THE Committee on Foreign Correspondence reported sixty letters from fifteen countries.

Sir WILFRID LAWSON, the distinguished advocate of permissive prohibitory legislation in the British House of Commons, writes:

"I have your kind note and invitation. It would, however, be impossible for me to visit America during June of this year-the time which is fixed for your Conference.

"Thank you for your kind remarks about our work here. Our progress, if not rapid, is, I hope, sure, and the enormity of the evil which we are attacking must, I think, ere long be brought home to the people more forcibly than it has ever been before.

"I assure you we watch your proceedings also with great interest. Each nation may learn something from the other one as to how the agi tation ought to be conducted."

Sir W. C. TREVELYAN, Bart., President of the United Kingdom Alliance, writes:

"I feel honored by your obliging invitation to your Centennial Conference, though I regret much that it will not be in my power to have the pleasure of accepting it; much, however, shall I look with interest for the result of your deliberations, and truly shall I rejoice should they hasten the time when the greatest curse of our time, and the greatest impediment to all true civilization-the drink-traffic-is swept from the face of those lands which it has too long been allowed to defile."

SAMUEL BOWLY, Esq., President of the National Temperance League of Great Britain, writes :

"I am glad to find from your letter and circular that it has been decided to hold an International Temperance Conference in Philadelphia at the time of the Centennial Exhibition, to be held in that city in June next.

"It would have given me great pleasure to have attended the Conference if my health and other circumstances would have permitted; but, as I cannot be present on this important and interesting occasion,

allow me to express my earnest hope that, under the divine blessing, the Conference may tend to strengthen and advance the cause of total abstinence, both in your country and our own.

"The amount expended on intoxicating drinks in this country is larger than ever, and this increased drinking has been mainly induced · by the greatly-increased wages of the working-classes during the last few years. It has, however, produced such a fearful amount of social and moral evil that public attention as been aroused to the question with a more earnest desire to do some.hing to mitigate or prevent this great national vice.

"The most hopeful feature of this fresh awakening to the responsibilities which this question involves is the extensive movement that has recently taken place in our Christian churches in regard to it. The temperance cause has long and sadly suffered in this country for want of a more general and cordial recognition of its claims on the part of religious people, and, indeed, of almost all the educated and influential classes of society. For in countries like yours and our own it is quite clear that, whether we seek to remove intemperance by legislation or moral suasion, or, as we should urge, by both, the measure of our success must be mainly dependent on the opinion and practice of the people, and especially of the influential classes, upon whom the habits and fashions of society are so largely dependent.

"It is cheering, therefore, to find that the truths we have so long promulgated in regard to the dangerous and injurious effects of alcoholic liquors, both physically and morally, are now making their way more rapidly into the minds of the educated classes of our country.

"The recent investigations of science have abundantly confirmed our views as to the injurious effects of alcohol, even in very moderate quantities, to persons in health, whilst the observation and experience of many eminent medical men, together with the results of the treatment in our Temperance Hospital, go to prove that, except in very rare cases indeed, it is utterly needless as medicine. We have still to contend, however, against the fearful power of appetite and fashion, the former created by the moderate use, in the first instance, of alcoholic liquors, which is made respectable and fashionable by the habits of the upper and middle classes. But this moderate drinking ever has been, and ever will be, more or less dangerous, whilst total abstinence is comparatively easy, beneficial, and safe; but it is unreasonable to expect the masses of the people-those who enjoy the fewest luxuries of life and the fewest advantages of education-to give up these habits while they are so persistently maintained by those who occupy more influential, and therefore more responsible, positions in the community.

"We trust, however, the time is not far distant when the immense value and importance of total abstinence, as the only practical remedy for the fearful ravages of intemperance, will be almost universally recog

nized and personally adopted not only as a patriotic duty but as a real Christian privilege.

"With a thankful sense, therefore, of what, under God's blessing, the friends of total abstinence have already accomplished, and under a renewed sense of our responsibilities for the future, may we labor on in Christian faith, with the cheering hope that success will ultimately crown our efforts!

"As a humble laborer in this great cause for more than forty years, I shall feel deeply interested in the proceedings of your Conference, which, I trust, will tend to unite the hearts and strengthen the hands of temperance workers in every part of the world."

The Right Hon. Lord CLAUD HAMILTON writes:

"It would have given me sincere pleasure to have been able to accopt the obliging invitation you have been so good as to forward to me. I have always regretted that I did not, when younger and more free, visit your magnificent country. The forthcoming Exhibition at Philadelphia would have rendered a visit of still greater interest.

"I should have been much gratified if I could have joined the proposed International Temperance Conference. I trust it will become a powerful agent in bringing home to the minds of millions the urgent importance of meeting the growing evil that is daily ruining thousands and carrying want and misery into countless humble homes.

"A strong international protest against intemperance, proclaimed at so great a gathering of the nations of the world, may produce deep and lasting effects.

"It seems to me especially appropriate to place, as it were, side by side, the glorious achievements of art, industry, and skill, and the great social evil that undermines the intellect, weakens the powers, and wastes the resources of the working-class.

“ The crime and misery that are daily chronicled in our public papers almost invariably can be traced to drink, and I apprehend the same rule prevails in your country. The temperance organizations in the United States seem,iu many instances, to have produced most valuable and lasting improvements, and to have triumphed over the powerful interests that are banded against them. I hope that one result of the International Conference will be that the representatives from this kingdom may be able to study carefully the operations and success of the different national societies now existing in America, and also to investigate, impartially and on the spot, the real truth as to past results, respecting which very conflicting evidence has been produced, both in the House of Commons and in our public journals.”

Hon. A. M. SULLIVAN, member of the British House of Commons from Ireland, writes: