable number of Congregational home missionaries.

It was impossible to estimate in advance, except in a very general way, the amount of incidental expenses which the whole undertaking would call for. It has proved to our gratification to be less than was thought to be probable. The overplus, therefore, in the hands of the treasurer will be returned to the donors unless they authorize their subscriptions to be appropriated in some other direction.

GEORGE E. DAY, Chairman.
MORTON DEXTER, Secretary.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON TEMPERANCE.1

REV. RICHARD CORDLEY.

YOUR Committee feel that the subject of temperance deserves of this Council more than a passing notice or formal resolution of sympathy. In fact the Council itself has implied as much, by making its Committee on Temperance one of its standing com

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mittees. It is an old subject, but it is one of those old subjects which are ever renewing themselves in fresh and living experiences. The great obstacle which confronts us in every line of moral or social progress is intemperance. If we are striving to alleviate the conditions of the poor, we find intemperance the most prolific source of poverty and its worst aggravation. If we are seeking to lessen crime, we find intemperance to be the instigator or abettor of more than two thirds of the crimes committed in our land. If we are striving to purify our politics and elevate our national life, we find the open saloon to be the perennial fountain of corruption and fraud. The drink habit and traffic destroy manhood, desolate homes, foster disease, and go in the van of the pestilence, to prepare the way. It costs more in money than bread; it consumes more property than fire; it destroys more life than war, pestilence, and famine combined. These are all well-known facts, so well known by everybody that their very familiarity blunts the edge of any appeal based upon them.

But a body of Christian men cannot allow the commonness or the greatness of an evil to blind their eyes or paralyze their efforts. The very commonness of the evil but intensifies the obligation of resistance. The very steadiness and persistence of the enemy demands equal steadiness and persistence in the friends ⚫ of purity and sobriety. The attitude of the Church of Jesus Christ towards intemperance, can never be other than that of persistent, uncompromising resistance. Its constant effort must be to save men from the power of strong drink. Its ULTIMATE AIM must be, the EMANCIPATION OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE FROM THE BONDAGE OF LIQUOR - ITS USE AND THE TRAFFIC THEREIN.

The methods of warfare must be various The subject is manysided and the conditions different at different times, and in different places. We can name only some of the general lines of operation.

1. MORAL METHODS. These must be first, and always, and everywhere. Whatever be the state of progress and whatever other methods are employed, the moral aspects of the case must ever be kept at the front. Men must be saved from intemperance as they are saved from sin, by the implanting of a sober purpose. In this as in other things, the kingdom of God is within. No man is safe, no child is safe, unless he has become a law unto

himself. Every man's own soul must be made a citadel of sobriety, and so fortified against the foe. Back of everything else, and as the basis of everything else, there must be the individual conscience made intelligent, and made quick to respond. Without a temperance conscience there will be no temperance law. For law will rise no higher than the convictions of the people. And even if laws should be secured, they would be a dead letter on the Statute book, except as the intelligence of the people approves them, and the conscience of the people sustains them. If there be law, the Christian conscience is needed to give it effect; if there be no law, the Christian conscience is needed to protect the individual in the midst of temptation. The principles of temperance and the perils of strong drink must be continually held up, that they may enter into the thinking of all the people. In striving for better laws, there is danger that we fail to keep the public conscience up to the level of those laws. Iowa temperance men say that the ground lost there has been due to the fact that a large class of young American voters has come. up, who have heard little else than the legal aspects of the question discussed. They therefore have no conscience against the use of liquor, and are captivated with the specious cry of "Personal liberty." Constant temperance instruction, and a constant appeal to conscience must be fundamental to all progress in temperance reform.

In our Sunday School the subject of temperance should be made prominent. Lessons on the subject should be made emphatic, and all proper occasions should be used to enforce the truth. The children should be made to understand the sin and perils of strong drink, and be early committed in conscience and expression to habits and convictions of sobriety.

In our public schools the effects of alcohol on the human system should be taught. All honor is due to the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, for its success in securing laws requiring this in the public schools of so many States. Our churches should encourage this, and see that the law be not made void by indifferent teachers, or hostile school boards.

The pulpit should never let itself be indifferent on a theme so vital to both morals and pure religion. The day has gone by when this theme can be barred from the pulpit. It must take its place with other great evils and sins, and receive its share of

attention, and all the larger share on account of its magnitude and affrontery. The pulpit cannot afford to be dumb in the presence of an evil which outranks all others, and aggravates all others. It must be line upon line, precept upon precept. From beginning to end, and through the entire range of Christian instruction, the principles of temperance must have prominence, and must be enforced by pulpit and press, in Sunday School and home.

2. Another method of promoting temperance is by legislation. This must be the ally of moral training, not a substitute for it. The evil of drinking is the primary evil. It is because drinking is such a curse that selling is such a crime. Law must rest on a conviction of the wrong. We must first clarify and strengthen the Christian conscience, then restrict the temptation that assails it. Temperance legislation does not aim to substitute law for moral training, nor legal restraint for moral stamina. But its aim is to make moral training more effective, and give moral stamina a wider field. The enlightening and quickening of the public conscience must go on, step by step, with the progress of restrictive legislation. Legislation is not an end, but a means to an end. The end must ever be to save and lift up men.

To this end Christian people should seek to secure the best laws attainable. The best attainable may not always be the best conceivable. But consecrated Christian wisdom will use the best at

hand.

We do not feel inclined to class among such laws, what are known as license laws. The claim of such laws to be restrictive, we think misleading. They may lessen the number of places of sale and this is all we have ever seen claimed for them. This is a different thing from lessening the amount sold and drank. The number of places of sale may be reduced, while the amount drank may be increased. The reduced number, by increased attractions, may draw an enlarged patronage. Then again Christian people cannot consistently endorse a system which gives legal sanction to an evil, and concedes in its very terms its right to exist.

But there are many restrictions which are legitimate and which concede no principle. There are restrictions as to time, compelling saloons to close at certain hours, and on certain days. We thus have early closing, Sunday closing, and closing on public