to speak the word without fear: and whenever, and wherever, Christ is preached of love, we therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. For we know that this shall turn to our salvation, and our Church's preservation, through our earnest prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. J. H. T "OCCUPY TILL I COME." To the Editor of the Christian Observer. In referring to your last No., page 597, I perceive that you have appended a few remarks of your own to my paper on "laying up treasure upon earth." Those remarks are just and well-timed; and have suggested to me the following observations concerning a particular class of persons who are not included in my exposition of "lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth." I allude to that part of our community who are placed in independent circumstances, so as not to require to " labour" for their maintenance; and I perfectly agree with yourself, in thinking that the "levelling system" would not only be destructive of the best interests of our country, but would be a breaking down of that civil system ordained by the providence of God, who has placed us in our several stations, and given talents "to each according to his several ability." (Matt. xxv. 15) The independent class among us occupy a most important place in the community; and whilst they are not called to "labour with their hands," they are yet commanded by Christ to " occupy till I come." To those in this class of society, who are not engaged in the civil or military services, or in the learned professions, we justly look for the fulfilment of those duties which seem more particularly to devolve upon individuals who have their time and property under their own controul. They ought to be the best-informed and the most polished of the community: such qualifications fitting them to be legislators and magistrates, to take the lead in literary and scientific pursuits, to patronize education and the arts, and to aid all those institutions which have for their end the amelioration of society, and the benefit of the distressed. Would any person of sane mind, call such a class of men useless? Should it not rather be viewed as the upholder of all that is fair and polished in civil society, giving strength to, and casting a grace over, all the best institutions of our land? Is the tradesman to leave his counter, and the merchant to forsake his desk, in order to fulfil such onerous duties? and if they did so, would they be "occupying" their own post? Well would it be for our country, if each would attend to his own duty, and not meddle with things which properly belong to others. The followers of the learned professions alone can aid the independent class in some of these pursuits, which may indeed prove a recreation to the middling classes, but which would inevitably fall into decay if left to them entirely for support and active promotion. The very objection, therefore, made against the existence of an independent class by the demagogues of our day, because they perceive not its usefulness, proves the necessity of its existence, inasmuch as they thus virtually acknowledge that they understand not the importance of those functions which properly devolve upon this part of the community; and therefore they would never care to perform them. A man must indeed have his eyes shut, or his intellect rendered obtuse, who does not know that many of our independent class do actually "occupy" the station allotted to them by Providence. In no country of the world do the nobility and gentry grace their rank so much as do our own, in the present day. But the main evil is here, that whilst in this as in other ranks of society, many spend the main part of their time in inglorious ease or pleasure, the usual recreations of our upper classes are too frequently of a useless or hurtful character. If our gentlemen would exchange the pleasures of the chase for the healthful exercise of superintending their own estates; and if the haunts of dissipation and vice were deserted, in order to frequent literary, religious, and benevolent societies, and to overlook the condition of their own peasantry (as is the honourable practice of many of the rich and great), then would they put to silence the cavils of agitators and demagogues; men who pick up the faults, but forget to report the virtues, of their superiors. Then again, if, instead of the midnight dance and the heated theatre, the independent women of our nation would " occupy" their time in overlooking their own families, and seeing that the interests of their households were attended to-occupations which require no bodily "labour," but which no substitute can adequately perform ;-if they "visited the fatherless and widows in their affliction,"-if they esteemed it an honour to be the messengers of mercy to mankind—and if the grace derived from the elegant accomplishments of their rank were diffused in benignity around them ;-then would they not be regarded as useless members of civil society, but would he hailed and honoured as its brightest ornament and loveliest charm. Religion wishes no man to leave his post, or dissipate his substance, but to "occupy" it to the glory of God, to the good of man, and to his own real interest and best happiness. R. M. M. REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. DUNLOP ON THE DRINKING USAGES OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. The Philosophy of Artificial and Compulsory Drinking Usage in Great Britain and Ireland; containing the characteristic, and exclusively national and convivial, laws of British Society; with the peculiar compulsory festal customs of ninety-eight trades and occupations in the three Kingdoms; comprehending about three hundred different drinking usages. By JOHN DUNLOP, Esq., President of the General Temperance Union of Scotland. 