The Reform Clubs supply an important need in carrying, more directly than other existing temperance organizations well can do, moral suasion and Gospel influences within the sphere most frequented by those who are addicted to the use of strong drink. While the members are of many different Christian denominations, the Clubs are non-sectarian; and while the members, as citizens, use their political power and influence to restrain and abolish the drink-traffic, the Clubs, as such, are non-political. It is a sufficient testimony in behalf of the Reform Club movement, and its beneficent mission, that by it already thousands of victims of strong drink have been reformed, and thousands of desolated and wretched homes have been made happy.

49

BY HON. GEORGE W. ROSS, M.P.

ANY account which may be given of what is commonly known as prohibition pure and simple would be incomplete without some brief reference to the operation of those agencies by which attention was first called to the evils of the liquor-traffic. Prohibition is usually regarded as the result of a very highly-cultivated state of public opinion. It is only attainable by long, persistent, and intelligent agitation. To those, then, who first asserted its necessity, and who, as a consequence, had to encounter the sneers and reproaches with which all great reforms are at first received, belongs the credit of inaugurating a movement the full benefit of which has yet to be realized.

The first temperance society of which we have any record was organized on the old moderation-pledge basis, in St. Andrew's Church, Montreal, on the evening of June 9, 1828, by the Rev. J. S. Christmas. On that occasion the pledge was signed by twenty-nine persons of different religious denominations. Kindred societies were rapidly formed in different parts of the country, so that in a few years the membership could be reckoned by thousands. The next step was the organization of total-abstinence societies, the first having been formed in the town of St. Catharine's, on the 15th of June, 1835. Conventions were now being held in different towns and cities, agents were employed to travel throughout the country and discuss the principles of total abstinence, and the press, whose influence at all times is of so emphatic and decided a character, gave its countenance to the new movement. Indeed, so strong had the public sentiment of the country become in about ten years from the formation of the first temperance society, that it was thought desirable to establish an organ exclusively in the interest of the movement. This led to

the publication of the Canada Temperance Advocate, a paper that by its able advocacy of temperance principles contributed largely to the rapid development of temperance principles. Its editor for many years was the Rev. W. Scott, now editor of the Canada Casket, the organ of the I.O. of G.T.

SECRET SOCIETIES.

While the work done by the old pledge societies, the Father Mathew societies, and similar organizations, was undoubtedly of a most valuable character, it was nevertheless felt that a society organized on a more substantial basis, with a better machinery for regulating its own affairs and maintaining more thorough discipline over its own members, was required. The formation of the Order of Sons of Temperance, on the 29th of September, 1842, seemed to supply this want, and it was not long until it was planted at different points in the Dominion. On the 21st of June, 1848, George Boyd, D.M.W.P., organized Brockville Division, No. 1. Howard Division, No. 1, of the Province of Quebec, was organized in March, 1850, in the city of Montreal. This Order soon became firmly established throughout all the provinces of the Dominion, and has always maintained, with unswerving loyalty, that prohibition is the only effective remedy for the evils of intemperance.

The rise of the Independent Order of Good Templars was another era in the history of the temperance cause in Canada. By the exclusion of ladies from full membership in the Sons of Temperance that éclat which arises from their presence was lost for a long time to the Order. This defect the I. O. of G. T. supplied, and, with a rapidity not anticipated by its early promoters, it extended itself from one province to another, till its membership now exceeds 20,000. An offshoot from the Independent Order of Good Templars was organized in 1857 into a separate Order, called the British American Templars, the ground of disunion being the relationship which the former Order bore to their brethren in the United States. This branch of the