some persons may not enter into that kind of thing; we do know, however, that there are "many" persons who would accept the movement, and the honoured and useful lady" as general too, joyfully and gratefully. We are no prophets, and cannot speak as to the endurance of the White-Ribbon movement, but we go in strongly for movements which will save men and thereby bring sobriety, peace, and plenty to our homes, and glory to God. Allowing the movement to be of short duration, we see no good in sticking to a course or pathway that never brings us to wells of living waters, and fields of golden grain fit for the

reapers.

If we read aright, a far greater number of persons are pained that, as a body of people who were foremost and chief in sustaining the Total Abstinence cause and perforce dragging it to the front (when churchmen and nonconformists both regarded us as madmen and fools), they should be to this hour without a prescribed organization. Now, there is an opening for a fair and proper development of all our total abstinent endeavours. Let us graciously, gratefully, and generally adopt it. The White-Ribbon movement, and Mrs. Terrett as general at our front, will equip us to do permanent work for God.

We do not approve of the term "Temperance; " we do not believe it is our word. Since June the 18th, 1837, we have had a Bible Christian "Total Abstinent Society," and we cannot part with our " Total Abstinence." As a body we do not intend to part with it. We hope to adorn it with white-the pure, so full of force, energy, purpose, and beauty, so fit and becoming to us who, without fee or reward (except it be kicks and scoffs), have held on to this grand white banner through the darkness and persecution of forty-five years,-now in its honour and glory. Let us put the staff into the hands of our General—she will, under God, lead us on to victory.

We hope the Denomination at home and abroad will see its way to adopt the White-Ribbon organization, and to use and encourage Mrs. Terrett in her generalship. Certainly the organization should not be deferred; it has been before Conference after Conference, and put aside until a more convenient season -we suppose for the White-Ribbon season, which is now come. W. H.

THE APPEAL FOR GRACE LEE.-Dear Sir,-In answer to an enquiry as to the amount necessary to secure an immediate pension for Grace Lee, I may say that the estimate of the actuary as to the value of the pension, is £111. That, however, is a sum that it is not necessary to raise, and as the lowest successful candidate usually poles from 80 to 100 votes, the amount required will be from 40 to 50 guineas. I hope that this appeal may succeed in raising this sum, so as to place an excellent Christian woman in circumstances of comfort for the rest of her life. HENRY BEESON, Towcester, June 14th.

Temperauce.

NARCOTICS AND ALCOHOL,

IMPAIRING THE NERVE AND PLUCK OF THE NATION. THE Daily News, in a leader, recently said:"Perhaps there was a time when the race was hardier, and nerves' were unknown, when examples of self-devotion might be allowed equally to remain unheard of. But it must, we fear, be admitted that some of the old Norse spirit that delighted in peril, something of the Celtic courage that did not dread earthquakes,' has been worn out of the national character. The life of the crowded cities, of bad air, of comfort, the use of narcotics and of alcohol, have partly impaired the nerve and pluck of all civilized races."

THE

BIBLE CHRISTIAN MAGAZINE.

SUBVERTING CLERICS.

O one, surely, can be ignorant of the fact that while Ritualism is the growing evil in the Established Church, Rationalism is the spreading error in certain schools of Dissent. The latter will prove as deadly an enemy to Nonconformity, as the former will to Episcopacy. If the one unchecked will ultimately blossom into ripe Romanism, the other unarrested will eventually flower into rank Universalism. If superfluity in Form and Ceremony will act degeneratively on true protestant worship; the relinquishment of our hold of the "form of sound words," which we have "heard" and "learned" and "been assured of," will prove "subverting to the hearers," and "overthrow the faith of some," and lead to a resisting of the truth and a strife about words to no profit (2 Timothy i. 13, and ii. 14).

Are the words which the "Spirit speaketh expressly" having their fulfilment in our midst, "that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils?" Have we those among us of whom St. Peter speaks, who, "unstable, are wresting the Scriptures to their own destruction?" "desiring to be teachers," as St. Paul saith, but understand neither what they say nor whereof they affirm? Surely, if the cautionary exhortation was needed by Timothy in the days of the Apostle, "Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine; continue in them; for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee," it is much more needed in Christendom to-day (1 Timothy iv. 16).

66

One of the saddest innovations connected with Nonconformity (principally) is the Conference held during the "May Meetings " season on CONDITIONAL IMMORTALITY." I have watched carefully their sayings and doings, and have, with multitudes more, been deeply pained to find such a departure from the "old paths," such a perverting-"wresting"-of scripture sentiment

Y

and truth, such a one-sided presentation of the character and government of the Great God; who, notwithstanding He is "Love," is also "Glorious in Holiness;" who, though delighting in "Mercy," is likewise, "Angry with the wicked every day;" who, though a Father is equally a Sovereign, into whose hands, says St. Paul, "it is a fearful thing to fall;" who, because He is Love, absolutely must be Just as well as Generous, Impartial as well as Pitiful, Retributive as well as Forgiving. "For a God all mercy, is a God unjust." Such Conferences, I fear, will have a fearful tendency to unloose from its old and safe moorings many a young inquiring mind, and perhaps be the means of drifting it into blank Atheism, or of torturing it with ever-recurring doubts, or of swinging its possessors into unrestrained profligacy with the feeling, "What matter how I live, if destruction be finally my lot?" Many a pulpit will be emboldened by these annual gatherings to advocate the delusive theory, and thereby cause men to do, what according to their own words multitudes are already doing, viz."Losing their faith in natural immortality, and with that their faith in revelation."

This subtle unbelief is a far more dangerous and powerful enemy of the Church of Christ than open and avowed infidelity or persecution can be. It would seem as if the devil had found out that threats, cruelties, and open onslaughts are in vain; and that the only hope of his succeeding to-day is, by promptings to an Extreme in Ceremony on the one hand until the substance is lost in the shadow, the reality in the symbol; and by producing on the other hand a restless spirit of fastidious inquisitiveness which seeks to pry into the "hidings" of Jehovah's treatment of incorrigible sinners in the other state-which strives to discover in what He has written MORE than He has expressed or even hinted, in order to suit the predilections of a disordered mind. He knows right well that by creating in these religious teachers a pride of intellect, a love of novelty, an ambition to strike out some new lines of thought which will bring them a paltry meed of popular applause, so making them "wise above what is written," and so causing a departure from the "Ancient landmarks," that it will be the means of leading many into the labyrinths of maddening doubt and blighting scepticism, and ultimately to the "hell" prepared for him and his angels.

I am not unmindful of the fact that unbelievers in the past, like their successors in the present, have tried again and again to tinker the old doctrine of eternal punishment, to make it as they think more sightly and pleasant; but the march of time has invariably rectified their clumsy tinkerings, and society has settled down