1839. We are astonished, we might say horrified, in reading this volume. We were not ignorant that drunkenness is an awful sin and fearful curse that more of the crime, and pauperism, and misery exhibited in our streets, and police prisons, offices, and theatres, and from inand workhouses, arises n from toxicating potions, tha sources nine-tenths of all other abitual put together; that the h when use of ardent spirits, even gross not carried to the excess of inebriation, to which however it too fatally and frequently leads, is still, under its milder forms, except when strictly requisite as a medicine, ruinous to the health and the morals, the body and the mind,-nay, when requisite for one disorder, often causing worse diseases than it cures; nor had we any doubt as to the duty and necessity of attempting to stay this plague; or any hesitation as to the sound and Scriptural principle, or practical utility, of Temperance Societies;* * We write thus, because a strange objection has been made against Temperance Societies, that "they are not doing God's work." If by this be meant, that temperance is not piety, why neither is justice or charity; nor are hospitals, or almshouses, or a police, or even churches or religious institutions; and yet all these are right and proper things in themselves, and may also become instruments of spiritual benefit. Sure we are that drunkenness does not aid God's work; but to make drunkards sober, may do so; for a sober man is more likely to go to church, and to be led to consider and pray, than a drunkard. A pair of shoes is not religion; but if as many anti-religious consequences arose from shoelessness as from drunkenness, we should hail a shoe-promoting society. It has been further objected that Temperance Societies would do God's work by man's means. We cannot see why promoting temperance should be stigmatised as man's means, any more than promoting anything else relating to health, comfort, morality, national welfare; or repressing vice and crime. It is God's means so far as it is blessed by him, and rendered subservient to his glory; or as it is made to conduce to any real good, or to counteract any evil; and above all as it leads to spiritual benefits. "The ploughing of the wicked is sin;" but we are not therefore to denounce agricultural societies. Those who think there is any solidity in the objection, will perhaps attach some weight to the fact, that the nucleus of the extraordinary events which are exciting so much attention at this moment in Scotland, was the establishment of a Temperance Society in the parish in which they originated. We have not sufficient but ignorant we certainly were of theextent to which drinking usages are carried in the extensive rami. fications of British Society. It is indeed upon the surface of things, that births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths; events joyful and painful; dinners political and municipal; canvassings and elections; contracts and performance, beginnings and finishings, are too often celebrated with "a jolly full bottle;"t-and no man is unaware knowledge of the circumstances to pronounce any opinion upon them; but the broad fact stands out, that the germ of this religious “revival” was a Temperance institution. † We should not have allowed ourselves to quote this vulgar Anacreontie phrase, but for the sake of again expressing our surprise, indignation, and abhorrence, that a song with this title should be the favourite piece selected to be sung at public Conservative dinners, when "the toast" of "the Church" is given. (See our note upon the Bolton, the Liverpool, and other church-and-king dinners, 1836, p. 731.) At best it is not seeming to turn serious and sacred things into "toasts;" and it is exceedingly painful to hear a fellow at a tavern, selected for his powers of vociferation, roar out from behind the president's chair," Gentlemen, please to charge your glasses-a bumper-success to the Church of England;" with a full chorus of "Hip, Hip, Hip, hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!" But if it be replied that the intention, not the precise ceremony, must be considered; that nothing more is meant than a mark of respect to the person or institution toasted; and that excellent and truly religious speeches are elicited from lay or clerical friends of the Church, which do much good; still, why should this particular toast be the signal for an Anacreontic song; given, as we are often told, "with admirable effect, amidst much laughter and applause." The red, staring prints of drinking fox-hunting dinners used invariably to present a clergyman as a prominent object, with a monstrous wig, in disarray; a broad round face gules; and a "jolly full bottle" rampant in his hand; and no doubt the artists considered they did the church much honour by such convivial portraits, which the dearth of goodly wigs and fox-hunting parsons in these re forming days must have sadly spoiled. Yet even in those times "the church and a jolly full bottle" was, we trust, more of a jest than a history; but in ours, when professional decorum is customary even where true godliness is not found, the juxta-position is as misplaced as it is offensive. We would sooner sit and hear the farmers at an anti-tithe dinner, drink "No black slugs in our corn," than this popular Church and Conservative song; for a clergymen had better be called a black slug by his enemies, than a toper by his friends. At the late splendid Conservative dinner in Devonshire, many excellent clergymen and laymen were present; admirable speeches were made upon the occasion; religion and its institutions were zealously defended; the eloquence of the Aclands, and other esteemed and able men of the county, demolished Popery, dissent, and revolutionism; the Bishop and the Clergy lost none of their honours; but alas! all these stirring proceedings were appended to "With a jolly full bottle let each man be armed; We must be good subjects when our hearts are thus warmed; Here's a health to Old England, the Queen and the Church," &c. If a jolly full bottle will really thus promote loyalty and religion, the friends of "the Queen and the Church," have a mighty easy and pleasant remedy in their hands for the sins and woes of the nation; and they would do well to send the Socialists and Chartists a few bottles, instead of clergymen and police officers. Is it not astonishing that none of the stewards who make the arrangements, discern the impropriety of this favourite accompaniment; and that none of the speakers, lay or reverend, object to it? It were a noble occasion for a faithful and well-advised man, to tell the assembly, after this "jolly" song had been "rapturously applauded," in what light the Bible represents the the Church; and the worse than fallacy of supporting it merely upon principles of" full-bottle" Conservatism. is humiliating to think that this country, with all its religion and philanthropy; all its institutions of science, literature, piety, and morality; is more entangled, more hemmed in, with the meshes of drinking usages than any nation in the world; so that powerful temptations are placed in the way of a person in the rank of an operative or tradesman in going through the usual stages of his career, to acquire a taste for potent, especially spirituous, liquors. And hence arises an obstacle in the path of Temperance Societies which has not been duly considered; an obstacle to which we cannot but attribute (in a good measure) the far larger success which has attended such institutions in America than in England. In other lands, those who drink these liquid poisons, for the most part, do so to gratify their own depraved appetite; they might abstain, if they pleased, from drinking, or encouraging others to drink, without giving offence or exciting attention. Not so in England. A gentleman cannot, according to usage, dine at a coffee-house or hotel, without ordering wine, "for the good of the house," even though he may dislike it, or refrain from it as considering it injurious. A workman does not consider himself handsomely used in a gentleman's house, if he has not money given to him to purchase intoxicating liquor, during, or at the conclusion of, his job. But among the trades drinking usages are reduced to a regular system; and all persons connected with them must pay in their turn, whether they drink or not. Mr. Dunlop, in addition to the convivial laws in use at visits, marriages, courtship, births, baptisms, deaths, funerals, bargain and sale, holidays, and other occasions of business and domestic life, has described the peculiar festal customs of ninety-eight trades and occupations in the three kingdoms: including their footings, fines, entries, pay-night practices, allowance pots, way. geese, remuneration pints, mugging bribes, drink penalties, and other usages, occurring statedly on numerous occasions; the whole detailing two hundred and ninetyseven different usages. The labour, perseverance, and expense of the author, in collecting this mass of appalling facts, must have been very great; and his object in making them known is to direct the attention of Temperance Societies, and of religious and benevolent persons, to the necessity of systematically opposing these demoralising usages; without doing which they will be foiled in their efforts by a secret power often more dangerous than even the depraved passion of the individual to be reclaimed. It is laid down as a general maxim in factories, work-shops, barns, fields, ships, and other places of popular occupancy, that inebriating drinks, not used to intoxication, are positively beneficial, or at worst harmless ministers to pleasurable sensation; and every contrivance is made use of to make an occasion for demanding them. "A friend; good drink; or being dry; Or lest we should be by and bye; Or any other reason why." Now, as a person exposed to the spells described by Mr. Dunlop, must contribute his contingent of money for the customary conviviality, whether he partakes of it or not; being coerced by exactions, to resist which is to render himself the butt of scorn and illusage, perhaps to the extent of being forced to quit his occupation if he refuse the usual garnishings; it requires some strength of character, and would be thought very uncivil for him, not to partake of his own treat. So also when others furnish a regale of strong drink, if he do not take his share he submits to a sacrifice; for he has nothing given him in place of it; so that he pays in his turn without being benefited in his turn; a very mortifying state of things; and which holds out a strong temptation to a youth to follow the usages which he finds established among his companions. Mr. Dunlop has been zealously labouring in the establishment of Temperance Societies ever since the year 1829; and his labours have been a blessing to the nation and the world. He was the first founder of a Temperance Society in Scotland; and his notice of Scottish drinkingusages was published some years ago; but the account of English usages is new; and for this reason, and the more direct adaptation of this portion of the work to our own national locality, we shall confine our attention chiefly to it. The Irish portion also is new; but we will keep chiefly to faults nearer home; though the evils described act and re-act upon all the three kingdoms, throughout their numerous ramifications; and many of the customs are common to all. The following is Mr. Dunlop's account of the serious obstacle which these drinking-usages interpose in the way of Temperance Societies. We ought, however, to remark, that his allusions to the habits of the educated classes of society are not always consonant to fact. Some persons in the station of gentlemen doubtless drink to excess; and many take a larger portion of wine than is necessary for health-even if any be; but intoxication, so common among the working classes, is not usual among English gentlemen; and as for English ladies, "drinking wine in the forenoon in compli ment, whether they really require |