problems. The State has to do with many things which it is not the province of the Church to interfere with directly, but the Gospel, which is a special possession of the Church, can alone touch the secret springs of human action, and so transform the face of the world. The men who claim that socialism will cure all human ills, say that, in order to work properly, socialism must have behind it a higher type of human character than the present level. But there is no way of getting a higher type of character except by the Gospel, as all human history attests, and hence our duty as a Church is clear. We must aim to transform and ennoble human character, and thus give to the State citizens who will stand for the righteousness that exalteth a nation, and oppose the sins which bring reproach upon any people.

The Temperance Problem.

We have been pluming ourselves on the assumption that in Canada we have been becoming more temperate in the use of intoxicating liquor. But we have been rudely awakened out of this state of mind by the recent publication of Dominion statistics, which show that we have increased our consumption of liquor about 200 gallons per head last year, over the year preceding. The increase in the use of strong

drink is greater than the increase of population by percentage, and hence we cannot lay the blame on the foreigner. The use of tobacco is enormously on the increase. The use of tobacco may or may not be considered a sin. It cannot be properly claimed as a necessary, but as an indulgence. Moody said he would not say that a man who used tobacco could not be a Christian, but he would say that he would be a cleaner Christian if he did not use it. In any case we should all be clear in condemning and discouraging the use of cigarettes by young and growing lads. Last year, Canadians consumed 783 millions of cigarettes, being about 196 millions more than the year preceding. The cigarette is so deadly an agency against the physical and moral well-being that our neighbors to the South call it the "coffin-nail," and large employers of labor decline to employ lads who use it. The increase in the consumption of drink and tobacco means, superficially, an increase in revenue, but when we remember the misery caused by them we must feel that the increase is "blood money." And besides, we recall that the money received by the State for these things has to be more than paid out to counteract or combat their effects. It was the greatest modern financier, to wit, Gladstone, who said, "Give me a sober people and I will find the revenue."

The other day a young telegraph operator in the West, muddled with drink, mixed up a railway despatch, and the State promptly arrested, tried and sentenced him to the penitentiary for two years. A labor paper out there quite properly pointed out that the situation was peculiar. First the State had furnished him with the opportunity to drink, through open bars, licensed to sell drink, and then, when he availed himself of it, the State turned round and, at considerable expense, put him in jail. It has always seemed to me that the license system is like a man setting fire to the prairie with his right hand and then trying to put it out with the left by providing police and the other paraphernalia of law. Some day, if we may use another figure, we will wake up to the criminal foolishness of burning our candle at both ends. Waste is the arch enemy of an economic system, and the liquor business is waste of the worst kind. And from the other standpoint, the leading medical men of the day point out strong drink as the great destroyer of life both amongst the living and amongst the unborn. Liquor blights childhood, leads to debased morality and horrible vices, produces insanity, lowers the producing power of all workers, multiplies paupers and gives rise to