are kept for the express purpose of harboring prostitutes, and furnishing the brothels with customers; but what I have said is enough, I think, to indicate that the two vices are closely allied; so closely, indeed, that the extinction of intemperance would be followed by the almost entire extinction of the other form of profligacy. Here, then, is another account opened, another heavy bill of costs, pecuniary, physical, and moral; pecuniary -for need I speak of the reckless extravagance and the robberies of which the house of ill-fame is the continual scene; physical-for you know to what frightful suffering such licentiousness gives rise; moral-for of all sins, this is the most horrible in its effect upon the soul, making the man the miserable slave of his animal nature, silencing the voice of conscience, filling the heart with utter impurity; frightful as are its effects upon the body, they are only too truly typical of the havoc which this sin makes in the spiritual nature of its victim.

Another crime encouraged by drunkenness is dishonesty.

"It's hard for an empty sack to stand upright;" the extreme poverty produced by intemperance is at all events a temptation to act dishonestly. If people, rather than deny themselves gin and whiskey and beer, will take their furniture, their tools, and clothes to the pawnbrokers -if they will sell even their beds and lie upon straw, rather than go without drink-I can scarcely suppose that they will stick at anything, that they will most religiously abstain from taking other people's property, when it stands in their way. Most of those very common cases, in which young men in offices and shops embezzle their

employers' money, are traceable to this source. It is not so much the love of money, as the craving after licentious indulgence which they cannot afford. The miserable boys and girls who prowl about the streets and steal, are almost without exception driven to this course by the intemperance of their parents, who leave them to the dreadful alternative-theft, or starvation. And nearly all crimes of violence, assaults, stabbings, manslaughters, murders, are the progeny of this most prolific of all sins. On the testimony of statesmen, parliamentary reports, the inspectors, governors, and chaplains of prisons, police magistrates, sheriffs, recorders, and judges of assizes, it can be most fearlessly asserted that nearly all the crime of the country is to be reckoned among the costs of this one evil. To crown all, this sin, if persisted in, involves as its last cost the soul; for it is written in a book, which I believe to be of divine authority, and the divine authority of which I suppose many of you also recognise, "No drunkard shall inherit the kingdom of God." Venial as this sin may seem to some, lightly as it is regarded, considered by many as a failing, an infirmity, designated by many such apologetic terms, it is classed in the Scriptures among the foulest offences of which a man can be guilty. Even if there were no scriptural protest against it, the effects which it produces are proof enough to any sensible man that it is a practice which God hates. By these temporal effects God gives us all fair warning; he does not leave us in doubt as to the moral aspect of our conduct!

"Five shillings and costs;" only think of the tremen

dous meaning of this word costs, when rightly understood. Four and sixpence-nonsense! the costs are poverty, disease, idiooy, madness, loss of character, loss of self-respect, domestic misery, disobedience in children, the ruin of a man's family, prostitution, theft, violence, murder, dark and endless perdition, body ruined and soul undone, all lost for evermore; this, it strikes me, is the proper way of estimating the costs.

Let me then persuade you ever to shun this devil of intemperance. On economical grounds I would urge sobriety, and especially just now; for again let me remind you, we are just entering on a period of trial which will tax working men to the very uttermost. Willful waste always produces woeful want; but without pretending to be a prophet, I feel certain that willful waste now is next to suicide. By your regard for your health-by your regard for reputation-by your self-respect as men—by your love of domestic happiness-by your concern for the welfare of your children-by the value of your everlasting interests-by all that is worth having in time, and worth hoping for in eternity—I conjure you to avoid these costs, by avoiding the sin. And speak to your neighbors, your shopmates, who are in danger of something far worse than the ordinary "five shillings and costs;" explain to them the real meaning, the awful extent of the costs. If, for your own safety and the setting of an example, you deem it right to abstain altogether from tasting, touching, handling anything of an intoxicating nature, do so; but at all events let perfect sobriety be your invariable rule, and urge perfect sobriety upon all.

And so shall the words "five shillings and costs" be seldom heard in our police courts-so shall we escape these costs, pecuniary, physical, social, and spiritual-and, by God's blessing, we shall become a happy, a virtuous, because a sober, people!

LECTURE XI.

SATURDAY NIGHT.

SATURDAY NIGHT has charms for a working man, which those who do not eat their bread in the sweat of their brow can scarcely be expected to understand. The toils of the week are over, the implements of labor are laid aside, the working world washes the dust off its face, and looks with pleasure for the coming day of rest. The factory bell, that rings on Saturday afternoon, is the very bell which rang on Monday morning; but it seems to have a more cheerful sound, and to partake of the general joy; the man who rings it appears to ring it with a hearty good will; however hoarse and cracked it may be at other times, it becomes musical on Saturday evening; and its welcome voice sends a thrill of happiness through ten thousand hearts, and causes ten thousand faces to brighten up with gladness. And how punctually the summons is obeyed! In the morning, when it sulkily calls to work, it is a very common thing for men to be two, three, four, or five minutes behind; but who ever heard of any man's making such a mistake as to continue his work for one moment after the first sound of the Saturday evening's bell? On the contrary, that